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Chapter Text

Blessed Curse

Prologue

Pain shattered the aggressive calm of combat before the hero even registered what his opponent had done. His own sword had been pushed into his chest and it had been his own hand on the hilt, guided there by the Titan’s hand. The hero knew what he had to do, but his movements were sluggish, his muscles seemed to have lost their not inconsiderable strength. He tugged at the sword, but he couldn’t make it move.

The Titan paused for a moment and put his hand on the hero’s head"

“You are a skilled warrior, a worthy finale to my daughter’s rebelliousness.”

The hero’s eyes widened further than they had when his sword had entered his own flesh. He tried to open his mouth, to tell ask why his friend was being spoken of in the past tense, but he coughed instead and only blood came from his throat. He fell to his side still struggling with the blade in his chest. It was getting harder to see. If he didn’t get it out soon…

Dimly he could tell the Titan had moved on towards his goal. the others might buy a little time but he needed to get back in the fight or else… or else… he couldn’t remember. Something to do with stones… and a vision…

The hero suddenly felt an incredible amount of pain in his chest. But he couldn’t say what had happened. It only lasted a moment anyway. There was something… just ahead… not light… but emitting light…

Suddenly the hero heard a voice he knew and dearly missed. An old friend, and almost more.

”It’s my pleasure!”

The hero’s eyes shot open, the wound in his chest closed and the scar already vanishing. A friend and fellow hero was on his knees looking just above him, at the fleeting image of the woman who had just saved him again, he was sure. The hero’s sword was still in his hand, but free from his chest. His friend had saved him, but how he knew what to do the hero had no idea.

No time for any of that. The hero spun, his body’s strength returned to him along with life, to face the Titan who presented so much danger. But he was too late. He watched as the Titan accomplished his goal with a simple snap of his gauntleted fingers. A tremendous wave of energy surged out, and vanished just as quickly. Just an instant, but the hero knew immediately he’d been effected. As the first flecks of his body started to disappear he searched desperately in his own mind for a potential way to undo the damage the Titan had wrought. Only one thing came to mind, and that was a long shot. If he miscalculated it could be disastrous, and he didn’t have time to be careful.

Three recipients, recipients that met the criteria and would be alive to receive. Well, one was guaranteed, if he understood the Titan’s madness correctly, one would go to her: the only other like him. The other two… he had to be sure… but the ones he had in mind were unique, nobody quite like them in the universe. Surely they’d be overlooked because of that? No time. He had to trust his instincts, they were usually on point anyway. His, everyone’s, hope shattered into three pieces and went in search of their new bearers. He could only pray it would be reunited.

Amber. He hadn’t expected death to be amber, but that was the only color in sight. No… this wasn’t death, he’d been dead before, briefly.

All thoughts died and his life began to play in front of his eyes, endlessly looping and he never remembered the last play through. And so he waited, waiting without knowing he was waiting or what for.

Chapter Text

Link’s eyes shot open and his mind woke up just as fast as he had. He sat up and stretched with a yawn to get his blood pumping, and wondered how long the day was going to be. It was his last day before the trip, but one day of school could be long, exhausting, and even painful.

He’d been born with a mutation: his ears were long and pointy like an elf from The Lord of the Rings. He wore a hat to hide them, but in each school he’d been to it had never been long before someone found out his secret and made absolutely certain he’d never be able to “fit in” afterwards.

He never found himself angry about it though. It hurt when they laughed and jeered, sure, but it never made him dislike them, nor did it often give him cause for worry.

Something did worry him though. Something in the back of his mind, always at the corner of his vision a darkness just barely there, yet smothering light. At first he thought it was something everyone experienced, but questioning his family had only given them more cause for worry on his part, something they already had enough of, what with his ears. It wasn’t there at school either so, despite what his therapist said, he knew it couldn’t be anything to do with anxiety from the bullying he received there.

He could sense it even now, but his active thoughts always seemed unable to grab the feeling. He sensed it strongest when he wasn’t thinking about it, it seemed opaque then, solid and tangible like he could just turn, pay attention and find it. But then if he put his mind to it it became clear as clean glass and his focus slid off the feeling like water. To be honest the relief of that sense leaving him at school was worth the social difficulties he experienced there.

There was one more oddity about it though: he’d never felt it before moving here. His father’s job was online and paid him very well. Twice now, thanks to that and due to Link’s school difficulties, they’d moved to a different district so he could change schools, and the second time they’d changed states and moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere. And it was here that had the strange dark feeling. If they left the town for any reason; vacation, shopping, etc, it vanished. The school was distanced enough for the feeling to vanish as well. All very concerning, enough to give him nightmares.

Aside from any of that, he had a great vacation to look forward to after today, and he didn’t think anything could ruin that. He pulled his clothes and hat on and went through the rest of his morning routine and climbed downstairs to make breakfast.

His mother, Carol, didn’t cook, his father could cook but rarely did except for holidays and events and such. Most of their food was prepared by a hired cook, the only of such in the whole town, named Serine. It was because of Serine that Link had any real skill with cooking, his parents didn’t know it, but Serine had been teaching him and he’d even helped prepare most meals for the family.

He had some… innate skill it seemed, Serine claimed it was more than talent, more than any she’d ever heard of at least. He’d edited her best recipes for the better off of pure instinct, which she’d been surprisingly accepting of (he’d rarely known anyone to like it when someone one-upped them) and he supposed it had to do with their friendship.

For all the oddities of his life, this was one he treasured: he and a woman about five times his age had a very real and strong friendship. She’d been cooking for the family since the second place he’d called home, and had moved with them purely to stay with him, or at least he guessed. She’d given various excuses, but they all felt contrived to him. In his younger years he’d cried on her lap more often than his mother’s, and she’d chided him on foolish “adventures” like climbing trees or running on streets even as she bandaged his hurts from them. As he’d grown older and wiser from her life lessons and sayings that he’d never found untrue, they’d grown into friends, which for him meant the world.

He descended the carpeted stairs to the floor level, and turned down the hall to the thin metal latchless doors leading to the kitchen. It was dark beyond them. He’d beaten Serine here then. He walked over and through the doors and switched on the light, checking the list Serine always kept to see what meal she intended for the day’s breakfast, and had only begun the first preparatory steps before his only friend walked in.

Serine smiled when she saw him, and Link smiled back. She easily could have wordlessly and seamlessly joined in the morning’s work, but for some odd reason she never let him help with breakfast without at least pretending to believe he was up too early. As if he wouldn’t have been up anyway.

“Up at the crack of dawn again! I swear you’re far too young to be missing sleep over something as unnecessary as helping me cook breakfast!”

The smile still shown on her face, giving away any chance of severity in her words. She was some 70+ years old and showing no signs of slowing down, though her face and hair held all the telltale signs of age, even when her voice did not. Her long silver hair was tied tight in a bun now, as was her habit when working in the kitchens.

“Good morning Serine, are you sure your tired old bones don’t need another hour or four before you start work?” Link answered with a wide grin. She had never failed to get up on time barring severe sickness, nor had she ever complained of ‘tired old bones’, this wasn’t exactly an everyday game of theirs, but they did play it from time to time.

Unfortunately, today, he would be bitten by carelessness. It was not a frequent occurrence, but occasionally he could let humor lessen his focus and now, laughing hard, he accidentally swirled the now very hot oil in the pan he was working with too hard and it splashed on the bare skin of his arm. Biting back a yell and downgrading it to a mere grunt he quickly set down the pan and moved to run cold water over it.

Serine’s smile faded into worry, but she knew better than most he would be perfectly fine. She did worry about him but she’d watched his worst scrapes and bruises heal in surprisingly, almost supernaturally, fast times. A little burn like this would be gone and forgotten before he left for school today.

He turned the water off and forced the pain to the back of his mind, a little trick he’d worked out at some point. It didn’t help with healing or make the pain not there, just pushed it away so that he could work without slowing. It could be dangerous, theoretically, if he managed to push away the pain of something that truly needed attention but burns while cooking were unavoidable, if infrequent.

It took a little talk to make Serine stop fussing over him, but in short order she gave up and they finished the cooking together, laughing most of the time. When they finished, though, she insisted on inspecting the burn which was already gone.

An hour or so later he was changing clothes again, this time from ‘work’ clothes and into a simple green and brown set for school. He liked green and brown, and the hats he wore to cover his ears were always in those colors even when the rest of his clothes weren’t.

It felt good when the shadow in the back of his mind receded at he approached the school and he breathed a sigh of relief when it vanished altogether. Of his classes today, only one really worried him. He had Latin and History, both were subjects he excelled at, as well as PE, which was the worrisome one. He wasn’t weak or anything, in fact he was both agile and strong, but accidents were common in PE classes, and those that liked causing him grief were good at abusing it. He’d gotten a rib and leg broken on separate occasions as a result of those ‘accidents’.

His fears were not realized, thankfully, and the day passed without trial, for him, at least. It seemed more than a few people had been too sick to attend school that day. Something in the back of his mind poked him and he started asking questions to find out how many had been sick. Sixteen total had called out, and he memorized the names of all sixteen but he couldn’t find any connection between them. He wasn’t sure why he felt that there would be a connection, but eventually he dismissed it as human curiosity.

School ended and he was picked up by Serine for a change. Apparently the family driver, a stony faced man he’d never seen smile nor ever offer his name unprompted, was sick; Link mentally added him to the list of those absent from school for the same reason. She insisted on double checking his burn from earlier in the mourning, which was of course perfectly fine, before they drove home. They had a pleasant argument over spice combinations, and that was the last interesting thing that happened that day.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure your Greek is good enough?” Link’s mother asked him for about the tenth time in the last 24 hours. No matter that English was widely spoken enough that they, in all likelihood, wouldn’t need him to speak Greek at all. No matter that, in the event English did fail them, Greek was far from the only language spoken in Athens and they could easily need Macedonian or one of the other languages fairly common to that part of the world. No matter that Link spoke all of those languages and more at least enough for anything they could possibly need. In her mind, they were going to Greece therefore they would need someone to speak Greek.

This trip to Athens was something he had been looking forward to for months now. He had an innate draw to ancient places of worship. They’d gone on trips before, but he’d never been anywhere quite as old as the Acropolis. He’d read about it, knew nearly all there was to know, but he wanted to be there. Places like that always evoked a sense of reverence in him. They felt right.

“Good enough is undervaluing my Greek” Link replied. He didn’t like to act so arrogant, but he’d found women usually assumed a man was boasting. So, to get them to believe his competence, he had to seem a little arrogant so they’d at least believe he was ‘good enough’. Besides, ‘good enough’ was undervaluing his skill in language learning, he just didn’t like to advertise it.

“Doubtless” his mother replied, dryly, but she dropped the topic. Link smiled.

He was worried by that darkness he sensed. It was more prominent this morning, something he’d never noticed happening before. Did it mean anything? He couldn’t see what it might be. It was still impossible to lock on.

His father was watching the news in the other room, nothing local of course, so Link didn’t pay any attention… until he heard gunfire. Walking over, he saw the news was covering a terrorist organization called the Ten Rings based in the Middle East somewhere. Apparently they’d… captured Stark? Link was trying to remember who that was when the reporter informed him that Stark was the CEO and genius of Stark Industries, a weapons company. How had they managed taking him? Well, Link doubted anything other than a demand for ransom could come of it. They wouldn’t have the materials to build any of his designs.

Finally the time came and, after loading up the vehicle, they left for the airport with more than enough time to make their flight, and left Link’s worries behind.

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Adrian wasn’t always sure of himself. He had trouble remembering the last ten years or so. Today was better. He could even remember not remembering. His family’s smiles were bright as he greeted them properly for the first time in months. Normally he’d be worried about when his mind might give out on him again. But not today. Today he knew he’d last a while yet. It wasn’t chance that had given him back his lucidity this time. After a lifetime of waiting… the boy was finally on his way. He wouldn’t be a boy for much longer. He couldn’t be. But he would if Adrian didn’t manage to get to the pool. Now… how to give his family the slip…

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Link did end up speaking Greek. A lot of Greek. Also some other languages. His parents might as well have put a sign on his head that said: “Our Son Speaks Greek”. Every time they went out for the day, eventually his parents would choose a stall that didn’t have English letters and have Link translate. That would set off a chain reaction - everyone wanted to speak Greek if they had a choice - and often lead to deals for the three of them for the pleasure of it. Link could not comprehend why.

Today, thankfully, they were finally visiting the Acropolis. He’d told his parents that he planned to enjoy himself here. Specifically, to not bother him with translation aside from words written in ancient times. They’d agreed, they liked visiting the current culture of a country they visited, but they let him enjoy what he loved, the ancient culture, at least for a while.

Link basked in the feel of the ruined temples. He walked in and around them, reading the scripts that were still legible and still spending time with the pieces that weren’t. His wandering eventually led him to one of the oldest standing (though also very small) buildings. This one was decorated with odd symbols that scholars couldn’t decipher. Link studied them. Nothing jumped out at him, but something… felt like it should.

He eventually turned to move on, ignoring that nagging feeling that said he was missing something, but was stopped when he heard someone call out with a distinctive Greek accent. The voice had called out Link’s name. Link turned and found a very aged man standing inside the doorway of the shrine he’d just been inspecting.

The man spoke in Greek “I’ve been waiting a lifetime for you to make your way here.”

Link hesitated. Common sense told him to just walk away when someone he didn’t know addressed him this… casually. But he found no threat in the man. He was incredibly old, not to mention weary, leaning on a cane and breathing laboriously.

Link approached the man carefully, “How… do you know my name?”

The man smiled, “It was the name given to me. As I said, I’ve been waiting nearly my whole life for you.”

This answer left Link feeling that the man hadn’t answered anything. However, rather than press for details, Link guessed he might learn the answers more quickly if he asked less obvious questions.

“What… were you waiting on me for?” he asked, carefully.

“To show you the last truly sacred place in this ancient place of worship.”

That had Link’s attention. It was still sketchy, but the temptation was strong. The man could, of course, be insane only that wouldn’t account for his knowing Link’s name. And if there was a chance… something… real still existed…

Link studied the aged man again. He truly was frail, he looked older even than Serine and not nearly as well kept. No, this man would not harm him, Link doubted he had the speed left in his bones even for a surprise attack.

