Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“What the fuck?” Tim’s voice carried more confusion than anything else.

Turning from his intended destination of his bedroom, Jason instead entered the game room. Alfred said to lie down, not where, so the game room would be fine. Also, anything that got Tim to swear was worth a look.

Tim gave him a distracted nod as Tim continued to stare at the screen where a twink was standing in the weirdest outfit on the screen.

“So,” Jason reclined the chair he had claimed, “What was worth the confused swearing?”

“Just had a cut scene of the bad guy powering up more, whole body transformation type. Like three-fourths of his body got lava patterned but mostly black with this weird pattern flowing under the like pieces of crust of his skin.”

“Huh, that does sound weird.”

“That’s not all of it even! His left-over skin turned black and he got glowing red eyes, which okay, normal-ish for magical evil creatures but I swear his toe nails became talons! Then his hair turned this bright glowing red hair that acted like a bunch of snake tails! Like medusa but the tail and not the heads coming out of his head as hair!”

“Very weird.”

“And his clothes were on fire but in the magic not burning clothes away fire type.”

“Huh, can you show me the cut scene? Replaying cut scenes is possible in a lot of games now, right?”

“You wouldn’t understand without the backstory.”

“You can just show me the guy and how he’s funny looking.”

Tim shook his head, his eyes slightly dazed, someone hadn’t slept recently, “No you need context. I know you’re on concussion watch for the next two days, why don’t I start a new game and you can watch.”

Shrugging Jason sat back, it’s not like he had anything better to do. Also Tim was probably on time out until he slept so he could keep an eye on him until he crashed this way.

Chapter Text

“Okay, so the twink is a legendary hero that’s been reborn for centuries to fight this evil guy that also reincarnates and there’s always a princess Zelda that works with the twink to save the world.”

Tim nodded finishing making a new profile gaming with Jason, “The twinks name is Link but basically. Now this is the second game in this series, well it’s the last in a bunch, but its direct predecessor was Breath of the Wild. But I don’t feel like playing and showing you that first so a recap.”

Tim paused before starting the intro. “Link and Zelda were set up to fight a hundred years ago, well more than that but the previous game was set a hundred years after they failed to prevent the Calamity striking. I blame Zelda’s dad, the king for screwing it up somehow, he was like a super jerk to Zelda. But anyways Link basically died and was put in the shrine of resurrection and work up a complete amnesiac the hundred years later, which is a few years ago in this game, not sure how many kids are now teens so it’s been a few years.”

Jason snorted, “Guessing the Zombie defeated the, Calamity?”

“Yep, and Zelda who had been sealing the sealing the Calamity with her spirit also returned. Now everyone introduction rebuilding and this scene starts the game.”

As the music started Jason prodded a pillow to better support his lower back. The pair watched as the pair on the screen slowly descended a set of stone stairs Zelda’s torch the only source of light he asked, “So who is the girl?”

“Princess Zelda.”

Jason frowned, “What’s the gloom she’s talking about? I don’t see anything weird.”

“It’s the black smoke and the bits of black that are floating in the air.”

“The stuff that looks like ash?”

“Yep, as we go the malice will start turning a dark and then brighter red color but generally stays on the darker side.”

“Wait why are you going deep into some tunnels with only the princess and Link? Shouldn’t there be guards?”

Tim shrugged, “She held back the Calamity for a hundred years as a spirit, I don’t think she understands danger very well.”

“Still she’s the princess. You’d think there’d be guards.”

“Link is Zelda’s personal knight but yeah you would expect more but there isn’t really an army at this time so there might not be people to come down as guards.”

“There’s no army?”

“The calamity destroyed pretty much all of Hyrule in the last game, there are just towns that are scattered around the map and the castle and castle town were full of monsters at this time castle town is free from monsters but I’m not sure about the castle itself. I think that’s still abandoned but not sure if there is monsters in it at this point of time.”

“Huh, well at least she brought and is staying with her guard, Link is her guard, right?”

“Yep.”

“She so has a crush on him.”

Tim shrugged, “Probably.”

Jason hummed, “I’m guessing monsters will be in the castle when we end up in there.”

Tim nodded, “Now the cut scene is over so I can mover Link around but it’s pretty much a one-way trip, if you try to go back Zelda tells you that you can look at whatever caught your attention on the way back up.”

“So their shoe honing you to go where it wants you to?”

“Pretty strongly right now. Once we get to the real tutorial part it’s a little loser but once we leave that area you don’t have much direction at all and can go wherever you want really. I’ll probably stick with the story line more than I did in my game so you can see that.”

“Sounds good, but let’s follow Zelda.”

Tim nodded and directed Link to slowly follow Zelda down the stairs.

Jason frowned looking at the screen, “What’s with the glowing rocks?”

“They look a lot like luminous stones but I’m not sure Zelda’s going to tell us about people getting ill from the gloom but it’s not dense enough here to hurt them.”

Jason snorted as she continued to talk, “Ah she’s certain she’ll be safe as long as she’s with you, which seeing as you have what I guess is your full amount of health, which seems weird to be starting the game with all your health.”

“Don’t worry, we aren’t going to keep it.”

“Okay, wait did her dad say not to go down here, and now she’s going down here?”

“Her dad was an asshole so I wouldn’t trust anything he said.”

Watching Tim walk Link forward some until the Master Sword began to glow.

“Okay,” Jason glanced at Tim, “That’s a bad sign right?”

“The Master Sword is known as the sword that seals the darkness and sometimes evils bane, so yeah.”

The two watched as Zelda and Link entered an area that basically looked like a room that would be a hallway in a castle or temple.

Jason snorted as Zelda knelt down to look at one of the fallen beams that had writing on it, “So she’s a nerd.”

“Well, she is right that it’s weird to find the ruins of an ancient civilization deep in this castle tunnels.”

“And she has a camera to document what she sees.”

“Yep.”

“That is a funny looking statue.”

“They’re statues of the Zonai, which look a lot different than Hylians do. You’ll see in cut scenes that we encounter later in the game.”

“Right.” Jason sighed watching the screen, this was more interesting than staring at the wall in his room as he wasn’t supposed to read so he relaxed as Link continued to descend into the underground of the castle until two monsters appeared on the screen, Jason frowned, “What’s that squeaking noise?”

“Some bat monsters, they’re called Keese.”

Jason stared at the screen, “By Gotham what the fuck are those?”

Tim was quick to kill the two monsters, “Just Keese, like I said.”

“They looked like eyeballs with wings.”

“Thats basically what they are. Generally, they are basically just annoying. I mean yeah when you're first starting the meager hit does cut into the health but just eating an apple will clear that up.”

“Eating an apple? You heal from eating apples?”

“Any food, and you can make some really interesting dishes. Some will give you speed boosts other temperature resistance.”

“Definitely interesting but do you also have potions, for like in battle.”

“No, you eat the various things you make mid combat if you need to heal mid fight.”

Jason turned a bewildered look on Tim, “The enemies pause and let you gobble down a dish in the middle of combat?”

“It’s an instant heal; you don’t really eat the dish it's an instant effect.”

“Right, you teleport food into your stomach and your instantly healed and whatever special effected.”

“Yep. Video game mechanics are pretty strange at times.”

“No kidding.”

Tim shrugged as Zelda worried about Link possibly being injured.

“She’s seriously worried about Link getting hurt by bat monsters?”

Tim shrugged as Zelda approached the walls of the ruins to look at the murals that were carved. They were unlike the places that the stone was carved as they seemed to show a series of scenes. Zelda started talking about a great war fought long ago against the demon king, wondering if these murals showed the legend of Hyrule’s founding.

Jason snored as Zelda talked about a Zonai descended from the heavens to where Hylians lived, “So the Zonai are aliens? I mean if they descended from the sky.”

“They are never referred to as aliens but basically. They are referred to as gods.”

Jason blinked, “Did aliens come down declare themselves gods and then marry into the local people?”

“Basically. The Zonai were super advanced in comparison to the hylians so it was probably really easy to set themselves up as gods.”

“Guess it was aliens this time.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve watched the guy who explained all the ancient monuments as the results of aliens and not just determination and hard work of the people of that time, but in this game the buildings in this games past were the results of aliens.” 

Tim chuckled, “Yep aliens really did do it in this game.”

Jason couldn’t hold back a laugh as Zelda described how the royal family was formed from a union with the Zonai and a Hylian woman, “Wow the royal family was founded by a monster fucker, cause there is no way the Zonai looked like Hylians enough for it not to be consider monster fucking. Looking at the ears on the Zonai.”

Tim snorted but didn’t respond as Zelda moved onto the next mural where a figure was stealing something of great power from the Hylian woman that had a union between her and the Zonai, the next then showing the war between the Demon King and the Hylians. The next mural was obstructed by a pile of boulders.

Jason blinked as Zelda pouted at the murals obscured by rocks. “Those are bombable rocks, right?”

“Yep, but you don’t have any bombs, also this deep under ground might not be the safest to blow things up.”

“Eh it be worth it to see more of the story. It is sad that Link doesn’t have bombs on him.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Not everyone carries explosives everywhere.”

“Lame.” 

“We’ll learn the rest of the story from cut scenes in the future. Now we need to follow Zelda further underground.”

Jason grinned as they continue to walk, “Are we there yet?”

“There?”

“Were ever were going next, oh there’s the red malice in the smoke and ember like floating bits so we have to be close.”

“We are getting really close, we just need to keep pace with Zelda unfortunately or I’d run ahead, ah, there we are.”

He watched as Tim kept walking the character Link further down. “Okay the red glowing bits floating in the air can’t be a good.”

Tim nodded as the characters continued to descend the glowing dots becoming more and more obvious as the characters walked. The gloom getting even thicker until they reached a cliff and saw something deeper in.

Jason tilted his head, “Is the swirling green to blue light where we are going? It seems to be spiraling down to something.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “You’ll see soon enough.” Tim selected the dialogue option that popped up to continue going, “Where there as you asked.””

“And we still haven’t gone back for back up? With the definitely weird magic thing now appearing.”

“Nope.”

“It would really make more sense if the princess had more than one guard.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “It would make game play weird, now shut up it’s about to get really good.”

Jason leaned back and watched as the game continued, of course still commenting as the game first asked if they wanted to continue before going into a cut scene. “Well a creepy mummy corpse with a magic hand or something grabbing onto it is definitely weird. Guessing that’s the bad guy. You said the guy in the memory had red hair and this is really dark and not glowing but that’s definitely red hair.”

“Shush! It’s about to get really good!”

Jason snorted before frowning, “What’s with the random arm holding onto the mummy, ah shit it fell off that can’t be good.”

“It’s very not good but now we get to watch Zelda break the rule of not touching weird glowing things, especially if they come to you.”

Jason snorted, “Yes touch the magic rock, that never turns out to be a bad idea.”

Tim shot a glare at him but continued watching not wanting to miss anything.

“Fuck the mummies moving!” Jason jerked back from the screen as the mummy started to move in weird jerking movements, “Okay that can’t be good.”

Tim grimaced at the form moved in weird, jerky, unnatural movements. Before it’s eyes shot open and a stream of red and black gloom shot out to attack Zelda. Link jumped in front of Zelda and sliced out at the stream where it ran up the length of the blade and attached Link’s arm leaving behind black skin and odd patterns on his skin and some sort of red residue on the sword.

Jason winced, “That has got to hurt, his hearts that mark his health are just disappearing. Shit you can see him bracing his arm as he strikes out at the second stream, it’s probably lucky he doesn’t drop the oh shit.”

They both watched as the sword fractured into pieces, one piece shooting forward to make a small cut on the mummy’s cheek.

Jason’s eyes shoot wide, “Wait isn’t that a super magically powerful sword?”

“It is.”

“How did it break then?” His voice carried a degree of panic as one of his hands went to his chest, where the All Swords rested in his soul, “Magic swords don’t break!”

“Keep watching.”

They watched as the mummy started to talk, calling the sword weak and naming both Zelda and Link by name.

“Okay, I want to know how the mummy knows their names to cause that is freaky.”

“You’ll see later in the game.”

“I do not like all these you’ll find out later comments.”

“To bad, you’ll find out later.”

On the screen the mummy shot malice upwards and when the camera switched to a view the castle they watched as the malice shot the castle into the sky.

Jason snorted, “Yep that thing is so full of monsters now, oh shit Zelda’s falling into the darkness and why is he reaching out with his bad hand?”

Tim shrugged, “Probably instinct but you can see he doesn’t get close enough to grab her hand. It was his dominant arm so he instinctively used it.”

“Well, his instincts were stupid.”

“And yours never are?”

Jason rolled his eyes focusing onto the screen. “Well, her disappearing in a pulse of golden light is probably a good thing… did we just get rescued by an arm?”

On the screen the arm that had been holding onto the mummy was now holding onto Link’s good arm preventing him falling further. Before yanking Link upwards in a flash of light. Then they saw a zoom out of the castle rising into the air and people watching near by as other things fell to the earth.

Tim paused the game, “That’s the very beginning but I have to pee so short break. You want me to bring you anything while I’m up?”

Jason shook his head relaxing back into the couch, well watching Tim play was definitely an interesting way to kill time.

Chapter Text

As Tim settled back into place Jason blinked out of his doze nodding thanks when he saw Tim had dropped a cup of tea off on the table next to where he was sitting on the couch. Alfred had told him to keep hydrated, “Alright so what next?”

Tim unpaused the game as he answered, “Now were waking up on the sky island after we were in a healing coma or something.”

Jason blinked, “Is the magic arm now your arm?”

“Yep, alien king is going to tell us how he had to replace ours to save our life. Which is good as we need the arm to do all sorts of things in the rest of the game, its actually essential to game play.”

Jason snorted as the disembodied voice spoke explaining what Tim had said, and that Zelda had apparently tattled about them to the king before blinking as Link picked up the destroyed master sword. “Decayed Master Sword? That things not decayed its broken and melted… how did you just attack it to your back?”

Tim shrugged, “We got the strap for the sheath on now.”

“Where did it come from? You didn’t pick that up.”

“Video game mechanics.”

“Right, but still the sword just sticks to it?”

“It does now this is what I meant about the arm,” On the screen Link pressed his hand into a glowing green circle that caused a blue circle to appear behind them.

“What’s with the circle?”

“The first one is an activating symbol basically, we’ll end up using it a lot, the blue one behind us is a teleportation rune, or will be we can’t teleport yet.”

“Did you just jump with out looking at where you were going to land?”

“The game gave us the option so I know it’s safe.”

Jason watched as Link jumped off another platform, before scowling, “Okay that’s completely hax game mechanic falling into water hurts you should so take damage.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he stretched out his hand.

“The little green circle is your stamina right?”

“Yeah.”

“Your treading water, why isn’t it going down?”

“Treading water doesn’t take stamina, it’s only if your moving.”

Jason snorted, “Right video game mechanics.” As he watched Tim got Link to open a nearby chest, “Oh cool you got pants. Boxers only look not the best on him. Wait… you it’s only a skirt?”

Tim shrugged “It’s got shorts under it but the big thing to me is the fact that you now have shoes, well sandals.”

“Good point now get him moving I want to see what’s next.”

“It’s actually pretty cool,” As Link steeped into the light you could see well into the distance where distant islands hung in the sky, some being much closer and the surface down below everything. The view getting even more interesting as Link jumped off the cliff edge and started to descend down to some islands below.

“I can’t believe you just jumped because the game said to.”

“What else can I do? You can see how this suppose to happen because it’s going into a welcome to the game cut scene showing everything you can see while falling towards the first sky island your going to explore.”

Jason perked up, “Is that an oriental dragon?”

“Yep.”

“Do you get to fight them later?”

“No, you get to ride them though.”

“Okay that sounds awesome.”

“We have to get special gear for some of them but I’ll try and get on one sooner rather than later.”

“Cool.”

The two watched as Link hit the water and swam out going through a stone arch before continuing around the island picking up a couple tree branches and an apple.

Jason frowned at the screen, “Why are you picking up tree branches?”

“They serve as weapons.”

“But you got a sword that well is mostly slag but the base is still sharp enough to use, oh combat! Your getting attacked by a robot!” Jason grinned before jerking back, “What the fuck the sword broke?”

“It actually ran out of power,” Tim quickly equipped a tree branch and defeated the robot. “It will power back up and be useful again in ten minutes.”

“No that thing broke into a bunch of pieces!”

“Yeah that’s what weapons look like when they break, but the Master Sword will come back.”

“Your weapons break in this game?”

Tim groaned, “All the damn time. You have to carry so many weapons just so you can keep pulling out new ones during fights to keep fighting.”

“Huh, oh there’s another robot. Why isn’t it attacking you? Do you have to wake it up? It looks asleep.”

“No this is a helpful construct so it’s going to help us, in this case it gives us the Purah pad that Zelda left for us.”

Jason blinked as the screen of the pad lit up in Link’s hands, “So your weapons break but you have amazing batteries.”

Tim shrugged as he ran around the next island picking up apples and destroying pots before jumping off the newest jump platform. Before swimming out of the newest pool of water. Then heading down a path breaking pots and picking up rocks to find things.

“Congrats you found an arrow. A single arrow, and no bow.”

“Oh shut up I’ll find more and a bow later. Now watch this.” As Jason watched Link stepped onto an odd yellow flower, odd in that it was bigger then any other they had seen and just standing there in the open area. He blinked as the floor disappeared and reappeared in a new spot. After a couple flowers the last had white petals and when Link stepped on it a strange creature appeared, “What’s that and why did it give you golden poop?”

Tim snorted, “They are Korok and they give you korok seeds that you later trade to upgrade the Purah pad so you can carry more weapons and shields. Now were going to hit some enemy constructs that are going to do some damage as it’s two on one and I have no armor.”

“Not a good situation.”

“Nope.”

As they watched the screen Link ran around picking up mushrooms and other things until running into some enemies and killing them. Eventually ending up at the base of the temple. Swimming over to the stairs Link started making his way up to the Temple arriving only to be unable to open the door.

Jason frowned, “That sucks. Oh look someone to tell us how to open the door.”

Tim snorted before turning back to the screen to listen to the ghost speak.

Chapter Text

Jason hummed as the ghost faded away, “So the arm used to be his but it’s weak now and you need to go to somewhere with sacred light to power it up, which that rock we can see in the distance had one inside? The one that has a magic spiral of light going up from it.”

Tim nodded, “Basically. Now it’s a bit of a hike to get to the first shrine.”

“First shrine?”

“Yeah, we are going to be going into a lot of shrines in this game, it’s the place we go to,” Tim scrunched up his face, “Level up is not the right term but it’s how we get the thing that will later allow us to increase our hearts and stamina.”

“Well lets head out.”

Tim rolled his eyes as Link defeated a monster while walking towards the shrine, “What do you think I’m doing?”

“Well go faster.”

“I’m almost there so shut up.” A few moments later they arrived at the shrine and went in the glowing door. “So now we get in and we get the ultrahand ability.”

“Your hand gets magical powers because a furry alien told you or activated the ability in your arm? And now we can attach things to other things and move shit around? What good is that.”

“Watch and you’ll see.”

As Jason watched Tim first used the ability to move a stone slab over a ditch in the floor before then attaching two slates together to make a bridge over a wider ditch.

“Okay that is useful, wait what are you doing now.”

On the screen Link was moving the slates to make a ramp up to a spot on the wall that had an outcropping and then opening a treasure chest and pulling out a stone that the game told them was amber.

“So now you got a piece of rock,” Jason watched as Link jumped down and ran to turn around a corner to get to the next piece of the puzzle. “Do you sell it or something?”

“You can sell it but you can also use it to improve some armor and can well there’s a power we get later that we can also use it in. Now this puzzle is a bit different as you need to marge these metal hooks onto this plank of wood to use this track to get across, although you have to be careful as it is possible to send the platform you made across the gap without you on it.”

“That definitely would be problematic, but you made it on and we are slowly sliding towards a glowing green thing.”

Once the platform had reached the other platform Tim had Link run up some stair to a giant glowing circle with a hand print inside.

Jason leaned back, “Those are really obvious in the fact that you need to touch it with your magic hand, I mean it’s literally it’s hand print on the glowing screen.”

“They do need to make this playable to all ages and trust me there are parts were you’ll wish there were hints like this. Now watch.”

As Link pressed his hand into the glowing circle the box that was emitting a green glow from a window vanished and revealed a statue that had been inside, with glowing letters of some unknown language and emitting a soft green light.

“Huh,” Jason cocked his head to the side, “Is that the human, no hylian queen and her alien husband?”

“Yep.”

“Okay even in statue form where they’ve been shrunk too and still he has like a foot on her. How did they you know make a prince or princess with that size difference? I mean their different species! How did they interbreed?”

Tim sighed as the screen changed to a close up of the statues, “It’s a video game.”

“Right magic and did that guy just say you did a good job for making it to it? I mean he literally told you were to go and really light to cleanse evil?”

Tim watched as Link tried to grab the ball of light that formed in front of him only for it to be absorbed into his arm.

“Huh, at least they heal you and oh cool they kick you out so you don’t have to go back. Oh the alien king just showed up to talk to you and congratulated you on unlocking an ability he unlocked for you?”

Tim shrugged pressing A to continue the conversation, “Pretty sure we need to finish the shrine in order to use the ability outside of it.”

Watching the words scrolled across the screen Jason sighed, “And now you need to do two more shrines so you can get in that temple and go save everyone?”

“They have to get us through the basics of learning how to work the game basics without making you just do a straight up introduction where they make you do each ability before game play. By keeping us on the island they can get us to learn the different buttons and what you can and can’t do and still let us start to explore and to get things done, like picking up that Korok seed.”

“Ah yes, the poop seed.”

“It’s not a poop seed,”

“It looks like a gold piece of poo, it’s a poop seed.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Whatever. We can mark the two other shrines with pins so we know where to go.”

“Two I can only see one.”

“Let me adjust the camera its further out there in the ice and snow.”

“Right, he there is a glowing sparkling ball running around in circles over there go poke it.”

Tim again rolled his eyes but did as Jason said going to the platform that the light was circling and chasing down the light to reveal a Korok.

Jason grinned, “Awesome new poop seed, now where are we going?”

“We are headed towards the next shine but we need to make new platform to slide down this new track so we can get a lot closer fast.”

Quickly assembling a platform like they had in the shrine Link slid down the track and ending on a new island were they saw another robot.

Jason blinked, “Is that robot trying to cut down a tree with a stick?”

“With a stick fused to a rock to make an ax.”

“Must be a sucky ax if he hasn’t actually cut down the tree yet, they’ve been doing this sort of things for centuries right?”

“Video game mechanics. No sit back and watch me go fishing with a bow.”

“With a bow?”

Link stood on a bridge and began shooting fish.

“Okay your actually fishing by shooting them, water resistance is apparently not a factor.”

“Nope.”

Chapter Text

“Okay stop fishing and go kill something or do something else.”

Tim smiled but moved on, “Not going to kill anything soon but we got some more robots to talk to.” Tim directed Link over the small bridge and to a nearby robot that proceeded to teach them how to sneak and tell them it was useful for hunting.

Jason rolled his eyes, “No duh it’s good for hunting. Letting whatever your hunting know it’s getting chased.”

Tim shot him a look as a robot told them how to cook, “Yeah, you never let anyone know you’re coming.”

“People are different. Letting someone know their being watched is to freak them out. If you plan to kill them giving them a warning is just making your life harder.”

“Well I’m glad you let me know you were there when you chased me down in the tower.”

Jason cocked his head, “In what tower?”

“Titan’s Tower. You know when you were just coming back you tracked me down there are almost killed me, but since I knew someone was watching you must never have meant to kill me.”

“Baby bird,” Jason rolled so he was directly looking at Tim, “I haven’t been back to the tower since I died. Never really had a good experience with all of Dick’s friends about me becoming Robin.”

Tim paused the game to blink over at Jason, “You didn’t attack me in Titan’s Tower?”

“No I didn’t leave Gotham for over a year after I first came back. Do you remember me attacking you?”

Tim turned and started playing, “I was having hallucinations at the time and it would explain why none of them were twitchy when I was starting to hang with you but look some robots that we can fight!”

“Tim do you still hallucinate people attacking you?”

“No, my titans have made it really clear what will happen if I go that long without sleep without someone to make sure I don’t do anything stupid near by.”

“So that’s why you call me when your deep in a case?”

“Yeah, your much less likely to bother me about what I’m doing and instead feed me which quite frankly is better than trying to harass me to sleep.”

“Noted, now kill the robots!” As Tim fought the robots Jason cheered, booed and otherwise was a great audience member to the fight before sighing. “Well that could have gone longer… why aren’t you opening the chest?”

Tim frowned manipulating the camera to see something, “It will only open when all the entire camp is dead so I’m missing one.”

“Up and to the right, theres one on a platform, must be a crappy sentry since it still hasn’t seen you.”

Using the bow to kill off the last robot Tim opened the chest finding an opal inside.

“More money then.”

“Or enhancing swimming gear.”

Jason turned a look on his, “Opals have water powers?”

“Swimming powers only, or I’ve never tried attaching them to a magic rod so they might have water powers… if they do it’s wouldn’t be worth much.”

“Hey another Korok, but you can see this one. Are you suppose to just go say hi to it?”

“Why don’t we find out?” Tim walked them over to Korok attached to a large back pact that proceeded to tell them it needed to get to it’s friend but was to tired.

Jason snorted, “And there’s a literal giant gap between you and where your friend is shooting up smoke signals. Do we like shoot him over or?”

“We also need to get to that island so we’ll make a platform to ride down the hanging stone rail line so we can do this.”

“Did you just use your new ability to fuse a living creature to a log that your using to make a platform?”

“No of course not, I fused his bag on to it.”

“The bag that he is like strapped into.”

“Yes, but I did not merge him with an actual log.”

Jason rolled his eyes as Tim reunited the two Koroks and moved their log platform to a new rail line and coasting down to a new island. Where Tim quickly had Link set about making a raft with a giant sail. “So we need to get across the water?”

“Yep that’s where the next shrine is, oh and look at this monster.”

“It’s a blue blob with eyes.”

“It’s a Chu Chu, this is the basic type but they come in different colors slash elements. Now this is the next shrine.”

“Your getting another power then? Flying maybe?”

“I wish. That would be way to useful.”

“So what?”

“The waiting screen isn’t that long, wait until we’re inside and Rauru will tell us what it is.”

“Fine go.”

Tim rolled his eyes as the waiting screen ended and Link walked towards the ghost king gaining the Fuse ability with it the ability to attack things to his weapons and shield.

Jason narrowed his eyes, “Isn’t that what you just got?”

“No fuse is for my equipment and is permanent, well mostly you do get a way to unfuse things later, and Ultrahand connects stuff together temporarily.”

“The stuff you put together with the red hand power stops working?”

Tim nodded, “It only works for so long but lets go the puzzle here is fun.”

“Right, right hurry on then and show me what’s so ‘fun.’”

Barely not rolling his eyes again Tim directed Link further into the shrine.

“Well first we need to make a boulder hammer with a sword and one of these boulders, which I use to destroy this wall and get to the next place where I fuse a flame fruit to an arrow and learn how to do arson from a far. This of course will feature in later game play.”

Jason grinned, “Arson is always fun. Hey can you destroy those pillars?”

Tim glanced at him and back at the screen what pillars?”

“The ones that are all cracked up and look breakable.”

“Well, I can try.” Tim managed to break the first so he went on to the second and nearly had a treasure chest land on Link’s head, “Well glad that didn’t land on him, but lets see what’s in side.” Opening the chest revealed five arrows and Tim grinned, “Oh cool we need this for the second part of this shrine.”

“The one where we shoot something with a flame fruit?”

“Yeah you can see some vines up there near a wooden platfrom I shot it like this and,” Tim watched as the platform dropped and another treasure chest fell to the floor. “Get a key!”

“Did it just tell you that the key is only for inside light shrines? I mean wouldn’t that be obvious?”

“Eh, people have tried to bring keys between dungeons and such in other games so they are very clear about where keys can be used, now another but higher level robot to fight.”

Jason frowned at the screen, “Can you set the vines and leaves under him on fire?”

Tim nodded pulling out his bow and attaching a flame fruit to an arrow before shooting it into the vines and leaves which immediately flared into a fire and started injuring their opponent. “Don’t think I saw that when I played this the first time so teamwork really is useful.”

Jason snorted, “Oh go grab the ball of light.”

“It’s a Light of Blessing but sure, and then we will get teleported right outside the shrine.”

Chapter Text

Jason blinked at the cut screen, “Recipe book?”

“When we next run into a cooking pot I’ll show some cooking.”

“Alright oh it’s the robot from earlier and it’s got more stuff for us. It’s ah,” Jason looked closer at the screen, “A spiky stick with a glowing thing on it?”

Tim rolled his eyes as the steward construct explained that the item was an energy cell on an energy cell storage device, and that they could use it to power Zonai components.

“Zonai component?” Jason turned a frown on Tim, “What are those?”

“The people the robot is telling to go to, through that cave, will have one that I can show you. Easier to show the first one so you have a frame of reference for any other ones.”

“Fine, fine pull the mysterious card.”

“Just taking a lead out of your book drama club president.”

Jason rolled his eyes as Link started walking towards the cave until coming to a stop to watch some monsters fighting, “Oooh robots versus balls of blue goo.”

“There called Chu chus but yeah going to let them fight and then kill off the other ones so I can save on hearts.”

“Boring but makes sense, save your health and such for when you need it. Looks like the robots won, go kill them.”

Tim chuckled but did as ordered and picked up the various loot items left behind.

“Did the blue goos just leave small moving bubbles of goo behind?”

“They left chu chu jelly and yes.”

“Why do they move?”

“Their just swaying in the breeze or something.”

“Those are not moving with the wind.”

“Alright I don’t know they just do that. Game mechanics to make them easier to see and be cool looking. Now I’m going to save just in case before we head closer to the cave.”

“Now? Theres nothing dangerous around, wait your replaying is there something dangerous ahead?”

“Maybe?”

“It killed you when you didn’t save last time didn’t it.”

“I plead the fifth now watch.”

Jason grinned as he spotted a monster camp, “You so died.”

Tim was blushing now, “Shut up.”

“So going in guns, or well swords blazing or are you going to get one of them to come off by themselves?”

“Archery is often your friend in this game.” Hiding behind a rock fence Link fired into the camp hitting on of the robots causing it to fall down.

“Wait did you just one shot it?”

“No, bows not that good,” As Tim spoke the construct stood back up, Tim again hitting it in the head but this time it burst into pieces. “If you hit them in the head its like a critical hit. It will stagger even the strongest enemies and do more damage than a normal hit.”

“Well getting hit in the head does take you out more than any other hit you can take.” Sitting back Jason watched as Tim had Link quickly and efficiently kill all the monsters before heading to the small chest that was in the back of the monster camp. “So, what you get?”

“A soldier reaper, it’s a weapon with one of the robot’s horns attached to a tree branch. Lot more powerful then a tree branch.”

“Is it still going to break in like five hits.”

“It’s actually four but it does increase it to ten. You just loose the fused item when the weapon breaks so I avoid putting anything to useful on weapons and shields as I can’t get them back.”

“You can’t just unfuse them?”

“Nope.” Tim walked Link over to the pondside cave, “Now were about to encounter a weird plant. It’s a bright bloom and when I do this,” Link threw the plant towards the ground where it erupted up into a sort of lantern plant.

“Bats,” Jason rolled his eyes when keese appeared as they walked through the cave, “What a surprise in a cave.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Where else do you expect to put them, or what else would they put in a cave?”

“Alright fine it makes sense, wait did you pick up two eyes from that bats loot? If you did I call bullshit they only have one eye!”

“Calm your tits there was two wings and an eye.”

“I do not have tits to calm!”

Tim snorted, “Pretty sure there’s a bunch of people that disagree.”

“Oh shove it, just because some people are gross and want to pretend my pecs are breast is no reason for you to bring it up. Unless you want me to bring up some of your ‘fanon’ traits.”

Tim grimaced, “Right. I apologize. That was uncalled for, but the loot was expectable.”

“Give me an embarrassing photo of the brat and we’ll call it even.”

“Embarrassing how?”

“One of the ones where he’s making cute faces at his pets. I owe mom one for some help she sent.”

“Tell me what help you needed and sure?”

“Roy got hit with a nasty poison and she sent someone with an antidote before I could panic about finding one.”

“How did she know he was poisoned?”

“Ra’s sent you a really inappropriate gift and I had words with him, well with one of his bases. Your not the only one capable of taking out Ra’s bases. It was one of his nicer ones to, unfortunately my idiot of a best friend decided to get in between the Kori and her impenetrable skin, and a dart to protect her. Bird shit on a gargoyle I am this close to telling Kori to ask Roy on a date already. I can’t handle him anymore.”

“I could have Dick ask her about any cute guys she has her eyes on?”

“That would be appreciated, he’ll try to push her to ask who ever it is out and hopefully Roy will get over his freakouts and just take her to a restaurant or something instead of crying about how hot she is in my kitchen. I mean Kori is smoking hot but just ask her out!”

“Right, a cute pic of Damian will appear in your safe house on second and rice.”

“Wait you know about that safe house too?”

“And a bunch of other ones you haven’t declared, but I’ll let you fret over which ones.”

Jason growled at Tim as Link continued into the cave, Tim grinning the entire time.

Chapter Text

Jason watched as Tim directed Link deeper into the cave, “Pretty impressive you can see this well as we get deeper into the cave.”

Tim shrugged, “So places it’s darker but here it’s a little lighter out since we are still in the entry now, I need to break this to hopefully get something to sell for later.”

Jason watched quietly as Tim broke the black rock and got a piece of amber before heading into the next room where, “Is that a frog monster? It’s like glowing white blue and it’s spitting bubbles at you?”

“It’s a Bubbulfrog and we get special bubbul gems we get to use later. Also, a blupee drops with the gem and if you manage to hit a blupee it will drop some rupees.”

“Rupees?”

“It’s the currency in the game.”

“Right so if you attack the blupee you get money?”

“Only if you hit it and it’s fast so I generally don’t even try cause it’s not worth potentially damaging a weapon for maybe ten or twenty rubies if I got a good strike in. Now I need to take out all of the ore deposits in this room, along with destroying the fake wall over there to get the higher-level gem deposit.”

As Tim went around the room, he picked up some amber, flint and got a ruby from the rare ore deposit before heading further into the cave, taking out a Keese on the way. Almost at the door Link found a chest and inside was revealed an ancient styled shirt. Which Tim quickly equipped.

“So putting that one ups your armor rating?”

“Yeah, now these robots are going to teach me about using zonai devices like this fan. I need to make a raft with a couple logs and attach a fan.”

“Tim, you should make a raft from a single log and just attach a fan on each side.”

“On the ends? It’s just going to roll and Link isn’t going to be able to do the whole rolling wine cask trick.”

“No, no. Get the log going straight out then on one side of the log put a fan on it, then put a fan on the log but directly opposite the other fan so it makes like a weird T shape.”

Following Jason’s instructions Tim constructed the single log with two fans on it’s sides, put in the water and hit the log to activate the devices.

Jason laughed as the log turned into two bundles of wood as Tim had an ax equipped instead of a normal stick like he thought he had. Blushing Tim remade the log and fans and this time made sure to select a stick and soon Link was cruising to the other side of the pool of water. Picking up a few Stambulb and Stamella Shrooms Tim had Link stand next to the cook pot.

Jason blinked, “Are you going to cook?”

“Yeah, you can get unique properties from some food, and any food item heals for more once it’s cooked. So bit boring this bit but going to start with making some simmered fruit, mushroom skewers, fruit and mushroom mix, and then cooked stambulb and energizing mushroom skewers.”

Jason blinked, “Where’s your protein?”

“Raw meat already heals a full heart and I only have three so I’m not going to bother cooking it.”

“But where is he getting his protein? You can’t be expecting to eat just fruit and mushrooms.”

“There’s protein in mushrooms.”

“Like two grams per cup so unless your feeding him like pounds of mushrooms they don't count.”

“Jason they are video game mechanic to make different healing and special effect items.”

“Stupid mechanics if they don’t make you put protein into heal you, also how is the food bouncing? Hell you don’t have any oil or butter you should just have things sticking and burning not bouncing.”

“This is meant to appeal to kids you know? They need something to look out during cooking cut scenes and bouncing food is interesting.”

“Wait… are you picking mushroom and apples and putting them together?”

“I told you I was going to make fruit and mushroom mix.”

“I thought you were joking apples don’t go with mushrooms!”

“In the real world? No, but it’s a video game Jason.”

“You know what,” Jason glared as Tim dropped an apple and skyshroom into the cooking pot, “I am going to find something does work, and everyone will eat, and it will look nothing like that.” He gestured at the screen that was now displaying a picture that showed a couple types of mushrooms, and orange slice and two apples. “You only put in one apple and one mushroom, where the hell did the orange come from?”

“Game mechanics to make different meals look different, I mean oranges don’t even exist as a findable thing in the game, and I doubt even you could make apples and mushrooms work together.”

Jason turned to him, “Bet, one medium favor.”

“Two medium if you can to get Dick to eat it, without using a favor or force.”

“One if the dish is good, two if Dick likes it.”

“If it is good and Dick doesn’t like it it’s a small favor.”

“Medium and I have to do it within a non-concussed week, aka if I get concussed that time doesn’t count against me.”

“Deal, starting tomorrow you have a week, your healing factor will have you fine tomorrow.”

“You’ll be eating your words Tim-bit.”

“If I do, I’ll probably be okay with it if Dick likes it. You are an amazing cook and baker so I always look forward to whatever you make.”

Blushing Jason rolled his eyes, “You cooked everything keep going and find some monsters to fight.”

Smirking at the screen Tim moved Link on, he just got a point for getting Jason to blush. He was so in the lead and going to win Dick’s challenge and Dick wouldn’t be able to comment on his sleep patterns for a week straight! He’d get so much stuff done!

Chapter Text

Jason sighed, “Chu Chus? Come on fight something real! Like a bear or something.”

“The sky islands lack bears but I got some robots coming up. Stating with some stealth shots before heading in to kill everything.”

“You got that fusion ability, fuse something on to the arrows for extra damage!”

Selecting a flame fruit Tim shot one of the monsters on fire with the hit along with doing normal damage.

Jason blinked, “What’s on fire? They’re robots.”

“I don’t know now quite I need to kill these guys and my armor rating is literally two. It’s going to be a challenging fight.”

“Well, you do only have three hearts so I guess that makes sense.” Jason mostly remained quite during the fight but scoffed a few times.

With the fight finished Tim went about picking up loot. “What’s with the scoffs?”

“They literally left weapons lying around that you stole before they could use it meaning they had to throw pebbles at you. Except the guy in the back did keep ahold of his barrel club. And I know combining weapons to things is a major feature of the game but how did he fuse a barrel to a stick? I mean the barrel shrunk in the process.”

“I’ve done weirder, but you saw how when he hit me took a full heart out.”

“Yeah, eat some mushrooms or the things you made earlier and go to that cave. I want to see what’s inside.”

After Link scarfed down a mushroom skewer Tim directed him to the X cave were they found a mining construct that told them how to use light plants to light up and area. A little further down they found an odd-looking ore deposit.

“Why’s that deposit got shinny blue green circles in and sparkles the same color?”

“It’s like with the rare ore deposits earlier. Ore deposits containing different things look different. These have zonaite in them.”

“Zonaite?”

“The stuff the aliens used to make all their stuff. I’m going to sell some to the construct by the lava furnace for crystallized charges. We aren’t going to have anywhere near enough to do anything with them for a while though.”

“How many do you need?”

“One hundred, the thing I buy with the charges always cost a hundred charges.”

Jason watched as Tim had Link take out all the ore deposits and then buy the charges, “Now what?”

“Next we are getting out of this cave.”

“Back tracking then? The other opening of the cave over there would just be jumping to your doom as there isn’t any land there.”

“Well were not going to jump to our doom, but we will be going that way.”

“How?”

Not responding Tim used ultrahand to put a mining cart on a track and then attached a fan to the cart.

“Did you just make a self-propelling mine cart?”

“Sort of, I do need to activate it and it will be using the battery on Link’s hip to power the fan but lets move on.”

Jumping into the cart and hitting the fan to activate it Link was quickly riding the track up onto another area.

Jason blinked, “Is that a giant bubblegum machine?”

“Basically, but you get zonai devices from.”

“How do you get them? Do you drop in money?”

“No you drop in zonai charges, those are the glowing globes that constructs drop when you destroy them. It works like this.” On the screen Link pulled out five zonai charges and dropped them into a dish that was in front of the machine. That sucked in the charges before the top of the machine, the ball portion rose a foot before slamming back into place causing a hatch to open in the front of the machine and several globes with images inside them to fall out.

“So what did you get?”

“Some instant cooking pots, fans and flame shooters. I have more charges so I’m going to get more as I have a set of five.”

“Do you have to give it five?”

“No but if you give it multiple charges at the same time, you’ll get more items. Fives the max as that’s how many Link can hold so I try to always do that.”

“Well let’s see what you get this time.”

“It’s going to be the same zonai devices as each dispenser only gives out three to five types of things. This one only has the three devices I mentioned earlier. Next, we need to get to the next island but it’s tricky because the track is broken.”

“So you have to improvise, what do you do to get past the break?”

“There’s those hanging hooks we saw earlier and we attach one to a cart but we ride beneath the one good rail to get to the next spot.”

“Huh, could you like make a giant line of carts to get over the break? Like attach five together will it bridge the gap so you can go on top?”

Tim shrugged, “Probably not but we can try.”

After a few minutes of trying to get past the break in more, inventive ways, the pair admitted defeat and headed to the next island in the manner Tim had initially mentioned. Before walking across an open area to get to a cave.

Jason snorted, “Pit cave? That’s creative.”

“There are a lot of caves they can’t all have cool names.”

“So, what’s up with the robot next to the pot? Obviously its not a enemy cause it hasn’t attacked us yet.”

“It’s there to tell us about making meals that give special properties like cold resistance.”

“Considering that if we had avoided going in the cave, we would have ended up in the snow that makes sense are you going to make any?”

