Chapter Text
The latest portal is as annoying as usual. Legend and the others don’t even have time to clean their weapons before the dark thing swirls into being above the silent battlefield.
Legend’s lips tighten with the pulse of magic that filters through the air. “Another one, huh?”
Time sighs, leveraging his claymore out of the skull of a bokoblin as the body begins to turn to blackened ash. “Everyone accounted for?”
Legend catalogues Hyrule, standing over Four, palms singing with healing magic (He’ll have to watch his reserves). Wind stands beside the pair, sword casually up across his shoulder and hip cocked as he watches Rulie work. Must not be too bad an injury then.
Warriors’ eyes are sharp, taking in the battlefield at a similar speed. “Twilight and Wild are— ah. There they are.”
Wild leaps from his perch on a nearby tree, bow dissipating in a stream of blue as he lands. Twilight shifts back from his wolf form beside him, ruffling the kid’s hair. Legend smirks and catches Sky, coming from the opposite direction, Master Sword sliding into its sheath and sweat plastering his bangs to his forehead. Not that they all don’t look like an exhausted group. That was definitely one of their bigger battles.
“All here,” Warriors says resolutely. Legend clocks the relieved slump of his shoulders and smirks. Uptight soldier, wearing his heart on his sleeve.
“So little faith in the others, I see,” Legend says.
Warriors looks over his shoulder, rolling his eyes. Though his expression is a bit more drawn than usual. “As if you didn’t do the same scan, vet. Pretty sure you’re going soft.”
“You have no proof,” Legend snips, switching out his sword for a fire rod (who knows what’s through the portal).
“Alright, everyone gather up,” Time calls, sheathing his own weapon. He nods at Sky, who has come to stand beside him. “This one feels more insistent than usual.”
It’s true. This much of a tug usually only comes after several hours of keeping the portal waiting. Though the insistent, insidious magic is discomfiting, Legend plants his feet, pushing back with his own. A bigger jump than usual? Or are the portals just going to start coming more rapid-fire?
“It feels weird,” Hyrule says, coming towards the group, trailed by Four and Wind. “Stronger maybe?”
“Oh joy,” Four grumbles, multicolored eyes set in a glare at the dark magic.
Sky takes half a step forward, palm still sitting on the Master Sword. His expression is pinched and unsure. “It… I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Nothin’ for it,” Twilight says. “Have to go through one way or another.”
“Not it!” Wind yells. (As if the others would let the kid go first.)
Still, Legend smirks. “Ditto. You want to do the honors, Captain?”
Warriors rolls his eyes again, mouth tugged up in a smile. “Afraid, Ledge?”
“I’ve been through weirder, believe me,” he says.
“I’ll go through first,” Time says, a smile on his face as well. “Legend and Sky behind me, then Twilight and Wild, Wind and Hyrule, then Four and Warriors.”
“Making a lot of assumptions about whether or not the portal will split us up,” Legend says, eyeing the thing. “But fine by me.”
Weapons are traded out for ones that won’t impale upon landing, positions are shifted, and Legend switches out a few rings, keeping the portal in his periphery as the tug grows more insistent.
“Everyone ready?” Time asks.
“Are you, Old Man?” Legend asks amid the affirmatives.
Time doesn’t answer, throwing a wry look over his shoulder, and then stepping through.
The magic in the clearing warps, adjusting for the change in number, and Legend’s feet move forward with the pulse. The cool magic presses in and Sky’s footsteps send shockwaves beside him and suddenly the ground is gone and the magic is all-encompassing.
It’s always a disorienting sensation when it spits him back out, and this time is no different. His feet fly with the sudden momentum paired with solid ground. The air, real again, bursts across his senses, and the magic’s pull recedes like a wave.
And Legend gets a face full of plate armor. He and Time go stumbling, Legend throwing a hand to his face and not bothering to muffle his curses.
“Time,” he says, looking up to see the man still hasn’t moved much. “What—”
And then he catches it.
His ears twitch and his eyes snap up and his heart stills because beyond the rustling of leaves and mustiness of the forest around them, Legend hears metal scream. Rushing wind, movement that compares with thousands of footfalls, the scraping-rushing-rumbling of a horde of moldugas.
It’s cacophony; it’s chaos; light and sound and screeching. Even the sound, the feel of Ganon’s full forces wasn’t this all encompassing, this discordant, this wrong—
Sky steps forward, his blade held in a white-knuckled grip. “What… is that.”
Legend straightens, whipping out his own weapons, heart pounding as magic skitters across his skin. “I—”
It’s not surprising that underneath the horror ahead, he misses the influx of magic behind him.
Legend lurches forward at the impact, grip faltering on his rod, curses spilling from his lips again as his heart flies and his feet clamber for purchase.
“Watch it, Twi—”
Legend blinks, pausing where he’s whipped halfway round (rod still pointed toward the thing through the forest), because Twilight looks like he’s taken a punch to the gut and a hit to the head. Wild whimpers beside him, hands clasped to his ears as his hazy gaze cuts through the forest.
“Crap,” Legend mutters, eyes flicking between them and the threat (still not approaching, still enormous). “Time.”
The Old Man swoops in then, putting an arm under Twi’s shoulder and placing a hand on Wild’s. “Move out of the way of the portal,” he says, eyes darting, form twitchy. “Form a ring around—”
The portal spasms again and Time pulls the others to the side as Legend darts away, drawing level with Sky.