“Why… me?” Link asked

“You we’re born to rediscover the most ancient secrets this world has to offer. Both those of light… and those of darkness. You are Link. The Link.”

Link struggled with what he was hearing. Yet the man had called him by name. And even if he was wrong… the chance at seeing something left of some ancient religion… something not ruined.

“I’ll come.

The man smiled, almost in relief, and beckoned Link into the shrine as he himself turned and walked deeper in.

The old man made his way over to a small panel of symbols that had survived the weathering of time inside the still-standing walls, “When I was a boy I was fascinated by these symbols. They aren’t Greek, as I’m sure you’re aware. Eventually I reasoned they weren’t even human made.”

“You thought they were made by aliens?” Link asked.

The man chuckled, “No, my young friend, something older than humans. I set about trying to find anything that spoke of or showed people that weren’t quite human. There’s plenty, of course, some think that Atlantis wasn’t human by design, for example. But I eventually looked at the symbols themselves, not for a language, but for a picture. It took time but finally, in my teens, I realized the truth. I didn’t need to decipher anything. The secret was hidden in the temple itself.”

The man gestured at a ridge-like structure at the meeting place of the walls and ceiling. It was decorated with more of the symbols like the ones on the panel. No, Link realized, not more of them. The same symbols, just in a different order. A repeating order. Seven of the same symbols on the panel in a constant repeat.

Link turned to the old man, who was smiling broadly, “You saw it much faster than I did even after I thought to look for the answers up there.”

Link touched the first symbol in the order he’d seen. There was no visual difference made… but… ever so faintly… he heard something… faintly… musical. Link took off his hat, heedless of what the old man might think of his long, pointy ears. He touched the next symbol. This time the note was much clearer. He still couldn’t say how… but he knew this panel was a… magical soundboard of some kind. One with only a single scale. Link finished the song, pleased with the tune. But noticed the old man looking slightly confused.

“Do you… hear something young man?” He asked.

Link frowned, “You don’t?”

“No, I just touched the symbols.”

My ears. Link realized. Somehow his ears could pick up tones others couldn’t.

The old man shook his head, then turned and pointed to a stone stairway leading into the ground that had absolutely not been there before, “It doesn’t last very long, and anyway we don’t want anyone else finding this place just yet.”

He led the way down the stairs, still explaining what he knew: “As far as I can tell, these stairs were always here, that pattern, or I guess the tune? Anyway, it temporarily removes the stone at the top of the passage. And down here… “ he trailed off as they emerged into a small cave that had clearly been man-made. Or at least, consciously made, if they old guy’s guess at a pre-human civilization was correct.

It was surprisingly well-lit, for an underground chamber, but Link couldn’t place where the light was coming from. The walls sparkled, tiny multicolored crystalline objects reflecting the light that came from nowhere. It was dominated, however, with a large pool of the clearest water Link had ever seen. Columns supported the chamber, with their origin somewhere in the depths of the water. Even looking directly down, Link couldn’t see the bottom, the light didn’t reach the bottom.

“This pool is, or was, sacred I think” the old man said. Link turned to him. “When I first discovered it I had a leg injury I was foolishly trying to hide. When I touched the water, it healed me. When I, perhaps a bit recklessly, tried swimming in it, it showed me something. A vision. It showed me you. I saw it all through my own eyes, so I never knew exactly when you’d come, but I never doubted you would. Today, I woke up more lucid than I’ve been in a long time, I had Alzheimer’s. But I knew, somehow, today was the day you’d come. And when I came down here… it cured my mind. I still won’t live much longer, but I’ll at least remember myself and my life until the end. I’ve done my part, or most of it. Now it’s your turn. You need to take a swim yourself, Link.”

Link… believed every word. His mind already seemed to believe that something like this, something most would call unnatural, was entirely real. Not just possible, but real. And the man wasn’t lying either. Link… could hear it.

Link nodded to the man. And he pulled off his clothes, all of them. He didn’t feel any fear or shame. Then, unhesitatingly, he dove into the Goddess’s Pool.

Chapter Text

A young, blond woman stood in front of Link. Her name was Zelda and he’d spent the last weeks fighting through terrors and abominations to protect her and try to catch up to her. He listened, shocked by the revelations she gave him.

“Her second plan… was to abandon her divine form and transfer her soul to the body of a mortal.” She hesitated before elaborating: “She made this sacrifice, as you have likely guessed, so that the supreme power created by the old gods could one day be used. For, while the supreme power was created by gods, all of its power can never be wielded by one. Knowing this power was her last and only hope, the goddess gave up her divine powers and her immortal form. You’ve probably figured it out by now, haven’t you, Link? You are the chosen hero and, I Zelda… I am the goddess reborn as a mortal.”

The scene shifted, the colors blurring and smearing until they resolved again in an entirely new scene.

Link dodged backward as the dark magic powered automaton slashed downward with one of its right arms. This latest obstacle created by Ghirahim was a little unique in comparison to the others. It had a blatantly obvious weak point, a magical core in its chest, however it guarded the core with two of its six arms. Arms that had, thus far, proven too tough for Link’s sword. It had been made to slice evil, not gigantic brass statues. Link noticed, however, that the arm that had just attacked him had, temporarily at least, become lodged in the floor. He quickly pulled out the magical whip he’d recently found, snagged the arm, and pulled with all his strength. The arm shattered, the dark magic holding the pieces of the original structure bursting apart. Link smiled, These creations were powerful, both stronger and usually faster than him, but they couldn’t truly think for themselves, they were instinctual. They’d follow their attack patterns until victory or defeat. Now Link knew how to beat this one, he just had to stay careful. One wrong move and he’d still die.

The scene shifted.

The great demon king Demise stood dying before him, albeit slowly. Link’s entire body was aching from their battle, he’d been hit with multiple lighting attacks before he’d figured out how to counter them, and had been forced to fight on against the dark god. He could only hope this could still save Zelda’s life. The monster’s sword vanished into a dark mist and into nothingness.

“Extraordinary. You stand as a paragon of your kind, Hylian. You fight like no man or demon I have ever known. Though, this is not the end. My hate… never perishes. It is born anew in a cycle with no end! I will rise again!”

He raised a finger, so gnarled and blackened it looked to be gauntleted, and pointed it at Link, “Those like you, those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero… they are eternally bound to this curse. An incarnation of my hatred shall ever follow your kind, dooming them to wander a blood-soaked sea of darkness for all time!”

He started to dissolve in much the same way his sword had before, but the scene shifted again, colors sliding, blending, and rearranging into another scene.

Link was standing outside a window in the palace gardens, where he’d found the Hylian Princess, Zelda. He looked through the window as Zelda had asked, and saw a man who didn’t look Hylian from what Link knew of the larger race. This man wore black armor and had sickly green skin with fiery red hair. The man was bowing before the throne of the King, but he suddenly turned, apparently sensing Link’s gaze. Ganondorf, Zelda had called him, and while Link felt no fear he pulled away from the window anyway.

The scene shifted.

A gigantic flaming dragon burst from one of the holes in the platform. Volvagia, he was called, and he twisted and turned through the air before diving back down into the lake of lava below them. Link hefted the Megaton Hammer. He hadn’t known Darunia all that long really, but he’d unintentionally become sworn brothers with the Goron chief, and this beast had killed him. Link needed the creature dead for other reasons, true, but it was this that stood at the forefront of his mind. The dragon burst forth again, lava splashing out from the pool underneath the platform, and Link felt fear. It was natural, this monster was gigantic, born to consume rock creatures and not something a Hylian should be fighting. Furthermore, Link’s heatproof clothing couldn’t protect him from actually burning, if this monster breathed fire on him, or splashed that lava on him, he’d almost certainly die. Link didn’t hesitate, fear was good, it kept him from becoming overconfident from his past victories against similarly impossible enemies. He yelled defiance at the larger, far stronger creature and attacked.

The scene shifted.

Link stood inside the windmill in Kakariko Village. The strange man in front of him complaining about how, in the past, some kid had come here seven years ago, played a odd song, and disturbed the windmill and emptied the well below. Link already suspected that he was that child, though he hadn’t yet done so. He did need to get down that well with a smaller body than he currently possessed. And at the moment, if Link went back in time to seven years ago, the the well wasn’t dried up.

“I’ll never forget this song!” The man said, and proceeded to play the song for Link to learn. The Song of Storms.

The scene shifted.

Link faced the strange skeletal creature. Though he’d faced many Stalfos before he’d never felt an air of intelligence from any but this one who somehow taught him the greater skills of swordplay.

“A mere shield attack is no match for an enemy protected not just by a shield, but by a thick, full-body coat of armor. Such enemies are often focused on guarding against frequent frontal attacks. They often leave their rear unprotected. That is when you roll around your foe, then perform a jumping slice."

The creature immediately demonstrated, catching Link off guard but never actually swinging his sword. Link spun, tracking the quick movement and knowing he’d be tested by the odd being until he completely mastered the technique.

“This is the back-slice! Now, try it!”

The scene shifted.

Link’s uncle lay wounded on ground at the bottom of the secret passageway into Hyrule Castle. Link couldn’t tell how bad the would was, but his uncle couldn’t stand or open his eyes.

“Uncle?” Link prompted worriedly.

“Ugh… that voice… Link? Is it you? I thought I told you to wait at home…”

“I heard her voice too… I followed her instructions.” Link replied, a little guiltily.

“I suppose there’s no escaping destiny… Here, take this sword and shield from me. Link, you must rescue Princess Zelda. Our people are fated to do so. But do not fall victim to fate… Link… I shall always remember… our time together…”

His uncle slipped into unconsciousness. Link took the combat items from him, saying a silent prayer to the gods that he’d survive. The sword and shield both felt… natural to him. Like he already knew how to use them.

The scene shifted.

Link crouched over his fire, deer meat roasting in the discarded pewter pot he’d discovered and cleaned. He wasn’t entirely sure how he new the basics of cooking, maybe it had a similar origin to his sword and archery skills. Loosing his memories from 100 years ago seemed to have some odd effects. He must’ve been well trained, he surmised, but there was something… calming about cooking. His cooking skills had been basic to begin with, but in the days he’d spent in the wilderness, between the scattered villages and inns, he’d actually been developing the practice into something of an art. He scavenged the land as he traveled each day: hunting game, fishing, even picking from wild plants their grains, fruits and vegetables. He was learning to combine these in recipes that were both delicious and nutritious. He’d even started journaling his methods. He didn’t really have anything new to mix in today, however, so he pulled out that journal and pursued the contents with his current stock in mind.

The scene shifted.

It was nearly time to assault Hyrule Castle itself, Calamity Ganon blazed through the night sky as Link made final preparations. He knew not to rush the process, but it was hard to just sit and wait while his potions brewed. The discovery of that nearly lost art had proven invaluable to him. It was too dangerous, for most people, to collect the… special ingredients needed to make these potions, making them expensive and rare. They’d allowed him to amass the small fortune he needed to create the Guardian Arrows he’d need to storm the corrupted castle. Now, however, he brewed for his own use. He had no idea what Calamity Ganon might try once Link got too close. If the monster had a weakness to exploit, he would need time to find it. So he waited… impatiently.

The scene shifted.

The corruption of Calamity Ganon faded from the world. This time, Link had prevailed over this ancient enemy, though he had not destroyed Ganon personally, he’d weakened him and done the damage for Zelda to crush him with the sacred powers within her. The bow of light in his hand faded, Link presumed it’s very construct had been Zelda’s magic. His left side throbbed from where he’d been thrown from his horse in the battle. The arm was probably broken, but he was out of his prepared potions. He was used to pain though, and his attention was focused on Zelda.

“I’ve kept watch over you all this time. I’ve witnessed your struggles to return to us as well as your trials in battle. I always thought… no, I always believed that you would find a way to defeat Ganon. I never lost faith in you over these many years…”

She turned away from where the beastly being had died. Turned towards him. Her pure white dress rustling in the wind, her few ornaments somehow displaying her regality without losing simplicity.

She smiled at him, in his dirty, rough clothes made and used for survival in the harsh wilds, “… thank you, Link… the hero of Hyrule. May I ask, do you really remember me?”

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Link’s eyes shot open, he was underwater. He didn’t panic, he was a powerful swimmer, and kicked up towards the surface. He broke free and gasped for breath, blinking and looking around. The old man jumped from where he’d apparently been sitting down. How long had Link been down there? The visions, no, memories had been numerous, many displaying his knowledge of useful information or skills, some seeming… useless to his mind. Where they random? No, many of them were incredibly pointed, starting and stopping so that only one thing could be learned from them. Many had taught him multiple songs or recipes. He now recognized the tune that had allowed him and the old man to enter this place as the Song of Time. He’d learned many things, but the skills that he’d witnessed were not in his mind. That, he knew, wouldn’t be a problem. He would know how to use a sword at an expert level as soon as he tried to; just as he had naturally understood cooking, though he did not automatically know any specific recipes. He now did. Other skills waited, already memorized by his very soul: archery, horseback riding and combat, how to spot weak points in structures and opponents. Survival and combat skills. There was another kind of knowledge he’d gained.

He swam to the edge of the pool, the man hurrying forward with a towel he’d gotten from somewhere. Link pulled himself out of the water and gratefully accepted the towel, drying himself off.

“You saw?” The man asked.

“Yes” Link replied, “though it showed me the past, past lives I’ve lived, rather than the future as it had for you.”

The old man nodded, “Then, my work is nearly complete. I can spend my last days with my family.”

Link smiled, “Do that, this world is in serious danger, but it’s danger I’ve faced before. I promise you I’ll save this world, as I once did my own.”

The old man frowned at this, “You mean this isn’t your world? You’re an alien or something?”

Link chuckled, “No, my friend, this planet is my own, but I am not human. My people existed long before yours, and alongside many other intelligent races. We… died out it seems. It’s not like I was there to see it. But, my soul lingered on. From what those memories… I think I’ve been reborn finally from a human, as a true Hylian. And there’s only one reason that could happen: Ganondorf, the King of Evil, has been reborn as well. It’s my job to stop him. It always has been.”

The old man shook his head, “I don’t understand most of that. But I lived a long time waiting for the moment I could bring you down here. But one last piece of my visions remain unfulfilled.”