“Nah,” Tim killed a few Keese before getting to the opening of the cave that opened into a field of snow.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Certain items give special effects if you attach them to your weapons and they don’t time out. So, I’m going to pull out a ruby and fuse it to my shield.”

“Your going to fuse a rock to your shield?”

“Yep, and look my temp gage shows that I’m warmer than before even as I go out into the cold, I’m staying warm enough to not take damage from the low temperature.”

“How the hell does a ruby give you cold resistance?”

Tim shrugged, “It’s one of the properties of rubies in this game to provide cold resistance when used in items. Spicy peppers do the same in dishes but as I said they time out and I don’t want to deal with that.”

“Weird but let’s get going and find another monster.”

Chapter Text

            Jason sat back and watched as Tim ran around in the snowy landscape eventually going over a cliff and heading to a campfire where a monster spotted them. Jason giggled when Tim pulled out a shield with a fire emitter on it and burned the enemy machine on fire, which as it had no organic matter is a little weird but it died and Jason laugh! “Take that evil robot! I so wish killer robots were that easy to kill.”

            Tim nodded as he started climbing up a path in the ice-covered cliff above them to get to the shrine. “They get harder but yeah if all killer robots were that easy to kill it would be nice. Hell make them like Flux Construct with obvious flaws and I’d be happy. Look the next shrine.”

            “So, what’s this one about?”

            “It’s Ascend. A really cool ability. It lets you go through things above you.”

            Jason snorted watching the first time Tim used ascend, “Yep complicated that. Stand under something and pop out the other side. Oh, another robot!”

            While Jason had been talking Tim had kept going through the shrine. Stopping only to get to treasure chests by ascending to them before running over to the next puzzle where Tim cut to ropes that let a large slate fall to cover a gap that Tim then used to ascend and get to the next puzzle. There he had to ascend to a moving platform and then to a stable one to arrive at the end of the shrine and get the latest orb.

            As the title screen appeared as they waited to appear outside the shrine Jason looked over at Tim, “So back to the Temple of Time.”

            Tim nodded as Rauru them they had restored enough power to open the doors. “Yeah, we just need to get over to that area over there in order to get a short cut to the Temple of Time so up through this overhang and to pick up this treasure.

            “Oh cool pants! Put those on!”

            Tim quickly equipped the pants before ascending to the top of the stump.

            Jason blinked, “What’s with the circle of rocks?”

            “Korok. I take the rock from over here to complete the circle and,” A korok appeared. “You get a Korok seed.”

            “A poop seed.”

            Tim rolled his eyes as Link jumped off the giant tree stump and headed towards a device dispenser.

            Jason hummed, “So what’s in that one?”

            “The same things as the last but wings as well.”

            “Wings? Like attach to your arm and fly?”

            “No you stand on them and cost along. I’ll show you in a bit first I want to get the treasure chest over here.” Tim directed Link to place a floating platform under an outcropping on another slightly higher island from where Link was.

            As Tim directed Link towards the platform Jason chucked a pillow at Tim who barely dodged, “I thought we were going to the Temple of Time.”

            “JASON!” Tim glared as Link fell to his death. “I needed to jump!”

            “Oops.” Jason didn’t sound very apologetic, “You should have dodged better then.”

            Sending Jason another glare Tim clicked the continue button and when Link reappeared Tim sent him back to the spot he had fallen from and keeping a careful eye on the grinning Jason.

            Jason blinked when Tim opened the chest on the island, “All that for three wings?”

            Tim glared at him, “It wasn’t all that, all I had to do was position one floating platform, jump and ascend to get these three free. You’re the reason I fell!”

            Jason shrugged. “Maybe you should learn to dodge better.”

            Tim’s glare intensified as he turned back to the screen and went down to an area that had several wings scattered about. Moving a wing into one of the tracks designed for the wings.

            “So do they have engines or something?”

            Tim sighed seeming to forgive Jason, for now at least, “You can attach fans but we don’t need those today. We are just going to glide over like this.”

            When the wing left the track, it started to glide bobbing slightly in the air. By moving onto different parts of the wings Tim could sort of direct the wing to go to one side or the other. Tim managed to sail the wing until it reached the platform outside the Temple of Time. This time when Link tried to open the door, they slid to the sides revealing the insides of the temple.

            “Huh,” Jason looked around the temple as Link approached a platform with a floating upside teardrop that was about the same size as Link. “So pretty stream lined in here, what’s the floating thing?”

            “Why don’t you watch and see?” Tim pressed A to examine the floating stone.

            They were thrust into a vision where Zelda was floating in front of the place the tear had been. Without opening her eyes, she held out a hand to Link and he took it. Once he did Zelda sent a power down into his arm similar to how Rauru did giving him a new power before Zelda faded away and they exited the vision.

            “Well, if that guys messed up about her disappearing that did not help.”

            Tim nodded as Rauru started talking about their new ability Recall, how it would let them rewind time on different items and send them back on the path they had previously been on. Tim immediately used in on a large turning gear with spots to stand on and then a smaller one to get to a new room with a goddess statue and another large imposing door.

            “Lots of scribbles on the wall.”

            Tim nodded, “It’s all ancient writing, now lets get beat up by a door.”

            “Get what by a door?”

            “To open this door, you need to push on it as it drains your hearts. We don’t have enough hearts currently so we have to disengage before it kills us. Rauru is now going to give us the ability to teleport back to the room of awakening so we can hit up the last shrine and get the fourth orb we need to trade the goddess statue for another heart.”

            “Well off we go then.”

            Pulling up the map Tim picked the room of awakening and they were teleported away.

Chapter Text

Jason hummed, “So where is the shrine?”

            “It’s a bit up and to the left of here, want to go the correct way or a more random route?”

            “You have to ask?”

            “Right random it is then.” Tim directed into the archway back to the room Link had woken up and used ascend to go up through the ceiling.

            “Definitely not how they planned, oh look apples.”

            Tim directed Link to run around grabbing various items and fighting a few chu chus and Keese.

            “How do Keese eat?” Jason frowned at the screen, “They don’t have any mouths.”

            “They probably have tiny mouths for blood or something. Your not wondering about the other monsters?”

            “The robots got some supper bateries or something and chu chus obviously absorb what ever they killed and slowly dissolve what ever to fuel them. Although it is a question of what they’ve been eating all the time they’ve been up here I don’t really think they can take out a deer and there haven’t been any really small animals.”

            “They only have some much rendering ability they aren’t going to waste it on showing that there are mice and such.”

            “Lame but makes sense, go climb that giant ass tree stump.”

            Tim rolled his eyes as Link started to climb, “That was the plan.”

            “Oh is there treasure?”

            “Nah something better,” As Link stood on the lily pad in the middle of the large pool of water in the middle of the tree stump little bits of green and white light appeared around his head. When Tim pressed A a korok appeared.

            “A poop seed is better than treasure?”

            “Eventually I can trade them in to expand my inventory.”

            “Oh yeah you definitely need that you can only hold like three twigs and they keep breaking on you.”

            “I don’t have any twigs I have clubs and I can carry more than three of them.”

            “Three, seven, six same thing.” Jason jerked back from the screen as a strange creature appeared on the screen, “What the fuck is that?”

            “Some sort of ostrich.”

            “It was furry!”

            “It just has really long white feathers that makes it look shaggy.”

            “What it is funny looking. Now how are you getting to the shrine?”

            Tim rolled his eyes as he slashed some grass to catch a cricket, “I have to drop down from that edge over there but let me grab a few more things first.”

            Jason sighed but leaned back to watch.

            Eventually Tim directed Link over the ledge and landed on another launching pad for the Zonai wings, but instead of going to launch himself off the platform he turned and entered the archway that led back into a cave.

            “What’s that,” Jason pointed at a robot to the right of the entry way .

            Tim directed Link to talk with that robot, “It’s a crystal refinery, you know those crystalized charges we got in the mine?”

            Jason nodded, “You got like what ten?”

            Tim shrugged, “Not sure but not much, but we need a hundred to make an energy well, the thing that we currently have three of and use to power zonai devices. So we can’t do anything now, right shrine.”

            They both waited while the game transitioned into the shrine.

            “The ability to rewind,” Jason snorted, “I wonder what power you need for this one.”

            Tim rolled his eyes as he directed Link onto a raft before hitting it with recall, getting off the raft only to get on another and ride that up a waterfall as the raft rose the same way it had fallen carrying him up to an open room.

            “Okay,” Jason tilited his head, “That was pretty cool. Now use that ability to ride that gear up to the chest.”

            Doing as directed Tim smiled as the treasure was revealed, “Arrows nice.”

            “Arrows are good?”

            “They’re expensive and harder to aquire then weapons. You can find weapons left and right all over the place, arrows you have to buy and they are not cheep. So yeah favorite treasure is arrows.”

            “Makes sense, now how are you getting past to clock hands going opposite directions?”

            “Well it seems the door opens when they match up so if I wait for them to be in the same place and hit one of the arms with recall they will travel together and I’ll be able to get the orb.

            Jason glanced at their phone as Tim did just that. It had been longer than he thought, he’d call it in an hour or when it was at a good place to stop.

            As Tim exited the shrine he directed Link to the wing launching pad and quickly headed the Temple of Time until they could get back to the room with the giant goddess statue.

            “Huh,” Jason watched as Tim moved Link to the statue, “Okay its weird that the statue hadn’t been glowing last time.”

            “Well we didn’t have enough orbs. Give me a minute and I’ll get a heart container. Normally you can choose between a heart container and a stamina container. More stamina means you can run longer and such but this time we have to get a heart container so you can get through the door.”

            “Right, the door that tries to kill you.”

            “I was able to disengage from it but I will be able to open it now.” Running around the statue Tim again tried to open the door. This time pushing against it until they were down to a quarter heart and the door opened. Putting them immediately into a cut scene.

            “Huh,” Jason spoke summarizing what happened, “So the king is leaving because we are out of the learning area and we need to get more orbs to heal more?”

            Tim nodded, “Basically. Now I need to go over a perfectly sort of destroyed bridge that looks old and broken but still lets you get to the end platform where they find a glowing light hovering over a pedestal.

            “Wow,” Jason looked around the sky line, “That’s a lot of sky islands.”

            “Yep we’ll be going to all of them eventually, two of the racial quests involve sky islands. Now to give the light the Master Sword.”

            “Your giving the mysterious light your super sword?”

            “My broken super sword to get repaired.”

            “Fine give the light your sword.”

            As Tim interacted with the glowing area a cut scene took over and they watched as Link put a pulsing Master Sword into the light, which then floated from their hands and pulsed with the colors of recall. Before they were looking at the same place in a different time, where Zelda took the Master Sword from the air.

            “So,” Jason hummed, “Princess has it but all Link knows is that the sword went poof, wait what’s that?”

            Tim watched as a dragon pierced the cloud layer around them and the clouds between them and the ground dispersed so they could now see to the ground.

            “Okay,” Jason clapped his hands, “After this we’re out of the turturiol area?”

            Tim nodded.

            “Right time for baby birds to sleep!”

            “What?” Tim stared at him.

            “I’ve been watching you for long enough that it is well pass both our bed times so safe and bed.”

            Grumbling Tim saved and started picking up his mess that had grown around him, “Fine I’ll go to bed.”

            Jason grinned slowly easing himself out of bed, “I’m stuck on house arrest until Alfred decides I can leave, I’d love to watch some more later.”

            Tim grinned at him, “I’ll see when have time match up so you can watch!”

Chapter Text

            Jason yawned as he dropped into place on the couch beside Tim who had pulled up the game, “So Princess has the sword. What next?”

            Tim grinned, only mildly feral, “Now we jump.”

            “Wait? Wha-YOU JUMPED? YOU DON’T HAVE A WAY TO LAND!”

            Tim rolled his eyes as he directed Link to dive int the pool of water that was below the island, “They put in a pool of water for you to land in. Were fine.”

            Jason groaned rubbing his face, “Right, game mechanics landing in water in high speeds is fine, the water tension that would normally kill a person doesn’t exist.”

            “Yep, you want to head to Lookout Landing or a shrine first?”

            “Eh, either.” Jason tried to settle back into his seat to watch. He was suppose to be on bed rest practically so if he didn’t look like he was relaxed enough Alfred might decide he had to spend the day in an actual bed. At least this way he was entertained. “What’s the beam of yellow light over there?”

            “A star fragment. They fall during the night and you have to get to them before a certain time, but that ones to far away for us to get to. Let’s hit up the shrine next to the glowing doom.”

            “Glowing doom?”

            Jason pointed at the screen, “Look there’s floating red gas coming from a red and black around on the ground, I’m calling it a doom.”

            “I’m going to ascend up to get a better look around before going in, try and get some landmarks marked onto my map.”

            As Tim turned Link around to look for the glowing spirals that indicated the locations of shrines Jason blinked, “What’s with the random rock?”

            “Hm?”

            “The one in the middle of your little pillar of stone.”

            “Oh, that.” Directing Link to grab it Tim explained, “Korok. Good spot we still need a bunch of seeds. Now lets head into the shrine.” Tim grimaced as Link took damage jumping down.

            Jason snorted, “He doesn’t know how to roll off his momentum?”

            “Not a mechanic no. Usually break my fall by pulling out the paraglider to soften my landing but don’t have that yet. After this shrine we’ll head to Lookout Landing to get it.”

            As the screen showed the transition scene between the outside and into the shrine Tim took a sip from his energy drink, he’d stopped drinking coffee while gaming because the coffee kept getting cold so Zesti it was. “This shrine is pretty boring, just maneuvering objects in the air with ultrahand to make sure people know all the ways to use it.”

            Jason hummed as he watched Tim complete the rather simple puzzles waiting until Link was back outside to ask, “Okay what’s the evil gas coming from?”

            “A chasm into the underground portion of Hyrule.” Tim carefully directed Link so they could look down the chasm, “You can’t see the bottom of course as it goes really far down but we don’t have the paragliders so we can’t exactly go down there yet.”

            “You should go spook the guy next to the pit that’s looking down into the chasm. Maybe he’ll fall.”

            Tim rolled his eyes, “They wouldn’t make a mechanic where you could accidently kill a NPC.”

            “NPC?”

            “Non-player character, but I’ll go talk to him.”

            Jason snorted as the NPC accused them of trying to spook him, “Well the NPC doesn’t trust the game to keep him alive.”

            “He doesn’t know he’s an NPC, and the game producers sure clocked what some players, or in your case, watchers would want to do to a poor guy standing next to a chasm.”

            “If he doesn’t want to accidently fall in he shouldn’t stand so close.”

            Tim brightened, “Oh horses!”

            Jason snorted, “Rich kids and horses. What did you name yours?”

            Tim shot Jason a flabbergasted look, “You think I had a horse? In Gotham?”

            “Well, your parents were horrible and tried to like buy you off not to call CPS with money and shit, right? So, I figure they had to have given you a pony. That’s like high end bribe to a kid to get them to now bother mom and dad.”

            “One my parents weren’t that horrible.”

            “Your wrong, but continue.”

            Tim rolled his eyes, “It’s Gotham, no one has horses here, or at least not for long.” Jason gave him a confused look causing Tim to sigh, “Horses have really delicate lungs and Gotham air, even out in Bristol, kills them.”

            “Hm,” Jason thought for a moment, “Explains why Demon Brat doesn’t have one for all that is fascinated with them at the Kents.”

            “Damian likes horses?”

            “Well at least that’s the reason he’s giving Dickhead and B for want to go over to the Kents.”

            Jason snorted, “Right and that so isn’t just an excuse to spend time with the baby Kent, surprised you never pulled that for the middle one.”

            Tim felt a blush on his face, “I don’t think that would have worked for me.”

            “Yeah you couldn’t have pulled off the wanting to see a farm bit city boy.”

            “Well you wouldn’t have been able to either.”

            “Why would I have wanted to? Horses are creepy.”

            “You think horses… are creepy?”

            “It’s the eyes, now why were you interested in horses?”

            “We can ride one for faster travel, just have to catch on first. Or…” Tim perked up and carried the controller to one of the walls that had a lot of little figurines that Jason had never really paid attention to before. “Aha!” Tim picked up one of the figures, a boy dressed in a green tunic before selecting something on his controller.

            Jason blinked, “Amiboo? What’s an amiboo?”

            “These figures but if you use them, you can summon a variety of items. Usually, a bunch or materials and a chest with a weapon in it but on the first use of this one you get,” Tim grinned as a pretty brown horse appeared on screen, “Epona!”

            “Is that like a special horse or something?”

            “She’s the horse character used by several of the Link’s through the games. If they have a horse, well before Wild, it was Epona.”

            “Huh, well know you have her what next?”

            “Going to head to Lookout Landing.”

            “Sounds good off you go then.”

            Tim rolled his eyes as he walked over the drawbridge into Lookout Landing. Where Link was greeted by Drozer and Burwar who were surprised to see Link.

            Jason blinked, “Why are they so surprised to see you?”

            “Remember that I went down into the castle with Zelda and you’ve been missing.”

            “Oh right. Well, go talk to Purah then.”

            Tim talked with a few other NPCs before finally climbing up the wooden steps that led to a platform where a younger girl was.

            Jason blinked, “Whose that?”

            “Josha she’s Purah or Robbie’s apprentice, I think. Not sure. Oh there’s Purah.”

            The two watched the cut scene as Purah proceeded to call their arm weird and then there was a recap of Zelda diapering and Link waking up in the sky. Basically, recapping everything that had just happened so far in the game.

            “Okay,” Jason rolled his eyes, “That was boring.”

            Tim rolled his eyes back, “She’s the person in charge without Zelda being present, we needed to tell her everything that had happened and now we know that she knows everything.”

            Jason sighed, “Right, right. Now what?”

            Tim waved at the screen where Purah was telling them to go up to Hyrule Castle.

            “Right, up to the castle to tell the search party that Link has show up, but that Zelda is still in the wind, or well in the past.”

            “Link doesn’t know she’s in the past but yeah. Let’s go talk with the shop keep and get real clothes first and then we will head up to the castle to talk with the search team.”

            Jason leaned back and started drinking the glass of water he had brought into the room. He side eyed the can of Zesti Tim had and contemplated drinking it to try and make Tim drink water instead. On one had it be good for the kid, on the other Jason didn’t want to run him off. So he’d leave the water alone, for now.

            “Change in plans. I need to get Epona to a stable before she despawns.”

            “Your horse will despawn.”

            “Probably, I need to get her checked in at a stable so I can get her out later.”

            “Okay so hand her off to the horse guy near the front gate? Or well what ever the gate you came in is called and head to the castle.”

            “Can’t they don’t count as a stable. I’ll just ride her to the nearest stable and then well, probably do the shrine there and then come back here and go up to the castle.”

            Jason shrugged, “Sounds good to me.”

            Tim rolled his eyes, “I’m glad my plan meets your approval.”

            “Well, I am the audience here, so my opinion should be important.”

            Ignoring Jason Tim set Epona off towards the Riverside Stable.

Chapter Text

            After listening to the stable master talk about how to board to horses and mention pony points a rewards system that would let you board even more horses than you were allowed initially and the stable master refusing to let you rename a legendary horse Tim finally got Epona boarded before heading to the near by shrine.

         “Tajikats Shrine.” Jason hummed, “So what’s this one?”

         “Wait a minute and the game with throw it up there for you to see.”

         “I was just wondering if you remembered, but building with logs? Okay that sounds boring.”

         “It’s one of the central Hyrule shrines, now do you want to see me do it the right way or the absurd way?”

         “You have to ask?” Jason grinned at him, “Absurd. Obviously.”

         “Okay I need to bring the logs from these first puzzles…”

         As watched Tim proceed to attach every log in the shrine end to end to make a giant single log wide bridge that he could then use to walk over the flowing pool of water to a chest holding a shield and then to the success point of the shrine to get the orb.

         Jason laughed as Tim grinned at him as the transition scene happened, “Instead of making a raft you just made a giant ass stick to get over the water.”

         “Yep, I mean they give you enough logs so why not?”

         “Alright comedian lets actually go do what we are suppose to now that we got the horse boarded.”

         Tim blinked at the screen, “Shit. I forgot to activate the shrine slightly closer to the castle so I need to run over there again!”

         “Well grab the horse back from the stable and ride back.”

         Grumbling Tim went to the stable and withdrew Epona and started back to Lookout Landing.

         Jason yawned, “Right so your going to go hit that shrine up and then go up to the castle?”

         “I want to get the crystal refinery that’s next to Lookout Landing on my map in the process but basically.”

         Tim directed Epona to go between Lookout Landing and the Castle Town gates. Tim quickly had Link climb an odd bit of stone to talk with a Zonai robot that wanted crystal charges to get you more energy wells. Since they didn’t have enough Tim had Link jump down and walk to the Castle Town Gate before stopping.

         Jason frowned, “Why are you pulling out the special abilities here? There's nothing around to grab or fuse.”

         “Ascend.” Tim used the ability to go through the top of the gate where a single stone sat, “And a korok.”

         “Right, you need those for something, can’t remember what it was.”

         “Increased inventory but lets go help Addison.”

         “Addison?”

         “He’s the guy with the sign over there. He’s all over Hyrule and he needs help putting up signs for the construction company in the game but he can’t seem to get past this one spot in putting up signs. Like he gets to the same point but when he needs to secure the bottom and can’t leave it standing enough to secure it.”

         “Wait, are you saying he keeps making that mistake?”

         “Yep, every time. Each time you have different stuff nearby to prop up the sign enough for him to then fasten it in place. This time we have this stuff which we can fuse together to make something to support the sign.”

         “Well get to it then. That man is a twig and his arms have to hurt.”

         Tim snorted but quickly fused a couple planks and beams of wood together to hold up the sign and once Addison had thanked Link for his help, and given them a but of things in gratitude Tim turned Link to the shrine quickly walking over and activating it.

         “So, what’s up with this Kyononis Shrine?”

         As the transition screen appeared Tim groaned, “Ugh it’s the melee combat training shrine. I hate this one.”

         “There’s a shrine to teach you how to fight? Shouldn’t they have done that in the sky?”

         “This is to teach you more complicated skills.”

         Jason’s eye brow rose reading the skill need, “Side hop? That’s a complicated skill?”

         “They want you to, they are teaching you how to activate flurry rushes.”

         “Flurry rush?”

         On the screen as Link dodged time seemed to slow and Tim pressed the attack button quickly as he got a lot of strikes in without the monster being able to react, “That. It’s nice but not something I try for most of the time.”

         “You don’t?”

         “I don’t play this game specifically to relax not worry about needing to exactly time attacks and the like.”

         “Makes sense, what’s the next skill?”

         “Back-flip. Pretty easy.” Which Tim easily demonstrated as he got it right on his first try, “Next is fucking parry-ing I hate parry.”

         Jason nodded, “Bigger fan of just attacking and dodging. Less chance of getting injured from trying to parry something that hits harder than you expect it to.”

         Tim grumbled threats at the screen as it took several attempts to get the parry right before sighing in relief, “Right last one is easy, it’s a power attack where you just press the attack down for a while before releasing a flurry of blows.”

         Jason blinked as Tim used the move, “I think I’ve seen you do that before.”

         “I do like using them when I can. Getting a two-handed weapon with it and you can spin around hitting things until your stamina runs out and you hit the ground causing a burst of damage to spread out from where ever you hit.”

         Jason hummed for a minute, “Doesn’t seem very realistic, but it would be pretty cool.”

         Tim shrugged, “It is really useful but yeah not something that you can pull off with a normal war hammer or a similar two-handed weapon, unless you count shrapnel.”

         “I wouldn’t, but what next?”

         Tim set down his controller as the transition screen showed to roll his wrists, “Going to head up to talk to the Captain that Purah told us to. If we can get the story along far enough, we can get the ability to develop the map more, and more importantly get the paraglider.”

         Jason watched quietly as Tim directed Link from leaving the shrine towards the castle, where he had to open the gate into the castle grounds. As Link passed through the gate Jason hummed, “Are you going to ascend to the top of these gates?”

         Tim blinked before shrugging, “Sure, there’s a korok up there so why not, just need to be careful when I jump off. Then it’s up to talk to Captain Hoz. It’s a bit of a walk to get up to him but we don’t have the stamina to climb up, which would only be slightly faster.”

         Jason hummed and watched as Tim directed Link to run up the track to the first gate where he started climbing up to talk to the Captain Purah had directed them to. “Is that the guy?”

         “Yep. Now lets talk to the guy he’s going to be happy and confused to see us and then cut scene will happen.”

         “A cut-scene? What’s going to happen?”

         Tim rolled his eyes, “Wait and you’ll see.”

         The pair watched as Princess Zelda appeared on a stone pillar, looked at them, dissolved into light and then the light flew into the sky.

         “Huh,” Jason tilted his head, “Was that a vision or some sort of illusion?”

         “Well, the others saw it so it wouldn’t be a vision, it could have been Zelda.”

         “Nah, no way that was really her. Now what?”

         “I’m going to grab a korok from just up here and I think that was the lunch bell so we can hit up lunch and then play again after.”

         “Sounds good.” Jason sat up grimacing, “I’m heading to lunch then. Meet back here after we’re done?”

         Tim nodded as Link stopped next to a glowing pinwheel. 

Chapter Text

            Jason looked up from his book as Tim entered the room. When Jason saw Tim start talking with Dick, he grabbed one of the books he had stashed around the house, in Alfred approved areas of course. “What did Big Bird want?”

         “He’s trying to get me to lower my coffee intake.”

         “Wow, that’s fighting words with you.”

         Tim rolled his eyes flopping into his place on the couch and picking up his controllers. “I ditched him by pointing out Damian was limping so I should be free of him for a little, now to go talk to Purah.” Loading up the game Tim walked Link over to Purah and started the dialogue.

         Jason snorted, “Purah is just going to believe us? I mean what happened sounds impossible.”

         “Eh, we are a hundred plus year old amnesiac that killed Ganon with a wooden spoon.”

         “With a what?”

         “Oh, the last time I played Breath of the Wild I took nothing but spoons and pot lids to the final fight to see if I could still beat Ganon. I ended up using a bunch of them as a lot of broke but I did win.”

         “Okay, I can see why she would buy your random bullshit being true then.”

         “Yeah, and Hyrule’s history is full of weird stuff happening to princesses and heroes so it isn’t to weird for the hero to sprout of the impossible and have it actually be true.”

         Jason blinked as Purah talked about the map function, “They’re making a travel point inside the town?”

         “Yep, but first lets go into the shelter.”

         “They dug a hole in the middle of a field and put a barricade around it to make a town?”

         “The shelter was a royal hiding spot but they’ve turned it into a secure area to work from. Probably so they could build the barricade around the area to make this, well it’s basically a really nice staging town to stay in as they rebuild Castle Town. I mean they aren’t building any buildings beyond the research buildings.”

         “Why bother building houses and shit it you have this shelter although it does not look like they have enough beds down here for everyone here even sleeping in shifts.”

         “Eh, video game mechanics. Let’s take a nap to heal the fall damage I got earlier. I mean the people in here are basically teaching us the basics that we would need to know if we didn’t play Breath of the Wild.”

         “And what do I need to know?”

         “You’ll find out most of it as we play but basically there are four other races, the Rito, Goron, Zora and Gerudo that live in different areas and we will be going to each to fix the problem there. Theres other cities but I’ll tell you about them as we run into them as they aren’t really important to know about until then. Otherwise, there’s telling you about the weapons decaying during the upheaval and some one else that teaches you to cook. Nothing interesting. Now bed, were going to sleep until morning so that once we head out, we will have the longest amount of time before having to deal with the Stal monsters.”

         “Makes se-”

         “Hi!” Dick peaked into the room, “What are you guys doing in here?”

         Jason shrugged, “I’m watching Tim play Tears of the Kingdom. There was a cut scene he was ranting about and instead of just telling me about it he decided to show me the entire game. Since I’m on forced rest I thought why not.”

         “Can I join?”

         “As long as Tim doesn’t insist on restarting.”

         Dick flopped onto the couch between his brothers, mushing him into the spot that wasn’t quite big enough to cuddle with both of them. “I’ll ask if I have questions but I live in Blüd so I won’t be as often so I’ll just watch when I get a chance.”

         Tim sighed; he would try to wiggle away from Dick but that would just make him cling. “Fine. We’ve made it through the beginning basically. Jason can fill you in but first we have the first tower to activate and map to get.”

Dick plopped down on the couch next to Jason and proceeded to lay across his lap and look at the screen displaying Tim playing Tears of the Kingdom, “So this is what gave Little Wing the idea to make those yummy apples when he first started watching you play.” 

Tim didn’t look from the screen, swearing internally at losing the bet, “The apple mushroom cups?” 

Dick gagged, “No, the yummy apples with that lunch four days after you started playing.” 

Jason grinned down at Dick, “They had mushrooms in them, and since you liked them, I won both parts of the bet against Tim. I got two medium favors from him.” 

“There is no way that yummy had icky mushrooms in it.” 

“Gotham’s smog you have the palette of a toddler and yes it did. I just cut them up small enough that you could see that there were mushrooms.” 

“The yummy apples were a lie?” 

“Well, you still thought they were yummy even though they had nice nutritious mushrooms in them.” 

“Hm,” Dick pouted, “I guess I can forgive the yummy for lying since it was so good.” 

“Great, now get off.” Jason pushed half-heartedly against Dick’s side, which did rock him pretty far as if Jason had really tried Dick would be on the floor there wasn’t enough room on the couch for him to contort himself to prevent falling. 

Dick hummed, “No. You gave me lying yummy so you owe me cuddles.” 

Jason rolled his eyes, not really expecting to get rid of the octopus that called itself his brother, “Then quite so I can focus on critiquing Tim’s game play.” 

Tim snorted, “So that’s what you’ve been calling it.” 

“Yep, now go pick up the rock.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I said to.” 

“Fine.” Link moved to a nearby rock and picked up quickly clicking to pick up the lizard that appeared under it before dropping the rock. 

“Look I found you a lizard.” 

Tim grinned, “I think it’s time I cooked a few things up.” 

"At least the dish will have protein in it.” 

Dick frowned, “Protein? Why is that a big thing?” 

Tim rolled his eyes, “Right you set him off you listen as I find a good cook pot.” 

Jason growled at Tim before telling a regretful Dick the reason it was so important for dishes to contain actual protein in dishes for an active hero. When Dick tried to escape Jason started running his hand through Dick’s hair, Dick’s greatest weakness when cuddling, and Dick resigned himself to listening to Jason’s rant about protein and other nutritional needs a hero would need in the environment that Link was in. 

Jason had only just stopped ranting about the dietary needs of someone on an adventure like Link is when Tim approaches a cooking pot next to a structure that Jason hadn’t gotten a very good look at before Tim turned to the pot, “Watch this Dick, watching Link cook is meant to entertain children so you’ll like it.” 

Tim dropped a piece of flint next to the off pot before hitting it with one of his crappier swords to start the fire.  

Dick blinked, “You used a sword to start a fire?” 

“Needed to create a spark.” 

“Isn’t that bad for the sword.” 

Jason snorted, “Everything is bad for swords in this game.” 

Dick arched his head to look at Jason, “Huh?” 

“You’ll see some time if you keep watching, or watch some other time.” 

“Fine,” Dick signed, “Alright now your cook fire is on what next.” 

Tim grinned pulling up his inventory, “Next I pick the ingredients I’m going to cook.” 

Watching Tim pick Jason’s face pales, “Why are you holding monster teeth?” 

“To cook.” 

Dick blinked, “You’re going to cook that lizard you caught and monster teeth?” 

“Yep.” Tim had Link start cooking as Jason gasped in horror. 

“Okay,” Dick smiled watching as the food bounced in the pot, “That is adorable. Does he always smile like that when he’s cooking? It is really cute.” 

“Normally I cut the cut scene but I left it cause I knew you’d like it and now we got a hasty elixir.” 

“An hasty elixir? What does that do?” 

Jason gagged, “Make you horribly sick and tear ups your GI track?” 

Tim rolled his eyes, “No this was a high-tail lizard so it gives me a speed boost.” 

“I am never going to complain about how you get boosts from food if you promise to never make something like that again.”  

Tim considered Jasons offer, while the offer was good Jason’s face when he cooked teeth was to good. “Nah. Actually...” Tim opened the item screen again and grabbed two bokoblin teeth. 

Jason stared, “No, no do not just cook teeth!” 

Dick grinned, “Cook the teeth, Cook the teeth!” 

Tim grinned as Jason groaned and Dick cheered as he dropped the teeth into the pot and they all watched Link smile as the teeth cooked.  

When the results came out Jason sighed. “Okay, at least the game has some limits.” 

Dick blinked, “Why is the dubious food green? And pixelized?” 

Jason snorted, “The pixelization is probably to spare our eyes from the horror Tim just made, not sure on why it’s green.” 

“It’s just the default image.” 

“So, you’re going to toss it then? Maybe sell it to some idiot?” 

Tim grinned and again opened the inventory, this time going to the meal screen.

“NO! DO NOT EAT THAT!” 

Tim selected the dubious food and clicked eat. They all watched as Link grimaced but at the dubious food. Refilling his heath by one and patting his stomach as light burst around him.

“You actually got health out of teeth? How?” 

Dick blinked, “How did he chew the teeth?” 

Tim shrugged, “In a precursor game he eats actual rocks so his teeth are made of steel or something.” 

“Well pebbles will pass through someone’s system.” 

“Nope he takes bites out of a big chunk of rock roast, which is a giant cooked rock, with a bone in the middle for some reason.” 

“Gotham tap water! Why the hell would he?”

Tim shrugged "It was funny and fit with the plot pretty well."

         Jason frowned as Link entered the tall tower to find Purah at a terminal, “This is going to help you get a map?”

         “Yep.”

         “Aaaaa,” Dick smiled as Joshua used her entire weight to flip a large switch to activate the Skyview Towers. “She’s so cute.”

         Both brothers rolled their eyes as Tim had Link interact with the counsel in the tower which activated the travel gate platform for use when teleporting later.

         “Finally,” Tim grinned as Purah gave them the paraglider, “I’ve missed you paraglider.”

         Jason snorted, “You’ve missed a paraglider?”

         “I can now jump off shit and not die. It also lets me travel a descent distance without chancing to run into monsters or something else.”

         Dick grinned, “Oooooh a paraglider sounds fun.”

         Jason rolled his eyes, “You have enough fun with a grapple, let Tim’s character play with paragliders.”

         “Fiiiiiiiineee.” Dick sighed, “No one ever lets me do anything fun.”

         Jason and Tim shared a look before rolling there eyes.

         Tim hummed as Link got on the glowing circle inside the Skyview Tower, “Now this is freaky. You know those arms?”

         Jason jerked back at the sudden appearance of six robot arms that grabbed onto Link, “The freaky robot arms?”

         “Yep, they are actually the legs from one of the most dangerous monsters in the last game. First time I saw them I though the platform was going to attack us.”

         “They seem a bit bondage like right now what with grabbing you and holding you so you can’t move while they… attach a spoil of something to you?”

         “It’s a data cable and now up, up and away!”

         Jason and Dick blinked as the platform in the tower shot up the full length of the tower and launched Link into the sky where a cut scene showed Link scanning the ground with Purah Pad to get the map. As Link moved to scan the ground with the pad orange light went down the cable and once it reached the bottom orange came up before the cord dropped away from Link.

         Dick blinked, “Did you get the ground and sky map? Isn’t the sky partially above you?”

         Tim shrugged, “Game mechanic, they didn’t show you scan up or even scan the area well, it’s just giving a quick depiction of what would have to occur but now to skydive down to Outlook and talk with Purah.

         As Link got close to the ground Tim activated the paraglider and floated to the ground before turning to go talk with Purah.

Chapter Text

            Tim directed Link up the stairs, “We’ll get this done and then we can either head to the first nation or get the camera rune.”

            “Camera rune?”

            “Yep lets me log every item and monster in the game.”

            Jason smirked over at Tim, “You are a photography nerd so we should do that, but they want us to go to Rito village with that bit about Zelda being seen near the Rito. Who are the Rito?”

            “Bird people.” Tim explained, “They have wings for arms and can fly. They live to the northwest.”

            Dick titled his head, “What’s the Lucky Clover Gazette?”

            Jason rolled his eyes, “It’s obviously the newspaper of the game.”

            “I didn’t know games had newspapers in them.”

            Tim shrugged as he finished with Purah and followed Josha down the stairs and into the lower level of the building that seemed dedicated to the Sheikah investigating various things, “We don’t read the newspaper but we do eventually become assistant reporters.”

            Dick grimaced, “Hopefully much better than ours.”

            “Yeah we actually look into things and figure out what’s rumor and what’s not, but Josha has our quest lets talk with her.” Interacting with Josha Link get given the task of going into the depths to take a picture of a depiction of the people that might have lived in the depths. Robbie saying he would go ahead and met you later.

            “So,” Dick tilted his head, “How do you get to these depths?”

            “The giant glowing hole in the ground, right?” Jason guessed.

            “Yep. Now to save time I’m going to use the Skyview Tower to get us closer to the Hyrule Field Chasm.”

            Dick blinked at the screen, “Is that a Rito?”

            “Yep, Penn is the reporter that we will be working with later.”

            Jason snorted as he threw his arm along the back of the couch to get it out from between him and Dick, yes Dick could get closer now but his arm was starting to tingle from blood being cut off by Dick’s bony elbow, “And that’s them trying to tempt you to go to the Rito first again.”

            Tim shrugged, “It is a good idea the monsters that way are weaker than the ones is say Zora Domain, but first lets head to the chasm.”

            As Link was shot into the air Jason tilted his head to the side, “Wait if Robbie and Purah made the Purah Pad together why isn’t it like a combo of their names. I mean Robbie did just tell us he was the one to put the pad together.”

            Tim shrugged, “Seems they’re a software hardware team with Robbie being hardware.”

            “Still think they could like combo’d the names so they’d both get credit.”

            “Probably to complicated for game mechanics Purah Pad rolls off the tongue well.”

            Dick hummed, “They could have called it the Purah Googles Pad if Purah Robbie Pad didn’t work. Since Josha calls Robbie Goggles.”

            Jason snorted, “Now that would be confusing cause not only would there be three names’ people would expect the pad to have like a googles function. But he’s landing so you can see the chasm.”

            Dick blinked, “Yeah that does not look good. That is definitely some evil magic, but why did you pull out your paraglider and land? You could have continued sky diving.”

            Tim rolled his eyes, “You did see me pull out the paraglider to make it all the way to the chasm, right? That took like half my stamina and I want all of it when I go down the chasm in case, I need it. So now that I have all my stamina I’m going to dive down.”

            Jason hummed, “How far down are the depths?”

            “Wait and see.” With that Tim had Link avoid the gloom on the ground around the chasm and jump in.

            As they continued to speed down the chasm, that was basically a straight hole down with walls covered in gloom Jason whistled, “Alright it is pretty far down and now were loosing day light. Do you have to walk around blind?”

            Before Tim could answer Dick pointed at the screen, “No look there’s a campfire.”

            “Are we going to have to carry a torch everywhere?”

            Tim shook his head, “You’ll see in just a second, well there’s two ways. I’ll show the more effective way and then the temporary way to help you get you between the permeant ways. Now the effective permeant way is over here.”

            Dick frowned, “Are you not going to talk to the guy next to the fire?”

            “Nah, he’s just going to tell me useless stuff now the Lightroot.”

            “The what?”

            Jason rolled his eyes, “The glowing thing that kinda looks like a trunk with giant roots coming out of it would be my guess.”

            Tim nodded, “Correct now we activate it like this.” Clicking A the group watched Link raised his arm up at the glowing hand print right under the trunk like item of the roots and the light flowed up into the trunk and then a band of light came up from above and when it hit the large glowing oval that was trapped between the trunk’s roots lit up bright. Then screen turned fully into a bright light. When the light disappeared Link revealed that it was a teleportation mark.

            “Huh,” Jason watched as Link looked around, “So it lit up the entire area.”

            “A section of the Depths but yes.”

            “Hopefully there isn’t any flora or fauna that can’t be any amount of light.”

            “Well, the light doesn’t take out gloom monsters so its probably not enough light to damage anything.”

            “Gloom monsters?”

            “Yeah, the surfaces monsters that are under here are like coated in gloom and they do a special type of damage that actually prevents you from healing those hearts until you either go into sunlight, a lightroot or eat something that heals gloom damage.”

            Dick frowned at the screen, “It’s starting to get pretty dark, where’s the next light root?”

            Turning the screen the group could see a barely glowing light root in the distance, “That’s the next one but until we get there, we have brightbloom seeds.”

            Jason blinked, “Oh yeah! I remember those now you throw them and they make glowing plants.”

            Tim nodded as he selected a brightbloom and threw it onto the ground a good distance away where it changed into a plant and lit up a small area.

            “You have lantern plants!” Dick grinned, “You can make lanterns just by throwing a plant. That would be so useful.”

            Tim blinked before pursing his lip, “I don’t know enough about plants but maybe we can mention it to someone?”

            Jason hummed, “I can think of uses in the alley. Light without needing the city to maintain light posts. I’ll being it up to Ivy, she’d be able to find out if something can be made to use in Gotham.”

            “Probably can’t get enough too light to grow but you do you, now with activating this light root we’ve finally caught up with Robbie.”

            Dick grinned, “Robbie’s right that looks just like what Josha described.”

            Jason rolled his eyes, “Like the game would have it not look like it.”

            Tim ignored the two as they started to bicker and smiled, “Yes! Camera rune! Now just to take a picture of this statue and show it to Josha.”

            About a minute later Jason snorted, “Find the best angle yet?”

            Taking the picture, having found the best angle to get the entire statue and as many details as possible Tim nodded before going to show it to Robbie. “Any half decent picture will do but I like to get one that would actually be useful to look at. Now to Lookout Landing.”

            “Not going to spend any more time down here?”

            “Me and my four hearts? No, the depths are a little to dangerous at this point in the game for me.” Opening the map and switching it to the surface map Tim sent Link to Lookout Landing.

Chapter Text

As Link appeared on the Lookout Landing teleport spot Jason hummed, “So off to Josha then?”