Cold, electric blue meets steely purple and neither mention the tight grips they have on their weapons (or the question of whether even 9 of them can face whatever power is ahead).
It seems Hyrule and Wind instantly know something is wrong as well. Hyrule lets out a groan, and when Legend chances a glance, he sees his successor doubled over, clutching his head like Wild had. Though Legend bets he’s suffering from the calamitous magic rattling along with the sounds and lights. Wind is alert, hand on Hyrule’s back.
“Where are we? What is—”
“If you can fight, form up,” Time interrupts, leaving Twilight with Wild and moving to draw his sword as well. “We don’t know if it will sense us.”
“Right,” Wind says, straightening.
Legend throws out his senses as much as he would rather pull them in close. From what he can tell, the entity has not come closer. Though there is so much movement within the mass, and running for miles, that Legend isn’t sure that means much.
The portal flexes again, and Legend spares an instant to feel bad for Four.
From the thump behind him, Legend is sure the smithy toppled as soon as one foot stepped into this new era. Warriors is quicker on the uptake.
“Situation,” he barks, tension threading the words.
“Unknown entity ahead,” Time responds. “Twilight, Wild, Hyrule, and Four incapacitated. No movement yet.”
Warriors is beside him in two quick strides. “What do you think, Legend? Sky?”
“The entity is electricity based,” Sky states, Master Sword still held, poised to strike. “I can feel it.”
“Whatever it is has a heck of a lot of moving parts,” Legend says. “If it’s an army, it’s the biggest I’ve ever seen. If it’s a monster… I don’t like our chances.”
Warriors nods sharply. “If it hasn’t detected us yet, it likely won’t for a while. Time, I’m going to go scout.”
“Not alone, idiot,” Legend quips, flexing the fingers on his free hand. “I’ve seen the most on these adventures anyway. I’m the most likely to ID whatever this is.”
Sky’s eyes bounce between the two of them, a pinch between his brows. “You’ll be ok?”
“Quick in, quick out,” Warriors says, sword ringing as it tugs against its sheath.
Time walks up beside them, Wind at his back. “Be careful.”
Legend lets out a measured breath, quickly switching out his items for stealth. (At least, the ones he can grab quickly.) “Let’s get this over with.”
Warriors nods, scarf whipping behind him at his sudden stride, and Legend falls into step.
He knows there are leaves crunching under their footfalls, and he can hear it, distantly, but the rumbling ahead far overshadows the sounds of the forest.
The moonlight too colors the trees, but pales to the yellow-orange lights that flash by, almost too fast for the eye to see between the thick trunks ahead.
It’s impossible to avoid the streaks of light, but they try, crouching and stepping forward, hearts in their throats, finding cover behind trees; Legend watches for Wars signals as they get closer. As it gets louder. Until the very ground rumbles beneath their feet and Legend can’t even hear the puff of his breath or his heart’s explosive beat, both swallowed by the presence of what’s ahead.
The two heroes’ eyes meet, Wars plastered to his tree slightly ahead; solemn; sword at the ready. Legend feels the roughness of the bark at his own back. The energy humming through his items (a fleck compared to what he feels ahead).
They nod. And then carefully, they lean out, sticking to the shadows as much as they can when they shift with every moment, every breath.
At first, Legend isn’t sure what he’s seeing.
It’s just streaks of light across his vision, red bleeding into yellow-orange-white. Air rushes past his face, whipping his cheeks with the chill, ripping his cap and bangs to the side. The roar is even more monstrous this close, and whatever this thing is has cut through a swath of the forest, leaving a clear view of trees on the far side of it, once Legend blinks the spots from his vision.
It’s at about this moment that he realizes what he’s perceived as a beast with moving parts, is in fact a procession.
The lights flash by his eyes too quickly to comprehend, so he turns his gaze to the right, hoping to see them as they approach. He grows dizzy as his eyes flick, return, flick, return. All of the beasts seem similar in form, unique in coloration and shape, though its hard to tell in the dark, with their blinding light turned his way. He catches flashes of metal and glass and some darkness— they look like figures (?) within them above their… eyes? Is that what the lights are? There are two of them on each monster. Some kind of weak point?
Looking to the left provides only slightly more information. It seems there are two more lights/eyes on the back of the monsters: the red lights that streak away towards—
Legend’s breath catches again at the veritable beacon up ahead. Whatever it is, it looks… bigger than Castle Town. Maybe bigger than several of their Castle Towns put together. Spires scrape the sky and throw out yet more light in all kinds of hues, though the yellow-white seems to be a constant. Smaller ones blink out bright from the edges, the base; and they build up to the mammoth, geometrical towers jagging up near the center.
This is no one monster, or even horde of monsters.
This is a den. Greater than anything Legend has ever seen.
A light hand touches his shoulder, and Legend jerks, whipping his rod around as he stumbles back. Warriors meets his gaze, face pale, lit by sickly red and yellow, a kaleidoscope of movement.
Jerkily, he nods his head back towards the others.
With one last look at the scene, Legend follows, sending up his first prayer in a while, thankful that the horde didn’t notice them.
(Legend doesn’t think even the nine of them could have survived the thousands upon thousands that would have flooded them.)