He reached over and dragged a large brown pack over from where it had been resting, Link didn’t remember it being there when they’d first come down.

“You were in there for two days, son.” He said, seeing Link’s confusion. The flipped open the cover and pulled out a long, wrapped package, “I can‘t say what’s in the future now, but even my tired old mind can tell this world is changing. Your mission may not be a straightforward as you seem to think, in my experience: life never is. I don’t really have a choice but to let you leave and fight but… I can try to equip you. It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.”

As he spoke he unwrapped the package, it was a sword, made in the Hylian style; simple, strong double-edged, and cased in a good scabbard with a proper belt to harness it to his back. Link took it gratefully, and looked in the bag, he saw another package Link guessed was a shield, as well as at least one set of traveler’s clothing, made of sturdy leather and cloth.

“This is an incredible gift, thank you very much.”

The old man smiled but shook his head, “No, my family will survive if you stand against your enemy, this Ganondorf, it is a small expense for that.”

Link nodded and set about pulling on the clothes, now he was able to see that there were actually three outfits in there, though only one pair of boots and belt. He repackaged the sword and put it in the bag again. Then he stood, and looked around. There was something else… some sense in his mind told him he wasn’t done here. His eyes were drawn to a design on the stone floor a ways away. He crossed over to it and as he came closer he recognized the symbol. It had once been the symbol of the royal family. There was also an arrow, though, and it pointed further back along the cave.

“I never could figure out where that led” said the old man, “I expect it was because I wasn’t meant to.”

Link followed the arrow, and found another symbol on the ground, the arrow pointing to the side now, along the far end of the pool when looking from the entrance. Link followed again, and soon learned they led in a rectangle around the pool. He crouched down and considered the conundrum. There would be no point in placing these for any misdirection. The pool was the most important thing here and it’s puzzle had gone unsolved for millennia, maybe even longer. There was an answer to this… they couldn’t run on forever… they weren’t pointing at each other. They were just designed to look like they were.

He followed the arrow, past what appeared to be the next clue, and up to the wall. It didn’t, upon examination, appear to be anything special. The rock was solid and held well, all things considered. Link considered his memories of secret places. One particular memory seemed timely. A memory of using a particular song to open the way forward. Given his newly recalled knowledge of magic, enchantments usually did one of three things. They could either enhance a particular trait of an item (though this effect could be layered), imbue the item with a particular element (though this could not be layered), or set effects to happen upon specific stimuli. Hylians had sensitive ears, and had thus placed a high value on music. Some enchantments where so sensitive that only the right tune, played by the exact instrument used to set it, could activate the enchantment.

Link had no musical instrument, however he had no way of obtaining a specific one without further clues. He whistled the Song of Time. It didn’t open, however a sun appeared on the wall drawn in glowing blue lines. There was a door here, but Link assumed he would only be able to access it at a later date.

“Over here!” The old man called out.

Link turned and found him reaching into a new opening in one of the other walls. As Link crossed over to him he could see him pull out a small bundle, no a satchel, from its storage place.

The old man looked inside and frowned, “There’s nothing inside.”

Link smiled, “No. No I recognize this.”

The old man handed him the satchel, and Link reached inside. He pulled out a small handful of green crystal rupees, the ancient currency of Hyrule. Unfortunately, these were worthless. It had been so long since these crystals even formed inside the earth that they no longer held any value, new precious gems (emeralds, rubies diamonds, and the like) existed. Rupees no longer had a place in the economy. But, though Link could sense what had once been a small fortune inside the satchel, the real treasure was the satchel itself. It was perhaps the most common magic item in Hyrule: an inventory.

The pack had been enchanted to be better at the one thing it did: store things for ease of travel. It now had a huge amount of space inside it, not actually limitless, but Link didn’t have many memories of actually maxing one out. It could store anything, and would not increase in either size or weight. To reclaim anything from its insides, one simply had to know what they were looking for.

He quickly grabbed the pack that the old man had prepared for him, and stuffed the contents, including the sword and shield, into the inventory. When Link looked up he saw the old man’s eyes very wide. Link smiled and tossed it to him. He caught it easily, but had also braced himself for a much heavier item.

“This is incredible!” He said, “any chance of finding more of these?”

Link shook his head, “Not likely, I never learned to make them. These used to be common enough, but they aren’t indestructible. I doubt any others survived without preservation. Honestly, I’m just thankful someone put this one here.”

The old man nodded and handed the inventory back, and Link looped it onto his belt. There was an air of finality to the action that transcended the simple task. Link could still turn back. Go home. His old clothes were still right there, laying on the ground. But he wasn’t tempted. He wanted to leave, not because he disliked his life before, but because he wanted to do what was needed. This world would die if nobody could stop the darkness slowly corrupting the world and Link was created specifically to face that darkness and win. That draw his entire life to seek out ancient relics of various religions hadn’t been idle chance. He understood now. His Hyrule was broken, reformed into a planet it’s new inhabitants called Earth. His people were dead. And it didn’t matter, these people were still people. He’d fight monsters, dragons, and armies to protect any single one of them. The hero of a dead people was reborn, and he’d still be exactly was he always had. And… there was one more reason. The goddess who’d created him, reborn as a mortal to face the same evil. She hadn’t just created for her people a hero to save them and sat back, hoping he would succeed. Instead she’d subjected herself to her own plans and, as a consequence, they’d faced that evil over and over again, rarely even knowing they’d been part of this cycle. She’d be out there too, reborn. She might know who she was by now… or maybe she didn’t. But Link knew… their enemy would target her with a dangerous passion. If there was a second reason for Link’s existence it was to protect her.

This wasn’t the beginning, the beginning had happened literal billions of years ago. But it was a beginning. The beginning of an adventure unlike any he’d had before… and yet the same story again.

Link thanked the old man who’d brought him here, then they turned and left the underground remnant of the world in Link’s memories.

“Oh… one more thing.” The old man said. Link looked at him quizzically. “Your parents have filed a missing person’s case on you. You might have to sneak away.”

Link grimaced, well… he’d had to go unnoticed before.

Chapter Text

Link stood, carefully roasting his evening meal of venison. Trapping the creature hadn’t been difficult, though in his memories he’d typically hunted with bow and arrow. He currently traveled east, arcing around the Mediterranean with the intention of traveling down into Africa. He wasn’t sure what drove him specifically in that direction, yet as he faced south, towards where he wanted to go, he somehow could sense it was the right direction. The feeling was an odd one, a… brightness pulling him. Very similar to the feeling that had drove him towards places of religion. He trusted it, it was… similar to the feeling Zelda had always given off. He suspected he had a natural attunement for divine powers.

Leaving the Acropolis, indeed Greece overall, had not been as difficult as he’d feared. It had been true that he’d been reported missing, but after two days there were no longer any active searches. He was presumed missing. He’d still avoided any law enforcement, there had still been a real chance he’d be recognized, and had not left following any roads. He suspected there might still be blockades.

That had all been just over a week ago, his rough estimates of how far he’d traveled said he was making good time. He was able to travel very light, thanks to the inventory, and though in the early days his body had been very sore after his daily traveling, he’d quickly grown accustomed to the rough terrain. He was also practicing with his sword and shield. He’d thought he’d hardly need it for skill, his intention had been to build muscle for better endurance. He’d been slightly surprised. His mind knew what to do, but his body lacked the strength or muscle memory to complete many of the more complex tasks. Now he wore the both of them on his back at all times. He’d originally feared standing out, but here in the near wilds he hadn’t seen another human in days.

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Director Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. had difficulty leaving behind his idea officially titled the ‘Avengers Initiative’. He hoped, still, to bring the idea back. The thought was nearly laughable. Yet… something deep within him believed strongly that they, humanity, would need it. Of course, he had certain knowledge that even Shield lacked. Shield knew of ancient civilizations on Earth and of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Fury knew how outmatched they were. And the genius of weapons development had just shut down his… well weapons development. Shield would never have hired the erratically frivolous billionaire personally, but they had taken some, well nearly all, of his ideas and secretly improved or expounded on them. Even Shield was feeling the impact of Stark’s sudden growth of conscience.

Next to that event the rest of the reports he had to go through seemed irrelevant, except maybe the new 0-8-4. Archeological digs in Egypt had unearthed a doorway in the Valley of Kings about a week back, and Shield had finally managed to get personnel in to inspect it themselves. It was of particular concern due to its seemingly indestructible nature, along with the glyphs it bore.

Shield knew of several instances of this writing to be found in the world, but linguistics had never managed to crack it. Doors in rock, small shrines, and various statues could be found all over the world with this language, as if the civilization responsible for them had spanned the entire world. Even more oddly, considering the fact that nearly all of them could be found on the Earth’s surface, they were impossibly old. The objects, and any rock also found to be under whatever protection make them indestructible, were far older than the dinosaurs.

The reason Shield even cared to keep these findings secret, however, was their inability to suffer so much as a scratch from any known form of weaponry. Shield consistently tried stronger and stronger lasers as the technology advanced and, yes, in the past a nuclear blast had been tested against one. All to no effect. Shield wanted to know how these were created, and it especially wanted to keep the world as a whole from knowing such indestructibility existed.

The problem here was that it had been normal archeological digs that unearthed the new doorway, and knowledge of the find had begun spreading before Shield had found out the significance. As of yet nobody had tried blowing the door open, thankfully, but it was already out that Egypt had a supposed tomb with unknown runes matching those in a Greek shrine found in the Acropolis. Shield had to find a way to keep the unbreakable nature hidden, if that happened this would all blow over. Hopefully.

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Link dreamed of a young child he’d never seen before. The girl lay sick in bed, watched over by two older women. One clearly her mother, the other somewhere between the two, possibly an older sister? All three looked middle eastern, though he couldn’t see their features very well from his position looking down on the event.

“You must go and bring a doctor, Amira. All the men are already sick, and now it’s taken your sister. You must go.” The mother was saying.

“I cannot go mama, you need help tending them. I cannot leave you all in danger from this curse.”

Link frowned, they weren’t speaking any language he’d studied before, though he could guess an Arabic language obviously. Despite that he understood them perfectly. He heard sound combinations he didn’t know, and his mind was translating them into… Hylian? Odd.

“It is not a curse, it is a sickness. And we need a doctor, they will die. I know it’s dangerous to leave but…”

Link woke up then. Something stirred in his mind, a sense of something… dark. Evil. It came from the general direction he’d been traveling. He checked the sky. It was still night, dawn wouldn’t be for a few hours yet. The moon was nearly full, casting more than enough light to see by. Something still felt off… but that sense of evil was miles away. Movement drew his eye, close to his sleeping place. Link relaxed, it was just a small snake moving towards the remains of the fire for warmth. He pulled his feet away from the creature’s path and sat up, idly watching the reptile. He couldn’t place its species, probably wasn’t anything to make it noteworthy, like venom glands. The firelight caught its eyes and it gleamed red. That was unusual for sure… he hadn’t heard of a snake that’s eyes… Link jumped up immediately from his position and reached for his sword. He pulled it free from its scabbard right as the monster changed course, launching itself into the air in a way no true snake could have done, a single red eye flashing with hatred. Link’s mind and battle experience took over, and he sidestepped the attack and took its head off with a clean upwards strike. It died instantly and it’s body, composed as it was of evil energy rather than natural birth, began to decompose at a unnatural rate. In seconds there was no trace the thing had existed.

Too awake now to continue his sleep, he broke camp and continued his journey. As he walked he analyzed the serpent’s appearance. What did it mean? Was his ancient enemy already aware of him? Or had it been a chance encounter? He knew what the thing was. Thankfully he’d already been woken when it appeared. Despite its one head, that thing had been an adolescent hydra. The older they got the more heads they grew, meaning that one was less than a year old. It was a very good thing he’d run across it so early in its life, hydras were extremely poisonous.

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Two days later, Link found himself on a true road for the first time since his departure from Athens. He wasn’t really sure where this road led, he unfortunately did not own a map. Something he was beginning to regret not finding a way to obtain on his way out of the city. He had not seen any further evidence of Ganondorf’s touch on the world, but that sense of evil grew closer to him by the day or at least he grew closer to it. Then, unexpectedly, that sense shifted.

Link stopped in his tracks, had he imagined it? He stepped backwards a few paces, but nothing changed. He focused, really feeling that sense of evil for the first time. It was a revolting experience, but he shoved through that and tried to interpret it. Finally he began to understand, that sense had been a… black area ahead of him for so long, but inside that area… was a point. An epicenter. That was what had moved. No… what was moving. Link turned and looked straight towards it, maybe… a good two hour’s walking distance away. And there, on the ground practically at his feet, was a trail. It lead out and towards a forested area, something of an anomaly in this part of the world maybe half a mile out from his present location. But there was something else about it. Even from this distance he could feel it, that bubble of… corruption was sitting right on top of that forest. Link tightened the belt holding his sword and shield on his back, he had a feeling he’d need them soon, and he marched off the road.

As he approached the forest, he could tell already this place had been touched by his ancient enemy. The trees were sickly, what should have been green leaves we’re turning to purple, and further in he could see some were already much darker. Inside the rim of dying trees the light was unnaturally dark, something he’d expect of a forest at night with no moon, not in the middle of the day. He stopped at the edge, and reached out to touch the bark of a tree. His fingers came back with a grimy sap-like substance attached to them. He compared to the other trees, they all seemed the same. This place was under a dangerous curse or possibly a supernatural poison. Ganondorf was known for utilizing both. However, curses were easier, and if he had not come here personally it would be virtually impossible to do this with poison. This was good, curses had epicenters, bindings. Usually the King of Evil preferred to attach those to dangerous ‘boss’ monsters of his own creation, this meant Link could, if he was successful in combat, essentially ‘kill’ the curse by killing its epicenter.

There was one more thing to worry about, however. He never placed these curses randomly, they targeted either people or places of power. Usually both. He could have been angry at a particular person or family but more likely… this place hid something he wanted buried or destroyed.

Link mentally prepared himself, his memories of past lives, they still weren’t him in the same way as his memories from this life. He knew them, remembered their emotions, thoughts, and actions. But… they were somehow… distant. His body’s understanding of how to use his sword felt far more real. This meant, in a very real way, he was likely about to face his first fight. He felt his heart pounding with trepidation at that thought, he itched to draw his sword here and now, it wasn’t a particularly hot day but sweat ran down the side of his face, his nerves pulsed, muscles tensed. He was scared, he sensed danger and his instincts were trying to wrench control away from him. And yet, a part of him remembered what to do. It wasn’t time to fight yet, that would come later and the fear would be worse, so he closed his eyes and breathed long and deep breaths. His body relaxed, nervous energy changing to resting strength. Strength he’d need soon, but not yet.