Tim nodded, “It will be nice to get this quest train done.”

Dick frowned, “Your not going to talk to anyone down here?”

“We already talked to the important ones, now Robbie is going to tell us to show the picture to Josha.”

Dick grinned as Josha grinned happily, “I’m glad we were able to help her on her research.”

Jason snorted, “Good that we did to or she would have figure out a way to get down there. Does she give us anything cool?”

Tim nodded, “Some large zonaite, now lets talk with the creepy statue, it wants the little weird lights we picked up in the Depths.”

Dick blinked as it described the poes as departed souls that needed help getting to the afterlife, “Well at least we can help them then.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “They’re made up game mechanics. What do we get for it?”

Tim offered the first poe and the statue rewarded them with a dark clump.

“Did the statue just give us a rock?”

Tim rolled his eyes, “No it’s a dark clump, it’s a type of ingredient that you can use to give you gloom-resistance.”

Dick paled, “You eat it?”

“Not plain like this but if you cook it is nice for if your running around in the depth fighting a frox and you don’t want to worry about stepping on gloom.”

“Frox?”

“An annoying type of monster found in the depths. It’s like a giant lizard like thing with chunks of ore deposits on its back that you kill by destroying the ore deposits. You get a lot of zonaite by killing it but not something we are up to yet. So we got a major plot thing to hit on the way to the Rito so I say we do that and stop for today.”

Jason nodded, “Sounds good we’ve already been playing for what three hours? Lets get this last thing done and then get shit done in the real world. I should be able to sneak out after lunch to my place, even if I won’t be going out tonight.”

“You could come over to my place tomorrow and we can get some game play in.” Tim turned to Dick, “Do you want to come?”

Dick shook his head, “Got some things to do so I’ll just let you two have fun and bond, I’ll watch some other time.”

“Okay we’re going to use the tower again to get some distance easy towards the New Serenne Stable but probably won’t make it all the way.”

Jason shrugged, “No way to know then to try.”

Dick and Jason watched as Tim shot Link into the air and start diving, tilting towards the desired location using the paraglider as he got closer to the ground to get some more distance.

Jason perked up, “Can you make it to that shrine there? Its obviously can’t make it to the stable but that shrine is quite possible.”

Humming Tim deployed the paraglider and just barely managed to make the outcropping the shrine was on, “Apparently yes. I’ll just activate the teleport spot at we can do the shrine tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. Now you going to start running to the stable?”

“Actually going to climb this bit, coast over to the hill over there and then coast over the river to avoid the hinox on the bridge.”

“Do you have something against walking?”

Tim blinked thinking as he started paragliding the first distance, “Huh, quite possibly.”

“You going to manage to avoid any more walking?”

Tim pursed his lips before grinning after crossing the river he ran over to an open in the cliff face, used the paraglider to coast down into the cave there and then used ascend to go through the roof of the cave.

Tim grinned as Jason snorted and Dick started laughing as he continued to get Link to run to where he needed him.

Jason shook his head, “Okay that was pretty impressive but what are we doing here?”

“We just need to get a little futher into this field to get to Impa, Purah’s sister, who is going to show us something so we can see more about what Zelda’s up to, and the memory I wanted to show Jason context for.”

As Link walked up the stone steps to the small stone platform where an old woman stood with a camp fire and the base of a metal hot air ballon.

“There is no way that is Purah’s sister. She’s ancient and Purah is maybe twenty something.”

Dick nodded, “I call shenanigans.”

Tim snorted, “They actually are sisters, Purah was messing with an age rune and actually deaged herself until she was like ten maybe?”

Jason hummed, “So Purah just looks really good for her age?”

“Basically, but first we need to take the balloon off the ground and fuse them toether so the balloon would work and once we get the little fire she actually has set up in the middle of the basket we’ll get up in the air and almost make her faint.”

As Impa complained about it being to high Jason rolled his eyes, “You’re the who wanted to use a hot air balloon.”

Dick grinned, “She’s standing on a little box built into the ballon base so she can see over the side.”

Tim nodded, “Yeah she’s really short, but now we can see the Geoglyph, which is a bunch of lines on the ground where you can only see the image from the sky.”

Jason hummed, “Looks a lot like the furry alien king.”

Dick blinked, “Furry alien king?”

Tim waved his hand before Jason explain, “You’ll see in a minute what we mean. The first king of Hyrule came from the sky and you’ll see him in the dragon tear she’s talking about.”

“In the tear?”

“Eh, let her finish telling us to go look for it and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Jason raised an eyebrow looking at the screen, “She thinks anchient geoglyphs are going to help us find Zelda?”

“It her defense,” Tim hummed, “She is right. Now let’s paraglide over to where the tear is over here.”

Tim quickly made it over to the tear and activated the cut scene. The scene showed Zelda waking up in the far past and meeting Rauru and a hylian woman named Sonia before realizing she was in the past.

Jason snorted, “Her being confused by Rauru being the first king makes so much sense when you think of it as her trying to figure out where those genes ended up cause she don’t look part alien.”

Tim shrugged, “It has been a long time but yeah, now Impa is going to tell us where we can go find a picture that will show all the tear locations but I’m going to save. Tomorrow we’ll hit up the stable shrine and then the shrine we skipped before heading towards the Rito.”

Jason nodded standing up, with some difficulty in getting Dick off of him, “Sounds good Timbers. Just give me a call when your back from patrol and able to play entertainment.”

Tim nodded as he tried to escape Dick’s grip, slightly annoyed that Jason had left without helping him get free. Even though escaping Dick was always an everyman for himself situation.

Chapter Text

Jason flopped onto the couch as Tim finished loading up the game, “So what are we doing?”

“Going to hit up the shrine next to the stable so we get the teleport point and the orb before moving on.”

“Sounds good,” Jason cocked his head to the side as the summary of the shrine appeared, “So an uplifting device? Sounds like the hot air balloon Impa used.”

“It is. First here we need to make a hot air ballon from a plank of wood a balloon and an oil-based stone terrace torch.”

“A what?”

“That shoulder height rock pillar with fire coming out of the top.”

“Ah alright, but your going to use a plank of wood with fire?”

“Well they don’t give you much choice, but the way the balloon is set up to hold the terrace torch so it won’t fall over and set the wood on fire.”

“Still not a good idea but you work with what you got. Now that you got up there what do you need to do?”

“I’m using just a ballon and terrace torch to press that switch above the door and get through to the next puzzle.”

“What’s next.”

“I need to get some stone balls up to the next area where I’m going to need them.”

“How are you going to do that? Cause that large ball I don’t think the fancy torch will raise it up.”

“That’s what those Zonai flame emitters are for. I just need to turn them off, attach them to ballons and the balls and catch them up top.”

“Catch them?”

“Just let me do this bit and then I will show you.”

Jason rolled his eyes but sat back as Tim did as he said before ascending up to the area where the balls needed to go. Tim then grabbed the hot air ballon that was still rising took of the ball and put it in the right spot opening the door to the spot where he would get the orb. When the large ball got within grabbing distance Tim did the same which opened the doors to a treasure chest.

Grabbing the chest and then activating the success point Tim hummed, “After this we will hit up the shrine we skipped yesterday and then come back here to head up to the Lindor’s Brow Skyview Tower.”

“Sounds good.” Jason watched as Tim teleported them to the next shrine and snorted at the temple summary, “A windy device? This is just playing with fans then?”

Tim shrugged “Basically. I’m going to use a fan to float up to the next part, then use a fan attached to wood as a boat, next is using a fan to make a platform go up a track to the finish area. The most interesting bit is I use a fan to move a stone platform so it’s flat and I can ascend to get to the treasure.”

Jason stood up, “Tell me what the treasure was when I get back, I’m going to grab a bowl of chips, do you want anything?”

Tim shook his head, “Still good on my drink.”

“Cool I’ll be back in a bit.”

While Jason was gone Tim got through the shrine and teleported back to the stable towards the Lindor’s Brow Skyview Tower.

Tim grumbling the entire time about the fact that he didn’t have an old ability that let him shoot into the sky and then paraglide for a time to avoid having to run until his stamina was almost gone, walk and once the stamina circle had refilled run again.

Jason most ignored his complaints snacking on his chips and contemplating whether he should get a drink or not until he blinked at the screen, “What the hell is that?”

Tim grinned, “Hetsu, he’s awesome. I’ll show you why in a minute but first we need to deal with the trees he’s scared off.”

“He’s afraid of trees? He looks vaguely like a tree.” Jason gestured at the screen where a large being huddled in fear. He was two shades of pale green with a vague abstract bark pattern on his entire body. Then from his head rose a few branch-like projections with what looked to be a type of solid foliage coming from them. His arms and hands ending in rounded stubs and not hands.

“They’re not normally trees.”

Jason blinked as Link got closer and the trees erupted from the ground to attack, “Do you have ents?”

“They call them Evermeans but basically. Now I just need a bladed weapon and I can chop them down.”

“Down? Their not in the ground for you to chop.”

“I hit them with my sword and it makes a chop mark and each time I do the chop mark appears in the first spot until the tree dies and turns into a log. Normally I hit them again and get firewood from them.”

“You hit a log with a sword and it turns into firewood?”

“Yep. Now lets go talk with Hetsu with those being dead.”

Jason snorted, “He has a leaf for a beard.”

“Yep, now watch he’s funny and entertaining, at least the first time you watch. After that it gets a little redundant but you can skip through that bit at least.”

“How is he holding those macarenas? He has no fingers.”

“Dome kind of magic probably but the cool thing is all those korok seeds we got we can trade to him to expand our weapons, bow and shield inventories. It takes different amounts of seeds to increase the different ones with the prices going up as you give him seeds, but let’s expand our normal weapon slots.”

After selecting wanting to expand that inventory Jason blinked as Hetsu started to dance, shaking his maracas as Koroks suddenly appeared as like back up dancers. At the end of the short dance the pink glow that surrounded the macarenas as he danced turned into little petals that shot up into the air. “Well, that sure is a dance.”

“Each type of stash has its own color and he has some different dances that he does, but let’s get a couple more slots before he heads off to Lookout Landing. I’ll hit him up there when your not here as it can get really boring.”

“Sounds good to me, now wh-what is that?” Jason pointed at the screen where a light blue rabbit-like creature sat, it was outlined in white and had two antenna like things that were a soft yellow coming from its head. When they got to close it ran off.

“A blupee. If you manage to hit them some rupees show up, I generally don’t bother as the easiest way to hit them is with a arrow and I don’t like wasting arrows like that.”

“It’s looks to cute to attack anyways, but where to now?”

Chapter Text

“This cave,” Tim ran Link into the cave right in front of them, “There’s a shrine inside, and then we got the tower.”

Jason nodded as the screen displayed Lindor’s Brow cave.

“Wait I remember…” Looking up Tim grinned, “Korok spot, we need to ascend through that spot there and we’ll get a korok seed. We can then use the opening next to it to start going down, it’s pretty far down.”

“But not depths far?”

“No were near that but we are going to run past something pretty dangerous.”

“Your going to run? Not fight?”

“We still only have four hearts, we’ll fix that at the Rito, but even when I have the hearts I generally avoid fighting the Gloom Hands.”

Jason twitched back from the screen as a black mass with a red aura around it appeared, large hands coming from it, “Okay that is really freaky.”

Tim was to busy getting Link to the shrine and away from the Gloom hands. Sighing out in relief once he entered the shrine Tim grinned, “This is one of the simpler shrines. Occasionally there are shrines that the actual shrine isn’t the puzzle but getting to it and it will just give the orb as a prize like this one is.”

“It’s just giving you an orb for getting past the hands?”

“Normally it’s more difficult tasks but if the hands had gotten us we would have deserved the free orb. Now once we get out I’m going to immediately ascend as the hands should have despawned but better safe than sorry.”

Jason hummed his agreeance as Tim did as he said he was going to and quickly appeared above ground. Jason blinked at the lake surrounded a central outcropping where the tower stood. “Uh, how are we getting there?”

Tim directed Link around the lake to some building supplies, “You’re supposed to make a very long bridge and balance it right but I instead make a much shorter bridge and get right up against the stone you can ascend instead without having to try and balance a giant bridge.”

“Nice. So shoot out the tower, scan and then what?”

“Coast towards the Rito. Will give us some height that we might be able to make the other side of the canyon but I don’t think so.”

Jason started in on some of his physical therapy exercises for his elbows and wrists. Might as well get some done while he was sitting still. Might work on some other ones as he watched. Some entrainment while going through all the exercises he had, and really should be doing more often than he did.

“Huh,” Tim deployed the paraglider as soon as he could after scanning the map, “There’s a Sky Island close enough to get to. Let’s go over there and see if it’s interesting.”

Starting on his wrist Jason nodded, “Sure.”

Once Tim got closer, he cheered, “SKY DIVING CHALLENGE YES!”

Jason blinked, “A sky diving challenge?”

“Yeah, they are awesome, let me go talk to the robot and show you. The first is a test run but the second time we can get a piece of an awesome set of armor.”

“What’s the armor do?” Jason watched as Link reappeared at the top of a series sky islands and quickly approached a glowing green circle that was hanging just off a jump point. Jumping through it Tim started sky diving as a new circle appeared below him. Carefully tilting how Link was flying through the air Tim directed Link through the circles, including one circle that was inside an opening barely big enough for Link to dive through. “Okay can see why this one is called the courage island.”

Tim nodded, “Yep that’s a bit of a doozy to go for but with the need to do the entire course in a certain amount of time you have to speed through a lot of the circles, but see done and now to talk to the robot and get the armor. Then well go to the shrine that was revealed by us doing to challenge.”

Jason stood to start working on the shoulder exercises he could do right then.

As the transition screen appeared Tim frowned at Jason, “Does something hurt?”

“No. I’m suppose to do these exercises even when my pain isn’t horrible. It’s actually good to do them when I’m not in pain as they don’t hurt. This is as good as time as any.”

Tim nodded turning to the screen as it displayed the summary of the shrine, “Oh archery combat training. This I like.”

“I did notice you seem to favor the bow.”

“If the monster is far away, he, generally, can’t hurt me so yeah, archery rocks. This is teaching you that if your falling through the air and pull out your bow time will slow letting you get more shots off. Which it takes a good deal of stamina so I can’t use it to much right now but every little bit helps when your facing things like Lyneals. Although if I run into any of those, I am noping out the area.”

“Lyneals?”

“Centaurs basically that are more dangerous foes than some mini boss, or even boss monsters. They got really cool bows though so when I have more hearts, I will probably hunt some of the weaker ones to get their bows. Once I get good armor and more hearts I’ll go after the more dangerous ones for those bows as they are awesome.”

Jason snorted, “You thinking about picking up archery in the real world? You seem pretty interested in those bows.”

“No, I’m sticking with my bo staff. I don’t have the time to dedicate to getting vigilante level good with a bow.”

“I could always ask Roy to give you some training to see if you’d like to learn more.”

“I wouldn’t say no to some lessons. You never know when you might need to use a weapon outside your norm but I’m not interested past that, and Arsenal has to be way to busy to take the time to train someone who isn’t going to take up archery as there fighting method.”

Jason nodded putting a mental post it note to get Roy to give Tim a lesson or two as a birthday gift or something. Roy owed him some favors, “So sailing to bird people now?”

Chapter Text

“Yep,” Tim nodded, “Not going to make straight in one sail as I don’t have enough stamina but I will be able to make it to a windmill, which I can climb up and coast to the other side of the canyon… or at least I think I can.”

Jason frowned as Tim got close to the windmill, “Can you even get to the top?”

“With just my stamina I wouldn’t but I’ve made some stamina dishes that should be able to get me the last little bit of distance up.”

“Why didn’t you use them in the sky?”

“I don’t have enough to get over the canyon, and but getting up the last bit of this will be fine… as long as I don’t wake up the Hinox that is in the area.”

Tim grinned as he managed to make the top, “Alright and now that we made it here, we need to land on the windmill over there on one of the outside supports.”

“Outside supports?”

“The things bracing the central column.”

Jason nodded, “Where did they manage to even find trees tall enough to be these central columns? There huge.”

Tim shrugged as he managed to land Link where he wanted, “There isn’t anywhere with threes this tall, or straight so either they managed to fuse or lock different trunks together or the game designers didn’t bother worrying about it so they could have the windmills. Not that it really matters as they are mostly just ascetic. I mean I’m climbing them as launch points but they aren’t attached to a mill or something so in a real-world version of this game the windmills would be pointless.”

Jason nodded, “So pretty and climbable spot for game use only.”

“Yep, now I need to get to the crossbeam to rest and reset my stamina bar before climbing further up. I can only go so far up this one before I’ll need to jump off to land on the cliff where I can find someplace to stand and regain my stamina. I’ll just save on this spot where I can stand and regain stamina in case I hit somewhere I can’t find a stand spot so I can try again if needed.”

Jason nodded grabbing another chip as he watched Tim make it across the gap, find a spot to stand and climb up to the top of the cliff, “Good job, now what?”

“We’re pretty close to the Rito but there’s a shrine on the way I want to hit.”

Jason made a sound of agreement around his chip watching as Link climbed some more cliffs and reached a shrine surrounded by strange thorns. Having finished a few chips Jason asked, “How do you get around those?”

“Fire.”

Jason blinked you’re going to set them on fire? That’s going to take a lot of work to get enough t- okay apparently, they are highly flammable.” Jason watched as Tim through flame fruits at the thorns and they went up in flames. Tim was quickly able to get to the shrine and enter it.

Jason hummed out the summary, “A launching device?”

“Get to have some fun with rockets, but the first puzzle you just set a rocket to hit that target over there. Next we attach rockets to mine carts and go up a ramp before, using a new rocket. Pretty simple.”

As Link stepped out the shrine Jason tilted his head to the side, “Okay were to next?”

“To become a reporter.” Tim switched out Link’s pants for some that offered cold resistance.

“Were near the gazette then?”

“Yep, it’s just right down there so an easy coast and then we can go in and talk with the boss lady and Penn.”

As Link entered the former stable, now Lucky Clover Gazette headquarters Jason hummed, “So she took over a stable for her business?”

“Due to the storm no one was coming out here so the stable was shut down and Traysi took it over. She’s setting us up with Penn to look into stories about Zelda sightings which are a bunch of fun side quests that give you some more insight into the story line, and quite frankly some are just funny. Also, we get armor that lets us climb wet rock whenever we want! It would be so nice to have some before we hit Zora’s Domain but we’ll have to see if we can have some before that.”

“So,” Jason examined his next chip as Link left the former stable, “Rito village then?”

“Yep, but we need to climb the stable, or well the gazette so we can get across where the first bridge is out. Won’t quite make the gap but I’ll have enough stamina to climb the cliff face. Then the clothing store we are going to need more than these pants to stay warm. Well side track around this bit to get to the shrine then the clothing store.”

“Sounds good. Probably head out after that. I got some stuff to do before tonight.”

Tim nodded, “I’ll probably go korok hunting to be able to expand my inventory. Oh, before you go, we can hit the statue here so you can see me grab some stamina. I got enough orbs to get two stamin vessels from the statue and at least one is going to be stamina. I’ll also do some ingredient hunting to get more stamina food.”

“Sounds good, now that’s the shrine?”

“Yep, lets head in.”

Jason snorted, “Ride the Winds? Near a whole lot of flying people?”

“Oh, shut it, I need to dodge lasers, a turnstile and monsters.”

Jason rolled his eyes before watching as Tim expertly navigated the shrine before exiting it with a new orb. Jason blinked, “Is that a Korok rock? It’s in a weird spot.”

“It is, and once I pick that up, I can ascend up into the village and then up to the store where we are going to sell a whole lot of rocks to get a full set of Snowquill armor. Then to the statue.”

Jason nodded, “Then I got to leave.”

Tim quickly sold what he needed to a bought the Snowquill set before heading down the circular stairs that circled the stone outcropping the city was built around until he got to the bottom and to a small stone statue with a flower crown wreath set on its head.

Activating the dialogue Jason blinked as streams of light shown down on the statue and it spoke of the lights of blessing. “Is that a goddess statue like the one in the sky?”

“Yep, just a lot shorter. Now to get some stamina. I just wanted to show you what stamina vessels look.”

“A green tear with a gold shell, sparkly but not that interesting.”

Tim shrugged, “Well know you can see how much stamina you get versus a heart.”

“Okay that is interesting but see you later Timbo.”

Tim snorted, “Bye Jasono.”

Rolling their eyes at the others snark the two split up as they both had their own things to do.

Chapter Text

Tim connected the console to the tv of Jason’s apartment as Tim had come to Jason this time to play, which had nothing to do with the empty refrigerator in the Nest. “So, I went and registered the tower near the Rito village to get the map but I didn’t have time to find any shrine to show you so I was planning we’d do the main plot of the Rito today and I can show you some shrines after I go track them, and some koroks down. This way we don’t waste to much play time with me just running around the country side.”

“Sounds good, I mean I wouldn’t mind watching you just running around, like I did during the intro island but won’t mind a highlight real for most of it. Now let me get the lasagna in to cook and we can play until it’s done. I already have a salad made up we can have with it and the bread is already made so we can basically eat as soon as the timer goes off.”

Tim nodded, “Sounds good, now I bought some arrows but I stopped right before I triggered the cut scene that starts the Tulin of the Rito quest, which is the main quest dedicated to the Rito in the quest to check out the four regional phenomena.”

Jason tugged his little brother into his side, one to give him some good physical contact and two because he didn’t own the biggest couch and anyone sitting on it basically had to cuddle with him. He might have bought it with that in mind but you wouldn’t get him to admit it out loud. “So which one is Tulin?”

Instead of answering Tim triggered the scene.

On screen the family of three Rito, a father, mother and Jason figured was a young teenager were talking.

Tulin was complaining that it wasn’t fair that he couldn’t go check out a large, and probably dangerous, to his pained looking parents that he could even go on his own, before recognized Link and running over to him.

Jason snorted, “Looks like you have a fan.”

Tim chuckled, if you think this is having a fan can’t wait to show you someone else latter.”

“You not going to say who?”

“Nope, spoilers.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Fine so Teba is the village elder? The leader I expect.”

“Yep.”

“Then how the hell is Tulin got an entire white set of feathers when his mother is a light purple?”

“Eh, he looks more like his dad.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t need to worry about her having a wandering eye with Tulin basically being a photo copy of his old man. Ooh, ouch. Dad calling him older but not grown up even though he’s apparently fully fledged. And now he’s ran off after denouncing the song of some arch is false. Let me guess it’s completely true?”

“It’s the Song of the Stormwing ark.”

As the adults continued to talk Jason nodded, “Old folk song about flying ships and a giant cloud causing a blizzard, yep no way those are related,” Jason’s voice dipped sarcasm, “At all, but foreshadowing is an important part of storytelling. Can’t completely surprise readers every time you do something in a story.”

Tim shrugged, “Now Teba is going to tell us to talk to Harth, at those two fires over there for help as the Rito can’t help find Zelda as they are to busy not starving in this blizzard, but Teba thinks Harth may have heard of something.”

“So off to the fires we go then?”

“Yep no reason to stay here in the village when Harth will send us on our way to the next part of the Rito quest, but first we are going to ascend to the top of the rock spire the city is on to get a korok there and then glide across to get to the cabin Harth is in.”

Jason sat back and watched as Tim did roughly that, stopping at one of the other spires that jutted up from the lake bed the Rito village spire came up from to grab a korok there before heading to Harth. Jason did snort when Tim landed a plank of wood awkwardly over two statues and the game snapped it into the exact place it was suppose to go and revealed a korok, “Good you got another poop seed.”

Knowing that he wasn’t going to win the argument Tim still muttered to himself, “Its not a poop seed, oh and I helped Addison with a sign here.”

“The twig guy that can’t figure out he needs to prop the signs up before getting them in place?”

“Yep.”

“Huh, what was he wearing then? I mean his normal gear is sleeveless and your in special gear not to freeze.”

“Just his normal gear.”

“Okay, that man needs to prioritize his own safety, but are you really robbing a lady?”

“If I talk to her, she’ll tell me I can have all this stuff, I’m just skipping the dialogue.”

“Ah, your just being lazy, we going to go talk to Harth now?”

Tim rolled his eyes but directed Link into the cabin to talk with Harth that directed them to a summit cave where Tulin should be with some others scavenging for food.

Jason hummed, “There is no way that kid is actually where he is supposed to be, preteens don’t act like that. I mean you kept going out being stupid at that age against advisement.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Like you were any better.”

“Well you should have taken my death as a warning as well but what ever lets get to the cave.”

Tim set Link to running up the hill killing a few monsters and pausing to point up a different path that the one they were going to go up, “That’s the way to the Skyview Tower, but we are going to continue this way.”

It wasn’t much longer until they reached a cave with a huge bonfire in front of it, “There we’ve made it to the Hebra South Summit Cave.

Chapter Text

Jason grinned, “There is no way the kid is here, where he is supposed to be.”

“Well,” Tim interacted with the nearby Rito, “Laissra is telling us he’s just further in this cave.”

“Yeah, he might have gone that way but I can guarantee you he’s not still there. Wow those are some huge as thorns.”

“There the same size as the thorns around the Orimuwak Shrine we had to get pass when we were getting to the Rito.”

“Maybe they look bigger in this cave because it’s so short, which how did the Rito get pass all these?”

“There is a path through the thorns but you have to be careful walking personally I prefer to set some on fire to make the pathway bigger so I don’t keep hitting them since they are pretty big.”

“They are taller than Link, they are not just pretty big they are huge!”

Tim shrugged, “They are, but lets go up this wind collum and kill the bastard up here.”

Jason watched as Tim had Link did exactly that before going into a room with an unlit campfire in the middle some flint and some barrels which Tim quickly busted open and used the flint to start a fire. “Okay you’ve made a fire, now what? Your stuck in dead end.”

Grinning Tim selected a pine cone and flung it into the fire.

“That wi-,” Jason blinked, “Okay that is a crazy amount of wind. Adding a pine cone should not do that.”

Riding the wind with his paraglider Tim had stifle his giggles at how surprised Jason sounded. He was quick to get Link into the lower of two openings and to kill the Bubblefrog before climbing up to the higher opening and going in until he saw another Rito.

Jason grinned, “Second Rito and not Tulin. Called it!”

Tim snorted, “Not hard to, but lets talk with Gesane and see what he has to say.”

When the man had finished Jason rolled his eyes, “Tulin is definitely a younger teen who thinks he can save the world, or at least the rito. An adult would know to wait for backup when seeing a group of monsters, and they definitely wouldn’t abandon the food that they had managed to savage for the village. We’re going to have to go rescue him, aren’t we?”

“Yep.”

“So we need to climb a mountain to get to where Tulin is in trouble.”

“Yep. It’s going to be a bit but first to deal with these monsters-”

Jason interrupted him blinking at the screen, “Is that the sign guy, again?”

“Yep. Let’s go set him up before heading further up… oh shit.”

Jason frowned as Tim easily got the sign in place, “What’s wrong?”

“I skipped the shrine on the way up here.”

“Well, you can hit it up later cause otherwise you just have to climb back up here.”

 Tim nodded, “Makes sense now past this monster camp is Tulin and he’s having a little problem.”

Jason hummed, “Dinner will be done soon so we can keep going until the timer goes off.”

Tim nodded and they both watched as Tim continued to play until he finally reached a peak of stone where Tulin was standing.

“Well,” Jason cocked his head to the side, “He’s safe at least.”

“He is, but his bow isn’t,” Tim smiled at the screen that had a monster flying around with Tulin’s bow in its grip. “Tulin’s power of wind will give me a burst of speed on the paraglider so I can shoot the aerocuda down and he can get his bow back.”

Jason blinked as they saw Tulin holding his bow, “He shoots by drawing his bow with his feet? Interesting, oh and he helps you fight? That’s cool.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t always attack who I’d prefer him to, and sometimes he’ll start a fight before I’m ready but we got rid of those monsters easily enough. Now we the magic voice telling us both to come.”

Jason grinned, “Well that doesn’t seem very general audience that.”

Tim muffled his laughter as he continued to speak, “And now the adults arrive.”

“After we’ve finished fighting? Their a bit slow then.”

“Eh they were in part watching us and our awesome team work.”

“That wasn’t team work, that was two people working to kill the same enemies. Teamwork requires you to at least sort of working together.”

Tim shrugged, “Now there going to tell us to go investigate the cloud, just the two of us because Tulin has his wind burst power. No adult supervision so that’s a great idea, not.”

“Eh you’ll end up succeeding.”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure off screen Teba tears out some of Harth’s feathers for letting Tulin who is still only a teenager, no matter how skilled, go fight the cause of that blizzard.”

“In his defense he did tell us to investigate not to go beat up what ever monster was inside it and Tulin is the only Rito with the wind powers to get close to the storm.”

Jason looked towards the kitchen, “Either way lets save and go eat dinner. We can keep moving forward in the plot after you eat. I just know you skipped lunch.”

Tim quickly saved, shut down the game and set the controller aside while not admitting how Jason was right about lunch, and definitely not mentioning that breakfast had only been a couple cups of coffee.

Chapter Text

Tim did the boring bit, or well what he considered boring to watch in comparison to the temple was coming up and got them to the top of the mountain where a Rito named Huck stood looking at the path into the sky started.

The path was a large assortment of stone building, well bits, kind of like when a building exploded but all of the pieces were made of solid stone. Some pieces were only a piece of stone big enough for Tulin and Link to stand on and others were big enough that a decent sized house could rest on them. Tim supposed that some of the pieces were fragments of a giant stone bridge and not a building but the random columns confused him… unless they were suppose to be support beams for the bridge? But why would bridge in the sky need support beams. Shaking his head he turned to Jason as he sat, “Ready to go?”

Jason nodded, “The Stormwind Arch is next right?”

“First we have to get there, but yes that is next.”

Jason frowned as the screen panned to look at the path up into the sky, “Did someone blow up a bridge? And then fling it into the sky?”

“Not sure but that’s what I thought as well but now we need to get to the first floating piece and we need Tulin’s wind bust to get there. Which is why Tulin is the only Rito that could make it up to the different parts of the, bridge bits.”

Jason nodded and watched as Tim directed Link to the first platform before frowning as they got to the next bit, “Was this suppose to be a spiral path up? I mean it doesn’t really go up they are just circling the bit of bridge that is just going straight up.”

“Maybe when it was originally a bridge it was tilted so it actually went up wards?”

“Not likely with how the stones are set up but maybe.”

They paused as Tulin told them that they had reached where he had seen Princess Zelda but wasn’t sure where she had gone.

Jason snorted, “Those are so evil doppelgangers.”

Tim shrugged but kept going forward until Tulin looked in surprise at a floating boat, and a mysterious voice called for him to come up into the cloud.

“Well that voice was only slightly ominous.”

Tim nodded, “Yeah but first we need to jump on these boats.”

“Jump on the boats?”

“You see how the boats sails are actually flat as in like a floor and not sticking up into the sky like most sails do?”

Jason nodded, “I’d call them awnings but yes.”

Tim blinked, “Huh, that is a very good description, Can’t believe I didn’t think of that I’ve been on plenty of boats with awnings instead of sails it’s just this one looks weird because it’s all ancient and really looks like it should be a sail boat.”

“It’s got oars coming out of the sides it obvious that when it was in use that it was propelled by the oars and not wind.”

Tim sagged in the couch, slipping in a way that he slipped into Jason’s side, touch starvation? Touch starvation who? He sure didn’t have that, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that, these are obviously barges and not sail boats.”

“They do look like sail boats in how they are shaped. Most barges are more square I’m pretty sure if you did put a sail on that things you could sail it since it’s shaped like a sail boat. Except that it would need to sink in the water enough that water would then get through the oar holes and sink the boat. Well, there’s a shrine, although I don’t know how you’re getting up there.”

Tim grinned, “Watch this.”

Directing Link to drop onto the canopy he grinned as it quickly lowered on the two tracks holding the canopy in place before shooting into the sky like a worlds strangest looking spring.

“Well,” Jason hummed, “That’s one way to design a spring. Very in line with the games visuals. You going to head to the shrine now?”

“First going to drop on that sheet of ice to get to the chest underneath it.”

Jason nodded throwing his arm along the back of the couch allowing Tim to slip further into his side. He frowned as Tim did, Tim was freezing should he grab a blanket?

Just as Tim was entering the shrine Steph bounced into Jason’s safe house, “Jason I desire sustenance!”

Rolling his eyes Jason used his free arm to gesture at a near by blanket, “Throw a blanket over Mr. Freezes victim here and then help yourself to the left overs. The meal I just made is still cooling down before I portion it out for loading it into individual servings to distribute to the idiots with the other dishes I made today.”

“Hey!” Steph glared at him as she grabbed the blanket, “I’m not an idiot and you give me food.”

“Right to the various idiots that don’t know how to feed themselves and the others that just can use a few home cooked meals to fall back on when they’re not up to cooking.”

“Better.” Steph was careful not to block the TV as she positioned the blanket on the often-cold Tim, “What’ch we watching?”

“Tim is playing Tears of the Kingdom to show it to me. We are on the way to the first major temple so once you get some food you can join us.”

Tim nodded as he finished the shrine, “I just finished the ‘shit I fell’ shrine so it will be a bit before we get to the actual temple. Right now we are still making our way up.”

Steph nodded, “Alright don’t start the temple without me.”

“It’s going to be a bit so don’t rush. It’s going to take a bit to just get to the next shrine before the final push into the temple.”

“Alright I’ll make sure to get dinner, and eat in the kitchen as Jason insists. Just call me before you do the next uh you called it a shrine?”

“Will do. Go eat.”

Chapter Text

Tim called towards the kitchen where he could hear Steph washing, he dishes, “I’m entering the shrine now because I’m pretty sure it was boring.”

“Boo!” Steph voice called out, “I want to see it.”

“Fine I’ll pause as soon as the transition screen ends so you can see the entirety of the temple.”

Jason blinked, “You can pause during a cut scene?”

“You just back out to the home screen. You can switch back into the game fast but it’s the only way to pause whenever you want.”

“Interesting.”

Steph pranced into the room and flung herself into the arm chair, “Now go entertainment man!”

Snorting Tim selected the button that would allow him back into the game mid cutscene.

Steph frowned, “Wait Rauru’s Blessing? Did you just get a freebie what ever by walking into the shrine?”

“It’s one of the shrines that reward you for doing something difficult to get there.” Tim explained, “Told you it was boring.”

Steph grumbled as the transition scene lit up the screen, “Fine you were right, now go be entertaining!”

“I’ll do my best.” Tim drawled as he directed Link to continue on his way to the temple. This time falling down onto a boat with four canopies sewn together.

“Huh,” Steph watched as they were flung into the sky, “Bouncy sky boat canopy.”

Jason grinned at Tim, “Look she knew what it was right away.”

Noticing Tim’s grumbling Steph blinked, “What did you think they were?”

Jason grinned, “Flat sails.”

“Well the ones here are using a panel to make a sail to keep sailing in circles around this giant wind spiral tornado thing. But are we really just going to bounce up this series of boats of circling boats to get somewhere?”

Tim nodded, “We need to get to the final platform here with the last boat that will get us the last bit of up we need to get inside the storm as the only way into the storm is from the storm.”

Jason snorted as they landed on another boat after the last, “Or the second to last.”

Tim jammed his boney elbow into Jason’s side as he sky dived inside the storm revealing a giant boat which the game declared as the Wind Temple the legendary Stormwind Ark. The boat had four paddles that could be used to push it forward but seemed to be merely floating up and down in space, not nearly enough to keep the boat afloat. The decoration on the front looked like a pair of giant wooden structure. Then there was a large deck with a strange circular design on it and then in the front of the boat was what was probably a giant room and near the back was what, if the first thing was a room was a three-story room with two rectangular buildings on either side of it.

Steph blinked, “Are those sea horses on the front?”

Jason tilted his head to the side, “The head and neck do look like them, and tha structure on the side could be one of their fins. I’d have to see the bottom to be certain.”

Tim shrugged, “I always thought they looked like sea horses, you can see how the bodies are right proportion for it. It’s probably a way to tie the boat part of the temple to the ark description as it is floating in the sky. Now shush we are going into the cut scene for landing on the ark.”

On the screen Link was in fact showing a cut scene were Tulin talked amazed about the legendary Stormwind Ark was actually real. Before noticing the image of Zelda walked into the center of the ships deck disappearing in a giant gust of air started blowing from the circular grated opening.

Activating the activation circle right in front of the grates that tried to open the great in front of them but most of the grates did not move which, dur to the shape of the grates kept the unlocked grate from opening.

Steph hummed, “So operation unlock the center of a ship is a go?”

Tim waved her away as the cut scene continued with a disembodied voice called Tulin and brave fledgling and told him to use his power to unlock the grates so the hatch would be able to open and reveal what was inside. “Now the open the locks quest has started.”

Steph stuck her tongue out at him as Tim quickly headed towards the rear of the ship easily moving a gate lock from one side to the other to open the gated door.

Steph blinked at the screen, “Are you getting attacked by a stone robot? Oooh Tulin is a good shoot.”

Jason nodded as Tim concentrated, “They are Zonai guards and are the major bad guys from the past.”

“The past? You time travel in this?”

“No, well at least you don’t but a lot of stuff from the past showed up when the seal on the games big bad failed. It caused the great upheaval where a bunch of the ground ended up in the sky and some really ancient stuff that was in the sky ended up on the ground. We go to sky islands for stuff but this is the Rito major dungeon.”

Steph nodded, “Sounds good, what’s that?”

While they had talked Tim had defeated the monster, gotten some treasure and went to the other rectangular building and used Ultrahand to fuse a giant iscle to it so he could then use Ultrahand to open that grated door. Link and Tulin now stood in front of what looked like a giant turbine.

Tim got Tulin into position and triggered his power to flow into the turbine, “It’s the first lock, we use Tulin’s power to start the turbine and it will just keep going which means it will unlock that portion of the grate on the deck.”

“Oh cool. What next?”

“I’m going to go through the side of the boat to get inside where I can get to more turbines.”

Jason blinked, “Through the side of the boat?”

“Yep, there are large openings that you can paraglide into.”

“The boat has holes in the sides?”

“They’re meant to be there, they are like viewing windows.”

Steph snorted, “So its good this is in the sky, seeing as this boat could sink really easy.”

Jason snorted as they walked a little further into where they paraglided into, “I think that giant whole would be a bigger issue.”

Steph snorted, “Probably, oooh another new looking monster, can this one do anything special?”

“Yeah,” Tim it can grab things like zonai flame emitters and aim them at you so the key to fighting them is to hit them before they can use their powers to grab a zonai device or in this case a ruby which he could have used to shoot fire balls at me.”

Jason blinked, “Fire balls… from a ruby?”

“Rubies have fire powers. If I attached one to a weapon it would shoot out fireballs when I swing it. Also, if I put it on a shield and wore the shield it would warm me up.”

“Right chalk this one up to video game mechanics. Where’s the next puzzle?”

Chapter Text

“Well we need to complete a rather simple puzzle.”

Steph snorted, “Normal people simple or Tim level simple?’

Jason hummed, “Normal people probably this is designed for kids to play.”

“Okay, well what do you have to do?”

“We need to use pieces of wall and attach it to this bar that looks like it is suppose to have panels attached like this,” Tim fused the first panel onto the bar coming from the ceiling, “And the other three pieces near by so we can spin it.”

“How are you going to spin it? It’s not like wind is blowing in the window.”

“I only need it to spin for a little while so once I have all the panels attached, I can just hit it with Tulin’s ability and get through the grate blocking the path there.”

Steph shrugged as Tim worked to get the panels attached and turned to Jason, “Hey I’m suppose to get this English paper written for class and its giving me all the problems. After Tim finishes this temple can you help me?”

Jason frowned, “You can wait? I can always watch Tim later.”

“Nah it’s mostly done I just need you to read it over and make sure it isn’t like wrong.”

“Alright after the temple I’ll look it over.”

“Awesome, oh look Tim got to the next turbine lock. Where to next?”

 Tim hummed as he ran Link into the middle of the deck, where wind was shooting up, “We are going to take this wind to get to the top of the larger building so that we can open the panels and dive down.”

Steph grinned, “Oh awesome! Lasers! Do they kill you if you hit them?”

“No just lock the door into the turbine room which if you fail you have to do the entire dive again. I mean damage would be worse as it’s just annoying, but there got that turbine.”

Steph hummed, “Maybe we can watch more than this temple. I mean you just have one turbine left at this point, right?”

Jason snorted, “Five locks blondie, there’s two more.”

Steph crossed her arms, “I knew that I was just testing you guys.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he directed Link to go into the other side of the boat, he thinks this side is port but he’s not certain.

“Huh,” Steph frowned at the fastly moving wheel that had ledges coming form it that you could stand on, except for the fact that you could get dropped out of the bottom of the boat, “How the hell are you getting past that?”

“I can’t time travel,” Tim explained, “But I can cause items to reverse their times so when I hit the wheel with recall it will carry me over to where I want to go instead.”

“How many cheaty powers do you have?”

“They are not cheating, they are literally part of the game and the game requires you to use them to succeed but anyways we need to use Ultrahand here with an icle to connect a spinning wheel to one that isn’t moving to cause it to start spinning which will open this grate so we can trigger the,” He shoot Steph a look, “Second, to last turbine.”

“Shut up.”

Wanting to stop any fights before they began, Jason was both comfy and was invested in the story of the game now, “So where’s the next one? You had two on top, two in the middle is the last attached to the bottom or something?”

Tim directed Link to jump out of the holes in the boat, “Yes and no. The last turbine is on the bottom floor that is more not floor than floor but once we activated this turbine, we can go open the grates on the main deck and start the boss battle.”

Steph tilted her head to the side, “Are you letting the monster free by opening the hatch? Isn’t that a bad thing?”

“It’s causing the storm so we need to kill it so it will stop storming.”

“Right well,” She grinned as he got Link into place, “Free the Beast!”

