Author's Note: THEY SAID it couldn't be done. "Half a year and not so much as a giggle?" they cried, "Preposterous! He is dead," they sounded. But they were foolish in their howls, for even six months later authors can retain more than a resemblance of their former selves should they so desire.

Many disagree! Empirical evidence points to the fact that authors, given time away from their madness, will slowly wither away into husks of uncreative, short-winded bags of flesh and blood.

But pay them no mind, o faithless. I may be short-winded, but I am not yet finished.

--

The Countdown to Imminent Doom:

Chapter Twelve

The Shortest Chapter Ever.

Sorry.

--

Shadowy Black Thing was at the top, peering down. A long, long drop into spicy hot lava greeted him. Beside him were small, rickety bridges designed to kill as many people as possible by dropping them into the fiery abyss. They led to a protrusion on the other edge of the volcano, where the entrance to what he assumed was a Goron temple laid.

He was feeling significantly better, but still wasn't feeling very well at all. In fact, he took about three steps before he coughed up a small piece of his heart (that was fine, he never used it anyway – but it was still a bad sign). He put it in a small case and stored it in a safe place until he could find a way to make sure something like that didn't happen to it again.

This was the place he would stay. He knew. He had seen the pictures. In his mind. His mind said. And he was like, "OK, mind." So he knew. This was it. Definitely.

He fell to his knees and leaned over the edge. "Blarg," he upchucked vocally.

One unmoving mass fell the long ways down into the lava and connected with an extremely satisfying "ploop – sizzle." Unfortunately for the shadowy thing, removing that one did not seem to alleviate his problem much – it seemed dead enough already; it was the second demon that was wreaking havoc on his insides.

--

Inky and Snargles woke at the same time, but for different reasons.

Inky woke in time to watch his body plummet down into a fiery doom not far below. When his body was no more, he floated away slowly and disappeared out the top of the mountain. True evil minions don't get drawn-out death scenes.

Snargles woke to a violent shaking of the earthquake type. With no visible floor, walls, or ceiling, it was hard to tell what was going on, but suffice to say even Ultimate Snargles was off-balance. The only way to correct this was to dig the claws in as deep as possible and yowl like a madman - or madkitty.

Even without the narrative spacer to let Shadowy Black Thing know he was back in the spotlight, he reacted immediately. His stomach was suddenly pierced with hundreds of pins and needles. He collapsed slowly, peering over the edge and into the death below. Soon his mission was complete; there really was no point in fighting to survive now. The tiny pink doombringer would, instead of bringing doom, be brought to justice.

As Snargles clung, paralyzed, to the unstable nothingness, the yowls began to take a different tone. Something deep inside Snargles knew what was about to happen. With the kitty still captive, the Shadow of the Hero crumbled off the edge and sunk into the flaming cemetery below.

--

Ganondorf had important things to do. This rock was not moving, and it needed to be moved. No amount of pushing, pulling, lifting, grunting, or molesting had provoked it enough to even budge yet. He needed to get creative.

Ten minutes later, he had collected all items he could from the area and piled them next to the rock. There had to be something in here that he could use. Through trial and error, he learned many things about stuff you can find in the middle of nowhere: shovels make a "tink!" sound when you try to dig where a big rock lies; bombs will only destroy cracked objects, no matter how small the uncracked rock is; arrows make similar "tink!" sounds, despite not looking much like shovels; and none of the items you find will ever, ever be power gloves and/or cranes with boulder-lifting capabilities.

"I wonder what woe personified would say to me at this very moment?" Ganondorf wondered aloud, having thrown everything but the shovel back out of sight (never know when one might need a shovel). "For certainly Woe would know how to move this miserable rock."

The rock sighed. It had been many years since someone had truly understood him. Seventeen forlorn years it had been, and many more if you didn't count a few dejected thieves and bandits. He had once seen a presentation of Donnie Darko, but at that point he felt as though he didn't understand rather than he was not understood. Surely this green man had no capacity for understanding, either.

Ganondorf was unsure as to whether or not this rock had just sighed, but he was no less intent on moving it. What he needed was a Plan. He needed something Big and Powerful. What he needed, he knew, was The Harley.

This Need set off a chain of events that vaguely resembled a trading game, but were in actuality nothing of the sort:

Find The Harley's smoldering wreckage

Find a repair kit

Find a Glowing Green Feather to trade barter with for the repair kit

Find a bird with a Glowing Green Ass from which to pluck the feather

Find the bird's Egg to trade exchange for the feather

Find the Hungry Man who stole the bird's Egg to eat

Find a Large Sandwich to trade swap for the Egg

Find Construction Worker who will trade change his Sandwich for some time off

Offer to bulldoze the building in exchange for the Sandwich

Bulldoze the building

Give the Large Sandwich to the Hungry Man

Give the Egg to the bird with a Glowing Green Ass Feather

Realize "Fuck, there was a bulldozer back in step 10, what the hell am I doing?"

Go back, punch out the Construction Worker, take his bulldozer, and leave

This took a lot more time than Ganondorf had anticipated, and he decided instead of ever doing shit like that again, he would just start setting things on fire and killing innocents until somebody gave him what he wanted.

As he approached the rock with his large, newfound tool, his heart began to race. Whatever was under this rock was fated to feel his wrath, and there was no escape now. He began to push the rock.

--

Night had fallen many hours ago, and morning approached. Something rumbled. The Sheikah had been expecting this – Ganondorf had been making noises all day – but that did not make the situation any less risky. Those who went up again the Black King generally ended up dead in some unexpected manner or another. Sheik was in charge of, among other things, making sure he did not die. This would prove disadvantageous to the body he was inhabiting, and thus disadvantageous to Hyrule itself. The rumbling came from far below the treetops upon which he perched, and ended abruptly as Ganondorf shut down the bulldozer.

"ROCK IS GONE! I GOT IT! ACCOMPLISHMENT!" Ganondorf shouted out to all in the area who might come over to congratulate him. Nobody heard except the Sheikah.

Ganondorf moved up to the hole that had been dug below the rock's previous position and peered down. What he saw was not the ninja he expected, but instead what the ninja had left there for him to see: a mirror.

Ganondorf saw himself for the first time in a few years. He had aged quite well! His hair parted down the side nicely, his eyes glimmered, and his teeth were shiny – but not too shiny, because without a tint of plaque a villain seems far less intimidating. Yes indeed, he surely liked what he saw. He began to fill the hole with dirt to cover up the mirror, so as to forever preserve his reflection in it.

Shiek began to move. He leapt through the treetops, making haste towards the castle. There was someone important he needed to meet at the Temple of Time.

When Ganondorf was finished, he stood up straight. The world looked greyer. The trees looked taller. The dirt below him lost its detail. A fog crept over the land. His watched beeped.

"Countdown to Imminent Doom," it read, "24 hours."