Link opened his eyes, the cursed forest loomed over him, dark, deadly, terrifying. He hadn’t banished fear, he’d controlled it. Fear wasn’t a bad thing when kept in control. Fear was alertness and power. Link stepped into the forest, using a pre-trodden trail but keeping his thoughts on that innate sense to track down the curse’s epicenter.

It was an hour later that he found a young woman on the ground, dying. He’d barely seen her before stepping on her, and he had barely been able to stop himself. Now he crouched down, propping her up while pouring clean water down her throat. Among her other ailments, dehydration appeared to be the most imminently dangerous. She coughed, that was good, it meant she was still alive. He pulled back the water and capped it. Then he checked for other signs of danger. This didn’t look the same as the sickness on the forest, she had a heavy fever and her skin was dry, but Link suspected that was only because her body had long ago run out of fluids to sweat out. Then he saw her wrist. There, right over her veins, were two small holes in her skin. The holes hadn’t scabbed up but instead infected. Likely that had prevented her from bleeding out. Her veins were visibly purple along the length of her forearm. Venom. She’d been bitten by something, likely a hydra, judging from his own encounter mere days ago. He quickly scanned the area, looking for the offending creature. It was unlikely it had stayed to watch her die, but it was equally unlikely that Link hadn’t now discovered the general source of the forest’s contamination. And to curse an area this large… Link now suspected he knew what he’d find at the epicenter.

He’d guessed one more thing from this encounter. This forest was inhabited. The girl was middle eastern, and Link remembered his dream two nights ago. The trail he’d been following was overgrown, but not hard to follow. Why or how he didn’t know, but he was ready to bet that dream of his had been really happening in that moment, and he’d just stumbled upon the older sister who’d been sent to get help. Link considered his options. Once, he’d known potions to counter poisons like this one. Now, however, he lacked the materials to make anything helpful. The plants he’d need were long extinct, and he didn’t dare risk a fire to boil water anyway. If he could kill the exact creature that bit her the poison would vanish, though she’d still need to be cared for as her body wouldn’t instantly heal or recover the lost strength it had spent trying to fight off the venom. It was, unfortunately, her only chance. She could stave off death if she could be forced to eat and drink, but it would kill her eventually unless the poison itself was countered. She wasn’t awake at the moment, Link suspected it had been too long since she’d been bitten for real hope she would wake. So he picked her up bridal style. He couldn’t risk putting away his sword and shield, and with them on his back he couldn’t carry her in any more effective way. He hoped his strength could last till he got her back to the village. Or that he found the creature that bit her. He wasn’t sure which hope was more likely.

Fortune favored him as it had not the girl, apparently. She’d been bitten a mere two hours out from her village, at least moving at a far slower place than normal as he’d been carrying her, which he discovered when a clearing appeared before him filled with small homes constructed with mud bricks. It was actually fairly large, he suspected the inhabitants cleared trees for firewood to make room for their small fields. Said fields had what should have been healthy crops nearing harvest. Now, however, the plants were wilted and looked purple with the same sickly sap on the trees. Very few people were outside of their homes, but as soon as he pushed out of the dying wood a few women looked up and saw him carrying the girl they would all know by sight. Something of an alarm was raised as what appeared to be everyone not sick already rushed outside and over to him. As his dream had indicated, there were no grown men among them, only women and small children, and not many of them. He only counted sixteen homes in the entire clearing, most of the space was taken up by the fields.

The women took the girl from his arms, her mother already wailing in a language he didn’t understand. Whatever had translated for him in his dream didn’t appear to take effect in the real world. Somebody finally caught on to the fact that Link wasn’t able to respond in their native tongues, for he heard one of the younger women speak English to his side.

“Are you doctor?” She asked.

He looked at her, she looked Greek, which caught him off guard. While it has also been odd that the women in his dream had seemed middle eastern given where he thought he still was in the world, he’d also expected this little community to be mostly one race. Looking around he noticed he couldn’t have been further from the truth. As far as he could tell, no two families shared the same nationality. Most were European in some way, mostly southeastern though, but he also saw a pair of Russian children.

“Are you doctor?” The girl repeated.

“No.” Link said, wishing he could have given more a hopeful answer. But if he was correct in his assessment of the situation here…

“I am a warrior. I break curses.” He spoke simply, the broken English the girl spoke suggesting he shouldn’t press his luck with her understanding him.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one who spoke English, though, as after his assertion more than a few of those surrounding him looked up at his sword.

“You were sent by God?” one asked hopefully.

“The goddess Hylia” Link answered, he figured he might as well speak the truth. He was created by the goddess, before she incarnated as one of her Hylians, after all. The crowd was, understandably, confused.

“I need someone to tell me what happened here. I must know the curse I fight.” Link said loudly.

“It was snakes, holy warrior” the first girl who had spoken said. “They came and attacked those who went to the temple to pray. Then they attacked anyone who came close. If it is a curse… God is angered at us. Though we do not know what we did to offend.”

“No god put this curse on you.” Link tried to assure them, he wasn’t sure what these people believed, but hope was often the best fortification in times of distress. Believing your very god, whoever they might be, was punishing you… Link wasn’t sure there was a better way to crush hope. “He is a demon, the King of Evil. But he is not here personally. His minions are these snakes. If I kill the snakes, their poison will vanish.”

The village people spoke between each other, the ones who could understand him translating his message, he hoped. They didn’t seem convinced yet though.

“There is a great snake” an older woman said from the back of the small crowd. Link couldn’t see her very well. “It has many heads, all as large as a man’s. You cannot fight this thing.”

Link hesitated. It wasn’t that he doubted he could win. He just… wasn’t sure how to assure these people he could save them. His memories of past lives showed a near silent warrior, blunt and strong. He spoke to people sure, but usually to get information or trade for items he needed. He was a sword who got pointed at the bad thing that needed killing. In fact he realized he had already made a mistake. Whatever ‘god’ they worshiped, he’d essentially denounced by saying he had been sent by another then by claiming a demon had cursed them despite their god’s protection. He’d practically proclaimed that their god was worthless, but his sent him to solve their problems. He was not meant for this, standing in front of a crowd and giving hope. He often fought behind the scenes, with only a small few who knew of his endeavors. What fame and notoriety he’d gained were always after the fact. Legends that told the people of Hyrule that if things got bad a hero would come. He didn’t recall having to do this type of thing before. He didn’t have any previous experience to draw on. Zelda had been the leader. She knew how to make people trust her. She could be kind. He was a warrior. More than that none of his previous achievements survived to today. Nothing to use as an example of his strength.

But there was one thing. He was a warrior, true, but he wasn’t hard. He could move when others faltered, he could forge head when people got hurt despite his best efforts. But this was not due to a lack of caring. He did care, always had. He remembered watching his wounded uncle, he remembered facing a monster that had killed his sworn brother. He was not devoid of emotion, he was simply in control of those emotions. He steeled himself for what came next.

“I realize you don’t know me, I realize you cannot trust me.” He drew his sword, and the crowd stepped back from him, “I will save you from this nightmare. I will kill this ‘great snake’. That is the creature that has poisoned your home. When it dies, so too will the curse.”

He could not reassure them, indeed they seemed scared of him at this moment, so he’d simply save them. Maybe, in time, he could learn to inspire hope. He didn’t know how, he couldn’t do anything for these people but fight. So he would.

He concentrated on the epicenter of the curse. It was nearly straight ahead from him right now. It wasn’t moving. He stepped forward, the crowd parted for him, or more likely, for his sword. He pulled his shield free from its place on his back, it was designed so that he could tug it free easily from the right angle, and he tightened it over his arm as he walked. There was a paved path leading into the woods. It seemed to lead in the direction he needed. He didn’t stop when he reached the other side of the village and the edge of the woods. He walked right in.

The stench was far worse on this side, a good sign really, though it wasn’t actually very useful with his mind somehow tracking the origin of the curse. Though, he immediately did realize how much worse the curse was. The forest was nearly dead already, well… he didn’t know how long this had been going on, but he wasn’t certain he could save these trees. Branches were already falling from the sickly purple forest, and as Link stepped on one it didn’t crunch but squish, his boot sinking through what should’ve been a brittle structure, smashing a repulsive near-liquid mass down. He marched onwards, even as his senses told him to gag and vomit.

Further in, Link spotted stones under the fallen foliage which, after a quick inspection, he found to be a structured path leading the direction he still sensed his destination in. Then, finally, he spotted through the dying wild an answer to a previous question: this curse had targeted something specific. A dilapidated temple rose from the ground, there was no roof, and both trees and vines grew green in its perimeter. Curses were powerful, and the King of Evil could ruin any normal place in a matter of days with one, but sacred ground held more resistance. It wouldn’t be safe inside, but it would fight the creature’s influence for a time before giving way.

As Link neared the shrine he rectified an earlier judgement, this temple was no ruin, it was simply built to be open to the elements. The unmarked columns rose to the air and stopped suddenly, supporting nothing. The ground was covered in dead branches and leaves, some natural some cursed and blown in by winds, but there was no loose stone to indicate a collapsed roof. Was this place relatively new? The villagers behind him surely couldn’t have made this structure… and where had the stone come from? Perhaps it had once been one rock jutting out from the ground? Link’s sense of reverence returned as he stepped onto the grounds.

A column on far side of the temple had a doorway etched into the stone. He remembered Hylian magic enough to know it wouldn’t open if… Link spun and jumped. The serpent head missed him by a mere foot but Link’s sword, in his hand since before he left the village, was longer. He struck hard and the sharp metal sheared halfway through the creature’s neck, Link’s jump had taken him higher than anticipated. He landed and hacked the rest of the head free as the it tried to pull back towards the main body. Link started counting. The neck withdrew and Link followed it with his eyes to see several more serpent heads rearing up, an single glowing red eye in each one. Seven heads, and a scaled, branching snakelike body with all the colors of the forest outside the village.

One.

The creature hissed and charged, two heads streaking towards him with fanged mouths open.

Two.

Link dodged to the side, hitting the ground with his shoulder first but rolling his back across the ground, mitigating the impact and putting him back on his feet in a mere moment but third head already rushed towards his new position.

Three.

He sidestepped the single head and cut it cleanly, with a single strike, he was moving a lot faster than he had thought his body capable of. Speed gave him power.

Four.

The neck, newly liberated from its head, thrashed about, and Link got knocked to the side, but he rolled with the impact again, standing back up and slicing the next head in two with an upwards slash. The head made a strangled noise as it pulled itself back together, the sound changing to a hiss again, but Link was ready.

Five.

He took it’s head completely off in two blows, but had to back away when the Hydra sent two more heads as reinforcements.

Six.

He stabbed one in the eye and parried the other away with his shield. Two more heads had lunged for the side where Link might’ve rolled. He smiled, he’d found the first pattern.

Seven.

He pulled his sword free and cut off the blinded head, then backed up, waiting for the next attack.

Eight.

Eight seconds after Link had killed the first head, that same head finished its regrowth, becoming fully active with a distinctly different hissing sound than Link had heard before. The other headless necks were still in the process of regrowing their heads. If this Hydra worked the same as the type he remembered fighting, he’d have to cut off all seven heads in a short enough time that the first hadn’t regrown yet. Judging from the attack pattern Link had already identified, that would prove difficult, but not impossible.

The creature hissed again, the second of the three heads Link had already severed reaching full regrowth, then it charged at him with the same pattern Link had already found. Ganondorf’s creatures of darkness and evil were not natural, they functioned very similarly to the creatures he often based them off of, but he had to design each one’s physiology and it’s mannerisms. He was limited to a certain extent by the fact that the magic had to hold on to something to keep effect. Do enough damage and the spell would break, causing the creature to crumble into nothing. The King of Evil had often found ways to try and circumvent this problem by focusing the spell into a certain point of a being (creating a weak point on an otherwise indestructible monster), or just plain giving it heavy armor which could be bested if one had the right equipment or enough raw power. But no matter what ways he crafted, he was also limited by time and imagination. His creatures had to be given certain instructions and instincts, and without direction it wouldn’t matter how dangerous the creature could be, it wouldn’t actually fight; only once in Link’s memories had he managed to make something actually sentient and that had been back in his first life as Demise. This meant Ganondorf was forced to, in essence, preprogram attack patterns even into his greatest monsters. While his enemy could be very creative with these patterns, patterns could always be deduced and exploited.

Link parried away the head to the left with his shield, and used the extra room to once again sidestep and behead the other one. Then he turned and hacked the first one off as well. Not hesitating, he jumped again, then used a leg to vault off the writhing neck to his right, leaping as far up and left as he could manage. One of the two heads intended to catch a potential dodge was still extended there, though it was already starting to retreat back towards the main body. Link didn’t let it, he came down full force and cleaved the serpent’s head free. Three down, the last of the ones he’d removed earlier would already be replaced. He stood up and readied himself. The creature attacked again in the same pattern, unable to adapt to Link’s adaptation. He executed the same strategy perfectly, cleanly removing three more heads in mere seconds.

One head left. Link wasn’t sure if the thing would attack with the one, he doubted it could, lacking an appropriate number of heads to launch its pre-established method of attack. The neck of the sixth severed head retreated and Link looked up at the Hydra. It was… shedding its scales. No, not all it’s scales. It’s six severed heads has ceased their regeneration, and instead all seven necks were combining into one massive body and head, and the scales separating the flesh from joining were being discarded. Link must’ve triggered this transformation when he endangered the monster by putting it one good sword swing away from death.

The serpent ,once a hydra and now a simple but gigantic snake, whipped its tail at him but Link jumped over it easily. He had no fear of getting ambushed by multiple heads anymore. The thing spit poison at him while he was in the air. Link raised his shield in defense, but the thing was designed small enough to be portable and was far from the size he’d need to block all of the dangerous liquid. It did protect his head and chest, however, and only his legs were splashed, but that was enough. Pain seared them both as he hit the ground hard, his legs didn’t support him and he crumpled. The poison had first burned through his pants like acid, then seeped into his skin, leaving no mark but poisoning him all the same. His legs felt like they were on fire and already he could feel the stuff spreading.