Chapter Text

Tim directed Link to activate the circle in the center and the group watched as the strangely shaped hatched almost seemed to spin open revealing a giant gust of wind that threw Link and Tulin in the air where they both started to float in the air. The updraft was so strong that spread out Link could float with no further aid. The game shifted so that you could see the giant jaws of the monster emerge from the center of the ark.

Steph blinked at the screen, “What the fuck is that?”

“The boss monsters.” Jason drawled giving her a grin even as he looked over the long strange insect like flying creature.

“I know that dumbass what’s its name. Oh, okay the game told us.”

Tim nodded as he waited for the cut scene to end, “Yep it does that, but Colgera is the scourge of the Wind Temple and in my opinion one of the easiest bosses to kill.”

Jason hummed, “Guess you need to do something with those planes of off colored ice panes that are underneath the three the circular potions of its body?”

“Yep.” Tim directed Link to float over the monster and waited for it to start wiggling midair. “Or at least it’s one way, we’re going to start with the other.”

“Oh shit,” Steph leaned forward smiling, “It’s shooting ice spikes from its back at you! That is so cool.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he carefully skydived around the spikes until they were all gone, revealing a giant snowflake pattern inside the area the spikes had shot from.

Jason grinned, “Weak spot, right?”

“Yep.” Tim smirked at the game at the sound of braking glass was heard as he dived through the first of the three circles, “Now I just need to use the glider to get above him again, which is one of the most dangerous parts as you can’t see him to dodge him.”

Steph pointed at the screen where Colgera was disappearing into a large portal, “He’s teleporting!”

“Yeah, he’ll show up beneath me and try and hit me, which can be difficult as it goes straight up so if you dodge you need to avoid his limbs which aren’t the easiest to see as they sort of blend in with his body being so thin.”

“They kinda look like praying mantis arms, you know the ones the big ones that can hit things with?”

Jason hummed but nodded, “They really do, oh nice dive.”

“Thanks,” Tim’s entire body shifted side to side as he avoided the last circles spikes, “Now just to hit the bloody tail circle. There got it! I suck at hitting the tail circle, usually get it from the bottom.”

“From the bottom? You can float up into the weak spots?”

“No, you have to hit the ice protecting the snowflake with an arrow twice and then hit the weak spot. Now come on wiggle and shoot at me already.”

Steph cocked her head to the side, “What happens once you get this last one?”

“Wait and see, he’s already wiggling I just need to hit this spot and you’ll see.”

Grumbling Steph sat back as Tim carefully dodged the spikes of ice as he dived towards the monsters revealed weak spot. Hitting it Colgera screamed and disappeared into another portal.

“So,” Steph watched as he went into the portal, “Is he just going to show up beneath you again?”

Not bothering to answer Tim watched as Colgera came out of a portal going side ways in the air before it screamed and tornados appeared. Tulin calling out they needed to avoid them.

“No duh you have to avoid them they fling you off places.”

“They actually just knock you from the air, which damn it!” Tim growled as he flew into a tornado, “I hate these things Tulin is all dodge them and they are so close together you can’t dodge some of them, but there a break in them, oh shit. I’m an idiot.”

Opening up the slate Tim changed Link into the gliding tunic, “More ability to maneuver would be great.”

Jason hummed, “You going to shoot any of the panes so we can see what that looks like?”

Tim nodded, “Let me dive through this one and then I’ll shoot out the tail one cause I don’t know if I can hit it in a dive again.”

Jason and Steph exchanged looks as Tim growled at the screen but after he managed to dive through the first of the second set of circles he hummed, “Here, you can see how I have to have Link float as he pulls back the bow, which eats my stamina as I’m not behind supported by the wind and I have to hit it like this.”

The pair watched as the arrow caused the ice to make a cracking noise.

Steph blinked, “How many arrows did you say you needed?’

“Two, look you can see the ice shattering now. Then one more arrow and,” Tim grinned as the monster screamed in reaction to the weak point shattering. “Now just the last one and I’m going to dive through that one, just have to dodge more tornadoes.”

Soon enough Tim dived through the last weak point and a cut scene took over. The trio watched as the monster flied in a jerky matter towards the sky waves of pink sided darkness flew away from the monster.

Steph leaned forward grinning, “Come on blow up! It has to blow up!” As the monster arched over itself in the air and beams of white pink tinted beams shoot away from the monster until it was engulfed in a large black ball before it blew up, “YES! EXPLOSION!”

Tim snorted rolling his eye as the cut scene continued, “Now we got some plot stuff going on here.”

Jason blinked, “Why did Tulin touch the glowing floating rock?”

Steph shrugged, “He’s what twelve? Fourteen? He’s still a kid they love poking things they shouldn’t.

“Well,” Tim tilted his head to the side as Tulin and Link reappeared in a dusty landscape that looked a good deal like a sand garden with an adult Rito facing them wearing a mask, “Tulin get’s called brave fledgling by his ancestor so he’s like a teenager, I think.”

Jason snorted, “A rito warriors with control over the wind? No really the bird people have wind powers.”

“Shush,” Steph whapped Jason’s arm, “Come on we have to learn about the history that happened which lead to us being here.”

Jason shrugged, “Probably had a battle with the big bad but they didn’t kill him instead sealing him away with the magic arm.”

“Magic arm?”

“Link’s right arm is Rauru’s arm.”

“Weird but okay. Oh yeah, they did loose and the King sacrificed himself, very kingly of him.”

Tim snorted, “He’s like one of the few good king figures in the game. Zelda’s dad was a bastard, but here’s Zelda in the past asking the Rito warrior to help Link and the guy just decrees that his descendent will help Link.”

“Rude but they are dealing with a big bad coming back. I mean the bad guy set up that monster to prevent Link and Tulin getting the stone so it’s good that Tulin accepted the stone, although really could they have not picked an adult.”

Shrugging Tim watched as Tulin took Link’s hand and performed a ritual that would cause an avatar of Tulin to travel with Link even as Tulin stays with the Rito, “Now we’ll have a ghost Tulin following us and we can use it to use his gust now to watch the impossible happen.”

As the cut scene continued, they got to see all the unnatural snow fade near instantly causing Jason to snort, “I wish snow from bad guys disappeared like that, it would be a huge help in the alley after Dr. Freeze has a tantrum.”

Steph shivered remembering the many times they had to deal with the after math of Freeze’s attacks, “Right now what?”

Tim shrugged, “We appear back in Rito Village and Tulin has learned the power of team work and his dad rewards him with a bow that the last rito champion’s bow so Tulin, a teenager, maybe now has this over a hundred-year-old historical bow. Which not what I would give a teen but whatever.”

Steph gave him a look, “But you’d give Damian a batarang.”

“One Damian was raised with sharp things since he was tiny, two I would never give Damian a weapon when I’m in attack range, three a batarang isn’t over a hundred years old and possibly fragile, and it has historical significance so if he looses it, it will be a big deal.”

Jason hummed but nodded, “Yeah that’s a lot to give a kid, but where to-”

All three stopped what they were doing as they heard the Arkham alarm call out into the night, “Well,” Steph grimaced, “To whoever escaped. It’s not my turn to fight Condiment King if he’s broken out.”

Following her into Tim’s nest the three got suited up and headed out to find out how they would be heroes tonight.

Chapter Text

Jason yawned as he sat down on the couch next to Tim, “Okay I’m not the most awake but I need to stay awake for a little while.”

Tim nodded, “That’s what you said when you asked if I had anything you could watch and I thought we could just do a shrine crawl. I found a bunch of shrines when I’ve been going Korok hunting, I need to get my inventory maxed already I keep running out of weapons, so to start we got,” Tim selected a shrine and Link teleported on to the pad outside the shrine before Tim directed him to enter the shrine. “So, our first shrine is the Sepapa Shrine in Hyrule Field.”

“Backtrack?”

“Yep, going to be using a lot of recall. You can see in this first spot we need to reverse time to get on the platform and let us get up to the next potion of the temple.”

Jason eyed the screen, “Now we need to light these two torches? Can’t you just use flame fruits to light them.”

“Well yes, but your suppose to pick up this torch, get on the plank of wood so you can ride down to those lit torches, light your torch and then light these torches, but as you guessed the easy way I might as well do that, also don’t have to risk loosing a weapon by forgetting to trade the torch for my weapons after I use it.”

“Right,” Jason watched as Tim threw the fruits at the torches lighting them, “What next?”

“Next we one ball and two holes which is a bit problematic as you see if you put the ball in the first hole it opens the second gate over there, but,” Tim picked up the ball and brought it to the next hole, “I need to put it in here to open the first gate.”

“So you leave it here, go through the first gate, hit the ball with Recall so it goes back to the first hole and you can get through the second gate.”

Tim snorted, “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Jason watched as Tim directed Link to do as he said before reaching the end of the shrine and getting the orb of light. “Right, what’s the next one?”

“Going a portion of the map, we don’t have the map for yet is Ekochiu Shrine in the Great Hyrule Forest Region.”

“Doesn’t look very forestry, and why don’t you have the map yet?”

“Getting the towers open is always as puzzle so I wanted to do it with you watching, but first the shrine crawl.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Alright keep to your little plan.”

“I will. Now this shrine is Rise and Fall and the first puzzle is around the corner here, we step on this button and it launches the stone cube forward and then it falls back.”

“So you shoot it up, wait for it to fall, climb on and then recall to get over the gap.”

“Yep.”

“Seesh can everything be solved with recall?”

“In here yes, but through here is a climbable metal grate cube is falling into this water and then getting swept over the edge by the current.”

“So we dash over to the crate, hit it with recall, climb on and get pulled up top to where we want to get?”

“Eh to much work. What we are going to do is grab it with Ultrahand and pull it over, and then do the rest.”

“Right going to the block would be to much work.”

“Yep!” Tim gave Jason a shit eating grin.

Jason rolled his eyes as he watched do what they had discussed, “What’s next?”

“Using recall to shoot ourselves in the air so we can sail to the end.”

“How does recall shoot you in the air.”

“Well, if you drop the block on this spot here it triggers that,” On the screen another portion of floor shot into the air before going back into the floor. “Then we just take the item off and head over to the launching spot.”

“And you recall the box onto the launching pad trigger and get shot in the air.”

“Precisely.” As Tim coasted through the air to the place, he would get the orb of light he hummed, “Next we are going to go to a shrine inside a giant tree trunk, but only the outside rim of the tree trunk is left.”

“Do you mean only the bark is left? Cause that doesn’t seem natural.”

“Give me a second and I can teleport him there and you can see what I mean.”

Jason hummed thoughtful as Tim set them to the Ren-iz Shrine in Central Hyrule.

When they appeared there Tim had Link climb up the inside of the wood that made the outer edge of the three trunks. The shrine was in the middle of where the trunk would have been. When Tim got Link to the top, he had the view pan around so that Jason could see the outer edge of the giant tree trunk.

“Huh, it is hollow. Weird. Now head into the shrine and use recall to do everything.”

“Actually, can’t this time, do you want to tell me what to do? Or have me solve it?”

Jason hummed, “Let me give it a try.”

“Alright the first puzzle starts just inside here,” Tim had Link run up to a large trigger switch before panning the view of the shrine to show that there was a long ramp going down towards shortly Infront of them, and on the other side was a giant area with a spot for one of the balls they saw in many of the shrines to rest. “So what first?”

“Hit the switch to show what happens.”

Tim did as instructed and a ball rolled down the ramp but failed to make it to the place it needed to.

“Huh, look around maybe there’s something useful.” As Tim moved around the area Jason lit up, awesome a long piece of metal. There was a ridge that the ball bounced off, set the metal up so that it is line with the ramp coming down and prop the metal up so that the ball can ride it up and jump the gap to the spot where the ball needs to go to.”

Jason cheered as Tim triggered another ball to come down after doing what Jason had said and the ball jumped the gap and triggered what it needed to on the other side of the gap which opened up the gate to the next area.

Tim grinned, “What about this one?”

“Well it looks pretty similar. There is the giant ramp down, and a place the ball needs to go, with an activation spot but no spot already set up to make a ramp already.”

“But you do have two slates of metal this time, one short and one long. I’m already full on shields so I’m not going to bother with the treasure chest, so what should I do?”

Jason frowned looking at the screen, “Theres no where to put the large piece so that it becomes a ramp… can you glue or ultrahand the two slabs of metal together to make an L shape?”

“I can.”

“Right make that shape and then position it as a ramp towards where the ball needs to go and trigger the ball.”

Ginning Tim positioned the ramp, and hit the trigger. Causing the ball to ride straight pass the ramp.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Please put the ramp in line with the ramp down.”

Tim snorted but did as instructed and this time the ball sailed across the gap and triggered the next grate to open, letting Link get to the part of the shrine that gave him the light of blessing orb.

Jason hummed as the transition screen appeared again, “Alright where to next? I mean it’s been fifteen minutes? I can do a few more shrines before I need to head back to my place.”

“Or you could use my spare bedroom and we can get even more shrines done.”

“You just want me to make you breakfast.”

Tim shrugged, “Guilty.”

“Fine I’ll take your spare room, now entertain me.”

Chapter Text

Tim nodded, “Right next shrine is in a cave and it’s the Jojon Shrine and it’s one of the fucking-”

“Language young man!” Jason couldn’t hold back the shit eating grin at the look Tim gave him for daring to say something about his language when Jason often cursed like sailor.

“FUCKING,” Tim emphasized the word to show how not impressed he was with Jason, “Proving grounds.”

Jason blinked, “What’s so wrong with proving grounds?”

“They take all your gear as outside equipment is forbidden, but this wasn’t to bad. The constructs are pretty far apart form each other so your only facing one at a time, and if your lucky you can get one of the flame traps to hit the constructs. So just annoying.”

Jason nodded as Tim went around the shrine destroying the constructs before they could hit him and moving the occasional trap to shoot at a construct. It was interesting to watch but he found he preferred the puzzle shrines.

As the screen went to the transition screen Tim hummed, “Next one is in the Lanayru Wetlands, you’ll like this one better, the proving grounds are the most entertaining.”

“With you not struggling with it and just killing everything? I want that sort of boring on my patrols not watching you play.”

“Well, you should enjoy this one, we get to play with springs.”

“Springs?”

“There zonai devices that when you get on will shoot you in the air. First, we just ride this automatic launcher and we get to this odd device in the middle of the area with nothing else to look at.”

“You need to get on and then trigger the spring somehow so it will shoot you into the air.”

“Yep, and you trigger it just by hitting it like this.”

Jason blinked as the spring flung Link into the air much farther than he was expecting, “That is a powerful spring.”

“Yep. Now. We need to launch ourselves over there,” Tim aimed the camera to the right and a little up, “To go get a ball.”

“The spring gives you enough lift to get up and coast over?”

“Nope, but what it does do is I put it in this titled indent in the ground and I can use it to shoot me at an angle to get to the ball.”

“Guessing you have to shoot the ball back over here then?”

“Yep.” Tim quickly got the first spring into place and sprung him across the gap to where the ball was. He quickly positioned the spring on that slanted piece of ground.

Jason frowned, “So can you like hold it and fling your self over, or do you have to somehow position the ball to rest on the spring?”

“Position it on the spring, there’s a little bit of an indent here on the tilted stone the spring is laying on to help hold the ball in place so I can rest it there and then fling it over by hitting the spring.”

As Tim started to coast down from the higher side the screen suddenly shoots over to where the ball rested into the spot it was meant to go and a grate to two more springs, attached to each other went up.

Tim grabbed the springs with ultrahand and attached them to the other spring that he had used to launch himself to the ball and positioned it on the spot that the first spring had originally been in and started climbing the sides to get to the top, “I felt so stupid the first time I was here as I tried to use the springs to launch myself up in the little room that was revealed when it turned out I need to put it here and.” Hitting the triple spring with his sword the spring shot them into the air so that they could easily coast to the end of the shrine. “I’m just going to stop at this shelf part of the way down to pick up a stealthy elixir.”

Jason glanced at Tim, “You really remember what was in the chests?”

“Some of them.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know my brain just does.”

“And yet you could barely pass English.”

Tim shot Jason a glare as Link accepted the light of blessing.

Jason snorted, “Alright where to next?”

“Yamiyo Shrine in Central Hyrule. I’m trying to vary up the types of shrines and sometimes ones that are close together can theme together but this one is pretty simple. It’s a combat training, throwing.”

“Your going to make me watch you learn to throw things? When I’ve already seen you throw things?”

“Fine I’ll do this one on my own later. It will give me the chance to arrow farm. The construct inside tried to shoot you and he’ll just keep shooting until you throw a fire fruit at him twice.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to watch that, so where to really?”

“Susuyai Shrine in Hyrule Field which is a spinning device which should be self-explanatory soon enough.”

Jason snorted as they got their first look into the shrine, “Spinning device? Why didn’t they just call it the wheel shrine or the car shrine?”

“Not as cool sounding probably, but if I shoot the middle cart that is going side to side, I can get it to stop and get on to get the treasure chest. Next, I need to go over a giant spinning walkway.”

“So your going to move the treasure chest cart and ride it over the walkway?”

Tim blinked at him, “Oh yeah that would make sense, they want you to use the parts over here to make a chart but I could just,” Using ultrahand Tim picked up and maneuvered the cart so that it was aimed to go over the walkway before getting on. Hitting the treasure chest to activate the zonai wheels the pair watched as the cart slowly, very slowly made it over the spinning walkway.

Jason snorted, “Well that was fascinating.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “That was only the first puzzle.”

“What’s next then?”

“Next we need to get through this gate but there’s no switches.”

“Theres the spinner thing, where you push it around in a circle to get it to do something, go push it. The turnstile.”

Complying Tim walked Link over and started pushing on the turnstile, once he was up to speed the gate opened.

Jason grinned, “There now you can get through.”

“Ah but if I do this,” Tim had Link stop pushing and the gate slammed closed, “So ideas?”

Jason frowned looking at the screen as Tim slowly spun Link so that Jason could look at what was available. Which wasn’t much, “Can you get one of the wheels off the cart and attach it to the turnstile? So that it makes the turnstile continuously move around.”

Tim grinned following Jason’s instructions and soon enough the turnstile was spinning away opening up the grate, “Now this next one I’m just going to do it right because it sucked figuring it out, but you need to attach the wheel to the top of the handing platform so that the wheel touches the track the platform is hanging on so we get sent across. It was hell trying to figure out how to connect the wheel to the platform and have it hit the track so here.”

As Tim had been speaking, he had attached the wheel to the portion of the platform that was on the hanging from the track that Link needed to get across, got on the platform and then rode the platform across to get the end of the shrine and to get the orb.

Jason stifled another yawn, “Right I’m done. I’m going to go collapse in your bed. You don’t need to show me all of the shrines. Just the interesting ones.”

Tim frowned, “I’ll try to do them in between other stuff in the future cause this was a little dense. Well good night, I’ll save and head to bed myself.”

“Good, cause if you stay up all night, I am not feeding you breakfast.” With that Jason headed for Tim’s spare room knowing Tim would shortly be in bed. No one risked missing his breakfast because unlike Alfred he would refuse to feed someone who hadn’t done as he’d said.

Chapter Text

Jason carefully sat on the couch as he didn’t want to disturb his tea as Tim started up the game, “So if we are going to do a shrine call, what’s next?”

“We can go get the first great fairy next.”

“The what?”

“Great fairy. They let us enhance Link’s armor which will be really nice as right now the armor rating is shit, but it’s a bit complicated.”

“How?”

“Well she’s currently hiding inside her bud and we need to get her out.”

“Her what?”

“Bud, she lives in a giant flower… thing, but to the stable to get the GlobeTrotters.”

“Hey, is that Penn your reporting buddy?”

“Yep he’s going to start the quest to release the fairy.”

The two watched as Tim got through the dialogue finding out that the GlobeTrotters, a band that traveled between the various stables but was currently mostly broken up but the current members would be enough to wake the great fairy if they could just get to the fairy’s bud. Penn was investigating because apparently a blond woman jumped in front of the wagon the crew had been traveling in causing the horse to bolt and the wagon to be damaged. Penn believed it could have been Zelda that appeared in front of the wagon.

Jason blinked, “Did he just assume that a random blond woman had to be Zelda? I mean all we got for a description was female and blond.”

Tim shrugged, “He's a little narrow focused, and a little dense.”

“Dense?”

“Eh we do some hero or Hyrule shit and he waves it off,”

“Not the best reporter than.”

“No, not really but definitely had a go for it attitude. Luckily the editor will catch anything too weird.”

“Well, what next?”

“I need to take some of the wheels from the supplies over there and repair their wagon, and then pull out a horse with a towing harness so I can drive them up to the great fairy.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

Tim nodded before starting to work, “It’s a bit weird as once we get the guys into the wagon they freak out if you disrupt the wagon too much but we won’t see that this time as it’s pretty simple.”

Jason nodded as Tim did as he had said, “So how’s your most recent case going.”

“Pretty good I just need to break into the man’s office and get the last bit of evidence I need from his filing cabinet as he actually keeps paper copies of his most important, and illegal, documents and not virtual ones. So I just need to sneak in and grab them.”

“Sounds simple enough, if you end up needing backup, I don’t have anything pulled up for the next three nights.”

“Thanks, but it shouldn’t be necessary. This is really a sneak in and out but if I need a distraction I’ll comm you.”

Jason nodded looking at the screen, “Looks like you're there. They are talking about playing for the fairy.”

“Yep, they are going to go from sitting in their wagon to standing on the ramp to the fairies bud and start playing, which will wake the great fairy.

The pair watched the lute player, the only member of the crew with an instrument as the other person still in the crew was a conductor played until the giant bud opened revealing a large pool of water. The giant petals fanned around the pool from which a large female form appeared. She appeared as a larger than life woman with a giant styled hair arrangement that you could only see from the chest up. She wore a large necklace and bangles on her wrists and all in looked like someone he’d expect to see at a gala, although her outfit would probably have required a little more, well, scales as her clothing seemed to be made of large scales or petals.

Jason blinked, “Well she’s… covered.”

“Yeah the great fairies are always a little on the scantily clad side, don’t google the Majora’s Mask fairy unless you want to question the rating of that game… and worry about her accidentally poking your eye out if she got to close, those boobs were extremely pointy. Which the game graphics of the time weren't as good so you can excuse the pointiness some but the scantily clad, not so much.”

“Now I want to google it.”

“I warned you.”

Jason put it aside to google later as that sounded interesting but for now he watched as Penn appeared and they learned that Zelda had apparently told the great fairies to retreat into there buds, “I still think those Zelda’s are suspect as all fuck.”

Tim shrugged as the GlobeTrotters talked about going to the other fairies to wake them, “I’ll leave that up to you to figure out but we're going to take those rubies that Penn just gave us to enhance some of our armor.”

“You just have to pay her to enhance your armor?”

“Not just money, you also have to provide different sorts of material you can find in the game, like the hylian set for the first upgrade is five bokoblin horns.”

“And you have to enhance each of the three pieces individually?”

“Yep. Now I’m going to enhance everything I can right now.”

“Is this why you’ve been picking up all sorts of random shit as you traveled around?”

“Well, the food is mostly for making meals but a lot of the other items are for enhancing armor.”

Jason frowned as Tim selected the first piece to enhance as the fairy blew them a kiss, “Do they just blow a kiss each time? Seems a weird way to enhance your gear.”

“No as she gets more powerful, which all the fairies get the ability to enhance your armor up to four stars depending on the number of fairies you’ve released from their flowers, the cost goes up and she well she tells you each time to close your eyes each time but she does a finger kiss, you know kissing her finger and then touching you. Then the next level she actually, well you only see her leaning in but she kisses Link.”

“You mean his entire head.”

“Basically but the last time she grabs you, pulls you into her chest and dives under the water with her.”

“Yikes,” Jason grimaced, “Stranger danger anyone?”

“A little but you can press b to skip most of the little enhancing enhancements so that’s nice at least.”

“Well at least you got something, so what’s next?”

“Once I’m done enhancing everything I can I was thinking we could head up towards the Gorons since they’re closest. Unless you want to hit up the Gerudo or Zora instead? Unless you want to see me get the other fairies? I mean it’s a lot of random tasks and getting the Globe Trotters to the correct locations to open the other fairies. I want to get them pretty quick so I can get my armor fully enhanced.”

“Since I have no idea who those are, I think the Gorons will be fine. If you don’t think the fairies will be interesting enough then I’m willing to skip those.”

“Cool will skip them now and grab them when your not here, and the boring shrines. Well the Gorons are born from the volcano and are basically living rocks but they look pretty humanoid except they are bigger, a light brown color and have rock patterns on their back. The Gerudo are a race of warrior women a bit like the Amazonians and are darker skinned humans basically. Zora are uh well fish people. It will make more sense when you see them.”

“Well, finish enhancing and let's go to the rock people.”

Chapter Text

Tim hummed, “Well back towards the stable a little and then we can go up the path for the new road to Goron City.”

“New road?”

“In the previous game, Breath of the Wild, the way to the goron was a path that started at the Foothill stable but during the Upheaval the road got destroyed so this new path was made.”

“They made an entirely new path from the last game while Link was unconscious?”

“Well it’s been several years and part of the path use to be lava which has cooled down and this is a much more direct path to Goron Cities so merchants would prefer something like this but I’m not sure when the lava even cooled so it might have been an effect of the Upheaval. So it’s quite possibly they made it while Link was healing.”

“Shit! The trees are attacking!”

Tim attention shifted to the screen and he cursed before pulling out an ax and going to town on the trees. “Stupid Evermeans use to be you could walk through a forest and only be worried about bears or boars but no even the trees are a dangerous now, but I do get plenty of firewood after killing them so there is that.”

“Oh look the sign idiot. You going to help him out?”

“Yep.”

“Alright I’m going to go get something new to drink.”

Tim didn’t look from the screen as he called to Jason’s retreating back, “Theres tea, coffee, bottled water and pop.”

“No beer?”

“I have wine, but you don’t even like alcohol.”

“No but not feeling more tea and I’m a little worried about the types of pop you stock.”

“I have Steph visiting with her random taste so there is plenty of different types of pops.”

Finishing with the sign Tim headed Link towards the next location stopping only when he was about to enter the new area. Pausing the game, he stood and went to grab another cup off coffee, he had run out again.

When the two got back to where they had been sitting, Tim one more coffee consumed and Jason with a sprite Tim unpaused the game and walked them into the Bedrock Bristo. It was a mostly open area with several stone slab tables and stone chairs. Several Gorons were sitting at the various tables and in the center of the area was a large gazebo stall that was made partially out of a giant boulder. Inside the counters was a single goron.

Jason narrowed his eyes at the screen, “What the fuck is up with those guys eyes? Those look like evil. Is that normal.”

“Nope.”

“Is the eyes because of the glowing rock,” Jason blinked, “Is that a rock on a bone. It looks like a chunk of meat with a bone through it but it’s made of glowing purple-red rock.”

“They are marbled rock roast, normal rock roast is just normal colored stone. This is what happens if we talk to the glowing eyes goron.”

Jason watched before frowning, “So all they want to do is eat this marbled rock roast and not work or according to the little brother doing the stuff he normal would want to do.”

“Yep. Anyone who starts eating the marble rock roasts, which is only teens and young adults, their eyes start glowing and they stop doing anything useful.”

“Guessing that’s what we are here to stop.”

Tim nodded as he headed north of the bistro, “I’m going to hit up the shrine to activate the teleport spot on and then I’m going to glide down to the tower. Actually…do you want to me to skip the shrine and come back later or can I get it done now?”

“Eh since were here we might have hit it up.”

“Fair warning it isn’t the most interesting I mean this first part we can just walk around some lava rocks that are already flowing down the lava river. Then we have to kill this one robot so we can use recall to get to an orb and drop it in the spot right here.”

“Is anything going to be challenging about this shrine?”

“Not really next I need to use a hydrant to make a lava rock and attach a fan to it so I can sail down the river of lava to get the orb.”

Jason yawned as Tim got to the end of the shrine, “Okay yeah that was really boring and,” Jason looked down at his watch, “It’s time for me to leave.”

“Alright I’ll activate the shrine in Goron city without triggering the quest so that we can start it straight off. Well actually we will start here and sail down to the tower and then trigger the main quest. Unless you have time to see me get shot out of the tower? Then I can just use the tower when you next watch and I can show you entering the town which I think something interesting happens but I can’t quite remember.”

Jason shrugged, “I have a little more time so go ahead paraglide down to it, is there something special you need to do to get into it?”

“I actually need to get into it from the top so I need to find a tock that falls to the ground from the sky so I can recall it into the sky and get high enough to dive into the tower.”

“And then we’ll use the tower to shoot us into the sky?”

“Yep, and done. Now I’m going to land on this sky island and head to the shrine but that one isn’t that interesting. The most interesting bit is just using mine carts to get between the islands so you don’t need to stay and watch that. Next time we play I think we’ll hit the Dragon’s Tear near here and then head to the Goron and start that quest up.”

“Sounds good. See you.” With that Jason headed out he had things he needed to see to before patrol that night.

Chapter Text

Tim blinked at where Damian was sitting at Jason’s kitchen island, “Oh you’re here.”

Damian narrowed his eyes at Tim, “I am, what of it?”

Jason looked back from where he was cooking something on the stove, noticing the bag in Tim’s hands, “Oh you wanted to play?”

Tim nodded, flushing, “I should have asked if you were free, it’s just you didn’t have anything down in your plans for today other than being off patrol.”

Jason snorted, “That’s why the brat is here as well. He needed help with his English homework.”

“TT,” Damian scoffed, “I did not need help, I merely wanted a second opinion on my essay.”

“Well, you got it and you're fixing your mistakes now.”

Damian scowled looking down at where he was rewriting his essay.

Jason rolled his eyes looking back to what he was cooking, “I don’t have plans beyond cleaning some weapons so hook up your system and I’ll add another serving to dinner. We’re having Koshari and I don’t think you have any problems with that dish.”

“It’s not a favorite, I’m not the biggest fan of chickpea but I won’t turn down free food.” Tim walked over to the TV and quickly started setting up, “Do you have any bread to go with the sauce?”

“You do like to soak up sauces, well I got some unfilled anpan from when I made the bread with Cass but ran out of anko to fill all the balls. Damian, can you get them out of the bread box?”

Damian grimaced as he stood, he wasn’t a fan of any type of bean paste. Something about the texture bothered him but Jason said they were unfilled so the bread should be fine.

Jason hummed, “I think I have what I need to make mocha brownies for dessert, I’ll make half the batch without the mocha as Damian doesn’t care for mocha.”

Tim grinned, “Sounds delicious but you don’t have to change your desert plans just for me.”

“I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do yet, might still make some of those cookies Steph likes so much later…”

Tim walked into the kitchen and pulled out the main ingredients for the brownies and set up the mixer ready to go.

“Thanks, come stir this, just stir enough to keep things from sticking to the pot, while I work on the brownie mix. Damian finish that paper off and grab dishes for us to eat.”

The kitchen fell into a calm quiet, the music Jason preferred easily heard as everyone focused on their own tasks. Soon enough Jason was sliding the brownies in to cook and waving Tim to get drinks for everyone. Soon the three were eating and quizzing Damain about his school day.

As Jason was sliding the dishes into his dishwasher Damain asked, “Why is Drake here?”

Jason rolled his eyes at Damian’s tone, “He’s showing me a game he’s playing. I can easily clean my weapons while he plays.”

“It is so boring you need other tasks to do?”

“When the character needs to get from location one to location two it can be a little dull and I might work on the guns then but I’ll probably just relax. Watching Tim play is actually pretty entertaining and relaxing.”

Damain narrowed his eyes, “I’ll observe so I can determine if you are just saying that to make Drake feel better about himself.”

“You can just say you're interested. Tim, why don’t you finish loading up the game and give Damian the summary so far as I finish getting the dishwasher set up and check on the brownies that were actually done. Pulling the two batches out he set them to cool. He’d make everyone take a break later to have some but they were a little too warm for eating right now and his brothers had eaten through the extra Koshari he had made that had been meant to be left overs so they probably weren’t up to eating dessert just yet.

Walking into the living room he sat down next to Tim pulling him into his side and motioned towards his other side, “Sit Damian we can’t watch until all of us are seated.”

Damian scoffed, “I can sit elsewhere.”

“Do you want to tell Dick that you didn’t get the amount of cuddle time as he wanted while he was gone?”

Grumbling Damian settled into place, Dick always got so sad looking if Damian couldn’t prove that he had gotten some positive physical contact while he was gone… and then would proceed to try and give Damian all the attention he thought Damian had missed at once. Damian preferred to avoid that option.

Tim settled even more into Jason's side as he pulled up the save file, “Alright so we got to the geoglyphs shaped like the Purah Pad and now we just got to find the small pool of water. So which way do you think we should go?”

Damain hummed slowly relaxing into Jason’s side, “It is always best to start at one side and make one's way in when searching a flat surface such as this.”

Jason nodded, “Let’s start on the left or well the west side.” Pulling Damian further into his side, he didn’t want to listen to Dick whine about Damian not getting enough positive touch, and he agreed the brat did need a good deal of positive attention, and not to punished for accepting it, “We have to look at the tear drop looking parts in the pattern and find the one that has a small circular pool in the bottom part of the tear drop pattern.”

“Like that one there?” Damian pointed at the screen.

“Oh good spot.” Jason grinned down at Damian, “It took me a lot longer to spot my first one.”

Tim grinned, heading to the spot and activating the memory and as the water moved to activate, Tim explained, “Now we get to see a memory or well a scene from the past.”

Chapter Text

The trio watched the screen as the memory started as the screen pulsed and went white before seeing the Purah Pad in the hands of a being.

Damian blinked at the screen, “That is a strange being, is she of a special race?”

Tim nodded, “She’s a Zonia which we’ve only seen two now and both in the past, in memories.”

Jason snorted, “Yeah, their furry and have giant serval ears and this one is kinda on the less clothed side, fan service probably since she’s a woman. It’s not like Rauru dresses anything like that.”

Tim shrugged, “They have to get the it somewhere as Zelda’s two outfits don’t do it, but I think her outfit is more meant to make her look really different from the other races.”

“Eh makes her exotic, huh she says she wants to examine the pad more and then hands it to one of the robots that work for the Zonai?”

Tim shrugged, “She is still talking to Zelda and her brother.”

As the memory continued Mineru assured Zelda she had never doubted Zelda’s claim of being from the future and when her brother asked if there was anyway, she knew for Zelda to return to the future which she answered.

Jason’s eyebrow arched, “So Zelda has light and time powers and her secret stone lets her have more control over her time powers? But since she doesn’t know how to get home already she’s up a creek without a paddle?”

Tim nodded, “Basically.”

Damian narrowed his eyes at the screen, “That is little help, and now she is talking about a secret stone forbidden act? That is highly suspicious.”

Jason nodded, “Whatever Draconification is Zelda is so going to end up doing it.”

Damian tilted his head as Mineru explained that someone swallowing a sacred stone would turn into an immortal dragon but that the person would lose themselves. “So, she could get to the future by turning into a dragon but she would no longer know herself. That would be hardly effective for what she wanted to do.”

“Still, she is so going to do it.”

“Hm,” Damian looked to Jason, “One small favor she doesn’t do it.”

“Deal,” Jason turned to Tim, “Well?”

Tim hummed, “I think I have another memory we can watch after this for that.”

Jason sighed, “Fine.”

As the scene finished it left Zelda with the idea to further investigate her time power for a possible idea.

“So,” Jason looked to Tim, “Next memory?”

Tim hummed, “Actually I think to do this best we need to see two other memories before that one to keep time line of memories better.”

“TT,” Damian crossed his arms as Jason first draped one blanket over Damain and then another over Tim, “I do not need a blanket. My last blood test did not show as low a hemoglobin as Drake.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Doesn’t mean you can’t be cold to, your hemoglobin wasn’t much better. Also, I got this blanket just for you so shush.”

Damian frowned, “Me?”

“Yeah, it’s supposed to feel like petting a cat. It’s a Japanese brand I think.”

Damian ran his fingers over the blanket as Tim teleported and then began to travel to where ever he was going next, “It is satisfactory at that.”

Jason snorted, “Glad it meets your approval brat. Tim, have you gotten there yet?”

“Not yet there is some ground to cover. Not to far as I’ve done the shrine right next to it, there what direction should I go?”

Damian frowned, “Start at the edge and spiral in, start going north.”

Tim nodded, “Alright first let me take a speed potion to make this faster.”

Jason chuckled, “Apparently you went the wrong way.”

Damian scowled and watched as Link ran just inside the outside of the geoglyph, “Just make sure to go investigate any tear shapes as we see them.” Damian narrowed his eyes at the screen, “Why are red specks coming from the ground?”

Jason answered, “Why don’t you watch and find out?”

“Fine. How long?”

“Just until the game his midnight.”

Damian blinked as the screen turned completely red and then showed images of monsters poofing into existence, “Ah, this is how they replace the monsters you kill.”

Tim nodded, “And we are here, ready?”

The other two nodded so Tim activated the memory and the screen was replaced with Zelda sitting in a gazebo with Sonia.

Jason hummed as Zelda knocked a tea cup off the side of the table and Sonia used her power over time to prevent the cup hitting the floor and instead returned to the table, “That would be very useful for all you all are trained vigilantes… well there’s a reason I’ve invested in plastic and buy coffee cups from second hand stores.”

Tim frowned, “We don’t drop things that often.”

“Tell that to the three different food stains on this carpet, now it makes sense that Zelda is trying to figure out how to make it back to the future and that she wants to help the past but she can’t really help the past, there going to fail or her future will disappear.”

Damian frowned, “Fail at what?”

Tim waved, “I’ll show you that memory next.”

Jason snorted, “She so has a crush on Link with talking about her loyal knight like that.”

“A lot of people pair the two together but it’s not my favorite pairing for her as the whole he was her employee and assigned to her by her dad who was a complete bastard, but that’s basically it for this memory let me pull up the next one.”

Jason hummed, “Memory or brownies first?”

Damian perked up pushing his blanket, that he had be absently petting, to the side, “Brownies.”

Nodding Tim put the game on pause and followed Damian into the kitchen leaving Jason to reposition the blankets into grab and drape distances before going to see if they had cut piece of brownie out of the middle again.

Chapter Text

This time when the sat Damian didn’t fuss at Jason tucking the blanket around him and Tim bore it with grace as well as he started up the game.

“Alright,” Tim opened up a menu and switched it to where you could rewatch the memories, “The game started with Zelda and Link going to investigate the castle basement because there was bad shit coming up from below the castle and other places, like I told you. This is what happened when they found the cause, and what started the quest.”

Damian nodded, “Understood, now play it.”

Rolling his eyes Tim clicked on the memory and the screen turned black before showing Zelda and Link approaching the zombie form of Ganon.

Damian frowned, “That is the enemy?”

Tim nodded as the scene continued to play out showing Ganon waking up and attacking them.

“TT, a sword would not break like that, or at least the pieces would not continue flying forward to injure an enemy like that. Also isn’t that a legendary sword? Why did it fragment like that?”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Just watch brat.”

“It is strange that the foe knew the princess and knight’s names when it is obvious that he had long past died.” Damian narrowed his eyes, “He is attempting to catch her with his injured arm? He would simply drop her if he did catch… where did she go?”

Jason sighed, “You just saw her.”

“Ah yes, she is in the past. Now where is the next memory?”

Tim hummed as he went over to map, “That’s a bit more complicated to go see. Luckily I already started towards it so we can teleport to the closest light root.”

Damian narrowed his eyes, “Light root?”

The screen changed until they were in the underground.

“Why is the sky dark? Did we travel to a place where it’s night?”

“Nope, we’re under Hyrule. Literally underneath in the deeps. This light root is closest to the center of the korok forest. We need to get underneath the center of korok forest, where the Great Deku Tree is so that we can get into Korok forest.”

“Then we can see this memory?”

“We got another step before that but you’ll enjoy it.”

“We will see.”

Tim rolled his eyes but as Link appeared under the light root and started heading towards where he needed to go.

Damian hummed, “What is with that bird man following you?”

“Oh that’s one of the sage sprites. We defeated the boss of the Rito village and Tulin became the sage of wind and now this magical copy of him follows around and helps us in fights.”

“Once you defeat other bosses you will get more of these?”

“There’s one for each sage.”

“You should work on gaining those then.”

“Was going to get the Goron one after that first memory but now will do it after showing you two the other two memories I want to show you two.”

The two watched as Tim had Link climb some giant roots and a cliff until it leveled off.

Jason frowned, “What’s that platform there? There that there is a light at each of the four corners?”

“It’s a uh… I’m not sure what they officially called, or if they even have an official name but it’s a giant pillar that you can stand under and get up to the surface with ascend. Let me grab the light root right here and then we will head up.”

Damain blinked, “Ascend?”

“It’s one of the abilities Rauru’s arm gives Link.”

Damian’s head snapped to look around Jason at Tim, “Whose arm?”

Link blinked, “Oh did I not tell you that? You know how in that last memory Link’s arm got damaged.”

“Yes.”

“Well the arm was so damaged that the ghost of Rauru, the ancient furry king, replaced Link’s arm with his own arm that had been before sealing Ganon until the seal failed, give me a second.” On the TV Tim changed Link’s clothing so that he didn’t have a shirt on making it very easy to see the zonai arm that was attached to Link’s shoulder.

“TT,” Damain scoffed, “You can not just remove an arm from one species and replace with another species arm, we can’t even do the same species without powerful magic now.”

Jason snorted reaching up to ruffle Damain’s head, carefully dodging the attempted retaliatory bite, “Video game mechanics Baby Bat, just go with it.”

Damian scowled pulling the blanket Jason had gotten for him over himself so he didn’t have to respond.

Ignoring Damian’s pouting Tim directed Link until he was under the pillars end. Using ascends the group watched as the image appeared when ever Link ascended through a long distance until Link popped up above ground in a strangely colored and looking forest.

As Link came out of the ground Damian frowned, “There is a miasma here? Is the forest haunted.”

Tim pursed his lips, “More poisoned, I think. You can see here that the Deku Tree is sickly looking and frozen in place, as well as the Korok like this guy.”

“That is a strange wooden creature.”