The serpent hissed, sensing his weakness, and lunged with it mouth open. Link looked up at a maw with seven rows of fangs descending on him. He couldn’t move, so he fell backwards onto the ground and stabbed stabbed up into the creature’s head. Pain seared his sword arm as two fangs sank into it, but the creature stopped instantly against the ground. Link had to hurry, but the poison was in his arm now too. He reached up with his shield hand and pulled his sword and arm free. The snake’s head started to repair itself immediately, he had to be fast. His sword arm and legs were poisoned and dying rapidly, but he stood up anyway, forcing his body to move. He raised his sword and starting hacking at the monster’s neck with both hands. He was weak, but he didn’t fall. It took seven strikes, but he finally severed the thing completely. Then it started to decay. He felt the poison die and disappear inside him. Mere seconds later his only pain was the two holes in his sword arm. He hadn’t really felt that pain alongside the poison, and now in comparison to that it was laughable. He looked at his shield, the poison had marred the surface but hadn’t done enough damage to hurt it’s structural integrity. It would still function.

He turned back to the column with the apparent doorway, if his hunch was correct… yes. Right before the monster had attacked him, Link had guessed that this door had a magic lock that sealed itself when evil magic was near. With the hydra dead, there was no longer any evil source close enough to trigger the spell.

Link didn’t immediately go to see what had been revealed. He stood still, the events finally catching up with him now that his battle calm was fading. He’d almost forgotten how he’d come here, let the feeling of this sacred place distract him from the fact that he’d been tracking a hydra. He’d noticed his sense of it shift towards him last minute, and from there… he remembered combat, he remembered how it felt, but was his first time really experiencing it. It was a rush, a thrill, it was terrifying and wonderful at the same moment. His body had performed far beyond what he’d considered his own limits. His sword hadn’t felt like an external item, it had felt like a part of his body, an extension of himself; same with his shield. He’d fought and killed a gigantic hydra. No, he hadn’t just killed it, he’d systematically destroyed it. It had caught him off guard and he’d come out with barely a wounded arm. And the result?

Link looked around. He’d been right, the forest wasn’t healthy by any means, but it no longer had that sickly purple filament over everything, and that unnatural darkness was gone, the light shining through as one would expect. He’d lifted the curse, or killed it anyway.

Still, that poison had been strong… it had nearly killed him in seconds after injection. How had the villagers survived this long?

A woman’s words echoed in his mind, “It was snakes”

Young hydras, like the one he’d killed a few days ago. There must be a nest of them. He’d need to kill each specific one who had bitten someone. He’d need to draw them out, he couldn’t just wander the forest hoping he’d stumble onto all of them.

He turned to the now accessible door, it glowed faintly along its outline and decor. How had nobody found this before now? He touched the stone and it faded away, revealing a tiny room with a chest inside. He opened it, and smiled. He figured he could deal with the young hydras now.

Chapter Text

By the time Link got back to the village, his sword arm had forgotten the pain of the hydra’s poison and insisted on being very upset with him for getting it stabbed by long pointy things. Unfortunately, neither the old man in Greece nor whomever had hidden the inventory for him had thought to pack bandages or any other medical equipment and his arm bleed freely for a time, soaking his sleeve first then just dripping off his fingers. This had only lasted a short time as, somehow, his arm went and stopped the blood flow in mere minutes, which had initially taken him by surprise. He’d known he somehow healed a bit faster than most people, but this was… no, his old memories showed far worse wounds and pain healing in what, at least from a human’s perspective, was an unnaturally short period of time. He was hungry though, which was odd considering it hadn’t been that long since he’d stopped for lunch, just shortly before being diverted and taking the path to the village. Link looked up, through the trees to the darkening sky. At some point he’d lost track of time, maybe due to the cursed forest’s unnatural darkness. That’s was gone, of course. It had vanished when he’d killed the curse’s epicenter.

As he’d walked through the woods he’d noticed, with no small amount of relief, that the trees, previously sickly and coated in a purple grime, weren’t all as unhealthy as those closer to the shrine area where he’d fought the boss hydra. The further he’d gotten from the shrine, the better they looked. As he had no idea how long this curse had been in place, he had carried a fear that the influence had lasted too long and endangered the greater health of the forest, and more importantly, the villager’s crops. When had he finally returned, he was pleased to find the crops looking very near healthy. If they could be tended, they’d survive. At least he thought. He admitted that none of his memories, ancient or modern, had any knowledge of farming. But they looked ok…ish. So he just had to insure the people survived to tend them.

He’d put thought into how this disaster must’ve taken place, and he was relatively certain he could guess the order of events. His enemy had somehow discovered the sacred ground that was at least partially a relic of the Hylian world, and placed his curse there, using a hydra as its epicenter. Whatever religion was currently in practice here, however, made use of that shrine and these people had, completely unaware of what they were walking into, simply gone to visit for whatever rite or ritual they were accustomed to. Then they’d been assaulted by the young hydras, the ones with only one head. Not very many, Link guessed, for the men had been bitten but few others. If the boss hydra had been involved, those poisoned would already be dead. But the younger ones had only been a few days old, if that, and their venom would’ve been dangerous but far slower than even the one who’d bitten the girl Link found on his way here. Of course said hydras still lived and, though he’d cleansed the forest and his own body which had been bitten by the boss hydra being used as the curse’s epicenter, the people who had been bitten would still be suffering the effects of the toxins.

He had a plan now, the relics he’d discovered at that temple would prove useful, but he had one fear left. Two days ago he’d killed a young hydra that had found him at his camp. If they had been spreading out too far… it was more than possible they weren’t anywhere near close enough to track down and exterminate. This fear was increased in the knowledge that the only hydra he’d actually seen in these woods had been the monster he’d already slain. He saw a terrible irony in that. The larger, tougher enemy might actually prove the easier to find and kill as well as save less lives. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any other options than to attempt the one plan he had, and pray that it saved anyone.

It was these thoughts that coursed through his mind as he stepped out of the forest proper into the clearing used by the villagers as a home. Said people, at least those well enough to stand, still busied about performing various tasks now recovered to them with the curse lifted. Tending the fields seemed to be at the forefront of that need. His arrival did not go unnoticed for long, however, and he felt a flash of deja-vu as, once again, the people raised an alert of sorts and he was swarmed by them all. This time, however, there was a distinct difference to their air. Before he’d brought them the hope they had in his arms, sick and dying. This time, he sensed in them a new mood. The curse on their home was gone. Could be maybe save their loved ones? Dare they hope? He’d been missing an element of recognition before, when he’d tried to sooth fears and floundered uselessly. But now he’d already done something for them, eased a piece of their burden, now he had established a precedent of being able to help.

He looked to see if any of those who had spoken English were there… and didn’t see the young woman who’d first asked him… so he tried Greek.

“The great snake is dead, I cut off its many heads and lifted the curse on your home. But it was not the hydra that poisoned your families. It was the smaller ones, so I need to kill them too.”

His words seemed to register among… some of the people in the crowd. How did these people communicate normally? Well, those that had understood somehow passed the information along. Finally one of them spoke up, though he couldn’t actually tell who.

“The small ones come when there is fire. So we do not make fires anymore. But… if you can fight them…” she trailed off hesitantly.

Link smiled and nodded, “I can fight them, and I can and will kill them.”

“Your arm” another spoke up, “It is hurt, can you fight them like that?”

He looked down at his arm, which admittedly looked a lot worse than it was, but he’d be lying if he told them it didn’t hurt.

“It’s not as bad as it looks, do not fear for my life. We need to hurry and do this, before the poison kills anyone.” He decided to continue before any more objections could be raised, “We need to light a large fire, to be certain we draw in all the snakes. And you all need to stay indoors and keep you homes shut. I have to be the only target.”

Word was passed around and more than a few people turned to a particular house, one that, thankfully, stood a fair bit apart from the rest and not near any fields either. One person explained that those who had lived there has unfortunately already succumbed to the hydra poison. That didn’t bode well for how long the others had, but it gave Link a convenient place for his fire. He bowed his head, he’d hoped he’d been in time to save everyone, but he was already too late. When he inquired about the bodies, the villagers told him that they burned their dead anyway, so if he was already going to set it aflame… they asked he leave them there.

Link decided to check for certain that these people had indeed passed away first. He couldn’t stand the idea of one or more of them being weak, maybe even at the edge of death, but then consumed by his flames. When he entered the one-room wooden home, the stench of death become overpowering. He forced himself to inspect the bodies, checking for any signs of continued life. There were three here, a man a woman and a child he presumed to be their son. All three were gone, it was obvious the moment he came close, now that the toxin had killed them it was eating them away, rapidly increasing decay. All three had bones showing, and the woman’s rib cage had collapsed inwards. He had failed these three. He had not arrived in time to save them. He hadn’t understood his dream or the appearance of the hydra. He should have realized and come here faster. His heart ached, he wasn’t even sure he could save any or all of those that remained alive. Those that had bitten them could be long gone. But he had to try. Remember the lost, but fight for those who lived.

He put a hand to his inventory and summoned one of the three items he’d found in the forest shrine. It was a long cylinder of red glass, long enough to be used as a cane, and topped by a large red gem infused with magic. A fire rod. He raised it overhead, he felt his magic reserves pour a small amount into the rod filling it until the gem glowed with a red light, and he brought it down to point at the bodies of those he’d failed. The pillar of fire burst into existence instantly, engulfing them and catching floor on fire. It rose up high and licked the roof overhead, setting it ablaze as well. Then it was gone. He’d used it at its lowest setting, as it’s three tiers were violently different in both magic required and effect of the flames. He’d merely needed to light the wood aflame so it would burn on its own. Besides, we wasn’t sure when he might be able to replenish his magic reserves. It didn’t refill naturally, once upon a time he knew how to brew potions to refill it but… he doubted the ingredients existed anymore.

He walked back out of the building before the smoke might’ve started to get to him, and he pulled an extra shirt from his inventory and bound it tight over his wound, he wanted the extra support, this fight could last a long time. Then he pulled his sword and shield free, feeling the heat as his fire spread and engulfed the house and the bodies of those he’d failed. The sky was completely dark now, and only a sliver of the Moon shone at the moment, but the flames rose high and filled the clearing with an angry red light. Fitting, because Link was angry himself. Angry at the monster of a man who cursed this place in a weak attempt to cover over something so small as a couple magic items, leaving its residents to suffer and die slowly. But he couldn’t get at Ganondorf, his ancient rival, just yet; so his minions would have to do. And he could already see small red eyes gleaming in the firelight, the bodies attached crawling closer on their synthetic bodies. He raised his shield and held his sword out to his side in the defensive posture he knew best, and his ears caught movement coming around the bonfire still at his back. Hydras reared their heads and hissed. He yelled back at them.

They charged and he struck out at them with his sword and blocked others with his shield. He spun, and kept slamming them aside or cutting them apart as they came at him from nearly every side. He couldn’t cut off heads very well while holding his ground, so he fell into a methodical pattern of cutting them through the head in the air as they leapt at him, then decapitating them on the ground as they tried to recover. Those he blocked with his shield came back soon, but it kept them away for just a moment longer giving him time to cut down a few at a time. They were attacking in hoards, he’d expected a trickle of the beasts, but this was far more satisfying. One got through his defenses, and sank its fangs into his thigh, but Link barely even felt the poison before he took its head off. How many was he killing? They disintegrated as he killed them so its was impossible to tell. The aggressive calm consumed him, and thoughts became as fluid as a film reel, blending with instinct and training burned into him across dozens of lifetimes. He killed and killed and killed. At one point he wondered who was yelling before he realized it was his own voice, it seemed a distant thing. A few more got through to bite him but he decapitated them all too quickly to even feel the venom. The dull ache in his arm faded, like it was someone else’s pain. Then finally… he noticed a good dozen in the air at once, and he spun, instinctively pouring some of his magic reserve into the motion, he turned in full circles over and over. His blade glowed and a blue magical light left the metal and disintegrated hydra heads clean off, killing them in the air.

When he stopped, it was over. The final… twenty-ish finished falling to apart into nothing at his feet. His mind caught up with the events and… had he really just killed over a hundred adolescent hydras? He double checked to be sure more weren’t coming from some hidden angle, then he turned back to the fire, which seemed to be farther along in its consumption of the building than he’d anticipated. He checked the Moon and couldn’t see that any particularly large amount of time had gone by while he fought the monsters. Well, there didn’t seem to be any danger of the flame spreading… the building had already begun to collapse but it was falling inward, keeping the flames in one neat pyre that rose to the sky. He heard a door open, followed by a few more. He turned and saw men limping out of their homes, usually leaning on wives or children for support, alive but low on energy. He smiled. He’d done it… he’d saved them… though… maybe… he needed to take a rest. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

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Marco Gallo expected an eruption soon. It didn’t scare him really. You lived long on an island like Stromboli and you saw a few eruptions from the volcano. You lived your entire life and you might just start to get a sense for when one might happen. The fish became more scarce, sharks fled entirely, and even the crabs started acting agitated. Fish could be counted on to predict large storms and eruptions, it was stupid humans who couldn’t feel it till it happened. Except Marco. Marco could be relied on, everybody knew that. He figured he should tell the other more stupid humans what he knew was coming. They wouldn’t believe him, they were stupid after all, but he could forgive them that. He should still warn them, it was just the thing to do.

He reeled in his lines from the six poles he had in the water and set about paddling back to Ginostra. When he stepped into the diner he always came to when he had news and ordered a drink, he could swear he heard a few groans. Stupid people, never took him seriously. But was he ever wrong? Well… ok he might be off by a week or so occasionally… and once or twice he had overestimated the strength of the eruptions, but you couldn’t blame a man for misinterpreting the fish. Fish were the actual intelligent ones, Marco was just smarter than other humans.

“Fish are agitated” he said, “there’s an eruption coming. A big one too.”

Nobody challenged him on his statement, which was very odd. He looked around and realized for the first time that there was something much odder going on in this diner. Someone very tall was sitting at the counter, though Marco couldn’t tell very much about the man because he wore black cloak that hid his face. Marco… didn’t like the feel of this man… there was something wrong about him. The man turned his head towards him and for just a moment Marco saw beneath his hood. It was only a moment because the moment he did he screamed and scrambled out of his seat and dashed out of the diner. An old memory awoke in him. He hadn’t thought about that place in… over fifty years? Was he really that old now? He ran. Ran far way, out of the town and north along the coast. Not south. South would be bad. South had… other monsters. North would keep him safe. He finally stopped to take a break and sat down on a rock that jutted out of the ground there. He just… needed to catch his breath a bit. Not because his knees hurt after running. He might be old but he wasn’t that old yet. He looked back and jumped to his feet; three tall black-hooded figures walked towards him at a strong, steady pace. He didn’t have time to be old, he ran again he had to get to that hot spring… risked a glance back and saw one of the figures holding his hand outstretched and fingers in a position like they were grabbing something.

He ran harder, adrenaline pumping through his veins, making him feel younger than he had in years. His vision tunneled, purply-black spots started appearing around him, he’d never seen anything like… he understood right before they converged on him. It was the last intelligent thing he ever thought.

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Link awoke to the sound of scrubbing and the feeling of being wet. He sat up instantly, and someone made a surprised noise which was followed very quickly by something making thudding noise. It took only a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light and spot the cause of each of these things. He lay on a small cot, wearing only undergarments. The mother of the girl he’d found in the woods was sitting only a foot away from him holding a wet rag. A small bucket lay on its side and water seeped out from it and onto the wood floor. His arm, the one that had been pierced by the boss hydra’s fangs, was wet and most of the dried blood had been washed free. He bowed his head apologetically to the woman, who recovered her wits and righted the bucket and threw cloths over the water, trying to soak up what she could. He hurried to help her. She said something in a language he didn’t know and made motions to suggest that he should leave the issue to her, but he ignored her and worked quickly to limit the damage the water could do to the wood floor.

When they’d cleaned it all up she nodded in thanks, saying something that probably meant the same in her tongue, then she gestured for him to lay back down on the cot. He looked at his wounds, snake-like bites covered his arms and legs, and felt the subtle ache in them; he’d managed to kill each hydra as it bit him, but the actual bites didn’t vanish with their bodies like the venom did. He’d likely passed out from blood loss when he fell unconscious. No light came in from under the door, so it was night right now, could he have re-awoken in the same night as the fight? Or was this a day or more later? Since he couldn’t ask this woman anything he supposed he didn’t have a way to know and, he admitted to himself, it didn’t really matter. As far as he was aware he wasn’t on some limited time table, and he really didn’t couldn’t do anything about it even if it had been a week. He’d lost track of the calendar a while ago anyway.

He sighed and laid back down for her. He could have easily done this himself, it was even conceivable that he would do a better job, but he had gained these injuries fighting for her family and the whole village. People often felt cheated if you did something for them and didn’t let them do anything in return. He’d give them this, though he knew to be careful, sometimes well-intentioned gratitude led to… awkward situations.

He left the village a four days later in the dead of night. He had gained a lot from his stay: he’d healed completely, he’d learned several excellent recipes, he’s clothes had been mended, and his grasp on several languages was just a bit stronger. He’d also been dodging the villager’s attempts to get him to marry one or more of their daughters the entire time. One particularly sneaky attempt had come worryingly close to success. It had involved “teaching him a prayer for happiness”. Link might have memories from dozens of lifetimes, but his current life had instilled certain… American values on relationships and marriage. It was hard to simply cast them aside. Besides, in all likelihood his being a different species would prevent him building a family, and his mission certainly meant he would be on the road for the foreseeable future.

And now he was finally back on that road. His innate sense of the direction he should be traveling in had never gone anywhere, and while it hadn’t changed or anything, he felt an urgency to get there, wherever ‘there’ was. One family had been able to show him where this village was on a map, and he had done his best to guesstimate where he was heading towards. He thought his heading was Egypt, but he couldn’t be very certain about it. Perhaps one of the Pyramids? That could be tough to get into, but what he’d come to understand about how the remnants of his world were scattered across the modern one seemed to indicate this would be a likely location. Humans, he suspected, had somehow sensed the sacred nature of the places old Hylian temples still barely existed, and built their own religious structures in the same areas. Well, regardless of the exact destination, he suspected he’d be on the road for several more weeks before he even made it into Africa and he had quite the journey ahead of him.

Chapter Text

Link stood right in the middle of a group of archaeologists without them noticing. It wasn’t their fault: he was both invisible and intangible. He’d been making great use of one of the other two magic items he’d found in that forest shrine, a magic cape that made him, well, invisible and intangible. Well… the intangible part was a little odd. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the rules of the item, he recalled this thing from one specific life of his, he just wasn’t sure how someone had made this. He wasn’t intangible to the floor or walls, but people, animals, furniture, fire, and more… mobile objects didn’t have any physical value to him. Or rather he had none against them. It did drain his magic well, but extremely slowly and he had found that, while it wasn’t being drawn from, said magic reserve did slowly refill while he stayed near these sacred places, he’d managed to do this on the previous night by finding a hidden corner, away from guards and cameras, and sleeping there with the cape in his inventory. Well, the cape had turned out very useful when his next goal was in the middle of the Valley of Kings… and had just now been discovered in an archaeological dig. It was of particular note when what they’d found had largely been impeded by a large door that was both covered in the Hylian language and completely indestructible.

Link had little doubt that he’d be able to open the door, but he disliked the idea of… well revealing himself that way. Well, he could probably keep from revealing himself specifically. But opening that door… well that part would not go unnoticed. He’d been sneaking around here for two days, and he did have a plan, he just… didn’t think he’d be able to close the door again. This presented him with two problems, one would be difficult to deal with, the other he could do nothing about.

The simple fact that was the root of both problems was: if he couldn’t close the door: other people would be able to see that someone had opened it and, far more worryingly, would be able to walk right on in. The problem he couldn’t do anything about was that no matter what he did, this forced some level of exposure on him. Oh he could shut down their hastily set up cameras, he’d already located them, and obviously guards were not a problem, especially since none were posted in the deeper rooms, the furthest of which held the door in question, but there would be no doubt that someone had caused what he was about to do. But they wouldn’t know who as long he was careful.

His other problem had to do with… well his natural sense for what he could only assume to be good and evil magic, or maybe power? He really wished he could figure out what that was about. None of his memories had any explanations or even hints for him. But back then the whole world had been swimming in magic… or power… or… whatever it was. His sense had been… lesser either way. It definitely couldn’t point him as acutely back then, it had just sometimes came in handy as an early warning mechanic or sense a place as being particularly sacred. At any rate, it was far, far stronger in this incarnation. And while he could sense that this ground was indeed sacred, he could sense some evil behind that door. Since he likely wouldn’t be able to close the door, that evil inside would be granted as much access through the door as he would. So this problem was one he’d have to exterminate, and he’d have to be completely thorough.

The last few researchers were finally beginning to trickle away, which meant it wouldn’t be long before Link could enact his plan. Aside from a set of night shift guards, everyone went home a short time after dark, and it would be then that he’d be able to open the door. That part was easy. He’d examined the thing and quickly found the method intended. Of course, he could read the text when those who had been struggling for weeks now obviously could not. It had a key hidden in one of the other rooms. The researchers had already found it, but had not connected it to the door, for one very good reason: it looked nothing like a key. It was, instead, a mirror that reflected light in a specific pattern you were meant to line up with a specific point on the door. The magic on the door was set to react to that stimuli and open. Simple. Except that Link worried the kind of light mattered. The rooms outside the Hylian door had been… added later, Link was fairly certain about this. It had not been done entirely by intention, but had been aided by the passage of time. The rock had grown over the Hylian structure of old and, millions of years later, Egyptians had mined the area out to bury a currently unidentified Pharaoh. They must’ve found the door too and, from where the mirror had been found, had been the ones to actually unearth the mirror but had chosen to put it with their dead ruler and the many riches they had laid with him.

Link was grateful for the Egyptian’s reverence in that decision. It had taken most of the time he’d been here to figure out where the archaeologists had stored the thing and steal it back. Fortunately, he’d been able to do that completely off-camera, since it required taking off the his magic cape for a small amount of time. But his one question remained: with access to both sun and moon restricted by layers and layers of rock… would artificially produced light work? He’d stolen a large battery powered lantern, which he figured would produce the amount of light needed… but again, the door might need the sun or moon specifically. Nothing for it but to try. Fortunately, he didn’t think he had anything to lose. He would be invisible for most of this, only needing to become tangible, and therefore visible, for his act of sabotage and when he tried to open the door. If that failed… well nobody would be able to find evidence of him, he’d be able, eventually, to find a way through to… whatever was waiting for him on the other side.

Finally, the last group admitted to themselves they weren’t getting anymore work done this day, and left to go home or… wherever. Link left the room too, but instead made his way over to a cord that brought power to this section, this would shut off the cameras, but also the lights which would be left on for guards. Fortunately at this exact place, no camera could see him. He pulled free his magic cape, finally revealing himself and it’s bright red form to the world. He reached down and tugged the wire free of it’s connector a dozen or so feet away, a place that was watched by a camera. Everything went black instantly, perfect. He put his cape back away in his inventory and summoned the lantern he’d borrowed. He turned it on and blinked quickly to readjust his eyes, which had already begun adjusting to the darkness.

Link hurried back down to the Hylian door and set up the light so he could reflect it. He summoned the mirror and positioned it, this was a little trickier than he’d hoped but… there! Something triggered and the design on the door glowed briefly before the whole thing parted down the middle and the two halves pulled away from each other, retracting into the stone on either side. Well, that hadn’t been too bad. At least he hadn’t needed to find a way to blow a hole in the roof to get actual sun or moon light.

Light spilled out of the doorway he’d just revealed, which put Link on edge, had there been another way in someone else had found? Not likely but… Link turned off the flashlight he’d used to open the door and left it there. He didn’t need it anymore and he wasn’t a thief. The mirror he kept, it was Hylian, which made it his by default. Besides, he was fairly certain it was magical. He drew his sword and shield, then walked through the door.

The light was produced by lanterns all along the path, certainly magical, as no fuel fed them. The way forward was a dark tunnel that dived deep into the Earth in a spiral shape and, as Link strode forward inside, he noticed the rock type changing. The tan hue of typical Egyptian sandstone becoming slightly darker. After a few minutes of walking he emerged into a much larger room, one that looked about the size of a basketball court, though the floor was unmarked and formed of the same dark stone. Several exits were available to him, though the large, obvious doorway that stood on the far end was clearly locked. This one would need a similar treatment to the door he’d unlocked to get in here, though the design was different so he’d need a different mirror, as well as another light source. Link studied his other options a moment before his internal evil sense warned him of something close. He looked down and saw a huge pale scorpion creeping up on him from the side. The monster was easily the length of his forearm without its tail and it had the bulk to match. He stepped away, trying to get a better angle to deal with it, but it must’ve realized it had been seen and struck out with its stinger. Link reflectively kicked with the foot it was attacking, and the deadly attack glanced off his boot, taking a hit intended for his less protected leg. The creature recoiled with a sharp squeal, but before it had time to do anything else, Link stabbed down into its body with his sword. It struggled for a moment then died but did not decay. Link frowned. This thing was natural?

He checked the surrounding area to be sure it he was alone now and knelt to inspect the creature. Indeed, aside from its size, there was nothing odd about it. The pale, nearly transparent, coloring was likely due to a species that never saw the sun. It had all the normal features of a scorpion, without any of the twisted or horrific effects Ganondorf tended to add to the… aesthetic of his creations. He was just about ready to dismiss this as simply a very aggressive undiscovered species when his evil sense alerted him again. He spun, his sword and shield were still in hand, and found three more scorpions ganging up on him. He killed them with ease, but something was wrong about all this. If they were natural Link wouldn’t have been able to sense them when they got too close. The general sense of evil was still remarkably weak, not like the curse in the forest at all. If he really concentrated he could feel… something here. It was just so weak though…

He turned back to the first scorpion. Still no decay… something about this was very wrong. Another oddity occurred to him: where were these coming from? It didn’t take long to discover a series of small holes in the stone, far too small for a human, or Hylian obviously, but large enough for these creatures, assuming they didn’t get much bigger. The real question was how they’d been created. If he knew Hylian enchantments, then these walls should be nearly indestructible: bombs where too easily constructed and far to difficult to control when creatures of darkness came calling. Could they have been intended to exist? Maybe as airways or for some similar purpose? That seemed plausible but unlikely. Yes, there did have to be a way for air to come down here, but it couldn’t be one the scorpions could use, since they clearly weren’t known by the outside world.

He scanned again for any more of the plus-sized arachnids and found nothing, so he paced the room and took note of his options for moving on with getting inside the big room. Four exits lines the sides of the room, aside from the two at either end that stood at his goal and exit respectively. Two of these were locked by similar contraptions as the door he ultimately wanted to find a way through though one of these actually shared a symbol with the larger door. The other two passages were doorless, and stood at opposite ends of the room, so he picked the one on the right and walked through.

After walking through a short stone walkway he emerged into a much smaller room than the one he’d left. It looked about 20 square feet in every direction, a perfect cube omitting the hole he’d just come from and two of the much smaller passages that stood on either side of the room opposite each other. No other exits presented themselves. Sandstone blocks of varying sizes seemed to be simply laying around here, oddly. One even seemed taller than him. He’d need to inspect these in a moment, but a small detail would have to be addressed first. No less then seven of those scorpions wandered the room, and already four of them had noticed him and came scuttling towards him, claws and tail pointed up at him. He took care while dispatching them, if these really were a natural species, then any poison they injected with their oversized tails wouldn’t puff away when he killed them.

The area secured, Link examined the room again, looking for the pattern. These stones had purpose, he was sure, they could be used as weights, steps, or just about anything. Though, Link admitted, he would likely have great difficulty moving them. The largest ones, if they really were made of sandstone, as they appeared, probably weighed several tons. He walked around, looking for any designs on the stones, ground, walls, or ceiling to give a clue as to the purpose of the stones. Unfortunately, the only one he could find was partially hidden by the largest of the stone cubes, the one that seemed taller than him. He tested his strength against it just to see if maybe the friction was somehow low enough that he could move it, but had no such luck. Perhaps this room was meant to be addressed second. He checked the other stones for similar hidden designs, but couldn’t see any poking out. He pushed a few of the smaller ones with little difficulty, but still found nothing helpful. He then pushed against one standing about half his height. It took effort but… he shoved it around without too much difficulty.