Jason nodded, “They are, often you can find them hiding and they’ll give you a poop seed that you can then use to expand your inventory.”

Damian peered up at Jason from where he was curled into his side, “What seed?”

“Poop, it looks like a little golden poop. Show him Tim.”

Tim sighed put pulled open a screen and swiped over until a variety of items appeared on the screen. Tim moved the controls until the korok seed was highlighted.”

Damain blinked, “That does appear similar to a piece of feces from a small animal.”

Jason grinned down at Tim who was grumbling, “Told you it was a poop seed.”

Ignoring Jason Tim walked Link over to the nearby shrine and entered it.

Damian narrowed his eyes, “What is Musanokir Shrine?”

“It’s a giant puzzle at the end of which you get an orb and once you get four orbs you can trade it for another heart of more stamina. The name that pops up here is a hint for the shrine so this time it’s Swing to Hit.”

“Intriguing.”

Tim nodded as he solved the first puzzle by attaching an orb to a box and walking across the bridge formed by the chain. Unattaching the ball from the box and moved the box to a hanging chain, then pulling the chain back so that the box swung forward and hit a giant target.

“I am mistaken so far this seems rather simple.”

“The last one is a little more complex. Want to give it a shot? Just tell me what you want Link to do.”

“Hm, what is available? Look around the room.”

Tim turned Link slowly so he looked around the entire room.

“So another box and a log. Attach the box to the ball hanging from the chain attached to that block on that rail. Now pull it as far back as you can in the air and let it go so we can see what happens. Then I can determine the best use of the log.”

Watching as the block was shot forward, hitting the wall under the target Damian nodded, “Attach the log onto the block and repeat what you just did.”

Tim nodded, although he did have an issue as the box kept swinging and moving the block but quickly enough, he got the log on and pulled back the box and hit the target, “Good job. Now we can just go to the statues in the little room here and get the orb. That will drop us outside on the little raised ground in front of the shrine.”

Damian and Jason watched as Tim got the orb and the loading screen appeared.

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Tim directed Link to enter the giant tree, through the opening at the roots that was the size of a normal door, “Now we are going in here and you’ll get to see the bit I’m pretty sure you’ll both like.”

Jason perked up, “Fight time?”

“Yep, but I got to get there.”

“Hopefully the fight is more impressive than that shrine.”

“Trust me they will be. It’s basically a mini boss situation and is not fun, let me double check I have the best armor on first, alright got the best stuff on as soon as I hit the ground, I’ll take one of my up-defense potions as during the first part is definitely more defense then additional damage.”

Damain hummed, “Multiple enemies?”

“Yep and they are highly mobile. Now to get all the way down there.”

Jason blinked, “Down?”

“Yep,” Tim quickly saved before approaching the hole in the deepest part of the inside of the tree and proceeded to jump in and started to sky dive down.

“This is very far down.”

Tim nodded and the three watched as finally little lights showed up and Link landed on the ground and on the ground the red gloom started to move, and then something, several somethings emerged.

Jason reared back, “Are those bat shit hands?”

“TT, obviously Todd.”

“Your fighting a bunch of arms with hands containing yellow eyes in the palm. That is not what I’d consider as a scarry monsters.”

Damian narrowed his eyes, “Is that hand holding you in the air?”

Tim grimaced jiggling the lift stick trying to break free from the hand, “Yes, and if you don’t kill the damn things fast enough, they come back.”

“The bird does not seem much help.”

“Something is better than nothing but damn it let go!”

Jason and Damian watched as Tim fought the gloom spawn lightly swearing and jerking his controller around until the last hand finally sunk back into the ground.

Damian hummed, “Well that was an interesting fight but-”

Tim opened up the menu screen going to the food quickly, “That’s phase one, I need to eat some gloom clearing food before the second part starts, or well you can stop at any point to eat even mid stab but it’s a nice time to pause here and I’m going to eat something that gives me a plus to attack for this part.”

When Tim exited out of the menu screen and another this time humanoid form appeared from the ground.

“Huh,” Jason looked at the monster that the game declared was Phantom Ganon, “So this is the big bad but baby bad.”

“More teenager bad as he is a bastard to fight as every time, he hits you he doesn’t just do damage he puts gloom under you so you lose hearts to gloom which you can only heal if you use a special meal to heal the gloom damage and then eat normal dishes to heal the then empty hearts. Fighting any gloom enemy or monster in the depths sucks like that but Phantom Ganon isn’t too hard to kill. There.” Tim grinned as his disappears as well as the gloom around them, “Normally the gloom doesn’t leave but this is a special case.”

Tim feel silent as the cut scene continued. As the three watched three korok came down into the bottom of the Great Deku Tree congratulating Link for defeating the Gloom spawn and Phantom Ganon. When the cut scene ended Tim ran over and pick up the loot and phantom bow before teleporting to the shrine they had just cleared.

“Right,” Tim rolled his shoulders, “Now we get to see the memory.”

Damain scowled, “Finally, will the next one take this long as well?”

“No, they are both just going to the patterns and finding the tear drop. Now the Great Deku Tree.”

The Great Deku Tree started talking, mentioning the last time they spoke. Instead of continuing to speak the screen went white before Link and Zelda appeared inside a memory. As everyone watched Link regained his sword, apparently it was now fully healed.”

Damain scoffed, “Then why did it break when fighting Ganon?”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Shut your trap and listen.”

As the memory continued the Great Deku tree mentioned the Master Sword was amazing because it could heal as long as it was surrounded by sacred power, and then continued tell the pair that the sword could get even stronger as long as it was bathed in sacred power, and that the stronger power the stronger the sword will get and that power was possibly limitless.

Jason hummed, “So the sword needs to get soaked in sacred power for a long time to heal and get stronger.”

Damian nodded, “You should send the sword to the past and have Zelda place it somewhere sacred.”

Tim smiled, “Let’s get to the next memory, we can take a sheikah tower to it at least but once were in the air you’ll have to tell me where to land as it’s a long pattern.”

The pair of observers waited until they could see the pattern, Jason blinked, “Huh, it’s a sword.”

Damain hummed, “That would make sense as each geoglyph we’ve seen has in some way involved the memory and with the last memory talking about the sword this memory will most likely show something about the sword as well.”

“Alright smartie pants, were should we start in the sword? The middle?”

Damian glared at him, “Obviously we should start at one end or the other I think we should start at the hil- wait, the tear spot in the very tip is colored oddly. Let us go there.”

Tim nodded and directed Link to land near the tip, having to use Tulin’s avatar to push him further in the air to get to the end without having to land. Sticking out his tongue Tim carefully directed Link until he managed to land exactly on the tear drop.

Jason snorted, “Show off. Now show us the memory.”

Tim grinned at the comment before started the memory.

Chapter Text

As the memory began Jason finally got his arm around Damian and in what was carefully practiced motion to appear absent minded. The only way Damian would accept such comforts without a fight.

On the screen Zelda appeared standing in the Temple of Time where Link had gotten his Recall power. Her clothing was stained and she was talking about how they had failed to win the fight.

Jason rolled his eyes, “Of course you lost, otherwise this future would have been destroyed, and hey! She’s doubting we can win! Boo!”

Tim shook his head snorting, “She’s just going off what she has seen so far, and she just watched a bunch of people fail to defeat the Demon King. Give her some slack.”

Damain scoffed, “We are her appointed knight she should not doubt us… you.”

Jason took his arm out from around Tim, where he had managed to pull Tim into his side as far as he could without making it harder for Tim to play, to ruffle Damian’s hair before putting his arm back, “This is a team effort keep with the we.”

“It is a one player game and Tim is the one playing. We are not a team.”

“Sure, we are, you did find that last tear and other tears.”

“If we are a team, you are the useless member as you wanted to start in the middle of the sword glyph.”

“One you know I was joking and two I fed this team I’ve already proved myself as a useful part of this team. Oh, her secret stone is glowing!”

Damian sighed, “Yes obviously.”

“Huh she’s where we lost the sword.”

Damian turned to look up at Jason, “You lost the sword?”

“We gave it to a glowy spot and it started to flash around the sword after Link held it in the light and it disappeared.”

“Why would he hold such an important blade into a random patch of light?”

Jason shrugged, “No idea but it seems Zelda has it now so that’s good, you did want to send it to her.”

“Yes now she just needs to put it in a place that is safe and full of sacred power and we can retrieve it to use it to fight this Demon King ourselves.”

“Hm, seems she’s having some flash backs to memories we saw now that she has the sword. So king dude says there’s a reason Zelda was sent back in time, to do something only she can do.” Jason grinned, “And she just flashbacked to the line about turning into an eternal dragon. She is so turning into a dragon.”

Damian scowled crossing his arms, “I will not accept your bet being correct until there is a scene where we see Zelda consume the stone. I see no reason to assume she will eat the stone at this time. Unless there is another memory you with to show us Drake?”

Tim shook his head, “Not right now. Actually, thinking I’ll go back to what I was originally planning to do, which is show Jason Goron city and start that quest line.”

“Hm, I think I will take my leave now. I need to get back to show Pennyworth that I have completed the English assignment and thus can go on patrol tonight.”

Jason snorted, “Sounds good. When we get the memory that shows I’m right you’ll have to come watch.”

“And when you get to the end of the game and she has not eaten the stone you will admit defeat.”

Jason nodded, “If somehow she found a way to the current time without eating the secret stone I’ll admit I owe you that favor.”

“I look forward to you admitting defeat.”

“Yeah, yeah get out of here.”

“Then let go of me you oaf!”

Jason tightened his arm first squeezing Damian tighter before letting up, “Alright we’ll see you later then. Be good for Alfred, and grab a brownie on the way out. I can’t rely on one of the girls showing up to eat everything made of chocolate for another week.”

Damian blinked, “Why in a week?”

Tim rolled his eyes, “You know how there’s about a week marked off as leave the girls be?”

“Yes. It seems odd that it is somehow known what week Brown will be more likely to be, abrupt, in her manor, and Cain less likely to speak.”

Jason rubbed his forehead, “Just ask Dick.”

Damain frowned, “It is something sensitive then?”

Tim groaned, “Oh go google PMS, you’ll find out lots easy that way.”

Damian pulled his phone out of his pocket and entered the initials into the search menu, “Premenstrual syndrome?”

Jason groaned, his head falling back on the couch, “I wanted to have him ask Dick and make him flail at trying to find a way to answer that.”

Tim shrugged, “Sorry.” He definitely didn’t sound it.

Damian frowned, “What is a menstrual period?”

“Nope!” Jason leapt from the couch grabbing Damain’s phone. Pulling paired angry sounds from his two brothers. “You are not discovering that knowledge from Google searches.”

Tim glared up at Jason from where he had fallen onto the couch when his support suddenly left, “Plenty of people figure it out that way!”

“Yes, but I want to avoid him asking any of the girls questions that might get him stabbed.”

Damain frowned, “Neither Brown or Cain carry blades.”

“Yeah they’ll find them if you ask the wrong question, or say the wrong thing, especially during the danger time. Come on let’s talk in the kitchen. Tim I’ll be back in a bit I plan to give Damian the basics and then giving Dick the heads up that the Demon Brat might have more questions.”

Tim sighed, “Fine I’ll do a little korok hunting while you give Damian one of the talks. When your done bring me a brownie?”

“Fine, now Damian come with me and I’ll try to tell you what you need to know, or at least enough that you can figure out questions not likely to get you killed if you ask someone and one of the girls overhears.”

Damian narrowed his eyes at Jason but followed where Jason led.

Chapter Text

Tim looked up as Jason set a brownie down beside him before slumping onto the couch, “How’d it go?”

Jason rubbed his face, “I got him to agree to go ask Dick for details but not horribly. I got through the basics enough for Damian to admit he had more questions which thank fuck I was able to push off onto Dick. That is so not a big brother conversation.”

Tim teleported Link to Goron city, “So why did you send him to Dick then?”

“One can you imagine B trying to give that talk?”

“He tried with me and it didn’t go well. Luckily Alfred came in during Bruce trying and took over.”

“Shit I should have sent Damian to Alfred but I’m sure Dick will manage.”

“Still why call it not a brother conversation but send Damian to Dick?”

Jason swung his arm onto the backrest of the couch behind Tim, “You very well know that those two aren’t really a little brother, big brother relationship.”

Tim frowned nodding, “They are really close.”

Jason sighed, Dick had really screwed up with Tim when he had made Damian Robin, “Dick had to take over as Damian’s father while you were looking for B, that relationship doesn’t just go away no matter how the two might act like it.”

Tim scowled as Link reappeared, “If Dick had listened to me, he would have known he didn’t have to do that, that B was coming back.”

Jason pulled Tim into his side giving up on being subtle to try and offer some comfort on a painful time that was still haunting the Tim and Dick’s relationship. “No Damian needed Dick to step up into that role, and to become Damian’s Batman or he would have gone back to the League.”

“So, it’s okay that he kicked me out as Robin because Damian needed it?”

“No, you two could have easily both been Robin, but I know Dick has never told you this but Dick couldn’t have you be his Robin.”

Tim snarled, “What I wasn’t good enough?”

“No baby bird you were to good.”

Tim almost dropped the controller as he tried to move to look at Jason, “What?”

Jason sighed, “We might always say that Robin is Batman’s partner but in a lot of ways Batman’s is Robin’s training wheels into hero hood, and Batman has always been Robin’s dad. You were someone that was already trained, Dick couldn’t see you as an assistant, with B gone he couldn’t afford to.”

“Why not?”

“He needed allies he could trust to handle themselves. If he had been smart about it he would have actually used his words to explain that he thought you were ready to be an independent vigilante, he was actually planning on offering you Nightwing but you ran into Damian before he could talk to him and well the rest is history.”

“Nightwing? He really wanted to give me Nightwing?”

“Yep, I’ve heard him talking about how he screwed up with your dozens of times and he’s never taken my advice to actually tell you all of this and he hasn’t so here’s me going around him to try and help you understand that no matter how badly Dickhead screwed up he hadn’t meant for things to happen in the way it did. You can still be pissed about it, you have every reason to be as Dick seriously screwed up with you, but now you have an idea of what he was planning. Although I’d give him a little slack, he was trying to manage the demon brat and that is not easy.”

Tim snorted, “True.”

“Now enough serious talk, go talk to rock people!”

Turning back to the tv Tim pulled a blanket over his and Jason’s legs, “Right so this is Goron City. It’s the only city on the mountain.”

“The only city? Where does everyone live there aren’t many buildings here.”

“It’s a video game Jason very few places actually have houses, let enough houses to house everyone,” Tim pursed his lips, “Hateno comes the closest. They might have enough homes, and well the Gerudo town is full of little apartments so they might have enough. I mean probably not but they might be closer than Hateno for bed to city occupant ratios.”

“Well, that is fascinating,” Jason’s tone made it clear that it was not in fact fascinating, “Theres some more evil eyed Gorons.”

Tim nodded, “Theres going to be some everywhere but let’s trigger the beginning of the Goron quest.” Directing Link to the central area he found four Gorons. There were two young Gorons, one what Jason guessed was an adult and one old Goron. The adult was laying on the ground with glowing red eyes as the other Gorons looked on. The elder Goron lamented that the adult had eaten some marbled rock roast and the children blamed marbled rock roast for being why everyone was acting funny.

Jason narrowed his eyes at the screen, “Is the marbled rock roast like drugs?”

Tim blinked before tilting his head to the side, “Well they are mind altering so you could definitely argue that but here comes Yunobo.”

“Wow,” Jason stared at the form that showed up on the screen, “He’s dressed like a low-level mob lieutenant whose trying to show off. I mean he’s going rings and leopard print on, and that mask just looks weird, like it’s wrestler’s mask with eye holes that are way bigger than his eyes. Please tell me he loses the mask.”

“He does but right now he’s getting the kids to follow him and blowing off Bludo.”

“Bludo?”

“The elder Goron and now he’s basically insulting us which pisses Bludo off since, you know Link helped out big time in Breath of the Wild. Now he’s telling Bludo and Link that since he’s the president of YunoboCo.”

“YunoboCo?”

“It’s the new mining company that he is the president off. They are the ones currently mining the marbled rock roast.”

“So the bad guys.”

Tim let go of the controller with one hand to tilt his hand up and down, “Kinda right now but it’s not evil.”

“It’s just being run by an evil goron.”

Tim hummed grabbing back onto the controller as Yunobo told Link that Goron City couldn’t help him find Zelda and the young Goron’s revealed that Yunobo had been having meetings with a blonde Hylian.

One of Jason’s eyebrows raised, “He’s meeting with the fake Zelda isn’t he, and he doesn’t want us to know.”

“Yep, and now Yunobo and the kids are going off to the head quarters of YunoboCo and leaving us in Goron City.”

“So, we are headed to the headquarters ourselves, right?”

“Yeah, but can I have another brownie first?”

Jason snorted, “Sure but why don’t get us both one.”

Nodding Tim hit pause and headed into the kitchen, grabbing a plate for the brownies, one of the good ones for him and a boring one for Jason, he wiped at the corners of his eyes getting the grit from the few tears that had tried to escape his eyes earlier. It was a relief to here that Dick hadn’t just meant to replace him as Robin but offer him something, well he wasn’t sure if it would have been better for him, but offer him Nightwing as position that Dick saw as Batman’s equal that, that was nice.

“Tim?” Jason’s voice came from the other room concern in his voice, “Are the brownies fighting back?”

Snorting Tim shook his head, “Nah just trying to get the perfect pieces.”

“If your looking for the biggest just grab two.”

Dishing up two brownies for each of them Tim headed back into the living room. 

Chapter Text

Jason looked up as Tim came back into the room carrying plates not napkins, very good. “Alright gimmie.”

Rolling his eyes Tim handed Jason his plate before setting down and taking a bite before unpausing the game, “Alright I’ve hit up some koroks around here so I’m going to basically just go straight to the YunoboCo.”

“Sounds good.”

The pair munched on their brownies as Tim directed Link to a mine cart track and rode it YunoboCo’s buildings.

Getting out of the mine cart Tim directed Link into one of the buildings, “This is the wrong building but I just realized I forgot to buy the Flamebreaker armor so I’m going to pick up the piece they sell here.”

Jason nodded around his most recent bite of brownie; unlike Tim he was still eating his brownie.

After purchasing the armor Tim directed Link away from the building that housed the small store and out to a nearby cave where the two child Gorons where standing guard in a cave entrance.

Jason perked up finishing his last bite, “Now that’s not suspicious at all.”

Ignoring Jason’s obvious statement, he had Link interact with the two child Goron who were told to keep people out of the cave.

Jason snorted, “The mask is evil then, if he went from a good guy as they say he was before the mask and he’s defiantly a douche now the mask that he got from the fake Zelda must be evil.”

“Well, they’re going to let us interrupt Yunobo’s meeting with the blonde lady as they describe Zelda so you can see for yourself.”

“Alright go in then.”

Tim directed Link down into the cave after promising the two children that he would get Yunobo to stop mining the marble rock roast. When they went into the cave, they hit a cut scene that showed what appeared to be Zelda and Yunobo. Seemingly at her direction Yunobo curled up and rolled, at a speed that left tracks of fire on the stone ground, into the wall which was a glowing deep red patterned rock. When Yunobo hit the wall, it fractured and pieces of marbled rock roast dropped to the ground.

The children called out to Yunobo stop with the rock roast and go back to what he was like before the mask. Yunobo seemed to come out of a daze looking at the young Gorons before Zelda moved her hands and the pattern right around Yunobo’s eyes on the mask turned a pulsing red.

Jason whistled, “That cannot be good.”

“Nope.”

As they watched as Yunobo seemed to be in pain before his eyes turned a bright red and he turned a glare on Link and the two goron declaring that marbled rock roast was good and made people happy.

Jason scoffed, “Drugged off there asses is not happy. I doubt they aware to even be happy. They seem to either be eating or trying to find more marbled rock roast. Those Gorons, and their families, are not happy.”

Tim nodded as the cut scene ended and they found them facing off against ‘Currently Not Himself Yunobo’ “Shush I have to fight Yunobo and this is an annoying fight.”

Jason tilted his head to the side as Yunobo braced himself, “Why?”

“Because SHIT! Bastard hit me!”

Jason blinked at the screen were Yunobo was standing again and focusing on Link, “Did he just like super speed roll into you?”

“Yeah, you have to dodge out of the way but be close enough, shit!” Link went flying through the air, “Didn’t move fast enough.”

“So, you have to just dodge him then?”

“Not just dodge, I need to make sure to be in a spot that he’ll YES!”

Jason watched as Tim quickly attacked the dazed Yunobo, “Did he run into the wall and stun himself?”

“Yep, and each time I can hit him once and his mask will fracture.”

“How many hits does it take?”

“Thr-DAMN IT MOVE!”

Jason side-eyed Tim, “You okay?”

“I hate this fight as you have to dash around dodging and not get hit, then you have to run up to him while he’s still dazed and hit him.”

“Well, you got him twice now, just need another hit.”

Tim nodded glaring at the screen.

Jason carefully didn’t say anything else as Tim continued to mutter and curse as the battle stretched on. He smiled as Tim landed the last hit and Yunobo’s mask fell off, “Good job.”

Tim grinned, “Thanks, now a new cut scene.”

The new cut scene showed Yunobo being confused and missing a good bit of his recent memories, ever since he put on the mask Zelda had given and he needed to ask her what had happened. The screen changed so that they could see the Zelda was now standing outside the cave entrance. When Yunobo called out to her the ceiling began to shake and dirt started floating to the ground. In response Yunobo curled over the two young goron blocking them from the boulders fell from the ceiling. When the cave settled into place the door was blocked by large boulders.

“Huh,” Jason tilted his head to the side, “You didn’t get flattened but your now stuck behind a bunch of marbled rock roast boulders. At least Yunobo is concerned about making sure you’re okay.”

Tim nodded, “Yeah, he’s back to being a nice guy, like really nice and here’s the first precursor to the voice that they will hear from the ancient sage. Now we are learning how to direct Yunobo to break large boulders.”

Once they got out of the cave Yunobo looked around but couldn’t see Zelda, but he freaked out looking at the top of Death Mountain where malice seemed to be wafting up out of the volcano before turning to Link and asking for him to go up Death Mountain to investigate what was happening up in the caldera.

Jason blinked, “So now we are going up the mountain?”

“That is what we need to do next but,” Tim frowned looking down at his watch, “I need to head out so I’ll be ready for patrol.”

Jason hummed, “Sounds good, if you need back up call me, I’m staying home tonight and working on some more case work and cleaning my weapons so I’ll be available if you need back up.”

Tim nodded as he started packing the game system away and with a final goodbye disappeared out of a window… with the rest of the coffee brownies. Causing Jason to laugh when he noticed that Tim had some how slipped out with them.

Chapter Text

Jason swung into his apartment panic in his voice, “What’s wrong?”

Steph blinked up at him from where she was sprawled over his couch, wearing some pajama pants and one of his hoodies, and notably not injured, “Nothing. Why?”

“You messaged me that I had to come right away.” Jason looked over the room finding Cass and Tim similarly sprawled and wearing his clothes which all of the younger bats swore were super comfy. It looked like he was going to have to do laundry soon or he wouldn’t have anything to wear himself, “Like you’d message if someone was injured but you weren’t trying to freak out Oracle or B.”

“Oh, sorry.” Steph actually looked it, “We, me and Cass, wanted to see Tim play the game but he said he’d only play if you where there or you’d miss parts of the story and we all know you’d hate that.”

Jason sighed but nodded, he would have been upset to mess any of the story line since he’d gotten rather into the game, “Alright, let me go change and then I’ll be ready to watch. As long as there’s clothes for me to change into.”

Cass smiled, “Two outfits.”

“I only have two sets of clothes?”

“Shirts, many pants.”

Jason rubbed his face as he walked past the monsters that had stolen almost all of his clothes, “Alright I’m going to change and set up a load of laundry to start in a few hours during patrol so the noise won’t compete with the game. Does everyone have something at least remotely healthy to drink?”

A trio of yeses came from the living room as he switched into some comfy clothes instead of his work clothes. As he changed, he sent a message to his lieutenants that the situation was handled and he would be at the normal time so they cut off meeting could continue then. Dropping all of his used t-shirts and hoodies in his washing machine he set it to go in four hours and grabbed a drink from himself before going back into the living room.

Takinga moment to survey the room he plopped down onto the only open part of couch that would fit him. Cass was quickly to wiggle into his side pulling behind her a blanket and wrapping herself into a burrito basically in his side. Jason smiled at the trust, the sign that she trusted him to defend her in the time it would take to escape the blankets if someone did make it into the apartment.

Leaning back, he looked to the screen, “Right so we just unmind-controlled Yubo.”

“Yunobo,” Tim corrected, “But yes. Next we need to go up the mountain and I brought us up to where we can start going up the volcano to the caldera.”

Steph blinked, “Wait your going to the pool of lava?”

“The lava is gone instead gloom, the stuff I told you about, is leaking out of it and marbled rock roast is also coming out.”

Cass nodded, “Evil mind controlling rocks.”

Jason hummed agreeing as on the screen Tim attached a fan to the back of a mine cart and placed it onto the track, “They have a mine cart track up to the top of the volcano.”

Tim nodded.

“Why? Are there more caves up there for mining?”

Steph frowned, “Minning a volcano seems like a bad idea, especially higher up.”

“There aren’t any caves up here,” Tim had Link climb into the cart and hit the fan with a stick he had equipped as his melee weapon and it started blowing out air propelling the cart forward.”

“Then why build the track?”

Tim shrugged as Yunobo appeared in front of the cart rolling at a high speed. “No idea but Yunobo appears in the front of any vehicle like this that lets you do this.” Tim pressed a button and Yunobo shot out and hit a large rock that was blocking the track.

“BOOM!” Steph giggled as the rock blew up, “Alright hit something else!”

Tim snorted as the cart continued on and using a joy stick he aimed the direction Yunobo to aim to the side and then shot him out at a Moblin hitting him off his platform.

“Ah yeah. Right what next?”

“We are going to continue up the track and hit a couple monsters until we get to here.”

The cart stopped on a platform that was blocked a monster made barricade, getting out of the cart and killed the monsters on the platform before moving the barricade out of the way before continuing on the track.

Cass grinned looking at Tim, “There yet?”

Tim rolled his eyes, “No we need to make it to the next platform where we will hit another cut scene.”

The three watchers watched on as Link quickly reached another platform, this one holding the end of the line. Tim hit the fan again to turn it off before starting up a ramp to where Yunobo was waiting. As the cut scene started Tim took a drink from his cup.

The cut scene started with Yunobo telling Link that this was where he met and talked with Zelda before she gave him the mask and Yunobo couldn’t remember anything past that. Then the volcano shook and the screen shifted so where you could see Zelda was walking further into the caldera of the volcano. As Yunobo called out that they needed to talk with her she disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

“Shit.” Jason watched the screen uneasy, “The volcano is going to blow with you basically on it.”

Cass pursed lips, “Bet no, little favor.”

Tim paused the game so bets could be accepted or laid.

Jason hummed before nodding, “I’ll take it, Steph?”

Steph pursed her lips, “I say it’s something really weird.”

Cass nodded, “Jason eruption, Steph weird, me just smoke. Tim continues so we see.”

Tim unpaused, “Alright watch close then and we’ll see who bet right.”

Chapter Text

As the smoke settled, disappointing Jason as it was obviously calming down and thus not erupting as he had bet, it slowly cleared and revealed several large protrusions upwards. The protrusions were made of strange black rock with orange spots; it was unlike anything any of them had seen.

“YES!” Steph cheered, “Weird! So, I win.”

Jason pouted, “It sort of an eruption, I mean stuff came out it just hardened right away.”

Cass shook her head, “Weird, Steph win.”

“Fine one small favor.”

Steph grinned, “Don’t worry, it won’t be that embarrassing, I’m sure.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Right, what’s happening next?”

Tim, who had paused for the conversation started the game up again smiled, “It’s just going to get weirder.”

As the cut scene continued from the three protrusions three eel like monsters erupted.

“What the fuck are those?” Steph stared at the screen.

Jason rolled his eyes as the words appeared, “Apparently it’s Moragia, that’s rising from the Death Mountain Crater.”

“Huh, do you think there’s another one if this one is talking about rising from a specific location?”

“Maybe.”

Cass’s voice distracted everyone by asking, “Red rock body?”

Tim nodded, “They are made of marble rock.”

Jason frowned, “The stuff Yunobo can break up by running into it?”

“Yep.”

Steph looked at the screen, “I don’t think there’s anyway for him to roll into it, and it’s not like there’s track up here to shoot him from by riding a mine cart.”

“Fly?” Cass asked.

Tim grinned as the cut scene ended and a large wing with four fans on the back, “We get to ride this bad boy.”

Jason blinked, “There is no way you have enough energy in your power cell to keep that long enough to even get up high enough for one hit.”

“That’s why there’s the two large batteries also attached they’ll keep the wing up long enough for us to get into place to shoot Yunobo at the monster. Just need to get high enough first.”

The group watched as Tim made a big loop around the caldera so that the wing, and thus Yunobo was high enough that he could be shot off the front of the fan and strike the first eel.

“Ah yeah!” Steph cheered as the eel burst into pieces, “Right just two more!”

Grinning as the others cheered him on he swung the wing around and lined up with the next eel monster barely dodging a line of fire the eel shot out he set Yunobo flying and broke it apart. The cheers broke out loud at the destruction as he turned to hit the last eel. The cheers really broke out as the last eel broke apart.

As the last eel died a cut scene took back over as all of the strange rock that had protruded from the volcano collapsed back in on itself and looked to fall into the caldera which appeared to be made of solid stone. They next saw Link and Yunobo standing on one of the highest peaks that surrounded the caldera as Yunobo worried about Zelda possibly falling into the hole in the caldera before curling up and jumping down into the hole himself.

Jason snorted, “I think if Zelda fell down that caldera, she’d be a bit of a smear on the ground in the underground.”

“Underground?” Cass peaked up at Jason.

“Under the entire country is a giant underground area. It’s not a bunch of caves but basically an entire additional surface like you got the surface and then another surface below it, held up by giant random columns of stone. Which wouldn’t work in the real world their would be so many sink holes but looked really interesting when we where down there to get the camera rune.”

Steph blinked, “Camera rune?”

Tim nodded opening up the rune choosing screen, “We got a bunch of runes that let us do different things, you saw just a big ago when I used Ultrahand to move the fan so that I could get on and fly off the side of the mountain. Then like this weapon,” Tim switched to the weapon screen and selected one of the weapons, “This is a magic rod fused by the Fuse ability to make a topaz rod with shoots out balls of electricity. Then there is an ability that lets you well Ascend through material above you and you have something called Recall that causes items to reverse in the path they went and come back wait let me show you.”

Switching screens, he took a fan out of his inventory, the fans were inside a cage that made it a flattened orb were two sides were flat and the rest of the cage stretched around the fan to make a ellipsoid shape.

Steph blinked at the fan now laying on the ground in front of Link, “Your going to show us this Recall using a fan?”

“Yep.” Using Ultrahand Tim dropped the fan onto a slanted piece of ground and the fan started to roll away, once it had gotten a decent distance away Tim activated Recall and selected the fan. The fan, now yellow returned along the path it had taken until in ended up where it had sat in front of Tim before he had set it to roll away.

“Okay,” Steph stared at the fan on the screen, “I want that power.”

Jason hummed, “I’d want Ascend what about you two?”

“Ultrahand,” Was Tim’s quick response, “The ability to manipulate items in mid air and to stick things together would be so useful.”

Cass hummed, “Ultrahand, many uses.”

Steph nodded, “True but what do we do now?”

Tim grinned, “Now we jump in.”

“What?”

“We follow Yunobo down into the depths.”

“Your going to jump down? Not you know slowly go down using ropes and such? Or walk from where you have been already?”

“Nope, we got a paraglider.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“We are going to sky dive down the hole in the caldera and use the paraglider to slow our fall so we can safely land in the underground.”

“That does not sound like it would work.”

Tim shrugged as he used the paraglider to sail to the edge of the hole, “Well away we go.”

Chapter Text

The group watched as Link centered himself directly over the center of the hole and let go of the paraglider and spread out his arm in a skydiving pose.

Cass tilted her head to the side, “Lava below.”

Steph nodded, “Yeah you can see lava down there can you even be down here? I mean without bursting into flame?”

“I got the Flamebreaker armor on so I’ll be fine.”

“A suit of armor is going to stop you from roasting to death?”

Jason nodded, “You saw him wearing the Snowquill armor when he fought Colgera.”

“Huh?”

“The air on the sky boat would freeze him to death if he wasn’t wearing the Snowquill armor.”

“Okay I can understand putting on armor to prevent yourself from getting too cold but putting on armor stops you from bursting into flame?”

“Magic.”

Steph paused thinking, “Right magic could probably do that with a talisman that’s powerful enough but I’m not sure as I don’t know much about magic.”

Tim shrugged, “Raven could manage something but I’m not sure if she could do something as powerful as the Flamebreaker armor but this is video game magic and physics.”

“Landing.” Cass pointed out.

Tim deployed the paraglider and Link floated down to settle on the ground right next to a light root. Walking under root Tim activated it lighting up the area, “There now we can see, have the start of a map of the area and we have a teleport spot so we don’t have to dive down again.”

Jason snorted, “Multipurposed light root, oh is that Yunobo?”

“Yep,” Tim directed Link to walk over and talk with Yunobo.

Yunobo looked around surprised to see what the volcano looked like inside and noticed that there was a large amount of red rocks that marbled rock roasts. All before a voice beckoned them to come.

“Come where?” Cass asked.

“There's a temple down here but it will take some work to get there. We will need to use Yunobo to break up boulders on the way to the temple and fight some monsters.”

Jason frowned, “There’s monsters down here? Your literally surrounded by pools of lava.”

“Waterfalls of lava.” Pointed to the screen were lava was literally flowing down the sides of the crater around them.

“Oh monsters! What are those?”

“Little frox. The little bastards jump at you and the best way to fight them I’ve found is to let them bounce of your shield and then attack them, but it can be annoying when a different frox jumps at you as you are facing off with a different one. All of them are dead.”

“Rock?” Cass frowned at the screen where a glowing blue-black rock appeared on the ground.

“Zonate, the frox, and really any monster in the depths drops them when they die which are really useful so swiping that and up here somewhere is a well, it’s a slab of stone with wheels and a steering stick attached which is really useful for traveling over malice and lava.”

The trio watched as Tim had Link climb no top and start driving across the ground using Yunobo, who balanced on the front edge of the slate cart, like he had on the mine car and wing, and Tim was able to use that to clear out any blocking boulders.

“Oh! A monster camp!” Jason pointed at the screen with the arm that hadn’t curled around Cass, “Go kill the monsters!”

Tim rolled his eyes but got off the cart and started towards the camp.

Steph narrowed her eyes at the screen, “It’s gotten so dark how can you see anything?”

“Well the lava does give some light and I can see the monsters moving but to really be able to see I can throw a bright bloom on the ground here and it will make a light lantern plant.”

“That’s useful.”

“Very, now I need to fight the monsters for Jason.”

The group cheered and booed as proper as Tim fought the monsters in the small camp until all the monsters were dead.

Steph frowned at the screen at where a couple of the hearts were a dark gray, “What’s with the odd hearts? I thought they were red for healthy and black for gone.”

“Gray ones are gloom damage I can’t heal them in the normal way until I cure the gloom damage. I have to use special meals or get either light from the light root or sunlight to clear them before I can heal the normal way.”

“Special meals?”

“Yep, it has to have gloom removal powers and then I can eat another meal to heal the hearts I’ve lost. I’m only down to hearts so I’ll wait until I either make it to another root or take a few more hearts worth of gloom of damage. Now I’m just going to use one of my hammers to break up the zonate boulders to get some zonate to use latter.”

Steph nodded before turning to Jason, “Food?”

Jason rolled his eyes but moved the Cass burrito so she was leaning against the back of the couch so he could stand up, “I think I have something I can throw in to warm up. I was thawing out something…”

Cass slowly unrolled herself as Jason started muttering as he opened the fridge and started moving things around, “Break now?”

Steph shook her head, “Jason is putting whatever it is in to cook so after it finishes cooking or reheating is when we’ll take a break. Do either of you want something to drink?”

“Zesti?” Tim asked as he destroyed another rock.

“Sure, Cass?”

She held up a Gatorade bottle.

“Red good?”

Cass nodded, smiling.

“Alright I’ll be back with drinks and we can keep going once Tim is done mining.”

“I’m done but I’ll wait for you both to get back before continuing forward towards the temple.”

Nodding Steph left the room leaving Tim to stretch his fingers and Cass to survey pillows for comfortability levels. She found all of them to be highly comfortable.

Chapter Text

Jason sat down, this time next to Tim and pulled him in for some important positive human contact, “Alright I got a cheeseburger casserole in the oven and it will be ready to eat in an hour so we got an hour of play time before dinner.”

Tim nodded, “We should be able to get a decent way into the temple but lets continue on the way to the temple.”

Steph flopped into the couch on Jason’s other side and curled into his side, “Alright off we go!”

“Yes,” Cass nodded as she cuddled into Tim’s other side making him reposition his arms so that he could play, “To the temple.”

The group watched as Tim arrived at another Lightroot activating that he continued on.

Steph perked up, “Is that it? The path looks man made.”

Tim nodded, “We are on the ramp up to the temple and now we are hitting another cut scene.”

On the screen Yunobo wondered what the temple was, and how it was inside Death Mountain before spotting Zelda. Rushing up to the place were they had spotted Zelda walking away they found Zelda missing.”

Steph rolled her eyes, “That lady is in way to much of a hurry if she can’t stop to talk to Yunobo and you.”

Cass shook head, “Walking slow, to relaxed.”

“You can’t rely on body language in a video game, the game designers picked how to make he move.”

“Still slow, not looking at us.”

“We’ll continue into the temple so we can track down Zelda.”

Tim nodded as he ran up the ramp, “I just need to use Yunobo to break up the rocks blocking the way into the temple.”

Steph peered closer to the screen, “That completely blocks the entrance. How the fuck did she get through this.”

Cass tilted her head to the side, “Not real. Magic.”

Steph frowned at her, “You think it was an illusion?”

“Yes?”

Steph turned her head to look up at Jason, “What do you think?”

“I’m pretty sure that the Zelda we’ve seen off and on is a fake because well, Tim why don’t you show them the first video from the past. The one where Zelda wakes up.”

Tim paused the game by opening the right menu and going to the videos.

Steph waved her hand, “Save that later, I want to see the temple for now. Right Cass?”

Cass nodded, “Temple now, videos everyone later.”

Tim blinked, “You think I should show everyone the videos?”

“Final battle show everyone.”

“You think I should show everyone the story and have them watch me fight the final battle?”

Cass nodded.

Jason hummed, “Makes sense, although they’ll miss some of the story with the different sages but the main cut scenes will be good enough for them to understand the main storyline.”

Tim bit his lip, “I could tape all the cut scenes and attach them into a video but that might take a while and the outshine the final battle.”

Steph waved her hand, “Just do the major points that the game saves so people get enough context and then you can explain anything important quickly.”

Jason nodded, “You could just look at the character profiles and give a quick description of the sages and their abilities so people know enough to enjoy watching the final fight.”

“Or,” Tim perked up, “I could make a PowerPoint! Then I can include a clip of the powers in action!”

“Sounds good, now keep going.”

Looking back to the game Tim directed Link forward to where Yunobo was waiting at were a strange gate stood next to an activation circle. Another cut scene took over showing Zelda appearing to get stuck inside a large pile of boulders. Yunobo of course faked and wanted to get Zelda free but Tim directed Link to the activation circle.

Steph blinked at the screen, “What’s with the hand circle? The one that has the weird hand print on it?”

“It’s an activation circle, they show up in a lot of places but are way to trigger things such as in this case trying to open the gate.”

Activating the circle the group watched as a teleportation spot lit up and the gate attempted to open but was held closed by five locks. The scene continued with a disembodied voice talked the Link and Yunobo.

Steph snorted at what the voice called Yunobo, “Little pebble? Really? How do they count that guy as little anything?”

Cass hummed, “Young not small.”

“He does seem to be like a teenager at most, and voice we could tell that there is five padlocks preventing the gate from opening and I sure hope unlocking all of them will let the gate to open or we’re screwed.”

Tim shrugged with the shoulder not holding up Cass, “It’s how they can tell us what to do. Now I can’t remember exactly where the gongs are so we’re going to do a little wandering around.”

Cass fluffed a pillow that she was leaning on to best lean on Tim, “Gong?”

“The way to remove the locks in the Wind Temple was to activate wind turbines but in the Fire Temple we need to hit gongs to release the padlocks.”

Jason frowned as Tim reached two rivers of lava. The first had floating lava rock platforms so Tim used that to get Link across. “Okay the wind turbines sort of made sense, the spinning could trigger like a switch or produce enough energy to trigger the locks to disengage but how would ringing a gong open a lock.”

Tim started using ultrahand to take lava rock from the river that had them flowing past to make a bride long enough to get across the much wider lava river. “Video game mechanic, it’s more interesting then stepping on a button.”

“Magic.” Cass offered.

Jason sighed, “Right game magic, well lets go.”

Finding a mine cart with a fan attached Tim got on and hit the fan to start it moving forward, “And off we go.”

Chapter Text

The mine cart started off rolling and quickly shooting a target that was off to the side of the track to make the track keep letting them go forward and not just sending them around in a circle. They very quickly got to a small area where the track was blocked.

Steph grinned, “Passengers this is your captain speaking please disembark at the station.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he hit the fan again to turn it off. “We’re at the first gong location. We just need to kill this like like.”

“Like Like?” Cass asked as Tim had Link round a corner.

“It’s the monster attached to the wall, if it eats you it might steal your shield or weapon.”

Steph arched a brow, “Pretty sure if that eats you it cooks you.”

Tim shrugged as he finished off the Like Like, “Now I just need to get a hydrant from up here and bring it down to the lava.”

“What is a hydrant going to do?”

Jason hummed, “Didn’t that one lava stream that had chunks of lava rock appear from hydrants pouring into the water?”

Steph stared at him, “You think a hydrant was enough to make lava rock that is basically Link’s size.”

Tim looked to her as he held the hydrant over the lava making lava rocks, “Link size?”

“Yeah it’s a square right? Each side is about as long as Link is tall.”

As Tim started Ultrahanding several lava rocks together to make a bridge, “It is about that size, well I making this bridge across this little pool of lava so I can make Yunobo shoot across the rocks so he can break up the large marbled rock blocking the path.”

“Oops,” Cass pointed at the screen when Yunobo shot off to the side and went into the pool of lava, “Missed.”

“I noticed,” Tim carefully aimed again and this time Yunobo went across the lava rocks and broke up the large boulder so Tim could walk Link through the area and Yunobo noticed a gong wondering what they were suppose to do with it. “Well what do you think I should do?”

Steph frowned, “Is there like a rock you can throw and hit the gong?”

“Nope.”

“Yunobo rolls,” Cass offered.

Jason nodded, “Yeah shoot Yunobo at the gong like you shoot him at rocks.”

Tim did as instructed and the gong rung out before the screen changed to that of the gate with the five padlocks, one disengaging before the screen shifted back to where Link and Yunobo were standing.

Steph blinked, “Did you really ring a gong and make a lock open? How are they even connected?”

“Magic,” Cass offered as Tim had Link run back to the cart and, after moving it over the block in the track that had stopped him from going forward, Tim got on and headed off along the track. Ending up in a small room.

Jason frowned, “This is just a dead end.”

Tim grinned turning the cart around, “But there’s a switch up here that we can hit with Yunobo and go further along the tracks.”

“Ah so it’s a station for you to choose which direction you want to go, in a track that can only go in one of two ways.”

“Yep.”

“That seems unnecessary.”

“That’s dungeons for you.”

Cass blinked up at Tim, “Dungeon?”

“Most Zelda like challenge places are dungeons so it’s just the common term so even though this is a temple it’s basically a dungeon cause there’s a bunch of puzzles and then a boss fight at the end.”

“Okay.”

As they continued on the mine track they end up at another spot that the mine cart is prevented from going forward.

Steph stared at the screen, “Are those walking magma?”

Tim shook his head, “No they are stone pebbits and in volcanic areas they are on fire, in the tundra they are covered in frost.”

“Nah,” Jason ruffled Steph’s hair much to her anger, “They are walking magma.”

“Yes,” Cass agrees, “Walking magma.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he picked up the last one and threw it causing it to explode before going to get it’s loot. “Fine it’s walking magma, now I need to hit this so the mine track up there will move to be inline with this track and I can get to the other side of this area.”

Steph nodded, “Walking would be a problem as there is no ground so mine cart it is.”

Getting back in the cart Link rode across the mine cart track and got out on the other side.

Jason hummed, “So is there another gong over here? Oh! A robot! Kill it!”

“Yes MURDER that robot!” Steph cheered.

When the monster fell to the ground before disappearing in a puff of smoke Steph grinned, “Yes grab it’s loot! So what else is here?”

“Just a chest with some,” Tim smiled as the chest opened, “Nice arrows!” Heading back to where the peppits, or as they had named it, the walking magma, had been before crossing a small bridge to another mine track.

Cass leaned forward, partially coming out from Tim’s side, “Track is missing.”

“Yep,” Tim hit a switch and a track moved down from above before moving a new cart onto the new track and crossed another span of track over an area that the ground had fallen down into the lava that was beneath the temple.

“So,” Steph watched the screen, “Have we made the second gong yet?”

“Yep, just need to use Yunobo to break a rock up there so a hydrant will form some lava rocks for us so that way we can make a bridge,” The group watched as Tim did as he said so that Link could cross a large pool of lava and once on the other side went around a wall to reveal another gong.

“Well,” Steph watched as Tim killed a lone robot blocking their way, “That was like, too easy.”

Tim shrugged, “This one is on the easier side but after this it gets more interesting after this.”

“It better or I’m going to fall asleep in Jason’s extremely comfy side.”

Tim snorted as he headed back across the pool of lava to where he had left the latest mine cart.

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Tim got back to the track, “This bit here is a little tricky.”

“Oh?” Steph peered at the screen, “Aren’t you in a dead end?”

“Yes and no,” Getting into the cart Tim started it going.

“Isn’t this just going to go back to where you were?”

“Nope, because I’m going to hit Yunobo to hit the switch over there and.”

Steph grinned, “Oh yeah this track was pointed up before, now that you hit the switch again we are going up to another level up.”

“Yep,” Tim rolled his shoulders, earning a grumble from Cass as it moved her, “So we got to a central spot, this can lead a bunch of different ways but first.”

“Monster.” Cass pointed at the screen.

“Okay we can do the monster first, it's one of the annoying ones that grabs the zonai devices like the flame shooter there but maybe I can,” Tim growled as the robot picked up the device and started shooting fire at Link.

Jason snorted, “That’s not going to do much good your fireproof.”

“Still don’t like getting shot at with flames but there he’s dead. Now as I was saying over here, I’m going to hit this head to make an elevator so if I end up on the bottom floor, I can just use that to get up here and not have to go all the way around again.”

Jason hummed, “Makes sense, going all the way around that again just because you fell off would be really annoying.”

Tim groaned as Link headed back to where the monster had been, “Extremely annoying, I didn’t realize that was what this was and I had to redo the track when I fell down, only then to find that I could activate this elevator.”

The other three laughed at Tim’s remembered pain.

Tim glared around at them, not that he could really look at them directly as they were all cuddled together, before turning to the screen, “Yeah laugh at my pain. Now I need to make a cart to go over this track.”

Steph sighed, “Just another cart over track, wait why are you grabbing rockets?”

“The track here is broken so I need to shoot me up the track and over to the next part of the dungeon.”

“Oh this is going to be good! Shoot yourself across the track!”

“I need to attach it to the cart to do that.”

“You can’t like, attach it to your shield with superglue attaching or whatever it is?”

“It’s called fuse and if I did it would only shooting me up into the air and I need to go forward.”

“Alright make a rocket cart and go!”

Tim rolled his eyes and hit the cart so the rockets would shoot him to the next place he needed to be. Once over he quickly jumped out and killed the robot that was standing nearby. Monster dead, and loot picked up Tim turned to a spot there was a broken bridge.

Cass frowned, “No connect.”

“Yep,” Tim pulled one of the broken spans and laid it over a rock, “But I don’t need to connect them, just this is enough to make a ramp to break the rock up there and pick up some loot.”

“Can you connect them?” Jason wondered.

“Using a lot of work and various zonai devices kind of but it’s unnecessary as you saw.”

Jason grinned, “How much time did you waste trying to connect the two pieces together?”

“Way to long,” Tim rolled his eyes as the others giggled at his pain walking Link further along the path.

Steph frowned as Link walked forward and used Ultrahand to attach two parts of a broken bridge together, these two pieces easily connecting, “Why did you bother doing that? You just could have climbed the other side, it’s barely taller than you are.”

Tim shrugged, “Instinct.” Going around a corner Tim opened a chest that was under a few pieces of grate, after moving the grates to the side.

Cass frowned at the screen, “Where’s gong?”

“Up, I need to get up to the gong that is too hard to climb to.”

“How?”

“Well, there’s a couple ways but…” Tim grinned and opened his inventory and pulled out a shield, “One way is Steph's idea.”

“My idea?” Steph blinked, “I mean I have many brilliant ideas but what do you mean?”

“I’m going to attach this to my shield and shoot myself up to the platform that the gong is on.”

Steph grinned as they watched Tim attach the missile to his shield and shoot into the air, “That was awesome!”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Glad you approve, now I need to line Yunobo up to hit the gong.”

Jason sat up, displacing Steph to her grumbling, “There's the oven, get to a good pause point and come into the kitchen so we can all eat.”

Tim pressed the home button, “No need we can just pick up right at this point after we eat. I know I’m starving,” He looked down at Cass who was still laying on him pinning him in place, “You going to get up so we can get food.”

Cass hummed, “Why?”

“So, we can go eat?”

“I will wait.”

“For what?”

“Comfy.”

“Well I’m hungry and I want to help get the table set.”

“Steph can.”

Tim slumped back, “Okay what do you want so you’ll get up and let me get to the kitchen.”

Cass thought for a moment, “Paint nails.”

Tim sighed, “Fine I’ll paint your nails tomorrow. I don’t know why you always want me to do it.”

“Very good. No polish on skin.” Cass stood up stretching.

Steph stuck her head back into the room, “Is Tim going to have a nail painting party?”

Tim glared, “No, Cass stated nail painting as a demand to be freed from the couch, I’m only painting hers.”

“If you paint mine too, I’ll do yours. You always complain about doing your own nails.”

Tim sighed, “Fine, but tomorrow. I want dinner.”

The girls, having gotten what they wanted, let Tim sit down at the table.

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Tim, nestled in between the two girls with Jason on Cass’s other side having finished dinner, lined up Yunobo and hit the gong, “There, now to the next gongs which are both annoying.”

The three watched as Tim went back to the platform that had the elevator and move towards a different track than last time, Jason hummed, “Why are they annoying.”

“Partially just getting to them as I have to hit a switch, go down the track, switch to a new track, go down that track only to get on another track and it’s just complicated, just to get to a chest with a shield or something annoying like that. What we are going to do it make this track go up so we can even get to the fourth gong.”

Steph grinned at the screen, “Theres a monster in that other cart kill it!”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Yes yes, your all rather blood thirsty right now.”

“It’s a robot it doesn’t have blood.”

“Oil hungry. Whatever.”

Cass shook her head, “Ancient robot no wires or gears.”

Tim glared down at her, “Now you’re just being difficult but alright whatever electricity or whatever that shit that connects the pieces together hungry. Now to the most annoying part of the dungeon.”

Jason hummed, “What makes this part more annoying than other bits.”

Tim maneuvered the screen so he could look up at a gong that was far up across a pool of lava, “I need to get Yunobo to hit that.”

“Sooooooo,” Steph drew out the word, “You just need to make a really long ramp with pieces of lava stone to get Yunobo to shoot up and ring the gong?”

“Yep, it’s multipurpose as we need it to go to where we need to go next, well actually we need it even longer to get across to the next spot.”

“Well, you go ramp builder.”

The trio watched as Tim had Link make a long ramp, set it in place, have Yunobo roll up it to ring the gong and then go back to making the ramp even longer.

Jason looked at the lengthening line of stones, “How long do you need to make this thing?”

“Annoyingly long. Then we need to get it in place so that I can have Yunobo roll up it and hit that giant rock over there.”

“Guessing bombs won’t work?”

“I’m inside an active volcano.”

“What happens if you do pull one out.”

“Boom.” Cass made her fingers flick out like describing an explosion.

Steph grinned, “Oh that so happened to you didn’t it.”

Tim blushed, “I can neither confirm or deny. Now time to swear at the screen.”

“Huh?”

“I hate positioning this ramp, I Ultrahand all these pieces of lava together and then try to position it in place and the ramp acts like it’s made of rubber or something. I hate this part.”

The trio watched carefully kept quiet as Tim proceeded to swear out the screen as the ramp just refused to stay still or fit into the right spot. A good fifteen minutes later Tim finally cheered as Yunobo rolled down the ramp and hit the rock blocking their way forward. Walking over the ramp Tim dropped down to where the last gong was. “Now to hit this and we can go kill the boss. Which will take a lot less time than that stupid ramp.”

Tim directed Link back to where the activation circle was for the gate and pressed the activator causing the gate to drop down and form a, very small, bridge into the final fight area. “Now I’m going to have Link eat something to fill my hit points. Then we can go in to find the final boss.”

Cass hummed as he pulled up the meal screen, “Mighty fish skewer.”

“Sure, the bonus to attack power won’t hurt.”

Jason hummed as Link entered the fighting arena, “Alright the last time was a giant flying centipede thing, what is it this time?”

Tim grinned at him as he moved Link forward, “Wait and see, but first I need to shoot Yunobo up the side of the wall to hit the rocks covering the very top of the doom to free the boss monster.”

Jason looked over the room, “Are we basically inside an egg shape? It looks like it’s basically a giant bowl with another on top.”

“Yep, it’s necessary for the second half of the battle, but lets let the bugger free.”

Cass blinked at the screen, “Rock monster.”

“Makes sense,” Jason hummed at Yunobo talked about having to defeat the monster, the screen introduced as Marbled Gohma, “It’s interested how it uses what looks like a lava rock with a giant eye.”

“Weak spot.”

Steph nodded, “Definitely the weak spot, and it looks like if you can like climb one of the four legs made of marbled rock roast.”

Jason hummed, “The legs are a different color then the head… thing, the head looks unbreakable but those legs are the color of breakable stone so I think we need to break the legs and then we can climb on.”

Tim nodded as he lined Yunobo up, “Yep, I just need to use Yunobo to break them.”

“Woh!” Steph leaned back, “Did it just shoot out rocks at you?”

“Missed,” Cass pointed out.

“I’m guessing,” Jason added, “That the flashing means they are going to explode or something.”

“Correct,” Tim directed Link to line up Yunobo so that he was in line with one of the bomb rocks and Gohma’s leg, “But you can break them by shooting Yunobo at them later which will prove really useful later.” Tim grinned as the monster fell to the ground with the second legs destruction, “Awesome got both.”

Steph blinked, “You only had to take out two legs for it to fall down?”

Jason rolled his eyes, “What did you think that thing could stay standing with only two limbs? It is not balance anywhere good enough for that.”

“I just expected to take more for Tim to be able to climb on top of the monster to attack the eye.”

On the screen Link was slashing away at Gohma’s eye slowly decreasing its health point bar until it shook Link off and created legs again to stand.

“You didn’t even make it half way through the HP bar.”

Tim nodded, “Yes it will take two times to get to that point.”

“Then,” Jason tilted his head to the side, “The second stage of the monster fight will start, right?”

“Yep.”

Steph blinked as Tim took out another leg, “Second stage?”

“Like with Colgara,” Jason reminded her of the other boss battle, “After he hit the half way point Colgara started shooting out all those cyclones.”

“Oh yeah. I wonder what this one will do for a second stage.”

“Ceiling.” Cass hummed, “Room is oval so can roll up sides.”

“That would make sense but Tim's getting on the head body part thing to go after the eye so we should see soon.”

As they watched Tim started to run towards the downed monsters only to get blasted off his feet when one of the bomb rocks went off.

“Ouch,” Jason watched as Link stood, “That had to be unpleasant but your getting on Gohma so we will see the second stage soon.”

In fact, it was only three hits onto the eye that a cut scene showed where Gohma jumped up to stand on the ceiling hanging above them.

Chapter Text

Cass grinned, “Called it.”

“That you did,” Jason grinned, “And now it’s shooting even more bombs, huh it’s fast enough to circle you with bombs.”

Tim nodded, “Yes I just need to use Yunobo to break the circle so I can escape and then once Yunobo powered up again so I can hit one of the legs before it shoots out more bombs, there.” Tim shot Yunobo up the side of the arena area.”

“Aaaaaand you missed.”

“It’s hard to aim at something that’s above you out of view.”

“Follow tracks on walls,” Cass pointed at the screen.

Tim blinked, “Huh. That would work.” The next time Tim shot Yunobo it hit Gohma and he fell to the floor.

Steph blinked, “Apparently it’s harder to hang onto the ceiling.”

Tim nodded as Gohma shook him off and jumped back to the ceiling giving him time to line up his next shot, “Shit missed.”

“Bomb ring!” Steph looked at Tim, “How can you get out without Yunobo?”

“I can use recall to send one up to the celling so I can run out of the gap. Now while Yunobo resets I can use my bow to hit the eye for some damage.”

“Yunobo is back up!”

“Cool I’ll shoot him up at the monster again, yes! I hit it.” Getting on top of Gohma Tim got a few more hits in before Gohma went back to the ceiling.

“Close.” Cass pointed out.

“Yep,” Tim stuck his tongue out as he tried to aim Yunobo, “One more knock to the floor and I should be done.”

Jason frowned, “Be careful not to get right under it.”

“Why?” Tim asked not heading the warning.

“Because,” Gohma fell to the floor landing on Link, “It could fall on you.”

Tim grimaced as Link stood back up, “Well that warning could have come faster.”

“Or you could have listened when I said not to get under it and not done that while I was explaining why.”

“Eh,” Tim shrugged as Yunobo hit Gohma’s leg, “I’m about to kill it I don’t need to worry about the damage. Look there its dead.”

Jasons hummed, “So that definitely took less time than that ramp.” As they watched the monster went through its death dramatically wavering side to side before blowing up.

Cass hummed, “Drama.”

Steph nodded, “Yeah that things death was very dramatic.”

Tim side-eyed her, “Like you can say anything about that.”

She glared at him, “I stand by my death scenes in paintball, it’s an important part of my fighting style.”

“You mean your dying style.”

“Oh, go grab that heart and activate the cut scene. I want to see an ancient Goron call Yunobo a pebble again.”

The group watched as the video changed to what looked like a rock garden and a Goron in a large mask spoke with them. Telling them about how the sacred stones made their special skill far stronger than normal, but that even so they were losing until the king sacrificed his life to seal the Demon King. After which Zelda appeared and asked the Goron sage to offer his aid when Link would face the Demon King and the Goron agreed that when the Demon King woke that a Goron with his powers would come and aid Link against the Demon King.

Cass hummed, “Princess plans.”

Tim nodded as Yunobo doubted if he was worthy of the power and responsibility being given to him, worried that he wouldn’t be able to do it but he managed to hype himself enough to accept the stone. The secret stone then attached itself to Yunobo’s belt, creating an entirely new belt to hold it and Yunobo swore to aid Link and that his avatar would go with Link and help him on his quest to defeat the Demon King.

Link fist bumped Yunobo and Yunobo’s oath lit up the ring on the thumb of his zonai arm meaning that Link could now call on Yunobo’s avatar and specially his ability to destroy things by rolling into them.

Now the cut change changed to a view of Goron City where the marbled rock roasts disintegrated in the arms of the Gorons eating them, along with a large pile that had been in the center of the city. The Gorons that had been eating them eyes turned back to normal and started looking around as if confused where they were.

“Huh,” Steph looked at the screen, “So were they constantly eating the marbled rock roast because they were basically made of nothing? I mean they disintegrated leaving nothing behind.”

Tim hummed, “Maybe but the scene has more to come.”

The scene changed slightly and now Yunobo and Link were in the middle of Goron city and talking with the Goron elder Bludo. Yunobo apologized for worrying Bludo for not being more careful. The young Gorons tried to perk him up pointing out all Yunobo had done for Goron city but it didn’t seem to do much. Next Yunobo thanked Link for breaking the mask and bringing smiles back to Goron city. One of the younger Goron’s pointed out the Zelda that had given the mask to Yunobo and they saw in the temple was probably imposter.

“Huh,” Steph tilted her head to the side, partially laying on top of Tim’s head, “The kid figured out what pretty much no one else has realized is happening.”

“Young,” Cass tilted her head to also lay on Tim’s, “Think of many possibilities older people wouldn’t.”

“True.”

“Can you both get off of me?” Tim growled causing the girls to giggle before sitting up.

Jason stretched out his back and arms as he stood, “Well now we got a demolition crew where ever we go now, but it’s time to save and suit up for the night. I’ll see you guys this Thursday at family dinner?”

The others agreed before gathering their items and heading out to where they would start the night from whether that would be the cave or their own homes.

Chapter Text

Jason groaned as he sat down before glaring at the boot that was covering his left ankle, he had barely broken it and Alfred was demanding him wear the boot and stay in the manor while it healed. It’s was only three hair line fractures! He could so recover at one of his apartments.

“Master Jason, I prepared some tea for you.” Alfred came into the room and dropped off a cup of what smelled like his favorite green tea.

Jason sighed he could never stay at Alfred, “Thanks, I think I’ll just watch a movie to kill time before I head to bed.”

“Movie?” Dick’s head peaked into the room, “Do you want to have a movie night?”

Groaning he let his head slump back on the top of the couch, “No I’m not watching a movie with all of you when I can’t escape. You’ll insist on watching some Disney thing that we’ve all seen before and it will be to dark for me to read and be distracted by all of you and someone is going to elbow my cast in the dark.”

Alfred hummed, “I will start preparing snacks.”

“What no!” Jason growled at Dick, “I am not watching some movie with all of the people you can force into this room.”

Dick hummed, “What about something you haven’t seen yet?”

“No, you’ll say that and then once everyone is here, they will whine until we watch fucking Lilo and Stitch again.”

“You don’t like Lilo and Stitch?”

“It’s a great movie but every time we watch it for weeks people will talk about my badness levels.”

Dick grinned, “It has been getting better.”

“Fuck you! No movies.”

“What about watching something else?”

“You really think you can get everyone to agree to watch a game or some TV show?”

Dick grinned, “A sports game no but I know a game that a bunch of us have watched that I’m sure could keep all of us interested.”

Jason frowned thinking for a moment before blinking, “You think we could get Tim to play Tears of Kingdom and have a bunch of us watch?”

“Why not? I mean a bunch of us have watched parts of it at least and it would be fun for all of us to watch at the same time.”

“Steph said we should do that for the final battle.”

“Well, we can’t have everyone since Bruce is currently off planet but we should be able to manage getting most of our siblings here to watch. Let me try the group chat.”

“Maybe ask Timbit first if he’s willing to play for everyone?”

“Oh, good point!” Dick pulled out his phone, “I’ll call him really quick. I’m going to change into something more comfortable for hanging around the house.”

Jason sighed pulling up Ancient Aliens for something mindless to watch as he waited for Dick to get back with whether or not Tim was even available and willing to play. Picking up his glass he started sipping his tea as people discussed how ancient peoples couldn’t have done things they had done with outside help.

From the aliens he had talked to none of them had any history of visiting earth but who knows he didn’t know all the aliens and most of the Martians are dead so it was possible aliens were involved. He personally didn’t think any had come to earth to help ancients or play around with ancient human civilizations.

Leaning back in his chair he waited for the hoard to arrive.

Chapter Text

Tim finished connecting his Switch into the docking station that someone, probably Alfred had attached to each of the televisions in the main rooms that had televisions. Something Alfred had been kind enough to inform him that he had set them up so he didn’t have to bring the entire system to the manor if he was going to play here.

Looking back at the couches he tried to figure out where to sit. He didn’t want to sit to close to Dick’s octopus arms but if he tried to sit away from the group Dick would insist, he come sit next to him so he had to sit near someone.

Damian of course wasn’t an option as he was rather certain Dick hadn’t gotten all the knives he had stashed on him and even if he had Damian’s elbows were extremely pointy. Then Steph had said he looked like he was three hours of sleep deprivation away from his villain origin arch and tattled to Alfred that he hadn’t slept in four days so he was sitting next to that traitor. So his choices where either Cass or Jason and Jason was less likely to be overly cuddly like Cass would; he was probably safest to sit next to.

Making up his mind he sat down next to Jason only to have Steph jump up from her place to plop down beside him. She rolled her eyes at his glare, “Oh shut up you needed to go to bed.”

“You didn’t need to tell Alfred that I hadn’t slept.”

“If I hadn't, would you have gone to sleep?”

Refusing to answer such a rude question he loaded up the game, “So time for the Gerudo quest.”

“The Gerudo?”

“A race of female warriors that live in the desert.”

“So human like? Is there another race you need to do a quest for or is this it?”

“There is also the Zora quest line, they are humanoids with fish characteristics and can breath under water but for now the Gerudo desert.”

Damian scowled, “Your just choosing to go the Gerudo without asking for anyone’s opinion?”

“Well, I already got Link to Gerudo trading post Kara Kara and I haven’t even started going into the Zoran domain yet so if you want to watch actual story line and not just me fighting and running around it’s the Gerudo.”

“Fine. The Zora simply sounded more interesting.”

Dick pulled Damian closer into his side, “I’m sure this will be interesting to! Did you see any of the other two quests?”

“No, I saw several dragon tear memories but nothing that I know was actually part of the quest, unless the tear memories are part of one of the quests.”

Tim hummed as the game loaded, “There are part of a different quest than the racial ones but it is a main quest. Do you want me to show any of the tear memories before I start actually finishing the last bit to get to Gerudo town?”

“I thought you said you were ready to do the Gerudo quest.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “As soon as we arrive in town, we will basically be starting the starting the quest so I figure I’ll climb to the top of the tower here and we’ll be off to Gerudo town.”

Steph blinked, “How does going up a tower help you get to a town?”

Tim grinned as he got to the top of the tower, “Watch and see.”

Chapter Text

Getting to the top of the tower Tim had Link jump from the tower and pull out his paraglider.

“Oh, cool you can fly!” Steph clapped, “That’s awesome.”

“TT,” Damian scoffed, “He is obviously gliding not flying.”

Jason chuckled, “Tom-tom hates walking if he could glide the entire way to town he would.”

Tim nods, “Walking is a waste of time.”

Cass blinked, “Horses?”

“I keep leaving them in random places and I just don’t like riding them around they are kind of bulky to be running around with. I mean if I want to go up a cliff I loose them where ever I left them and if I have to walk somewhere that’s what hasty foods are for. Anyways horses can’t go into the desert.”

Dick hummed, “Is there something else you can ride? I would think they would have something for the Gerudo to travel at speed with.”

Tim nodded, “Sand seals are an option but it’s hard catching wild ones and they are hard to aim, also a lot easier to lose them if you get off.”

“You can ride a seal?”

Steph hummed, “Do you like stand on it’s back and treat it like a surf board?”

“What? No. you attach a shield to them, somehow, and ride on it which does act a lot like surfing, they do call it sand seal surfing but you stand on a shield.”

Damian scoffed, “Sheilds are not meant for surfing on.”

“Yeah they break after a while but they work. I mean you can shield surface down any hill with enough of a downward grade but it damages the shield.”

Jason looked over at him, “Any shield? Some of the aren’t really shaped right for that.”

“You can shield surf on any shield.” Tim frowned as Link finally coasted to the ground, the screen displaying ‘Desert Rift’, “Right where is it?”

Dick tilted his head to look at Tim, “Where’s what?”

“This!” On the screen Link ran towards what looked like an old rock structure.

“Um,” Steph looked at the screen, “Congrats on fining an old building?”

“I can take a spring that is below the ledge here up on top, and then attach a fan onto this sled and if I get everything at the right angle it will shoot me over the rift and coast part of the rest of the way to Gerudo town.”

Jason hummed, “Would it be faster to just jump over the rift? I mean it can’t be that wide, can it?”

“No I could easily go to the top of this launch spot and coast to the other side but I want to shoot myself over. It’s always fun figuring out the angles and now,” Tim grinned at the screen getting onto the cart, “Let’s fly!”

Steph oohed as the sled shot up the ramp and cleared the rift only to land and slide until they ran into a wall of what was most likely a town as they could see an entry way close by. “Nice, I’m guessing we’ve made it?”

Tim nodded as on the screen the words ‘Gerudo Town’ appeared, “Just right outside through here is Gerudo town.”

Damian eyebrows furrowed, “They don’t have any guards blocking the entry ways, or any type of gate?”

Jason frowned, “Yeah that seems wrong even for a video game.”

Tim merely nodded as he walked through the archway.

Steph frown, “Where is everyon-WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!”

Damian rubbed his ear glaring at her, “Once Drake kills it we will find out from the name on the treasure left behind.”

“Uh,” Steph blinked at the screen as Tim attached a white chu chu jelly to an arrow before hitting the monster, “Why did you freeze it?”

“They are shielded from a lot of damage unless you’ve hit them an elemental attack. So now that I froze it I can,” Link goes forward and slashes at the monster until it fell to the ground disappearing in a puff of black and purple smoke.

As Link picked up the loot Damian nodded, “See it is obviously a Gibdo as Drake picked up Gibdo bones and guts.”

“Ew. Why do you need monster guts?”

Tim hummed as he turned to find another Gibdo, “Can’t remember if you need Gibdo guts for it but you do need various monsters’ guts to enhance armor.”

“You can enhance your armor?”

“Yep have to go to a really creepy fairy to do it but you can enhance each piece of armor four times.”

“That must be a lot of monster parts.”

“Also needs some plants and other things but yes you do need a lot of monster parts to enhance everything I hate the armors that require Lizalfos tails because I swear the drop rate on those is not what they say it is.” Tim grumbled to himself.

“Watch out!” Dick pointed at the screen, “There's another one on the ground over there!”

Pulling out Link’s bow Tim snipped the monster before it could even stand with an arrow that he attached a red chu chu jelly to set the monster on fire. While it stood Tim had Link run over and start slashing at it killing it before it could lift an arm to even attack. “I’m going to go through the town and kill everything before going to where everyone is as Gibdo bones are really powerful when attached to arrows. I might farm them a couple times later when there is good opportunities as they are really nice.

“Well kill them then so we can see something interesting,” Damian commanded.

Tim rolled his eyes but ran through town killing all the Gibdo’s that were laying on the ground before going to the center square once everything was dead.

“So…” Steph looked at the screen, “Where is everyone? They’re not dead, right?”

Tim shook his head, “No they are fine just hiding.”

Jason grinned, “I’m betting on underground bunker.”

Steph hummed, “I can’t think of any other options, I mean my next guess would be outside town but then Tim would have left the town.” She turned to Tim, “So where are they?”

Tim grinned as he set Link to move towards the center of town, “Just over here.”

Chapter Text

Cass hummed, “People now?”

Tim nodded, “Yep we just need to go down these stairs here and we find the guard.”

As the guard denied their access from being a Voe Cass asked, “Voe?”

“Means males basically. Males aren’t allowed inside Gerudo city.”

Steph blinked, “Then how do we do anything inside town? Do we like pretend to be a girl?”

“In the last game you have to cross dress but in this game.”

Dick cooed as the conversation continued, “They’re just trying to protect their daughters from interacting with icky boys.”

Tim snorted, “Luckily this is the second game and the Gerudo treat Link different ever since I saved them from the Divine Beast Vah Naboris. Uh, it was a giant robot that you had to go inside and defeat the monster running it so it could be used to help kill Ganon. It was creating giant sand storms making it impossible to travel deeper into the desert, or the majority of the desert really. So, they like us. Once they see us, they will let us to be inside without cross dressing.”

Jason hummed, “So someone is going to look through the small holes in the door, see us and let us in?”

“No, we still need to sneak in but first we are going to hit up the secret store for some armor.”

“Secret store?” Steph frowned, “If a store is secret how does it get business?”

“TT,” Damian scoffed, obviously how ever any black-market store functions.”

Tim directed Link to jump into a place water was falling down into revealing caves that could be walked around in.

Jason nodded, “Someone knows someone who can get you to the right seller, not sure who you can get to give you an invite in an empty town. Is someone hiding down here?”

“Not quite,” On the screen Tim had Link started to destroy rocks that were blocking paths, “I need to get to the right spot and then I can get in.”

“How?” Steph watched the screen, “Is there going to be a latter or something up into the store? Not sure I’d want a hole in the floor of my store, I mean it’s a great way to hide a secret door but someone is going to notice people dropping down into the caves like you did, and it’s not exactly the most secure. I mean you could destroy the trap door and break in.”

Jason frowned, “No worse than a normal door.”

“Does the place have a door? I mean I don’t think I saw any doors when we were running around the town.”

“TT.” Damian scoffed at her poor memory, “There was one in the first street on the left from the door to the underground sanctuary, the one that was on the way to the north door to the town.”

Cass nodded, “Near pots.”

“Oh,” Steph leaned into Tim, trying to set her head on his shoulder but Tim wasn’t cooperating. “I remember that now, sit still so I can lean on you!”

Tim pulled up the special powers from his hand screen up pausing the game so he could glare at her, “I will not traitor, go lay on Cass.”

Cass perked up from where she was sitting next to Jason, she was succeeding at cuddling into Jason’s side.

Steph humped but sat back in her spot, if she waited for Tim to get distracted by the game and she would get her cuddles in. Tim obviously needed more positive physical contact, he had flinched the last time Dick hugged him, before sagging into the hug.

Ignoring Steph’s pouting Tim selected Ascend and swam through the ceiling popping out of the floor inside store.

Dick blinked, “Well that’s one way to get into the store, you seemed to have spooked the store keep.”

Jason snorted, “A twink just appeared in her store from seemingly nowhere, I think she is entitled to be spooked.”

Steph laughed as the dialogue box played as the store keep talked to herself, “Classic customer service, not my problem not going to ask. So, what do they sell that is so contraband?”

“Armor,” Tim directed Link around the store, “This is voe armor which is not something that technically exist in the Gerudo style but you can buy the voe chest and leg armor here which after selling some items from my inventory I’m going to do, I’ll also get the snow boats and sand boots.”

“Sand boots? Wouldn’t boots be bad in the desert, I mean boots would be really warm? Shouldn’t it be like sandals?”

“They are partially based off the snow boots because of the story line that was involved in getting the two items from a guy in Breath of the Wild. He was a creep I enjoyed getting his shoes and then ghosting him. I mean someone as old as him should not be trying to date someone that looks Link’s age.”

Jason frowned, “They had a pedo in the game?”

“Not that creepy, Link does look around sixteen at the youngest and we don’t we know age of consent in the game, and anyways he accepts the no when we turn down a date. Anyways the sand boots help you travel faster over sand but don’t give you heat resistance so when it gets really warm you have to watch what armor you combine with it.”

Cass tilted her head to the side, “Done?”

“Yeah,” Tim started having Link go up to the different display stands, “That will be enough to buy everything so I’ll just buy those quick and then Ascend out of the store and we will head to get inside the shelter.”

Alfred stepped into the room, “I have snacks for your afternoon get together.”

Dick grinned jumping from his chair, releasing a happy Damian, “Yes! Snacks! Who wants what?”

As Tim did as he said Ascending through the stores roof and heading to one of the hidden entry points to the shelter Dick passed out snacks and drinks. Tim pouted noticing the absence of coffee in the drink options, or even anything highly caffeinated. He settled on a pop that had some caffeine in it, but not much.

Chapter Text

Steph frowned at the television screen, “I thought you were going to where you could get into the Gerudo shelter? This looks like a throne room. I mean that’s a throne and some pretty decorative pools on both sides. I mean pools like that in the desert have to be expensive to keep full of water and that would be a good way to show off power.”

“TT,” Damian rolled his eyes, “A ruler always needs a quick path to a secured area if an attack happens upon the city, an escape route starting in the throne room to where ever the secure area is located.”

Cass tilted her head to the side before pointed at the screen at something located behind the throne, “Statue positioned wrong.”

Tim nodded as he activated Ultrahand grabbing onto the slab of stone with a sand seal on top that was obviously meant to sit on the stand it was currently off centered on perfectly to just look like a statue mount and statue. Tim set the stone off to the side and jumped down through the opening in the stand area.

“Wait. Was there a booster seat on the throne?” Jason blinked at the screen, “Is the chief some how short in a race of tall people. Like a dwarf Gerudo? That doesn’t sound very chief like to me, is it a blood line chiefdom?”

“You’ll see. Now we’re in the shelter.”

Two guards started threating Link with their spears telling him he had to leave. Going so far as to have the guard near the door open the door so they could force him out.

Steph glared, “We’re the hero! We are here to save you! Let us in already so we can help you ungrateful gaping tall idiots!” She paused as another Gerudo came onto the screen, “Wait whose that?”

Damian rolled his eyes as text appeared on the screen, “The game is telling us that she is Buliara and the Gerudo captain of the guard, obviously she’s in charge of them so if she says we can stay we can.”

On screen she told the guards that Link had the permission from the chief to be in side the guarded areas of Gerudo town or shelter in this case.

“Oh cool,” Steph grinned as she opened a bag of chips, “We’re special enough to get around the no males rule.”

Cass nodded, “Saved Hyrule before.”

“That would be a good reason to okay us being inside town, especially as we need to go inside to save the Gerudo and all of Hyrule again.” With that Steph munched onto her first chip.

As the dialogue continued Damain scowled, “She should be ashamed, letting the Gibdo to force them into the hidden shelter is a sign that the guard failed.”

Dick snagged a piece of popcorn out of Damian’s bowl causing Damian to growl at him, “She got everyone below ground safely, it sounds like so she kept everyone safe and that really the people are now protected so that sounds like a success to me. I mean the people are more important territory.”

“She did not say she did not lose anyone and look she is refusing to help us find the princess as it is not a good time right now.”

Jason paused before eating his next pretzel, “Demon Brat the Gerudo are a different nation helping out their neighboring nations is always going to coming second to helping another nation.”

“Still, she is admitting the Gerudo are weak. That is a foolish thing to do as the Gerudo guard captain, even to someone that she considers an ally.”

Steph snorted, “They have skeleton monsters that need to be set on fire to be defeat they can’t have enough off that red goo to fight a probably unending amount of gibdos.”

Tim nodded as the conversation between them and Buliara finally finished telling them where the Gerudo chief Riju was out practicing an ability to help fighting against the Gerudo, “You can see in the store they have some chu chu jelly but it has to be imported because they don’t have fire or ice Chu chus in the desert.”

“But they have yellow ones?”

“Lighting and yes they show up in monster camps and randomly around Gerudo desert.”

“Weird their selling them then, what are you going to do in town? Uh, in shelter?”

“Going to check in on a few people to start some quests for later but we will be off to Riju as soon as I do that.”

As Tim ran around the shelter talking to different Gerudo Steph turned to Damian, “I heard that someone is going for a long weekend at the Kents. Going to spend some time with your boyfriend.”

Damian scowled at her, “I am simply visiting the farm at the same time as Jon so that we can entertain each other as Jon would get bored without me and a bored Kryptonian is dangerous.”

“Grandma and Grandpa Kent did raise Clark, they know how to deal with bored Kryptonians.”

“It doesn’t mean it is easy and they are getting older so my assistance will be appreciated.”

“I think you just want to hang out with your boyfriend.”

“Jon is not my boyfriend; he is merely a good friend that happens to be male. I am to young to be looking for potential life partners.”

Jason snorted, “I think someone protests too much.”

Damian glared at him and then at Steph, “You both see things that aren’t there. Not that I am surprised you both have an, overactive imagination.”

Steph blinked, “Was that an insult?”

Jason hummed, “I think so, but it was a rather sad one. I mean imagination helps you figure out things that Rouges could try to pull with little clues they leave.”

“Oh look!” Dick directed the group's attention back to the screen, “Tim’s left the shelter!”

“Yeah,” Tim hummed, “I’m heading up to the shrine above the throne room.”

Chapter Text

Watching as Tim ascended through the throne rooms roof, and then through a stone platform and then again to reach the shrine Steph whistled, “Well that was definitely UP to the shrine.”

Jason hummed agreeing before looking at Tim, “Are you going to do this shrine or just activate it as a teleport spot?”

Dick blinked as his hand barely avoided getting stabbed by Damain as he stole another piece of popcorn, Tim knew he still had a knife, “Why would he not?”

“He works on a lot of them when I’m not watching as they aren’t the most interesting all the time.”

Cass tapped on Tim’s knee, leaning over Jason to do so, “Do shrine.”

Tim shrugged, “It’s not as interesting as story line but sure.”

“Oooh!” Steph grinned, “You’ve done this one before, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You should let us decide what to do! Like all of us work together to figure out what to do.”

Tim considered the idea it would be entertaining for him to see them try to figure out the puzzles. “Sure, I’ll just walk in and down the steps and after that you guys can take over.”

Everyone’s attention focused on the screen; snacks were ignored as each of them wanted to be the one to have the idea to solve each of the puzzles first.

“So buried light,” Steph peered at the TV, “That means what ever we are looking for is under one of those piles of sand. I say we have Tim walk around the entire room and then we each vote on what to do?”

Everyone nodded as Damian spoke, “That is completely reasonable.”

Tim walked Link around the room so the group could see four piles of sand, the one closest to the door had a zonai fan partially sticking out of it.

Dick blinked, “What’s that thing sticking out of the sand?”

“Zonai fan,” Tim explained.

“We probably need to get it out, can you turn it on?”

“If I hir a zonai device with a weapon, either melee or range it turns on.”

Dick nodded, “I think we should have Link hit the fan and get it to free itself from the sand.”

Jason frowned, “I’d say use Ultrahand to remove it.”

Damian hummed, “I say we go with hitting the fan, it would free itself then.”

Cass frowned, “Ultrahand.”

Steph looked between the two pairs, “I’m going with Dick. Tim has Link hit it with your sword.”

Tim grinned knowing what the wrong choice was. Walking Link over he hit the fan with his sword.

“Damn.” Steph glared at the screen, where nothing had happened, “Use Ultrahand then, it’s not like we have any other options.”

Using Ultrahand Tim yanked the fan free, as it would not gently pull and watched as it fell to the ground, “Okay what now?”

“Turn on the fan duh! Theres nothing else to do in the room.”

“Everyone have any objections?” When no one spoke up he had Link hit the fan with his sword and it turned on.

Jason hummed, “Pick it up and aim it at each of the piles of sand.”

Damian frowned, “He can pick them up? Wouldn’t Ultrahand be the proper way to pick it up?”

“I want to see him pick it up,” Steph grinned, “It’s like almost as big as him so I want to see him carry it around.”

“Agree Steph,” Cass spoke.

Since that was the majority vote Tim had Link pick up the fan and start blowing away the piles of sand.

“Wow.” Steph wolf whistled, “Link is built.”

Tim snorted, “You should see the stuff the Twilight Princess game’s Link can do, he literally walks around in these iron boots that weight almost as much as him, each. I mean it’s stomping around and it is obvious it takes work to move around in.”

“Damn. Oh, blow away the pile on the left first!”

“Right!” Dick countered.

Jason rolled his eyes, “Do either and then which ever has something in it gives that person a point. I pick right.”

Damian frowned, “If we are going for points only Cain and Todd have a point so far so I will go with left.”

“Left!” Dick guessed.

“Right.” Was Cass’s vote.

Since more people had voted for right Tim blew that one away first, revealing nothing before turning to the, now, last pile which revealed a chest.

Steph sighed, “Great only Cass and Jason have points, two each. What’s in the chest?”