Link stood up straight, that… had to be wrong. If he remembered correctly, sandstone weighed about 150 pounds per cubic foot. Link was right at 6 ft tall, meaning this block should be contain roughly 27 cubic ft of sandstone. That would put it at… Link double checked his math… more than 4 tons all on its own. And he’d just… shoved it around. Link looked at his arms, he’d never been particularly well built and had never displayed particularly superhuman qualities other than his healing. But here he was. Though, now he thought about it, his healing had become for more effective in the weeks he’d been traveling or, rather, since he’d realized who and what he was. Were Hylians supposed to be more powerful than humans? His memories didn’t seem to have a clear answer for him. Nothing showed him doing any particularly heavy lifting or otherwise ‘supernatural’ abilities without particular magic items to make it impossible to gauge what was him or the items. He needed to really test this further. He walked to a stone that, using the previous one as a reference, looked to be 4.5 feet tall and wide. This one took him a moment to calculate on his own but… around 13 tons he thought? He pushed on it with everything he had, it took a moment, but he shoved it just a few inches, but just that was, or should have been, impossible. Still, it had proven extremely difficult, and now his arms felt very tired.

Unable to find anything else of use or in the way of a clue in that room, Link walked back out to the main chamber and crossed it to enter the other room available to him. This room was much smaller than the previous one even, maybe 7-8 ft wide and 15 ft long, the doorway Link stood in set in one of the short sides. No scorpions this time, but several armored skeletons lay collapsed at the far end, where another door stood, barred closed. Link drew his sword and shield, but didn’t like the size of the room he had to work with. The door was clearly enchanted to react to evil magic, and was locked closed as a result. Much like the hidden room at the forest shrine a few weeks ago, it wouldn’t open till the magic was dispelled. And Ganondorf could manipulate nothing better than the bodies of the dead. Indeed, as Link expected, when he came closer, the bones of those who had died here thousands or even millions of years ago trembled and compiled to form three armored multi-limbed stalfos armed with a sword to each of their… varied number of arms.

Testing what these particular monsters orders were, Link backed out to the far more open space of the main chamber and the stalfos, dutifully, followed him. Good, he’d have much more room to maneuver here. Now that he had a much more favorable position, he allowed himself to grow angry. These remains were Hylian, Link was certain, as all evidence suggested this place had not been opened since before Hyrule had collapsed for good, long before humans had even existed. These were his people, or had been. True, Link had memories of fighting the dead in multiple forms in dozens of lives, but never once had Link considered it ‘normal’. Ganondorf was the King of Evil, and this was a perfect example of why. Desecration and destruction were his ways and he both slaughtered and used without regard or respect. But this time it was worse. Link’s people were gone, and his ancient adversary still found a way to wield them against him, puppeteering their bodies and forcing him to fight them. Rage boiled in him and he had only one outlet for it.

Link roared and attacked. He was much faster than them, and easily blocked or avoided their attacks even when they tried to surround him. They, however, were completely unable to protect themselves from his furious strikes, and he quickly started hacking them apart. Taking off limbs and even cutting their armor free at times. The first one collapsed into a heap in less than a minute, and the magic completely vanished into a purple smoke that dispersed near instantly. With the magic holding them together gone, the old bones remembered their age and fell into dust in mere seconds, during which time Link ended another of the abominations. With only one remaining, Link had an even easier time ending Ganondorf’s cruelty. He stood there, breathing heavily while his rage cooled down. Adrenaline vanishing, his arms felt even more tired now. He was also starting to become more aware of how much time was passing. He only had one night to clear this entire place of potential dangers and find whatever he was looking for in here. If the human researchers came down here before he was done… they could very well be in grave danger. He also preferably wanted to get some sleep at some point.

The monsters dead, the bars over the door ahead slid away to who knew where, leaving the door accessible to anyone. Link’s eyes widened when he saw what was on the other side. A single gold chest stood in the center. This was exciting, yes, but right beside it was a fortune in gold ingots, each maybe the length and width of his thumb. They were marked with Hylian script as well, which confused Link, though it only showed the weight of the ingots. At no point in his memory did Hyrule use gold for currency. It was considered valuable only for its abilities conducting electricity as well as decoration. Using gold for a baseline in monetary value was, as far as Link could tell, a human invention. Gold was, of course, extremely heavy but his inventory would completely negate that problem. Whatever the reason behind gold being placed here, Link wouldn’t complain. Getting food or places to sleep had proven difficult at times. While he’d been here he’d gone nearly without food so far, though earlier today he’d managed to snag a few protein bars. He scooped the gold into his inventory as quickly as he could. He’d be able to trade these at pawn shops nearly anywhere in the world. He did leave a few ingots, maybe a couple thousands worth, for the research group above. They’d probably be catalogued and eventually moved into some museum, and Link liked the idea of Hylian relics that weren’t directly necessary to him, like the ones he’d found in that forest shrine, being preserved that way. It still left him with a substantial amount of gold to work with for his travels.

The gold secured in his inventory, Link turned to what he suspected would be the real prize here: the chest. It was not locked, thankfully, as the magic barring the door before was probably considered enough protection. Inside he found a pair of gold gloves with a single, but very large, red gem set in each, likely as a focus for the enchantments. He recognized these as the Golden Gauntlets, a fairly obvious name for an incredible item. He’d marveled at his own strength just moments ago but with these he remembered lifting and throwing far, far larger and heavier objects than the blocks in the other room.

He pulled them on his arms and carefully pulled the straps tight and immediately felt the earlier strain on his arms vanish entirely. These Gauntlets were enchanted to brace his arms, they wouldn’t increase striking power in any way like making his sword swings harder or faster, but wearing them he could lift huge stone blocks and throw them or withstand extremely heavy blows on his shield without feeling the slightest strain. He hurried back to the previous room, which had somehow gone and filled with scorpions again. Link sighed and killed them all off, leaving their corpses beside those of their fellows. Then he pressed both hands against the largest block and shoved it aside like a desk chair, revealing the pattern underneath. It was actually a series of pictures which showed, in succession: a person firing an arrow at a spot right above the doorway to the room and it rebounding, then throwing a rock for the same effect, and then standing on a pile of blocks and reaching into the same spot, arm apparently sinking through the stone. The meaning seemed clear enough, and Link used his newly enhanced strength to move shove the stone blocks over to the doorway, blocking it off, then began picking them up and piling them onto each other to give him the height the diagram seemed to indicate. It actually took a long time, he now possessed the strength to move them around and even lift them true, but making the pile of them was very hard for different reasons. Sandstone was heavy and tough, true, but Link doubted the blocks would remain undamaged if he went about throwing them on top of each other and their bulk presented more problems. He could hardly maneuver them with one hand when nearly all of them where larger than him on all but height. This meant he had to pick them up and push them over the top of the bottom one, already as tall as he was, then climb up and repeat the process until he got it to the top, then climb down and repeat the process but with an extra step. This became harder with every layer he added, as the surface of the blocks that already had a layer on top of them was already mostly covered. He’d forgotten to account for that the first time he tried this, and partly through the building, he realized he’d actually made it impossible to continue, since the blocks didn’t actually have the surface area they needed to not fall while he climbed up beside it, and had to restart, skipping sizes in blocks to solve the problem. When he finally had a structure he was satisfied with, he climbed up all the way and felt around the wall, looking for the area the diagram showed. That, at least, didn’t take long, and his hands went straight through what he assumed was an illusion of some kind. Feeling around inside he found the small space was only about half a foot across in any direction, except for a pressure switch that, when pressed nearly blinded him with light. He barely avoided falling, he really didn’t want to test the possibility of being physically tougher than humans at the moment, and blinked to clear his eyes. The light was gone, the switch had pushed back when he let go, clearing the light.

Link looked back down to check and found a block exactly the right size to fit in this hole, and it only took a moment to get it up his small tower and slide it into place, and with the block in the way, the light didn’t escape and blind him again. He climbed back down and tried to shove his entire pile at once. He pushed against it lightly at first, which gained him nothing. He tired harder, straining against it till he could actually feel his arms aching again, and it finally began to move. It took another half a minute or so, but he pushed it out of the way of the door again and he stopped and walked back through. His arms stopped hurting as soon as he stopped. These things were incredible: he’d just pushed at least 50 tons of sandstone several feet with no repercussions, though he suspected if he took off the gauntlets his arms would scream at him for the abuse.

When he finally came out of the room into the main chamber again he saw what exactly it was that he’d triggered. A beam of light streamed from the other side of the wall, which he’d just been climbing over, reflected off a mirror that had also been exposed for the occasion and was set in the ground in the middle of the chamber, and had hit the locked doorway on the other side of the room. The symbol that didn’t match the larger room across from the main entrance. Naturally, the magic had reacted and the door was now open. Link would have crossed immediately to explore this new room, but he also saw more scorpions. These things were getting tiresome. He left their corpses stabbed or sliced part behind him when he finally got to explore this third room.

The room was… nearly identical to the previous one. The same set of blocks set randomly around, the same near-perfect square shape, and the same confusing scorpions littering the area, ready to attack him the moment he walked in. Link sighed as he drew his sword, was it really going to be this boring? The answer, it very quickly turned out, was no. A few dead scorpions decorated the floor now and when he’d moved the largest block again, he’d found the diagram was different. He inspected it, and it showed a… pattern: all the blocks arranged in a specific way from a top-down perspective, a few set on top of one another but mostly just scattered around the room. The only problem now was direction. Since the room was perfectly square, there were a total of four different ways to follow these directions. Link sighed, might as well start with the direction the diagram followed as “forward”. It took several minutes, but he did get all of them into the correct places. His arms hadn’t begun hurting at any point either, which was nice. It probably meant that only the extreme weight of the stack he’d constructed before had pushed the incredible but still limited gauntlets enough to actually strain him. Unfortunately, once he’d completed the diagram, nothing happened at all. Ok, maybe there was another clue as to the direction he was supposed to work from? He scanned the room again, looking for something he’d missed. He found a hint in the dust. Dust coated the floor only broken by where he’d walked around carrying the heavy blocks or shoved aside where the larger ones were too big to get a grip on to carry. Exactly as one would expect. Except there were patches where the dust was actually uneven, not anywhere he’d been previously walking though. He walked over to one and stepped in, his foot fell further than the given floor would’ve suggested, but he’d expected something like this, so he wasn’t put off balance. His foot settled only a few inches below the illusion and Link quickly ascertained the size of the indentation, then picked out the block that would fit. When he had placed the heavy sandstone inside, it sank even further than his foot had, and something clicked. Link smiled. Using this first one as a baseline, he quickly pushed or carried each stone to its place, each one clicking as he put it, or the two of them when necessary, inside. Each switch was set to trigger with a specific amount of weight, apparently.

Finally, when the final pressure plate had been satisfied, a chest appeared from nowhere. Link hurried over to it and opened it. Inside was a type of item he’d held many times. Though each one had had specific unique characteristics, they had all functioned roughly the same way. A Mirror Shield. He hefted it out of the chest and was surprised, the thing was… well he couldn’t really tell how heavy it was with the gauntlets on… and he doubted even without given how strong he’d somehow grown. Nevertheless, he could somehow tell it was far heavier than it he’d have thought just by looking at it.

Set in a diamond shape, it bore no design, unlike some he’d owned in past lives, and the face of it was instead a silvery-pale, moonlight color. The rest of the design seemed to be solid silver, possibly the source of its odd weight, thankfully that wouldn’t be a problem as this shield would be enchanted to be nearly impossible to break, though it wouldn’t be completely indestructible like a true Hylian shield. It would make up for that with its capability to reflect light or magic based attacks. He unhooked the shield on his back and stowed it in the inventory. No use in leaving it behind, and he was incredibly grateful to the old man for having it crafted for him as he doubted he could have killed the hydra without it, but Link knew to accept an upgrade when it came along. Especially since he already knew one need he had for it. Walking back out to the main chamber again, Link saw that a second beam of light poured from above, striking the same mirror on the ground and hitting nothing of worth to him. That didn’t matter, it was the two designs together that mattered. He should have noticed sooner, but the first beam’s design, that had matched the door he’d just walked out of, had been a partial of the total emblem that marked both the main door he wanted to open and that fourth door directly across from him now. That still struck him as odd, he now had all the keys to enter the room that was the main goal, what was the point of the fourth side chamber?

Link debated skipping it, time was starting to become a worry for him, as he’d spent a not inconsiderable amount of it pushing or carrying around blocks in the past two rooms. But, worried he might be leaving behind something of necessity, he positioned himself and his new Mirror Shield to reflect the two lights together into the fourth door.

A chime sounded in his mind and somehow he automatically interrupted the musical notes as a language: “The Sword that Leaks the Shadow is sealed beyond. Beware, for only the Sword that Seals the Darkness may counter it.”

Well… that was an ominous message. Neither title seemed to trigger any of Link’s memories, were these names he had never known before? He didn’t open the door, it hadn’t opened just yet and he could see some kind of bar being filled above the door. If he’d held the light there the door would’ve opened, he was sure. But he had no magical sword of any kind at the moment, let alone one that matched the description the music had indicated. He turned his shield and the reflection with it to the large door directly ahead of him. Maybe, if he ever found the “Sword that Seals the Darkness”, he’d come back here and see what that room was about but for now he did need to stay on his goal. Somebody would realize that he’d pulled the plug on the power and investigate for sure. This door reacted immediately to the beam of light and opened much the same as the first doorway to entire this place had, by splitting down the middle and retracting into the stone walls on either side of it. When it had completed, Link saw the beam coming from the right switch off and heard a thud a moment later. He assumed the setup had been designed to push the block free from its place in the first puzzle room when completed. The doors ahead slowly started to close. Link jumped in surprise and dashed forwards, Mirror Shield still on his arm, and cleared the closing doors with time to spare.