Opening the chest revealed a key, “I’m going to use this to get through the locked door.”

“Where’s the buried light though?” Steph looked around the screen as Link walked to the door, “The shrine mentions buried light, not keys.”

“TT,” Damian rolled his eyes, “Obviously that will happen further in.”

Ignoring them Tim opened the door and had Link move forward until a monster attacked, he killed the robot before anyone could tell him to let it live while he was doing the next puzzle. Continuing on he walked around the room so everyone could see what was available this time.

The room contained a large pile of sand with a different zonai device sticking out of it, a pile near one of the corners partially going partially up the wall. One wall was a set of bars and there was something that looked like some kind of target, if not a normal one.

Steph hummed, “Anyone disagree with just blowing them both away, I mean obviously the big one has something in it that will be useful but I’m pretty sure the other pile will reveal something else.”

Damian nodded, “It will reveal something, possibly the light source, although it would be an awkward spot for the light source to come from.”

“Something, no light,” Was Cass’s wager.

Dick shook his head, “It’s just art, like the extras in the last room.”

Jason hummed, “I’ll go with Dick in that it’s just cosmetic.”

Tim had just finished blowing away the first pile so he turned towards the other pile, “Well let’s go and see.”

Chapter Text

“Yes!” Steph cheered, “There was something, looks like a door way.”

Jason sighed, “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Dick to be right.”

“Hey!” Dick pouted over at Jason.

“What you have yet to get anything right.”

“Theres only been three things to guess! I’ll get one of the next ones.”

“Right, I definetly believe you.”

“Shush!” Steph peered at the screen “What’s in that next room?”

Tim walked into the smaller room and they saw two piles, one with a fan sticking out of it. As there was nothing else to do in the room Tim used Ultrahand to remove the fan. “Okay what should I do now?”

“Blow away the pile the fan was in, it’s going to be empty but nice to clean the room and then clear away the other pile because it has something in it, probably a treasure chest.”

“I agree with Brown, this room is obviously meant for a treasure of some kind. So it would make sense for that pile to contain treasure.”

Dick frowned, “No it’s a decoy theres nothing in there.”

Jason hummed, “I’m going with theres something in there, not sure about treasure.”

“TT,” Damian looked at him, “Either vote for treasure or not.”

“Alright I’ll go with not treasure but something.”

“Cain?”

“Enemy.”

Tim hummed, “So Dick for nothing, Steph and Damian for treasure, Jason for something and Cass for enemy?” When everyone nodded he took the fan and blasted the sand away revealing an enemy.

As Tim killed the robot Jason tilted his head to the side, “So there was something, but not treasure so Dick gets zero points, Steph and Damain get half a point for knowing something would be in it but not what, I get one point for being right about that there was something but not treasure and Cass gets two points for know what was actually there?”

Damian hummed, “That is agreeable. That puts Cain at five points, Todd at three, myself and Brown have one and a half and Grayson has none. Now Drake has killed the monster there must be something more to this room. Can you look around the room more?”

Dick shook his head, “This was just a trap to make us reveal a monster.”

Steph pursed her lips, “I’m with Damian there’s more to this room.”

Jason and Cass nodded agreeing.

Tim shot Dick an apologetic smiled, “Sorry Dick.” Panning the view on the screen up revealed a platform higher up, “There is more to this room. Now how does everything think I should get up there?”

“Rocket shield!” Steph shouted and as she was leaning on him almost directly into his ear causing him to wince.

“I don’t have one right now.”

Jason hummed, “Should be able to get up there with just the stuff in the temple but it doesn’t look like Ascend will be of use, can you use the fan shoot you up with your paraglider?”

Steph tilted her head to the side, “Okay yeah less cool but that could work.”

“Will work,” Cass offered.

“TT,” Damain scoffed, “The wind is not strong enough to propel someone of Link’s weight upwards.”

Dick hummed, “It does seem like that would be asking the fan to much.”

Switching one of the crappy swords out for the weapon the monster had dropped. Tim positioned the fan right next to the wall where the platform was at and after a few attempts managed to get his paraglider and he floated up to the platform.

Dick sighed as he found out he was wrong again, “Right but how are you getting that pile of sand blocking the giant gear away? You left the fan on the ground below.”

“That’s why I picked up the robot’s weapon it kinda sucks but it’s a fan fused to a wooden club so if I wave it like this,” Gusts of wind came out of the weapon as Link swung it dispersing the sand blocking the gear. Once the sand was all cleared away the giant gear started spinning and the grate blocking a chest disapered, “Any guesses on what’s in the chest? The normal options are weapon, arrows or some sort of gem.”

Dick grinned, “Something shinny!”

Damian eyed Dick, “I will wager on a weapon.”

Jason nodding agreeing with Damian, “Weapon.”

Steph hummed, “Arrows.”

Cass grinned, “Arrows.”

Jason swore, “It’s so going to be arrows now.”

Dick blinked, “Why do you say that?”

“Cass has yet to get one wrong and she even got double points on one of her guesses.”

“Well she isn’t always going to be right.” When Tim opened the chest and revealed arrows Dick continued, “Okay she was right this time but she will have to get something wrong before we get out of here.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “I doubt theres much left to bet on.”

Tim hummed, “Not sure if there is anything really but you have made wagers out of things I didn’t think could be wagers so…” Tim directed Link to jump down and move back into the former room and went over to the grated wall, on one side there was a cut out in the stone, “This took forever to figure out so I’m just going to get into the grated area with Ascend up here and jump down into the area that is blocked by the grate.”

Tim did just that but before jumping down he pulled out his bow and killed a monster that was below, jumping down he looked around the room, “Okay what should I do first?”

“Use the fan there to blow the sand away from the weird zonai thing!” Steph offered.

Since it was obvious that it needed to be cleared Tim blew away the sand letting the zonai device fall to the ground, “Next?”

Dick grinned, “That pile of sand! Theres probably another monster in it.”

Before turning Link to blow away, “Any other guesses?”

“Eh,” Steph shrugged, “Probably empty. Both of the last two piles are empty but you need to clear one of them to do something to continue the puzzle.”

Jason nodded agreeing, “Both empty but you need to blow the smaller pile away to continue the puzzle.”

“I’ll go the medium pile, Damian?”

“There will be something in the middle pile but the smaller pile’s removal will further the puzzle. Cain?”

“Medium empty, small further puzzle.”

All the votes in Tim blew away the two piles and both were empty, the smaller pile revealed a giant light source that started shinning up into the sky.

Jason counted off on his fingers, “Dick zero, Damian has two and a half, Steph three and a half, I have six and Cass is winning with a perfect run so far with eight points. Pretty sure Cass is going to win.”

Steph shrugged, “Probably, now what is that thing that fell out of the first pile of sand? Some sort of light deflector? I mean we have to find a way to get light to hit that target looking thing.”

When no one had anything to say to that Tim picked up the zonai mirror and carried it onto the grated platform over the tower of light and set it down, as soon as he carried it into the lit up area a beam of light shot out of it into the next room once Tim positioned it correctly.

Cass hummed, “First room mirror.”

Since it was rather obvious that was the key to the puzzle no one argued.

After lighting up the target area Tim had Link get the Light of Blessing and let the game automatically teleport him out of the shrine.

Chapter Text

Jason hummed as he grabbed another pretzel and the screen changed to the transition screen, “So in essence Cass won and Dick lost.”

Steph shrugged, “Basically, what are we doing next?”

Tim took a drink of his pop as the screen finished transitioning back to where he was standing outside, “Now to go find Riju.”

Damian nodded, “So you are going back into the shelter to go through the way captain said to go to where she is practicing.”

“Nah,” Tim jumped off the shrine platform and activated Tulin’s power to propel him forward in the air, “I’m skipping the tunnel and just paragliding towards where she’s practicing.”

Jason frowned, “What is she even practicing?”

“You’ll see soon.”

“Shit!” Steph stared at the screen, “Are you in a lightning storm? Your weather dial says it’s just sunny but that is definitely lightning!”

“We should discover the source,” Damian ate a piece of popcorn before continuing, “It might be a threat to the Gerudo who we are allied with.”

Tim hummed as he landed in the North Gerudo Ruins, according to the pop up in the corner of the screen.

“Careful,” Dick frowned at the screen that was hard to see far on as they air was full of sand causing the screen to have an odd yellow gray tinge to it. “You could easily run into a monster without any warning.”

On the screen Link walked through the ruins, getting closer to the lighting strikes until a form appeared in the sand fog.

“Damn,” Steph looked over the form, “She’s got some major jewelry and she pulls it off well.”

Cass nodded, “Chief.”

“That would make sense,” Damian remarked.

As Link got just a little closer a cut scene took over. It showed Riju concentrating before swinging her sword to try to hit a humanoid target, she missed.

“I can see why she’s practicing,” Jason commented, “She does look on the younger side so it makes sense she isn’t as experienced with the technique.”

“At least she understands and is training.” Damian pointed out.

“True.”

The cut scene continued showing noticing Link was present which caused her to smile apparently happily surprised to see Link. Following this the screen announced that she was Riju the Gerudo Chief.

The screen blacked out for a second and after which Riju seemed to react to you telling her about everything that had happened with Zelda. She commented that the sand shroud had started up when Hyrule Castle ascended into the sky.

“Wait,” Steph frowned, “How they know they happened at the same time? You can’t see the castle from here, right?”

Tim nodded, “The mountains surrounding the desert block the view.”

“They are probably guesstimating based on things traveling merchants said,” Dick pointed out, “They have to get there news someho-OW.” Dick pouted at Damain who had just slapped Dick’s hand that had tried to sneak into Damain’s bowl.

“If you want popcorn get you own bowl.”

“But your bowl is closer, and I’d have to let you go to get a bowl.”

“I do not care I got this bowl for myself, get your own bowl.”

On the screen Riju explained about the dangers of the sandstorm predominately the Gibdo that where hard to defeat as they resistant to most attacks. She continued on to explain that she was practice with lightning as believed it would help in fighting the Gerudo.

Jason agreed, “If your fire weapons worked there’s a good chance lighting would work as well. I mean lighting hitting the fabric that wraps around the chest area of the Gibdo is probably flammable and hitting it with lighting could set it on fire.”

Tim hummed, “Ice weapons also work.”

“So any element works?”

Tim nodded as Cass stood form the couch and, on the screen, Riju remarked that she had only recently discovered the technique and thus needed practice.

As Riju continued saying that if she mastered the technique, it would be a major aid in the fight against the Gibdo and allow investigation into the cause of the sand shroud and Gibdo. Cass brought a bowl over to Dick and Damian.

Dick grinned, “Thank you!”

Damian scowled he had hopped that Grayson going for his own popcorn would allow him to escape to another couch but at least Grayson would have to keep a looser grip to hold and eat his own popcorn.

Cass pointed at Damian’s bowl, “Give to Dick. Fresh bowl for you.”

Damian nodded handing his bowl on, “As Grayson stole contents from this bowl he should get the partially consumed bowl while I get a bowl that is filled to compensate me for the popcorn Grayson stole.”

Dick shrugged accepting the bowl, “Popcorn is popcorn.”

As Cass settled back into the couch leaning on Jason, without disturbing his bag of pretzels Riju asked Link for help practicing her new ability which Link quickly agreed to. This led to Riju coating an area in lighting potential where, once Link’s arrows hit the target it focused on and blasted it.

Steph blinked, “Wait, she can’t hit the target on her own but somehow your arrow makes her actually hit the target?”

Dick hummed, “Well she did coat an area in charge which then focused onto a collision between to areas, and if the arrows have a metal tip it could be drawing the charge itself.”

On the screen Riju told Link to shoot the ground in front of three targets and lighting hit the ground there but arches of lighting shot out from the strike and hit the targets.

“Okay,” Steph declared, “That was just bullshit.”

“Agreed.” Damian answered.

Riju declared she was finally getting ahold of her abilities before the screen lit up and a ringing sound was heard.

“Huh?” Dick stared at the screen, “What was that?”

Steph waved him off, “Just the first sign that she is the person that will give Link help in this specific quest and give him an avatar like Tulin, the bird person, and Yunobo the round uh rock person? I don’t know how to describe him but he’s the avatar that travels with Link and helps him fight monsters and such.”

“Oh, cool.”

Riju expressed confusion about the noise until a guard appeared with news that Gibdo where attacking the Kara Kara Bazar. Riju asks for your help before running off apparently to Kara Kara Bazar to try and do something about the Gibdo attack.

Tim had Link pull up his map and select the bazar teleport spot. 

Chapter Text

As the screen started to show the Bazar Damian scoffed, “We should have arrived here before Riju not at the same time.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Game mechanics. This battle couldn’t happen without her here.”

“You have fought these monsters before without her aid.”

“Okay the game wants you to learn how to work with Riju to do something we will see in a bit.”

Dick hummed, “See what?”

Jason shrugged, “He’ll show us soon enough, now go out there and protect Riju from the Gibdo approaching the bazar. I doubt the unconnected rather simple barricades with a couple guards are going to keep out the Gibdo, especially as they haven’t figured out how to kill the things.”

“We just saw in the cut scene when we arrived Riju’s lighting blast kill two Gibdos by striking the ground,” Damian pointed out, “They should know lighting is necessary to get through the protections.”

“Okay they might know how to fight them now but it’s the middle of the battle it’s not like they have time to go get lighting weapons the guards are all have just normal weapons cause that’s what they’ve always need to fight monsters attacking the bazar.”

“They should have figured out they needed something else from when the Gibdo attacked Gerudo town and been prepared.”

“Brat they didn’t know how to fight the monsters, that’s why they were hiding in the defense bunker in town.”

“Then why don’t they have more defenses around this oasis?”

Steph cheered as Tim directed one of Riju’s blasts to hit the ground between two Gibdo, “Go get the bastards.”

Jason shrugged watching Tim taking out Gibdos and picking up their loot before moving on, “It’s a desert so there’s not much they can use to make barricades and we are pretty far from the dust cloud so they must have thought Gibdos couldn’t get out this far. Oh nice use of chu chu jelly while Riju’s repowering up her ability.”

Tim grinned, “Just farming for some more Gibdo bones as they are supper powerful when attached to arrows.”

“Many bones now,” Cass pointed out.

“Yeah, just let me get a few more and I’ll move on.”

Damian crossed his arms watching as Tim went to help some guards that were getting overwhelmed, “They should have set up more plans, maybe a safe area to retreat for when the Gibdo made it farther out, they can not have believed that the Gibdo would not travel outside the sandstorm.”

“They didn’t expect a giant sand mushroom to appear and drop a seemingly infinite amount of Gibdos. The amount of guards they have probably could have handled one or two, maybe three Gibdos but not this never-ending supply.”

“The sand structure that produces Gibdos would be hard to predict seeing as it seems they hadn’t seen such a structure before. It seems they have some reason to be unprepared for this situation.”

Dick grinned down at Damian, “That’s the spirit! They are doing really well against them even with them being so hard for them to kill as they don’t have weapons that would give them the chance to be more effective against the Gibdo.”

Damian scoffed, “They still could have been more prepared.”

“Only guards out.” Cass pointed out.

Jason nodded, “Yeah, they did get the civilians some where out of the way and probably safe so they didn’t have some sort of plan. Probably to have them hide in the inn. Then they could go up on top of the tower that is built on top of the inn to signal for help or survey for if the Gibdo had left or not.”

Damian hummed but didn’t respond as Tim killed another Gibdo and quickly moved to pick up its loot.

Steph rolled her eyes, “Alright those two are done debating and you have picked up way more than a few more Gibdo bones. Move along already. I’m getting bored.”

“Fine,” Tim turned towards the sand mushroom shaped structure that towered over the town, “I just need Riju to recharge her power until it coats the hive.”

“The what?”

“Hive, you know where the monsters are dropping from.”

“Oh, I thought it was a sand mushroom and the Gibdo were like spores or something.”

Tim snorted, “No it’s a Gibdo nest, and now that Riju’s power is coating the mushroom I just need to wait for that bulb in the middle of the nest’s stalk to light up.”

“Light up?”

“It turns a bright purple color.”

“Cool purple is awesome and oh there it goes!”

Nodding Tim had Link pull back his bow and shot the bulb of the nest’s stalk and with the lighting strike the nest broke into sand and fell to the ground, “Alright let me kill the last stragglers and we will see a new cut scene.”

Steph nodded, “Is it just me or did that look like a mushroom, like really like the plant.”

“Yep,” Dick nodded agreeing, “It was a giant mushroom made of sand that spit out monsters, or well dropped out monsters when ever that bulb lit up.”

“It did?”

“Yep, when the bulb lit up purple holes appeared in the bottom of the nest’s mushroom cap and out dropped the Gibdo.”

“Oh, I didn’t notice, did anyone else see it?”

Cass nodded, “Purple then monsters.”

Jason shook his head, “Must have been one of the times I looked away to find my cup.”

“TT,” Damian crossed his arms, “Of course I saw.”

“Lie.” Cass grinned at Damian.

Damian growled but did not debate her meaning that she was right.

The screen shifted into a cut scene as Tim felled the last Gibdo. “Alright store line time.”

The group watched as Riju talked with Buliara congratulating her on holding the line until they could arrive and telling her not that they knew that the Gibdo were vulnerable to lighting they would have an advantage.

Next, they saw the back of Zelda before seeing three tornado like columns erupted from inside the sand storm before disappearing. When they looked back Zelda was gone.

Riju turned to Buliara and talked about how Gerudo town was in danger and told Link that she and Buliara were going to go ahead to Gerudo town before the cut scene finished.

Chapter Text

Steph grabbed a new Gatorade bottle and opened it, “So now to Gerudo town?’

“Yep,” Tim opened up the map menu and selected the shrine on top of the tower above the throne room.

Damian frowned, “Are you not going to do anything to prepare? Or are you just going to go in unprepared?”

“One I am armed to the teeth. I have over twenty bows, more than twenty melee weapons and ten shields. I also have over fifty pieces of chu chu jelly in the different elemental types.”

Jason whistled, “Impressive.”

“I don’t want to run out while you and anyone else is watching. Opening Amiboo chests for weapons isn’t exactly interesting to watch. That’s the best way to get weapons quickly, especially if you do the reload method.”

Steph blinked, “Reload method?”

“You use the Amiboo card or statue, I have both but use the cards as they are a lot easier to use.”

“Amiboo?”

“A Nintendo method to get more money out of people. You buy special figurines and then you can scan them with your controller, it uses NFC, and get special items. The reload method is where you save then scan a card and if you don’t like what you got you just reload the game and scan the card again and you’ll get something else.”

“Huh sounds boring.”

“It is, that’s why I don’t do it while people are watching. Now we are in town I need to go down to talk to Riju.”

Damian blinked, “Down into the shelter then?”

“Nah.” Link jumped off the platform the shrine was on and used the paraglider to float down, “She’s just outside the throne room.”

“Uh,” Steph watched as Link approached Riju, “Shouldn’t they be hiding in the shelter for safety?”

Jason shook his head, “Riju must have worked with her soldiers to clear out the town so they can be above ground. The normal people are going to be still in the shelter but the soldiers are probably out so they can be prepared for any Gibdos that try to get into camp. At least that’s what would make sense to me.”

Tim nodded, “Your right, now let me talk with Riju.”

Talking with Riju revealed there were three Gibdo nests outside the town, one at each entrance into the town and that they had not yet started an attack. As the hives are only vulnerable while releasing Gibdos they had to wait until the attack to take out the nests.

Then the screen took a golden tint and a disembodied voice, defiantly female summoned them.

Dick blinked, “Uh do we know where the voice wants to go? All she said was come where she is.”

“Not yet, but were not done,” Tim shooshed him.

Rolling his eyes Dick continued to watch as Link followed Riju into the throne room and spoke with her again.

Damian nodded, “Good she is giving us the command of her forces. We will be best able to deploy them.”

Tim nodded, “I know how I want everything deployed but I’ll let you guys decide initially.”

“Initially?” Damian scowled, “If we choose you should simply follow what are choices are.”

“I know how they will actually work and I’m the one that has to fight with them so I get final say. I’m just wondering if you’ll managed to get some of the best set ups figured out.”

“What do we have to work with?”

“Do you want to hear about the defense option or the defenders first?”

“Defenses, I wish to see them in play before dividing up the forces.”

Jason snorted, “Do the rest of us get a say?”

Damian crossed his arms, “I will listen to your inferior opinions and determine whether they are worth any good.”

“Ooooh, competition.” Steph grinned, “Why don’t we deploy each of the defenses so we can see what they look like, then talk to the lady in charge of the defenders and then write down what set up we would want to use and whoevers closest to Tim’s decision wins.”

“Wins what?”

“Hm…” Steph thought for a moment, “Picking something for Jason to cook for Thanksgiving?”

Jason raised an eyebrow at her, “And what do I win? I’m already going to be cooking what I want and your making my work be part of the bet reward.”

“Losers have to clean something at one of your apartments, not like the entire thing apartment but like a room, with minimal complaining.”

“Instead of the massive complaining when I make one of you clean up the mess all of you make of my apartments?”

“Yep.”

Jason considers for a moment, “I agree, what do all of you say?”

No one wanted to admit that they thought they weren’t up to the challenge so no one disagreed with the cost for the losers.

Tim hummed, “Do I get a stake in this?”

Steph shook her head, “Your just immune from having to clean Jason’s place this time, but you have to write down you decision before any of us reveal what we chose so no one can accuse you of letting someone specially win.”

Jason hummed, “Or I’ll cook something you pick if no one picks what you do, but if someone does you have to clean a room.”

Tim thought for a moment, “Not a bathroom or kitchen and deal.”

“Cool, now show us what the options are.”

“Alright first I’m going to take all the stuff the person over here left for me to use during the attack and then I’ll have her set the barricade up in, uh North, West or East? This is just for where to set it so everyone can see it.”

“North is the one across from the throne room, right?”

“Yes.”

“Set it there as it will be fastest for you to get to it for us to all look at.”

Nodding Tim went into the area with all the supplies for battle, picked it all up and instructed Padda to set the barricade up at the North gate for now. He’d reposition to where he wanted after everyone picked where they would put everything.

Chapter Text

Tim stopped at the north gate, “So this is what the barricade looks like, it will stretch to fill the other doorways just like this but just wider set as those two doors are just a little wider than the front gate.”

Damian peered at the screen, “Wooden boards and are those metal barrels?”

Tim nodded getting closer, “They are. You do get one soldier with it. Now I’m going to go and show you what the three defender types I have to deploy.”

Running over to the side area off the throne, opposite the one with all the supplies and the person able to set up the barricade. Talking with Teake she asked where to deploy the cannoneer, swordsmen, and spearman. “The swordsmen have.”

Steph cut him off, “You mean swordswomen.”

Not wanting to fight, partially because Steph would dig in and refuse to listen to reason in these cases like this where the end result of the argument had no real effect, beyond irritating the person she was arguing with but Tim was pretty sure that was part of her goal so… “The swordswomen have swords with fire Lizalfos horns attached, the spears women have electric Lizalfos horn and the Cannoneer comes with two spears women that are armed with spears with fire Lizalfos horns. Now everyone needs to decide where to put the barricade, each of the defender types and which order I should hit the gates.”

Damian scowled, “That is more than you said earlier.”

“The order I would go depends on where I put people.” Tim pulled out his phone and started typing what he was going to do.

Jason frowned, “For our bet the order you go in isn’t a factor. It’s just if someone got all the positioning right.”

Tim nodded agreeing.

Everyone around the room pulled out their own phones and started to type up what they thought he should do. Tim grinned he was so going to win the bet against Jason, no one was going to pick what he did.

A short time later everyone was done.

Steph frowned, “How do we know who matches with Tim best? Does it just have to be exact matches in all the spots or does it matter on order we went?”

Tim hummed, “I’m going to start that I have one thing that is either a point or negative point depending on what you combined the barricade with.”

“Alright hit us with what we should have combined with the barricade.”

“The spears women, they are the only group that can reach over the barricade and can be added by the iron barrel.”

Damian frowned, “Wouldn’t the iron barrel electrocute the spears women?”

Steph nodded, “That’s what I thought.”

“The pairing does seem dangerous,” Dick hummed, “Did anyone pair the two up?”

Cass nodded, “Tim would.”

Jason snorted, “Of course she would read Tim. I say she gets a point for this as we are trying to figure out Tim’s plan.”

“TT,” Damian crossed his arms, “It is not the best plan if you use actual physics and understanding of materials.”

“Still Cass saw Tim’s plan so that’s one point for her.”

“Fine. What else is Drake’s plan then. It is most likely inferior as well.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “The other plan I had was that I would go from one side, to the middle and then to the other side.”

“That only makes sense if you put the two weakest defending units at the sides.”

Tim nodded, “But it saves time if you don’t have to cross the entire town to get to the next spot needing defending and thus give the Gibdo less time to get to each entrance. Which becomes more important when you start having to deal with the flying Gibdos.”

Steph blinked, “Flying? Why didn’t you mention that? It could have an effect on our battle plans!”

“Because I didn’t know about them until they showed up in the attack so they didn’t factor into my plans, or at least my initial plan.”

“Wait, did you fail?”

Tim sighed nodding in defeat, “I set up all the guards and then stayed with Riju to act as a last line of defense.”

“Shit, that was the plan I chose.”

“Yeah, since none of the guards have bows, they can’t actually take out the nests and I didn’t factor that in the first time. So, I go overwhelmed and Riju got knocked out which is how you lose.”

“Damn, well I admit defeat then.”

Damian scoffed, “Of course Brown’s plan was inferior.”

“Jason one, me two,” Cass pointed out the current point totals.

“TT, Drake reveals the next part of your plan.”

“I put the spear women and barricade at the east entrance.”

Damian grinned, “I did as well.”

Jason nodded, “Ditto, anybody else?”

The others shook their heads Dick sighing, “I didn’t put the barricade there either so that’s no points for me.”

Looking around Cass hummed, “Jason, I two; Damian one; Dick zero. Next?” She looked to Tim.

“I put the cannon and swordswomen at the north gate.”

Dick grinned, “I put the cannon there so I have one points now.”

“I also put the cannon there,” Damian hummed, “Two points then.”

“Four,” Cass grinned, “Cannon and swordswomen.”

Jason sighed, “Only three. I put the cannon there but not the swordswomen.”

“Wait…” Steph frowned looking at Time, “Did you not put anything at the west gate? I mean your out of defenses and people.”

“Yep. I went there first and I was able to take out the nest just by myself without aid but the other spots had to hold out until I got there so I put the combo I thought would work best in the east entrance and the lesser defenses in the north as I went straight from the west entrance to the north entrance before going to the east that was able to hold out better than the swordsman and cannon.”

“Swordswomen.”

“Right swordswomen, but that was my plan.”

“So Dick lost second to last cause he only got one-point, next Damian with two, Jason with three and four for, wait Cass,” Steph turned to her, “Did you have anyone at your east gate?”

“No.”

“Okay Cass so wins because she called Tim’s plan just swabbed the east and west gates.”

Jason chuckled, “Alright what do you want for me to make?”

“Lying apples. Very tasty.”

“Alright I’ll make those along with something Tim picks, but something Tim better be a small thing, Cass might not have called you perfectly but she was way too close for you to request something big.”

Tim hummed, “Not sure. I’ll tell you by tomorrow night if that’s okay?”

Jason nodded, “We still have a month so sure.”

“Alright, I’m going to shift the defenders around and then start the attack.”

As Tim did that everyone either grabbed new drinks or refreshed their snacks.

Chapter Text

Tim had Link talk with Riju as soon as he had all the guards and the barricade positioned how he wanted, triggering the beginning of the Gibdo attack. As Riju stayed in the center of the town spreading out her power over the town and the area outside the town.

“Damn,” Steph watched the screen, she’s got reach on that power. That is an insane amount of area to cover in magic like this.”

Tim nodded, “Yeah this is where she manages to do her strongest area of effect but as soon as I do this,” Tim shot the area between Gibdo lighting striking them, the yellow coloration of her abilities readiness to be used disappeared, “She has to repower up the ability but it’s pretty fast and nice.” Tim had Link shoot the bright glowing purple bulb on the hive as soon as Riju’s power coated it again.

“Awesome!” Steph cheered, “You already got one of the nests destroyed.”

“That’s why I leave this entrance undefended because as I clean up the two Gibdo here, and pick up the loot I can head to the front to support that group.”

Damian frowned, “You are taking time to pick up the monsters’ leavings when there is still a threat to the town.”

“Yeah, it will disappear after the end of the battle and Gibdo bones are to useful to waste and they are harder to farm after we defeat the,” Tim paused, “Uh the boss of this quest line.”

Steph snorted, “Smooth, alright you got everything here go to the nest spot, the front gate right?”

Tim nodded as he directed Link back into town running down the side street that was made up of this third of the town to come out near the front gate. Going directly out, Tim had to kill a few Gibdo before he could take out the nest.

“Flying Gibdo,” Cass pointed at the screen where a winged Gibdo was going over the city wall.

“I’ll grab the loot out here and then help the guards around Riju before going to the last entrance.”

Dick bit his lip, “Are you sure you can wait?”

“That line next to Riju’s face on the screen is Riju’s health bar, she’s barely taking any damage. She can wait, she has a bunch of guards that are armed with elemental weapons. I’ll actually be able to get the loot from monsters that they have killed.”

Picking up the last of the loot, Tim headed into town and started picking off the Gibdo that had managed to get into the town, mostly flying Gibdos and picking up the loot from the already felled monsters. Once the last of the current Gibdos were dead Tim headed towards the last entrance, “I need to climb over this oh never mind the Gibdo broke through the barrier.”

“TT,” Damain scoffed, “The barricade was obviously inferior if they managed to break through.”

Jason snorted, “It was a bunch of wood blanks and an iron barrel, it wasn’t going to hold out forever, but it seems the spears the women here have managed to keep the Gibdo back, well except for that one that’s flying over Link.”

“I’ll let Riju’s guards handle that while I get rid of this nest otherwise the nest will just keep spitting out more of them.” Using Riju’s powers to blast the few Gibdos that got into the doorway he hurried through to be able to get a view of the nest. Noticing the annoying amount of Gibdo he pulled out his bow and used shock fruits to kill off some of them waiting for Riju’s power to refresh. Her power refreshed fairly quickly but he wanted to get the first shot off on the hive so they could move along the story, he wasn’t farming for Gibdo bones no matter how nice that would be.

Dick blinked, “What are those? It doesn’t look like a monster part.”

“Not a monster part, they are shock fruit, and have a similar effect to yellow chu chu jelly or any electrical monster horns with going through the Gibdos protection. I have a powerful enough bow that just shooting them with a single arrow kills them.” Grinning when Riju’s power coated the area again, Tim waited for the nest’s bulb to glow and then shot it, destroying the nest. “Just need to mop up the rest of the Gibdo and then we get the victory cut scene.”

“Well,” Steph goaded him, “Kill them all already, unless you're just going to let the Gerudo do all the work.”

“They might finish off the last one in the middle of town before I can get there but I will be getting the ones out here and hopefully all their loot. I hate losing loot because cut scenes happen, it's so annoying.”

As soon as Tim felled the last Gibdo outside the town a cut scene took over showing the Gerudo giving a cheer as the town had officially been defended. After the scene Riju thanked Link before going on to wonder about the relationship between the Gibdo and the sand shroud as the hives collapsed into sand after being destroyed.

Walking outside the throne room Tim blinked at the center of town, “I stand corrected the loot does not disappear during this cut scene. I’m going to collect all of this and the stuff outside the west gate and then we’ll go into the shelter to talk with Riju at the mural and advance the story line.”

Jason hummed, “Sounds like a plan, now why don’t I tell everyone what they get to clean?”

Steph groaned, “I’m going to get the worst of it aren’t I?”

“Well your plan would have failed, so yes.”

“Alright hit me with it. I might as well start regretting setting up the bet now versus having what I need to do hanging over my head.”

“I will tell each of you in order of how many points you got so Steph first, Dick next, Damian and then Cass who will get a lesser task as she almost got it.”

Cass nodded, “Understood, now Steph?”

Chapter Text

Jason grinned, “Alright Steph you get to clean my apartments main bathroom, make sure to get all of your hair out of the drains straight Gotham water might be able to break hair down some but most of the time someone’s using my bathroom they turn the filter on and so the hair can really clog up the pipe.”

Dick blinked, “Gotham tap water can dissolve hair?”

“If you leave it sitting on it for long enough but it isn’t very effective in small quantities, there’s reasons you don’t see things like hair or complete corpses in the sewers. Give the water long enough and it can destroy a lot.”

“And you drink that?”

“I just have to digest it before it can start to dissolve me, like with pineapples you have to digest those before they digest you and anyway its only in large quantities that you have to worry about the water doing anything, it doesn’t even give people who are used to it rashes.”

“You mean the reason I get rashes when I forget to turn on the filter is because the water is trying to dissolve me.”

“Yes? That’s why I put the filters in on all my safehouses showers, and my apartments for all of you to use. Your skin isn’t as built up against all the shit that’s in Gotham tap water.”

“Wait,” Steph blinked, “What do you mean that most of the time someone uses one of your bathrooms they turn on the filter, don’t you leave the filter off?”

“Yes, I do. That’s why I have such big towels so that when of you use one of my showers you actually wrap yourselves up while searching my closet for something to wear. I literally have clothes from you guys or in your size and most of the time I’ll come back to my apartment and someone’s wearing my clothes.”

“I do like the towels that way I don’t have to get clothes before the shower and I don’t get whatever’s on me on the clean clothes but you didn’t always have such big ones, or as many as you stock in your bathrooms.”

“That’s because that bastard,” Jason pointed at Dick who pouted, “Will walk around completely naked if I don’t have enough towels and I don’t need to see that when I get home after shopping for groceries.”

“Ew,” Steph shuddered, “Please keep stocking your bathrooms with towels. I definitely don’t want to see that. By Gotham was I happy when Bruce finally understood why the Batcave needed a separate bathroom for the girls in the cave. Not that it took him long once I had to use the bathroom at the same time as him. At least he insisted I use the bathroom first.”

Dick pouted, “You guys never say anything in the locker rooms.”

“That’s because it’s a locker room,” Jason glared at Dick, “Being semi or totally naked is expected to happen. Although covering yourself more often in the locker room would be appreciated. The middle of my living room is not somewhere where someone should be naked.”

Dick blushed at the looks he was getting and noticing what was happening on screen he pointed at the screen, “Look Tim is at the mural!”

Tim snorted, “I can wait, I want to hear what he’s going to make you clean. Also, I agree with Jason using a towel to cover your privates in the locker room would be appreciated. I know you have no shame, see the original Robin outfit, but some of us do and would appreciate you pretend you do as well.”

“Alright,” Jason decided to take some mercy on Dick, not completely but some, “Moving on your task Dick is in my main apartment you will clean the kitchen to my standards. All the dishes washed with soap and air dried, scrubbing all the counters off with real cleaning materials not just Clorox wipes and clean my range with the special cleaners meant for it.”

Dick groaned, head falling back, “Little Wing that’s so hard. You're so picky about how clean your kitchen should be.”

“Be glad I’m not making you clean out the stove as well, and maybe you’ll learn something about keeping your own kitchen clean after cleaning mine. And anyways you’re the one that spilled milk all over my counter top and then left it there.”

“There was an Arkham attack!”

“You could still have gone back after the attack and cleaned up; you even left your half-eaten bowl of cereal out. I almost demanded you come clean up but I wanted it done when I found it and not two days latter so I cleaned that up. You get to clean a room that was recently cleaned at least.”

“You're just all picking on me.”

“Well, you are the oldest, now Damian your going to clean the living room of my main apartment. It's pretty clean already but I haven’t dusted or vacuumed recently so that needs to be done.”

Damina nodded, “Acceptable. I will have the room cleaned past your expectations within the week.”

“Sounds good brat, Cass I just want you to put away the laundry I haven’t gotten to. It’s a mix of everyone’s so you’ll need to put it in the right drawers per person, which then people will hopefully wear their own clothes. I mean my hopes aren’t high but I can always hope.”

Cass nodded, “Need clothes for leaving.”

Jason blinked, “Wait is that why you all switch to your clothes? Just so you don’t steal mine.”

“Mostly. Still steal some.”

“I knew someone was stealing my clothes.”

“Bring back.”

“So you can steal new clean stuff.”

“Yes.”
Jason sighed, “Can you at least warn me when you steal a sweat shirt? I swear last winter I kept having to buy new sweat shirts as they all seemed to walk off.”

Steph hummed, “You can’t use that to demand we return things if we do that.”

“As long as you don’t keep things sure. I don’t want to break a sweat shirt into the really comfy stage only to never see it again.”

“I’ll make a tally next time I steal one on the white board on your fridge.”

“And bring some of mine back?”

Steph sighed as if deeply inconvenienced, “Fine I’ll return some of yours back.”

“All of them and then you can take one.”

“Three.”

“Why do you need three of my sweatshirts? Don’t you own your own?”

“They aren’t as comfy as yours, and it's fun knowing I stole them from big bad Red Hood.”

Jason sighed looking at Tim, “I’m not going to get better than that so might as well move the story along.”

Tim nodded unpausing the game.

Chapter Text

On the screen Link stepped up to where Riju was standing in front of a mural inside the shelter and Riju told him to look at it and started to talk.

“Damn,” Steph looked at the screen, “If her ancestors were using this place than this shelter is really old.”

Damian rolled his eyes, “Of course it is old, it is a natural, or near natural cave system. This is one of the few places that looks like they actually altered the walls to make a flat surface for the mural. It looks interesting a triangle with archways in each corner, with lightning sticking something in the middle.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at the screen, “The mural tells you to stand back-to-back with the throne? Is the throne that old? And your suppose to see red pillars? How can you with the sandstorm.”

Tim shrugged, “You’ll see later.”

Cass hummed, “Mysterious voice, knew you’d hear.”

“Well,” Jason tilted his head to the side, “We did already hear voices with the other two sages, they must have known that they would need to call out to their decedents to summon them.”

Steph nodded, “It’s not like they would wander into those temples without being summoned, I mean the last one was literally beneath a volcano.”

Damain scowled at the screen as Riju thought out loud, “Of course the mural is representing locations and gives hints on where to find them as the Gerudo obviously don’t know about any structures that could be involved in the current situation.”

“Give the girl a break, she’s obviously stressed with all these Gibdo attacks. Now go stand back-to-back with the throne so we can continue on.”

Tim directed Link back up into town and to the throne room to stand behind the throne. Their view blocked by the large statue behind the throne.

“Alright go stand back-to-back with the statue.”

Tim grinned but did as instructed and now the group could see in the distance a large pillar with an open gap near the top making some sort of elevated platform with a roof over supported by pillars.

“Huh,” Dick looked closer at the screen, “That looks like the thing we saw on the mural in red. Are we headed there then.”

“Yep.”

“How long of a walk will it be?” Steph asked, “It looks far away.”

Jason snorted, “No way is Tim walking all that distance.”

“How else is he going to get there?”

Tim used the Purah Pad to get to where the shrine was above the town, “Paragliding as much as possible, as always. Walking, especially on sand is slow.” Jumping off the platform Link pulled out his paraglider and started to glide towards the sand storm and the direction the pillar was in. Using Tulin’s ability to propel him forward farther in the air until Link landed on the platform under the roof of the pillar.

“Now what?” Steph pursed her lip, “What are you supposed to do.”

“TT, obviously we need to do something to reveal what ever is hidden under those rocks, otherwise it would not glow for us to notice it.”

Tim nodded fusing a rock that was on the platform to one of his swords Link lept into the air and pounded the rock into the cracked stones cracking them all open and revealing a bright light that immediately shot up and lit a mirror that shot a beam of light further into the sand storm.

Jason arched a brow at the obvious tell, “I wonder where we are supposed to go next.”

Steph nodded, “Complete mystery.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he used to ascend to get onto the top of the pillar and started to glide along the line of the light shot in.

Dick pouted as Tim started to dip into the sandstorm as he got lower into the air as he coasted along the light, “Looks like you're going to have to walk, can you even see the light beam from the ground.”

“There’s updrafts along the way I can use to float back up, ah here’s the first one.” Flying into the up draft and Link was propelled up above the sandstorm again.

On the second time going up Steph pointed at the screen, “Another pillar! It’s a lot shorter but you should be able to get here by gliding.”

She proved to be right as Link dropped to the ground right beside the drastically shorter tower.

“Make taller?” Cass asked.

Tim nodded, “Yeah there’s a crank around here that will raise the pillar up into the light beam, just have to remember where.”

The group watched as Tim circled outwards from the tower, killing a few Gibdo until he found a similar structure to the pillar but was merely a raised platform with a turning crank on top of it.

Damian hummed, “You need to spin that until the other pillar gets tall enough, correct?”

Tim nodded.

“Could you attach a fan to one of the push bars so that you do not have to slowly run the crank yourself?”

“Worth a try,” Taking out a fan from Link’s inventory and used ultrahand to attach it to one of the pushing arms. Hitting it with his sword the fan started turning the crank around and the group watched as the pillar slowly rose into the sky.

It was easy to tell when they had succeeded as a success sound sounded and the beam of light hit the mirror that was apparently on the newest pillar and shot a light beam towards where another pillar stood. It was easily to see the next pillar as the light beam was hitting it and reflecting towards Gerudo town.

Jason chuckled, “Guessing that isn’t the solution?”

Tim nodded, “Need to make an adjustment at the last pillar.”

“Well head to the last pillar then.”

Nodding Tim used ascend to get to the top of the platform so he could get to the next pillar without walking.

Chapter Text

As Link landed next to the last pillar Tim killed a few Gibdos before getting onto the platform.

Damian frowned, “What are you suppose to do? The light is already reflecting of the mirror of this pillar.”

“Pointing wrong way.” Cass pointed out, “No success noise.”

“So,” Steph looked to Tim, “How do we reposition the mirror? Another turning turnstile?”

Tim nodded.

“Must be on the roof then as there’s nothing on this level, ascend up there!”

Shrugging Tim did revealing a broken turnstile, “We need to go back down to get something to attach to the turnstile so I can turn it.”

Jason hummed, “Could you just attach a stake to the turnstile and use that to turn the turnstile? I mean you have some of those Zonai stakes in your inventory and your rarely use them for anything.”

Tim blinked, “Well I could try, getting the pieces you are suppose to use to make an arm on the turnstile is really annoying.”

Pulling out a stake Tim managed to attach it to the central part of the turnstile and pushed on it until the mirror turned until the light beam hit the first pillar and the screen was taken over by an image of a triangle made in a beam of light between the pillars and then a light appeared in the center where a strange item rose from the sand inside a small platform.

Steph blinked, “So are we going there or to talk to Riju?”

“There. Riju will meet us there.” Jumping off the pillar Tim easily glided to where the item had erupted from the sand.

Dick blinked at the screen, “Whose that woman next to the thing that came out of the sand.”

“TT,” Damian crossed his arms, “It is meant to be Zelda but there are things we have seen that makes us doubt that it is truly Zelda but actually a doppelganger attempting to impersonate her.”

Dick nodded as Link got closer to where Zelda was standing next to the strange item was, Riju calling out and running up to join him before he could get to close to Zelda. When Link turned to look at Riju and looked back to where Zelda had been she had vanished. Which surprised Link and Riju.

“Very mysterious.” Cass nodded to the screen.

Steph nodded, “Yep now let’s investigate the item.”

When they got closer it turned out to be a flat stone structure that was taller than Link and Riju and equally wide. Out of the top was a strange projection.

“Huh,” Steph tiled her head to the side, “That kind of looks like a lighting bolt. You should hit it with Riju’s power.”

Tim nodded as he clicked through the dialogue where Riju congratulated them for figuring out the pillars puzzle, “That’s what we are about to do… there.”

As lighting struck the part of the structure that looked like a lightning bolt it slowly lowered into the structure and in the distance, sand started to be disturbed before a large structure emerged from the sand. It resembled a step pyramid.

“Huh,” Dick watched as they got closer and closer to the structure until the screen announced that they were at the lightning temple. “That makes sense with Riju’s powers. Now that thing, the half egg webbed glowing thing on the door is a lot like the Gibdo nests. Are you going to hit it with Riju’s lighting?”

Tim nodded as he activated Riju’s ability and once the power had coated the area that had the strange glowing purple half egg and then shot it with an arrow.

The item burst and from inside came a large skeletal moth like monster erupted from it and towered over Riju and Link. Before it screamed causing the screen to shake and as the large mothlike wings moved it kicked up large amounts of sand into the air

“Shit!” Steph leaned backwards, “Talking about weird monsters. What is it oh,” She watched as the screen announced the monster was the Queen Gibdo, “Right it’s that. If looks like the flying Gibdos but like a fuck ton larger. Now kill it. It’s like Riju said the source of the sand storm so if you kill it you’ll be able to see as you travel around the desert.”

Tim rolled his eyes but as the screen shifted back to him being in control he activated Riju’s ability and shot the Queen Gibdo causing it to scream and fall turning white as the Gibdo did when their protective coating disappeared. Tim tried to run over to attack the monster but it stood and smashed the ground causing three updrafts full of sand, almost like sand tornadoes and shot it at Link.

Running Tim managed to get Link behind the sand storms and got to shoots off before the Queen Gibdo rose up on it’s hind legs and slammed down on top of Link, sending out more sand storms.

“Ouch.” Jason grimaced as the numbers of hearts Link had greatly depleted, “Going to have something to eat right? You cannot take another hit.”

Tim quickly brought up the menu screen nodding, “She’ll probably get a few more hits on me and I don’t want to use up fairies so it is definitely time to eat mid battle.”

Dick glared at the screen, “Stupid yummy apples.”

Jason groaned, “You can not still be annoyed that I got you to eat mushrooms because I wanted to prove that I could make a mushroom and apple dish that was good!”

Damian blinked, “That is why you made that dish? And Grayson acted like a pouting child after realizing what was in it?”

“Yep, oh nice shot Tim!”

On the screen Tim had gone back to the fight and shot the monster in the face causing it to fall down stunned. “Thanks,” Tim got a hit on the monster before the tan musty and red coloring of the Queen Gibdo reappeared, “Shit I need to get to Riju. Oh, damn it!”

“Ow.” Cass commented as the monster literally stampeded over Link.

Tim grimaced but close enough to activate Riju Tim focused on getting rid of the protective coverings on the monster so he could do more damage. Glaring at the screen when Queen Gibdo shot a stream of sand at him hitting and knocking Link over. Getting up Link shot the monster causing her to scream as the protective colors, or perhaps coverings, disappeared.

Dodging around another set of sand storms Link got two hits with his arrow before she sent another set of sand storms at Link.

Tim glared as one of the sand storms hit Link and flung him into the air. As soon as Link was standing, he took another shot with his bow before he had to run to Riju again as the protective coated once more appeared.

“Damn,” Jason watched at Tim got the Queen Gibdo with another lighting hit, “She’s pretty tough.”

“And irritating because she does, there it is.”

A cut scene took over as Queen Gibdo hit half hit points and they watched her fly off towards the top of the pyramid temple.

Dick frowned, “We need to go, oh Riju is telling us we can hopefully go into the temple and find the Queen Gibdo so it can be killed and the sand storms can be stopped.”

Steph nodded, “Makes sense, well Tim go open the door!”

Chapter Text

Tim rolled his eyes but directed Link towards the entrance but paused when Alfred stepped into the room and everyone turned to look at him.

Alfred gave them all a small smile enjoying having so many of his grandchildren in one place. “I have prepared a light lunch that can be eaten while watching, as long as you promise to keep as clean as possible.”

“Of course, Alfred!” Dick stood letting Damian free, “What do you have?”

Alfred stepped out of the door way and pushed in a cart as everyone stood, Tim pausing the game and setting the controller on the table in the middle of the room.

“For today I have tortilla chips with a queso sauce inside an easy to hold and carry container of two sizes with minced beef to add to it at the desired amount. There is also russet lentils as an alternative. As additional options there is grated fromage, cos, oignon grelot, golden apples, jalapenos, maize, crème fraiche, alligator pear shavings and pico de gallo

Lettuce, onions, tomatoes, radishes, jalapenos, corn, grilled bell peppers, sour cream, guacamole, avocado slices, salsa

Jason grinned, “Whose turn is it to face Alfred’s challenge?”

Steph grinned waving her hand in the air, “That’s me!”

“Alright, what is under the cloches?”

Steph thought for a moment, her tongue peeking out as the others watched, “Alright queso is cheese so that’s cheese and tortilla chips so maybe nachos. Minced beef is obvious but russet lentils just means brown lentils. Grated fromage is shredded cheese. Then Cos is uh, dam,” Seeing Alfred’s arched eyes brow she blushed, “Sorry.”

“It is quite alright, but please remember to refrain from cursing inside the manner.”

Steph nodded, “Okay I’m passing on cos, but oignon grelot is a Spanish for white onions.”

“TT, it is French.” Damian corrected, “And Cos is romaine lettuce.”

Dick patted his head, pulling his hand back quickly as Damian tried to stab it, “Good, but it’s Steph’s turn to try and figure out what Alfred is serving.”

“TT, she was getting the language wrong and passed on the obvious cos so I corrected her.”

“The rule is that you wait until she’s done, now knife?” Dick held his hand out to Damian who pouting handed it over. As Steph continued Dick added it to the basket of knives near the door.

“Well golden apples is the Italian term for tomatoes and jalapenos is obvious, and obvious for Jason, at least Alfred didn’t pull out cayenne peppers.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Your all just to lame to try.”

“I like my tongue working so I’ll stay lame. Then there’s corn and,” Steph paused narrowing her eyes, “Sour cream?”

Alfred nodded.

“Right sour cream, then,” She grinned, “Alligator pears are another weird name for avocado and then the last was salsa.”

“Those are correct.”

“So, all together that would be nachos? But that isn’t very clean. Anyone else have ideas?”

Damian scowled as the others shock their head with Jason adding, “No clue, nachos seem like the only answer.”

Alfred grinned removing a cloche revealing all the ingredients that Steph listed before lifting the first, revealing bags of Doritos, normal and large single servings bags.

“Walking tacos!” Steph grinned, “I can’t believe your letting us eat Doritos!”

“I admit it is not my preference to serve such a dish but it seems a good option for this get together.”

Jason grinned, “Thanks Alfie, well Steph? You going to start us or are we just going to stare at the food?”

Rolling her eyes Steph stepped forward and grabbed one of the bags and started filling it up with the toppings she wanted, before wandering back into the center of the room to inspect the seating options. “I vote Jason sits first so he doesn’t try sitting on any of us.”

“Ah come on,” Jason grinned as he hung back to go last, “Squishing people is one of the best parts of hanging out together.”

Dick winced remembering the many times Jason had sat on him, claiming little brother privileges quickly agreed with Steph, “Just think, you can sit where ever you want then.”

“Fine,” Jason sighed, “I guess I can sit down first.”

Everyone ended up milling around the room as Jason went second to last, Tim going just before him.

Steph frowned at Tim as Jason dumped all of the left over jalapenos into his bag, “Wait, you’re the entertainment. You should have eaten first.”

Tim shrugged, “To late you’ll just have to wait.”

“Boo!” Steph put her empty bag onto the second tray Alfred had brought into the room to sit on one side for all of their trash, “I’ll get bored if I have to wait that long!”

“To bad, I need to eat or one of them,” Tim gestured at Alfred and Jason, “Will tied me down and force me eat.”

Cass nodded, “All of us.”

Steph sighed, “Yeah they’d do that to any of us but I’m bored!”

“TT,” Damian scoffed, “If you are so bored why don’t you try your hand at the game. Drake can play it so it must not be overly difficult and may well be within your skill levels.”

“I’m pretty sure you just insulted but both of us but sure, what do you say Tim?”

Tim watched as Jason sat frowning, “If I can save first in case you mess something up, I guess I can show you the control and let you try your hand while I eat, but as soon as I’m done, I get it back as soon as I’m done eating.”

“Agreed, it will be fun for a bit but I’m here to not have to do anything, not be entertainment, this is only until your done eating.”

“Once everyone is settled, I’ll save and let you play for a bit.”

“Awesome! Now sit next to Jason sat a little of to the side of the center so why don’t you sit in the middle and I’ll sit on your other side.”

Tim glared, “You just want to lay on me.”

“Maybe, but sit already I’m getting bored standing here.”

Chapter Text

Tim carefully saved, “Alright I went through the basics of how the controls work so good luck! I’ll be able to replay whatever you mess up after I finish eating.”

Steph eagerly accepted the controller quickly unpausing the game. “You’ll just pick up from where I hand the controller back.”

“Use up a single fairy and I’m restarting from my save point.”

“If I don’t loose any fairies you have to start from where I leave off.”

Tim just shoved his first bite of food into mouth versus agreeing.

Unpausing the game Steph took a moment to move Link around in a circle, pull out the shield, slash out with his sword and pull out his bow, “Alright that’s not that hard.”

“TT,” Damian scowled at the screen, “Are you going to do anything Brown?”

“Oh, keep your pants on, I’m going.” Directing Link to walk towards the opening to the dungeon, “So I use Riju’s ability to break open the glowing purple door?”

When Tim didn’t reply Dick shrugged, “Probably. You need to talk to her to activate that.”

“Right, talk to Riju, wait for yellow glow of power to touch the purple glowing thing blocking the door. There.”

“Brown watch your sides!”

“What the!” Link swung out and hit a Gibdo that had appeared to the right, the hit doing almost nothing. “Where did it come from and why didn’t my attack do anything?”

“Non-elemental weapon,” Jason pointed out, “Don’t get through their protective coating. You need to hit it with some sort of elemental weapon before you can do any real damage.”

“Right,” Steph pressed buttons until she got the menu to switch weapons as she had Link running around the avoid the monsters, “But where did they come from?”

“Evil mushrooms.” Cass pointed at the screen.

Dick hummed, “Those do look like the sand structures that Tim had to destroy outside Gerudo town, like identical to those.”

“Riju power, Evil mushrooms.”

“Right,” Steph went up to Riju again and waited for the power to coat one of the two Gibdo nests and shooting it, “One evil mushroom down, one to go. Just need her to power up again.”

“TT.” Damian scowled at the screen. “You still need to clear the Gibdo that have already emerged.”

“Yeah, but if I don’t destroy the evil mushroom they’ll just keep coming.”

“They are not mushrooms. Riju told us that they are Gibdo nests.”

Cass shook her head, “Evil mushroom.”

Jason hummed, “I don’t know they look rather like evil mushrooms to me.”

Dick nodded, “All mushroom are evil but those are especially evil mushrooms.”

Tim dug his fork into his Doritos bag, “Sounds like your outvoted, they’re evil mushrooms now.”

“TT,” Damain didn’t cross his arms as he was still eating but he wanted to, “Your all fools.”

Jason stretched his arm out so he could rub his hand in Damain’s hair, “Love you to squirt. Ouch!” Jason pulled back his hand that Damian had managed to stab with his fork, “You better have not bruised me with that.”

“If you did not want to risk injury you should not have engaged in dangerous activities.”

Dick sighed as the final hive crashed to the ground, “Rubbing your hair is not suppose to be a dangerous activity.”

“I disagree, now Brown are you going to actually go into the structure now? Or dilly-daddy more?”

Steph rolled her eyes, “I’m going, I’m going. Let’s find out what’s inside here. Oooh a pot!” Steph swung her blade at it destroying it and wincing as the more powerful weapon she had pulled out also broke, “Oops?”

Tim rolled his eyes, “It apparently didn’t have much life in it so don’t worry about it.”

Cass tilted her head to the side, “Sandy temple room.”

“Yep, I should do something about the, oh what’s that on the wall.” Directing Link over to the wall she pulled out a stick with a leaf attached to it, “Korok-frond guster? Huh wonder if, hey I can destroy the piles of sand with these. Maybe one has treasure in it!”

Jason glared at his fork as a jalapeno wobbled as if it was about to fall off, “Probably.” He carefully pulled the fork to his mouth not loosing the jalapeno, “Go blow everything down and find out.”

Steph swiftly did and cheated when she freed a chest and got the treasure out, “Nice, now what next?”

“Middle of room,” Cass hummed, “Button.”

Following Cass’s direction Steph stepped onto a button in the middle of the room revealing a giant door that rolled to the side, “Good call. Now let’s find out what’s hiding inside here.”

Dick hummed, “Maybe monsters next?”

Jason shook his head, “This has temple vibes, it’s a trap next.”

“Bet?”

Jason tilted his head to the side, “Sure, wager?”

“Loser has to distract B the next time he goes into stupid lecture mode and let the rest of us escape.”

Jason thought for a moment, “Sure, but only if I’m in the cave when it happens, I can’t be seen taking lectures from B where people could see me and I’m not coming here everyday until he next gets a bug up his butt.”

“Agreed. Now Steph please show us the monsters!”

The two having finished their bet Steph started further into the desert, “If it’s both you both lose. No take backs.”

Jason simply rolled his eyes as Dick nodded.

Everyone watched eagerly to see who would lose, most hoping for both as that would be to stupid lectures they could all escape from.

Steph squinted at the screen, “It’s getting dark in here.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Grab the torch on the wall over there and equip it, you can set it on fire with that,” He pointed at the screen where there was an on the brazier in the room.

Humming Steph followed instructions and started deeper into the dungeon, “Much better I can see now but it’s weird those are lit because they should be out of like wood or oxygen at this point, right?”

Tim rolled his eyes as he went to take another bite, “Game mechanic so we can see at all, it’s not like there’s natural light getting inside this thing. Now go find the next obstacle, cause I don’t think a dark bridge counts for the bet.”

Nodding Steph continued on further into the dungeon now armed with a light source.

Chapter Text

“Yes!” Jason cheered, “I win! There’s a fire wall trap!”

Dick pouted, “Sucky trap if you can see it.”

Steph shrugged, “Maybe it’s more interesting clos,” Steph stopped mid word, “YIKES.” Steph directed Link to run to the side, “Okay the falling floor trap almost got me so that’s two traps and no monsters.”

“The bet was the next thing not the next couple,” Dick pointed out.

“First three?” Cass offered.

Damian nodded, “That seems fair that way you both have a higher chance of winning.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at Damian, “You just want to escape three lectures but fine I’ll agree, it will get me out of two even if I have to risk pulling one to myself.”

Dick frowned looking at the screen, he already lost once and if he agreed he’d he fail twice but the third one might be a monster than he would have one escape. It’s not like he didn’t normally distract B as it was. “Alright your going down Little Wing. Keep going and find us some monsters Steph.”

Continuing on towards the fire trap Steph had to pull up short and pull out the bow, “Shit how do you attach things to arrows again?”

As Jason sagged in defeat as Tim told Steph how to attach a volt fruit to an arrow and kill the Gibdos.

Letting out a sigh of relief as the Gibdos being dead Steph turned to Tim, “Are you done yet this isn’t as fun as I thought it would be. I much prefer watching you getting beat up by monsters.”

Tim finished his current bite, “Almost, what is it proving to challenging for you?”

Steph pouted, “Fine I’ll play a little longer.”

“TT,” Damian returned from putting his and Dick’s bags where Alfred had indicated to put them, “Hand it here. I will play while Drake finishes, he forgets to eat so often he must be having trouble remembering how.”

“Hey!” Tim glared at Damian, “I’m enjoying my meal! Sorry if I’m not stuffing myself so I can entertain you all. You can wait for another five or such minutes for me to entertain all of you.”

Steph, who had watched how Tim had done it, saved the game before handing it to Damian, “Good luck with the fire wall.”

“I will not need luck to conquer a child’s games trap.”

“Well have at it then.”

Dick grinned, “You can do it Damian.”

“Of course I can.” Damian took a seat on the ground in front of Tim to have the best visual of the screen. “I will excel.” Turning off the pause Damian had Link step further into the small room, “There will be some clue on how to.”

“Watch out!” Tim almost dropped his lunch, “There’s a, well ow.”

Damian grimaced on the screen as a Gibdo had stood up from where it had been laying on the ground, blending in some with its coloration and hit Link across the room, “How do you heal this thing? You should have better armor then this.”

“Open the menu, no not the map, yes that one now go to the food screen and select one of the meals without special effects.”

“TT, now I will use Riju’s ability to destroy the Gibdo. Unlike Brown who forgot her power.”

“Hey, she’s hard to keep track of. She keeps running about attacking things so it hard to interact with her to activate her power and this room isn’t really suited to archery anyway, it’s to small.”

“With the way this game treats archery it works adeptly in this room, there the mongrel is defeated, I will collect the items they left behind.”

“Thanks,” Tim took another bite almost done eating.

“You said the leavings of the Gibdo were especially useful, it would be foolish to leave them be. Now I do not see anything in this room so I will retreat and see if there are any clues further back that Brown missed.”

Steph lightly kicked Damian in the side, “Can the sass, I didn’t nearly die while playing.”

“TT, you left me in a room with unslain foes.”

“I wasn’t expecting to get attacked opening a door so just admit your lame.”

“I am not; ah this looks movable.” Damian frowned at the controller, “This button activates Link’s zonai based abilities and the ultrahand ability,” Directing Link he grabbed a large stone that was loose in the wall, “I can remove this and,” Damian quickly dropped the rock to the side and activated Riju’s power shooting through the whole to hit a Gibdo that seemed to be in the room behind the removed stone, “It seems there is a secret room, it must aid us in getting past the wall of fire.”

Dick glared at Jason, “This is the room that we saw and then walked into traps from, if we went this way I would have won.”

Jason shrugs, “Sucks to suck. We bet on what we’d encounter next not what was closer. Which this is equal distance from the falling floor trap.” Jason frowned into his bag finding it empty, “Welp I’m done.”

Tim shrugged, “I’m almost done but I’m just going to let Damian play until he gets Link past the fire wall trap then I’ll take back over.”

Damian scowled, “You are doing this as you don’t know and are forcing me to act so you can hide your ignorance.”

“Brat I’ve played this game I remember this one. It’s pretty simple.”

“Truth.” Cass confirmed.

“Fine,” Damian removed a second large stone from the wall, “I will master this trap quickly and Drake can go back to playing.”

Putting the second stone off to the side Link entered the small side room quickly opening the treasure chest. “A topaz, that would give a weapon attached to it a electric damage.”

Tim nodded finishing his last bite, “Yep.”

Looking around the room Damian found several thin slabs of stone the size and shape of a door. “TT, obviously I am to use ultrahand on one of these to get past the fire emitters and make it to the other side.”

“Maybe, going to try?”

Damian didn’t bother to respond as he grabbed the stone slab with ultrahand and slowly walked out of the room and started towards where the fire trap was.

“Oh shit! Watch,” Steph tried to warn as Damian accidently walked into the open area that was left from where the floor had fallen down.

Damian grit his teeth as Tim snorted behind him and directed Link to look around the room growling when he couldn’t figure out how to get out.

“Ascend out of the pit along the sides of the pit some stone pokes out in the above room so you can ascend up to there and keep going towards the fire. Might need a new slab though if yours fell in.”

Following Tim’s directions Damian was happy to find that the stone slab he had been carrying hadn’t fallen down and he was able to grab it again with ultrahand and used it to pass the fire trap.

Quickly trading the controller for Tim’s empty Dorito bag, and Todd’s he placed the bags where they were meant and found a seat again next to Grayson.

Chapter Text

Accepting the controller back Tim directed Link to stand on a large button on the floor which turned off the fire and allowed Riju to catch up with them. “Alright got Riju and need to go keep moving.”

Jason grinned at Dick, “Want to bet again? See if you have to distract B even more.”

Dick rolled his eyes, “Not taking it. It’s fifty / fifty at this point and I don’t want to try and call it.”

“Boo, lame are you to chicken to make a bet.”

Damian frowned, “I do not understand why you must bring animals into your bickering.”

Jason grinned at him, “What about you? You to much of a scaredy cat to make a bet?”

“I have no interest in gambling over something so random, I prefer wagers not based on chance and instead strategy. Also, I have no issue being compared to a cat, they are far more interesting creatures than you are.”

Steph leaned forward, “I’ll take a bet, I’m calling monsters though we are due for a monster before the next trap.”

Jason hummed, “I definitely feel it’s going to be a trap but what’s the wager?”

“If I win you have to dress up in a cheep Spoiler costume over your normal gear for a full patrol.”

Jason thought for a moment, “If I win you have to take a week off patrol and focus on catching up with school and hanging out with friends, and if those friends are bats you have to do it all in civis.”

Steph pouted, “Your not going to dare me to dress up as you?”

“No, not only because you would enjoy it but I don’t want anyone going around in my outfit because I’m just pissed off some people and I don’t want them shotting at the wrong person.”

Steph sighed with her entire body, “Fine, but only for the next thing, I’m not doing what Dick did and get stuck out of the game for two weeks. Patrol only though, if a rouge breaks out I’m helping out.”

“Seven full days Spoiler free as close together as possible.”

“Right, well Tim,” Steph turned to Tim, “Keep going.”

Jason soon found himself grinning as Steph groaned leaning all her weight on Tim, “Nooooo, stupid traps, stupid rolling giant fire ball.”

“Get off me,” Tim tried to elbow Steph as she leaned more and more on him, “You’re the one who took the bet.”

“But it’s been trap, monster, trap, monster, trap so monster was next.”

Finally pushing Steph off him Tim frowned at Steph, “There were only two traps.”

“Well, you had the floor trap, then the monsters in the room near the fire, then back tracked to get the stone slab and getting through the fire trap. If we had noticed the fake wall stones it would have been monster room, fake floor, monster room, fire shooters. So monsters were due next.”

“Well, you’ve been groaning about those two projects you have upcoming in school you now have a full week to finish them both off.”

Steph narrowed her eyes at Tim as she leaned back from him, “Did you tell Jason there was going to be a trap next?”

“Of course not, now your going to demand I take some nights off so that I can hang out with you while you’re stuck not patrolling. I wished you had won cause I would have finally gotten to see him dressed up with a purple cape.”

Steph sighed, “I will get him into a cheap Spoiler costume, I just haven’t won the right bet yet.”

Dick smiled, “Don’t worry we’ll get him in one of our costumes soon.”

Jason snorted, “I’m not taking that bet from you Dickhead, you’d pull out Discowing and make me wear it.”

“I think you’d look rather dashing in it, or well the one I got made that would fit over your suit.”

“Had made? Hell no Dick I am not wearing your teenage rebellion outfit. Spoiler I can do, she’s classy with her outfit, even the cheep ones won’t look that bad, your mullet mistake will ruin my street cred.”

Tim grimaced, “Discowing would ruin anyone’s creditability. If we ever play a dress up as each other day I vote that you get to pick which version of the other person’s costume you have to wear, that or current none of us are currently wearing anything that should traumatize anyone to wear. Also, I got pass the on-fire boulder trap, someone want to make another wager or can I keep going.”

“Eh,” Jason thought for a moment before shaking his head, “I think I’m going to take what I got for now. Anyone else?”

When everyone shook their head Tim kept going, “Right well that’s good as we are about to face a room that I’m not sure which way I’d call it. Also, no more leaning on me!”

“Fine I won’t lean on you,” She grinned, “I’ll lay on you instead!” With that Steph basically collapsed onto Tim’s lap, narrowly avoiding hitting his hands holding the game controller before squirming into place.

“Oof, dam-I mean blast it Steph, you can’t just lay on me.”

“I’m not, I’m also laying on Jason,” Her head was resting on one of Jason’s thighs, “And,” Stretching out her legs she managed to get her feet into Dick’s lap, “Dick. Now why is the next room weird.”

Tim grumbled but didn’t bother to fight back, that would just have her staying longer, she’d get uncomfortable soon enough and sit up. He knew his lap was not comfortable from the numerous times she had complained about it, “Watch and see.”

Cass tilted her head to the side, “Evil mushroom.”

“Another one?” Damian glared at the screen, “Can they do anything else but throw those about.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “This is a dungeon that is like Gibdo themed. I mean the final battle is going to be with the Queen Gibdo. This is basically Gibdo R’ Us. Now why isn’t it dropping anyone?”

Tim jumped down into the lower portion of the room, “Have to trigger it, which is trap like, but it’s going to be dropping monsters so it’s like a monster trap?”

“Good thing nobody wagered then, go trigger it then.”

Chapter Text

Nodding to the order Tim had Link jump down and pick up a bow from inside a coffin.

“Oh!” Steph grinned, “The evil mushroom is evil mushrooming!”

Jason looked down at her, “It’s what?”

She rolled her eyes, “Look it’s the awesome purple color again meaning it’s dropping monsters and we can destroy it. Now go tag Riju and destroy the mushroom! Mush!”

“Are you telling Tim to go like he’s some sort of dog?” Damian asked, “If so, that is very insulting to dogs.”

“If you’re not impressed you can leave.” Tim rolled his eyes as he destroyed the Gibdo nest and started on the Gibdos.

“You are slightly more interesting then anything else I could be doing right now as I have been benched from even training and I have no inspiration on what to draw you are the most entertaining thing that is happening in the manor.”

Dick sighed, “Damian.”

Damian crossed his arms scowling.

“Damian.”

“Fine. I apologize your playing is very entertaining and I am enjoying watching you.”

Tim side-eyed Damian as he directed Link through the next-door way, “Thank you?”

“You are welcome, now continue.”

“Yeah mush!” Steph commanded.

Snorting Tim went to do as instructed before, “Oh shit.”

Jason frowned at him, “Did you forget something?”

“Hidden room! I skipped the hidden room.”

Cass perked up, “Secret room?”

“Yeah, I have to go over here and oh,” Tim sighed as the chest revealed its contents, “I already have all the shields I need and there either this powerful or more.”

“Oh, stop whining,” Jason threw his arm over Tim’s shoulder squeezing him close for a moment, “And go show us another trap.”

“Monster.” Cass rebutted.

Dick sighed, “If people don’t stop betting where not going to get anywhere.”

Jason ignored him, “You return my Gotham’s Knight sweatshirt tomorrow if I win.”

“Spoiler costume.”

“Fine but if I loose you still need to give me that sweatshirt back soon.”

“One week.”

“Fine, well Timbit,” Jason looked down at where Tim was now leaning against his side, “Wait is that one of my sweatshirts your wearing?” Jason’s eyes shot around the room, “Are you all wearing my sweatshirts?”

Steph rolled her eyes, “Took you long enough to notice.”

“This is why I couldn’t find any to wear! Alfred gave me this one,” Jason tugged on the shoulder of the sweatshirt he was wearing, “When I asked if any of mine where clean saying there were none of mine available. I thought I had just taken all of them to safe houses!”

“If you didn’t want them stolen you should secure them better.”

“Secure them? There my sweater shirt in my own home!”

“Oh, so your admitting the manor is your home?” Steph smirked at him.

Tim sighed as he continued playing, “Oh come off it you both have rooms in the family wing just admit your both have a home in the manor.”

“Never.” Steph glared at him.

“I would rather die.” Jason returned.

Tim rolled his eyes, “Well Jason you’re not getting your sweatshirt back tomorrow cause here’s a monster.”

“YESSSSS!” Steph fist pumped the air, and since she was laying in Tim’s lap she nearly punched him in the nose, only Tim’s arms holding the controller stopping her, “Spoiler costume!”

“Hey!” Tim pushed her off his lap to the floor, “I’m playing, no getting in the way.”

“Rude! How dare you push me mieme!”

“You’re not a cat, let alone mieme. You’re not that cute.”

“Hey! And I so am cute you dated me!”

“After you hit me with a brick!”

“Well, you snuck up on me!”

“Cute,” Cass pointed at Steph, “All cute.” She gestured at everyone in the room.

“Yeah!” Jason grinned, “I’m bloody adorable!”

Steph grinned up at him as she sat up, “You will be wearing a Party City version of my costume.”

“Like they’d have one in my size.” At Steph’s pout Jason rolled his eyes, “I know someone in the Alley that makes Halloween costumes I’ll get her to make something that fits.”

“Only if you let me talk to her.”

“Fine I’ll show you to her and you can tell her what abomination you want me to wear for A patrol.”

“Can’t wait! Tim, are you done killing that monster yet?”

“Just about, it’s a high-level ah, there. Now I need to get rid of some piles of sand and there’s another enemy.”

As Tim fought the revealed monster Steph stood up stretching, standing up directly in Tim’s line of sight so he has to lean over into Jason side so far, he was practically in Jason’s lap to finish fighting the monster, “Move it!”

Steph swayed in place so that she was blocking Tim making him dodge the other way as she stretched her hands about her head, “I’m just stretching.”

“Brown,” Damian scowled, “Get out of Drake’s way so that he can further entertain us. The monster is dead and I believe this is one of those light redirecting puzzles so he will need to be able to see the screen to solve it.”

“Come,” Cass pointed beside her, “Cuddle.”

Steph sighed, “Alright, but only cause you want to cuddle.”

Tim settled back in place and ultrahanded a mirror in to place to open the next door, “Thanks Cass.”

“Happy.” Cass grinned as Steph sprawled along her side, “Help.”

Damian rolled his eyes, “That’s all good and such but are you going to continue into the dungeon structure?”

Tim paused the game, “Actually Jason can you hand me my drink, I’m just going to take a second to drink something and then I’ll continue.”

“Fine, just don’t dilly dally.”

Tim rolled his eyes accepting his drink from Jason and not only wetting his mouth but drinking some to enjoy the taste. Handing the drink back to Jason who could reach the side table to put it down he flexed his fingers and picked up the controller, “We are finally going to enter the room of ascension which is basically the main room of the dungeon. Just up this staircase.”

Chapter Text

Jason hummed, “So that’s the teleport spot for the dungeon? That will unlock or what ever the final area once we hit the different triggers, probably with lightning.”

Tim nodded, “They will look like the trigger in the desert we used to summon this dungeon, well it’s more a temple, up to the surface. We just need to activate this and we can start searching for the triggers.”

“TT,” Damian scoffed as Riju spoke, “Of course this is where the mural was trying to get us to go to. Activate the temple so we can see something more interesting.”

Rolling his eyes Tim activated the teleport spot and the platform they were standing on raised slightly before crashing back down. Where they then listened to a voice telling them to activate four batteries.

Steph frowned, “Why would they space out the triggers so far? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to just be next to the platform?”

“Then the bad guys would be able to use the batteries and get to where ever the hidden doohickey,” Dick pointed out, “Now where’s the first doohickey?”

“TT, the voice called them batteries not,” Disgust was heavy in Damian’s tone as he said, “Doohickeys.”

“Take a chill pill,” Steph rolled her eyes, “Let’s find the first battery. Hey is wind trying to come up from that spot, can you move the stone away or something to unblock it?”

Tim nodded and did so, “Do you want me to go up or check out this floor?”

“This floor. There must be something here. This is so a secret room sort of place.”

Dick groaned, “I hate secret rooms. Most of the time they are dangerous, super creepy and some both.”

“The Batcave is technically a secret room to the Wayne Manor.”

Tim snorted, “Which is dangerous, see giant dinosaur.”

“The dinosaur isn’t dangerous.”

“I nearly died falling from it.”

Damian scowled, “I apologized for that.”

“Yes, but I still almost died and there are all sorts of dangerous things in the cave so it is dangerous.”

Steph nodded adding, “And it is creepy if your outside the normal areas that has been built up by B. I mean the tunnels are damp and there’s the water way exit. That’s supper dark and creepy.”

Jason grumbled, “They aren’t that scary.”

“Bitch please, your just annoyed that you can’t use them in hide and seek anymore.”

“Your all lame not wanting to explore and being wimps by sticking to the lit-up areas. Theres some really cool stuff down there.”

Dick sighed, “Little Wing you once disappeared for three days in those caves.”

“I told you I wasn’t lost, and I wasn’t gone that long. I came back when I was hungry and I was back in time for dinner. I wasn’t down there long enough to miss three days.”

“Tell that to the calendar, you were gone for three days. B banned exploring the caves for a reason.”

Tim perked up, “Did Jason time travel?”

Jason shrugged, “Maybe? I mean the calendar did pass three days and I was not gone that long.”

“TT,” Damian shook his head, “You simply don’t want to admit you got lost.”

“I was right!” Steph crowed as Tim pulled two large stones out of the wall, “Secret room! There has to be a battery there.”

The group watched as Tim went inside the room and found a lighting target. Tim used Riju’s power to hit it with lightning and it activated. Shooting power through a electrical track in the floor to where the teleportation spot was.

“Cool, one of four down, now Jason did you ever try going to the place you time traveled again.”

“Tried yes,” Jason sighed, “But B wouldn’t let me and banned any exploration of the caves without him and he never went to deep into the caves with me. I don’t think he went on his own either.”

“Did you find anything cool?”

“Well the pool of water that we learned lead to the harbor.”

“How did you know it connected to the harbor.”

“TT,” Damian rolled eyes, “Obviously they ended up sending a drone.”

“Nope,” Jason grinned, “We knew cause we found a thirty-four-foot crocodile next to the water chilling.”

“Crocodiles do not get that big. Not even if the sewers.”

“Ones from the sewer no, but crocs don’t stop growing as they live and when they get to big for the sewers they end up in the harbor.”

“Father would have told me if there were crocodiles in the harbor.”

Tim frowned, “Didn’t you read hazard reviews of the harbor? It’s in there. The largest croc measured was thirty-seven feet long and I think he’s still out there so he might be bigger now.”

“Right,” Steph nodded, “I need to read all the hazard reviews again cause I do not remember reading about thirty something feet crocodiles.”

“First time,” Cass smiled at Steph.

“Okay, yes it will bet the first time now Tim are you going to go where ever that stream of air is going?”

“Not yet, I’m going up the stairs to the first room.”

“Cool. What’s in there?”

“Monsters.”

“Of course, well go kill them. Now how big do the crocs in the sewers get? I know they get fucking huge but you said thirty-four feet are to large for the sewers so what is the longest they get in the sewer?”

“I didn’t say that; you just assumed that from what I said.”

“Well, is there a max size?”

“Yeah, Killer Croc usually kicks out any that his the thirty-foot length into the harbor. That’s when they start thinking about chewing on him so he gets rid of them so he doesn’t have to deal with them trying to sneak a bite.”

Damian nodded, “They probably go after him at that point as there is insufficient food to maintain them so it is good that he relocates them to somewhere food of adequate size can be found.”

Steph nodded, “It is nice that he, oh ouch.”

Tim grunted as Link picked up the weapon he had dropped, “Electrical weapons will make you drop anything but the Master Sword.”

“The Master Sword?”

Jason perked up, “Was that the sword that got wreaked like pretty much first thing in the game, right?”

Cursing Tim nodded picking up his weapon again as he was hit by another electrical arrow, “Yeah.” Tim rushed forward and managed to kill the second monster in the room leaving Link in the room alone. Tim opened the menu and selected some food to fully heal Link.

Steph hummed, “So what’s special about this room?”

“Not much, well the interesting bit is inside the cage but we can’t get in there yet so the room is pretty boring. I just wanted to clear out the monsters.”

“Where to next then?”

Chapter Text

Tim hummed, “Further up.”

“Cool go find something interesting.” Steph grabbed her drink, “Anyone have any fun gossip?”

Jason hummed, “Actually I was wondering what’s up with Dr. Freeze? I was talking with one of my people about preparing for winter and apparently, he disappeared a couple years ago?”

Tim nodded, “Alfred got sick with what Victor’s wife has but he was only in stage in one so Victor was able to heal him. B then hired him to keep doing research on the disease and set him up with a laboratory on the north pole. It is annoying organizing for him to get supplies but as the Wayne Corp CEO I get to make sure that happens.”

Steph shrugged, “Still beats fighting him. I hated fighting him and I was always jealous of the parkas his minions had.” She hummed, “Do you think he provided his minions with those parkas?”

Dick nodded, “He wanted them to match.”

Jason hummed as he watched use the column of air to get to a small open-door way that was almost impossible to see, “Huh good spot, but the coats were always good quality and a lot of them are still running around in the Alley. All of them have an extra layer of cloth over them to make them not Dr. Freeze minion colors but I was actually hoping to figure out where he got his men’s coats cause I want to flood the Alley with them since they work so well.”

Damian rolled his eyes, “It was not a good spot, Drake remembered where it was.”

“The walls all have those alcoves that look almost identical, it was a good spot to find the right empty one on the first try. I mean he shot up in the air and had to float down to the right one.”

Steph hummed, “Are you sure you want the parkas? They were really bulky. Did Dr. Freeze ever give his goons something else to wear? Parkas aren’t the easiest to fight in, well at least I don’t think they would be.”

“Not really a problem with guns,” Tim pointed out as he finished killing off a robotic monster, “And I did see them in these cyber suits once. That was a great fight.”

“Oh?”

“They weren’t able to move in them well and it was an easy fight. Wish he’d tried those a couple more times before ditching them but we only saw them once.”

Jason hummed, “Do you have like his phone number or email? I want to ask him where he got those coats.”

“It’s on my work computer; I’ll send it to you on Monday.”

“Cool. Wow that is a big light.”

On the screen Link had removed rocks in front of a device that shot out a beam of light.”

Steph hummed, “That has to be useful.”

“Yep, this dungeon has a lot of light puzzles.”

“Well, what did it unlock?”

“Nothing yet because of this.” Turning Link around the screen there was a large stone rotating circle with a part of if cut off. Through it you could see a second stone circle that also had a hole but it was in a different location. “Any ideas on how to fix it?”

“Can you like stand in the way of it to stop it spinning?”

Tim didn’t say anything but did as she said and Link was just pushed out of the way. “Any other ideas?”

Dick hummed, “Maybe one of those mirrors that are zonai devices?”

“Could try attacking them.” Jason offered.

Damian scoffed, “TT, neither of those would work.”

“Well do you have any ideas Demon Brat?”

Damian crossed his arms staying silent.

“At least we had ideas,” Jason looked to Cass who had tapped his side, “Yeah?”

“Recall.”

“Huh?”

“Arm power, recall.”

Tim grinned, “Yep. I just need to hit this one with Recall,” He grabbed the nearer stone circle with the power, “Just need to do this enough to there.” The two stone circles where now spinning with the wholes lined up.

“Congrats,” Steph hummed, “What’s the point?”

Tim rolled his eyes and made it through the two the two circles, “There’s a light target over there and when the light hits it,” Across the room from where Link was standing a target lit up green before the stone statue receded into the wall revealing a button on the ground.

“Cool, go stand on that.”

Rolling his eyes Tim started directed Link towards the other location.

Dick frowned over at Jason, “Are you really worrying about winter already?”

“Winter is basically the dangerous part of the year for the homeless or anyone with inadequate gear. If I don’t start stockpiling supplies now, I won’t have what I need when I do need them. You never know if were going to have an early frost or not. Although it is nice that I don’t have to worry about people suffering from extreme cold in an attack from Dr. Freeze.”

Steph nodded, “It always sucked when Dr. Freeze got out in the summer because no one was ready to deal with the level of cold he put out. I mean he didn’t attack then often but no one had gear ready for dealing with him. We all had to race back to the cave to get the really heated and heavier weight gear, and then once we caught them, we all died wearing those same outfits because suddenly it would be hot again and we were in heating suits.”

“Smell funny.” Cass added.

“Ugh, yeah. The sweat was horrible and don’t even ask me about what it did to my poor hair.”

Chuckling Jason reached down and patted Steph’s head, “There, there your hair doesn’t have to fear Dr. Freeze. Just remember you already called not it on fighting Condiment man so your up to fight him the next time he escapes.”

“Ugh,” Steph grimaced, “My hair smelled like ketchup for three days after I fought him. I literally couldn’t leave my house because someone would have realized I was Spoiler as I was the only one that ended ketchupped in that fight.”

Jason chuckled, “Maybe he’ll hit you with mayo next time, that’s good for your hair, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“One of my women was recommending a hair mayo treatment when her hair started thinning because of the chemo. Apparently, it helps regrow hair or slow down the rate of hair loss. She seemed happy with it.”

“Huh, well if I start loosing hair, I’ll look into that but it looks like Tim got to the button.”