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“How did he slip past you!?” Hill asked, failing to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She was looking at a infrared video of the inside of the tomb. Her assignment here was only meant to be temporary, while SHIELD got their agents in at various levels to prevent the masses from learning the extent of the immovable door’s indestructibility. Only that door had just been opened. The secret camera SHIELD had placed ran on battery rather than the main power source, which was why it had captured a character dressed in rugged travel clothes like some Indiana Jones wannabe walking right up to the thing, setting up a powerful electric lantern, pull out a mirror and reflect a beam of light at the door, which promptly opened. Decades of research, experiments, and outright explosives and SHIELD had gotten nowhere with the prestructures. Prestructure was an unofficial term the agents of SHIELD used among themselves for these pre-humanity relics, but she supposed it did the job. Anyway, while SHIELD had by no means given up, they really had seemed to literally hit a wall with the prestructures. And this… person had just walked up and opened the thing with a flashlight and a mirror. Fury was not going to like this.

“W-we don’t know sir! Ma’am! We’re reviewing footage from other rooms trying to figure that out. He certainly never passed the guards though. We’ve already checked all the camera’s of the entrance and… he never passed.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Agent.”

“Believe me, I know sirrrma’am.” The agent said.

Agent Hill sighed, “Just pick one, agent. I don’t care…”

“Ma’am! Over here! I got it!” Another agent said a few feet from her.

Hill walked over and he hit play on the clip he’d found, the label at the top right corner of the video told her it was from a corridor leading away from the prestructure room to the room with the actual Pharoh’s tomb. The video was from before the power had gone out. It showed the man, no… teenager, he didn’t look any older than 16 or 17, appear from nowhere, swinging a red cape from off his shoulders as he did so. Then he tucked said cape… into a pack somewhere behind him? It looked to big for that, especially since he didn’t fold it or anything. But he made it vanish somehow. He then reached down and tugged on a power cable and knocked out the power. The camera automatically switched to infrared, as it was designed to do, and showed the boy pulling out the lantern he’d later use to open the prestructure door seemingly from nowhere and turn it on, then walk down towards the door.

“This camera was put at the blind spot the researchers…” the agent who’d found the footage started to say, but Hill cut him off.

“Get field agents down there now!”

“Ma’am? I thought you said you didn’t want to alert the public guards something happened in case they realized we had extra camera’s in there.”

“I thought we could get him on his way out, but he can turn invisible, we need to catch him while he’s still down there!”

“Yes ma’am!” The agent said, finally realizing what she had. This person, who or whatever he was, had abilities or technology SHIELD didn’t know. As if they didn’t already have enough to worry about with him. Agent Maria Hill had some decisions to make, a few of which might get her in trouble.

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Link rushed into a lit room somewhere between thirty and forty square feet in all dimensions. It was all sandstone in this room, the rock much tanner than the walls and ceiling of the rest of this temple? Dungeon? Whatever. Link also noticed several broken automatons resembling beemos lining the walls.

The moment the door closed behind Link, he heard a melody, once again interpreted by his mind: “One who learns of the strength of spirit, it’s ability to shape and alter, face now the captured monstrosity of your past. Force your will onto reality and emerge victorious.”

When the melodic message finished, a enormous door on the other side of the room rose into the roof. The creature that came forth made Link’s hackles rise: an armored arachnid-like monster with enormous claws large enough to crush a man in seconds, a long segmented tail topped with a stinger built to impale not poison, and dozens of eyes placed at its head, far more than the typical eight of a natural species. It was, put simply, an evil giant scorpion. Mirror Shield already on his arm, Link drew his sword, noticing that the mechanical beemos on the sides had all started to fire lasers, so they weren’t completely nonfunctional, but they seemed unable to alter their direction at all and were pointing at angles so that the lasers struck the magically protected ground. The new Boss ahead of him hissed and charged, a very different sound from the one the hydra had made, it sounded like it was forcing the sound out through a wall of spittle.

Link’s hands tightened on his sword and shield. He forced down his fear had he’d done before, and breathed evenly. This creature was incredibly dangerous, but this time Link had more options than against the hydra. His strength had grown incredibly, and he’d increased even that with the Golden Gauntlets. His shield wouldn’t snap against its claws or be pierced by its tail. He could see the path to victory already, it was as the message had said: he’d force his will onto reality. It was the scorpion who was doomed.

As the creature reached him and prepared to strike with one of its claws, Link rushed forwards, right past its claws, and stabbed one of the eyes with his sword. He immediately backed out, the final piece of the puzzle fitting into place, and let the monster writhe for a moment. It was far too dangerous to attack when it moved erratically like that. The eye that had been skewered by Link’s sword dribbled a purple smoke for a moment then disintegrated. This creature, at least, was one of Ganondorf’s. It calmed down and attacked Link again, but he vaulted over the claw that attacked him from the left side and dashed towards the nearest of the lasers. It took a moment for the beast to turn around towards him again, those eight legs were awful for spinning in place, and they’d been fighting near the doorway Link had used to enter the room, it didn’t have room to turn in an arc, which would surely have been faster for it. However when it did turn around fully, it charged again with a dangerous speed. Link was fast, faster than he thought he should’ve been, but that was starting to surprise him less than it had and the beast, while faster, had a very late start. Link reached the death ray and put it between the scorpion and himself, then redirected the automaton’s gaze into the arachnid’s eyes with the Mirror Shield. Condensed light, set originally for whatever purpose but broken past being anything more than a moderately dangerous hazard, was given purpose again, reflected at Link’s instruction to destroy an enemy. The message hadn’t told Link some metaphysical lesson about mind over matter, but a literal one. Take what you have, your tools and the environment, and shape them into what you need them to be. A shield made into a weapon, a hazard into a strength. Link managed to burn away around a dozen of the monster’s eyes before it reached him and took a swipe. He dodged backwards easily and ran for a laser on the other side of the room. Once again he got a head start on the scorpion as it was forced to turn around to face him, though this time Link had further to run and the creature less of a distance to turn. When Link reached his weapon of light and turned, he noted with annoyance that the beemos he’d been using before was destroyed. Whether that had been an accident on his foe’s part or intentional, he wasn’t sure but it did pose a problem. Five mechanical beemos remained. Attacking his enemy head on with his sword was far more dangerous than this method so he’d need to find a way to make these things destroy more eyes if this monster was going to keep breaking them.

He kept going, but on the fourth beemos Link waited too long, trying to burn away as many of the monster’s eyes as he could, and got grabbed by one of the creature’s claws, which rose into the air some once it had him. The shell of the beast took the laser now off to the side and Link was no longer doing any damage to the monster, then the scorpion tried to crush him then and there. Unfortunately for it, Link was stronger. He pushed out with his shield and sword hand and forced its claw apart. The wicked tail came up to stab him through, but he released the claws and fell through to the ground before the claw could clamp down on him again. On the fifth beemos, the final of its many eyes burned away, and the beast screamed its hiss out in indignation. Then the shell that had been set around its face and eyes broke away, revealing one giant bulging eye and a disgusting mouth that was indeed dripping spittle onto the ground.

It advanced on Link and reared it’s massive stinger to attack him. Link decided he was done with redirecting lasers, and as the spear-like point came down to kill him, Link reached up and caught it with his shield hand. Then he stabbed the monster in it’s single bulbous eye. Purple smoke broke out and the creature thrashed wildly, Link let go of the stinger and his own sword, leaving it stuck painfully in the scorpion’s body, and backed away while it died and disintegrated into nothing, though for some reason it’s shell did not disappear, instead falling to the ground virtually unharmed but empty.

Another melody played, and his mind translated it as before: “You have proven your strength of spirit. Take now a piece of your past you had lost.”

As he listened a ray of soft white light appeared right beside the dead scorpion shell. Link walked over and retrieved his sword, then put his hand in the light. Something small gently landed on his outstretched hand and, when he closed his fist over it, the light vanished. He inspected his gift, an earring with a small dangling red gem. Link’s ears weren’t pierced, so he gritted it teeth and stabbed the piece in his left earlobe. It didn’t hurt as bad as he’d feared, and not for long either. In mere seconds his extreme healing took over. The blood stopped, and the wound sealed itself over the earring. If he ever wanted to remove the thing it would probably prove far more painful, but he doubted he’d really ever find the need. He had a guess as to what precisely this did, but he’d have to test to be sure. He had another problem, now that everything was silent, except for a throbbing in his ear (that might take a bit longer to go away), he could hear voices on the other side of the door. And right as he turned to consider his options, he watched it start to open up. Well he could leave the same way he came in at least. Good thing nobody knew what he looked like, whatever secret services got wind of this would be keeping an eye out for him and he didn’t much like the idea of being invisible anytime he was in a public area. Besides, Link was very hungry by this point. He slung his Magic Cape on and walked right through the confused guards to go find a pawn shop to sell some gold.

Chapter Text

Two months after his fight with a giant scorpion in Egypt, Link stood, shivering, in the Alps with a boulder three times his size over his head. It was the largest almost round boulder he’d been able to find. If it was made of the granite he thought it was, the boulder should weigh over five hundred tons. Using his own strength it would have crushed him, but with the Golden Gauntlets it was simply… heavy. He’d been unable to find their limit, which he really wanted to do. He’d been more successful in other areas, though. Without the gauntlets, he’d capped out around fifteen tons, still far stronger than a human would’ve been. He’d been unable to really gauge specific numbers in running and reaction speeds (as he lacked a stopwatch or other equipment), but he had been able to prove to himself that those were superhuman as well.

He’d spent two weeks up here, hunting larger and larger boulders and testing various other limits. He’d jumped off of ledges humans would break legs or outright die from and only once had seriously hurt himself. The broken ankle had fully healed in three days and during the last day he’d been able to walk, if not really strain himself. He’d also found that he didn’t get nearly as hungry if he didn’t hurt himself and, predictably, his body metabolized food into that healing at incredible speed and efficiency. He suspected that if he’d had healthier food, or hadn’t needed to ration as much as he did, he could’ve healed in even less time.

Unfortunately, he did need to head down soon, his food stores were running short, and he could feel a slight sense of urgency in that directional sense of where he needed to be. At the moment it pointed him southwards into Italy, so maybe his next destination would be Rome?

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Maria Hill, agent of SHIELD, felt she had better things to do than tail Link. After that fiasco at the Valley of Kings, SHIELD had assigned her to track and observe the boy, but not yet engage. She had a team for the purpose, and even if she headed it this detail seemed pointless. After leaving Egypt, the odd kid had began walking around the entire Mediterranean sea on foot, he stopped to train once or twice a week with that sword of his, but in the long run she couldn’t begin to guess his goal.

There had been a point where they’d lost him, they had footage of him pulling that red cape out from nowhere and vanishing underneath it. After that he hadn’t left so much as a footprint. He’d reappeared about two weeks later at a town further along his way, whatever way that was, shopping for more food supplies. Since then he’d never used the cape again, but that had been a trying time. They still weren’t sure how he’d become aware of them to want to vanish, and they’d confirmed only SHIELD knew anything about him, so it wasn’t that someone else had spooked him.

Still, this mission didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t that he seemed unimportant or anything. This kid had just walked right through SHIELD security and opened a prestructure door. After studying all footage and forensic evidence from said prestructure, SHIELD had a small list of… inhuman traits they’d been able to guess at. Elf-ears, invisibility cloak, some form of storage that defied space (had he somehow discovered shrinking technology, even SHIELD couldn’t replicate Pym Particles yet), superhuman strength (they had evidence he’d been pushing around the sandstone blocks in found in the prestructure), and incredible hearing (they’d learned this one from tailing him).

The problem was, she didn’t understand why SHIELD just wanted to watch him. They could approach him or outright kidnap him at their leisure, so why wasn’t one of those options her mission? Agent Hill was, however, willing to follow orders she didn’t understand. Nobody got far in SHIELD without that skill. If they just wanted her to tail the superhuman child, that’s what she’d do. Even if she’s been doing it for months now.

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Director Fury set down Agent Hill’s latest report on Link. Nothing to add to Shield’s file on him, really. Wherever he was going would probably tell them more, but they’d just have to wait to get that information. The boy was dangerous, but… maybe not in the ‘kill him before it’s too late’ way. Hill had expressed again her belief that SHIELD should confront him in some way very soon, and it was easy to see why.

They’d learned his name by interviewing the people at the places he’d visited for supplies or to sell gold, and SHIELD now knew where he came from, which only made him more of a mystery. As far as they could tell, there was no way his records could be falsified this well and there were several people who could confirm everything about every detail of his life. Then one day he’d vanished during a family trip to Greece and reappeared in Egypt with a magic cape, knowledge of ‘prestructures’ that completely outclassed SHIELD’s, unbelievable strength, a sword and shield on his back, and possibly the ability to solo a giant scorpion. He was powerful, they knew. And SHIELD had been forced to tackle people with technology or powers they didn’t know the limits of more frequently than they’d like to admit, but they’d still come out on top in almost every case.

The part that made Director Nick Fury hold SHIELD back from making a move was the boy’s pathing. Link was after something and, from the empty chests in the tomb, he’d found it. He’d walked all the way from Athens to Egypt to find it. Now he walked all the way to Italy, a place he’d been so much closer to at the time of his disappearance in Athens. It spoke of an order of operations the boy was following, of a specific mission SHIELD didn’t have the first clue about. A goal they didn’t know.

SHIELD was able to ascertain threats by judging two elements: goal and competence. An idiot could pull one over on the greatest minds if those minds didn’t know what the idiot wanted. And a competent mind or body could accomplish the most impossible goals if nobody smarter or stronger stood in their way. At this point in time, SHIELD had no way of knowing Link’s goal, or how competent he might be; only that he had a goal and that he had some level of competency. That made him one of the most dangerous people on the planet.

But there was another reason he held SHIELD back from confronting the boy: he also could turn out to be exactly the type of dangerous Fury was hoping for. Link wasn’t the only one Fury hoped would turn out that way at the moment, but he was certainly the least… temperamental.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Link was slightly disappointed to learn Rome wasn’t his next destination, but he supposed it was probably for the best. Those tails of his might actually make a move when he finally found… whatever it was he was traveling towards and he hoped that move, whatever it was, would be away from other people. The less eyes on him, the better. He didn’t want to be put in the same… awkward situation he’d found with that forest village.

Honestly, he’d hoped he’d lost them for good when he used up his magic to get away to do that testing back in the Alps. But no, they’d popped back up in the next town he’d bought supplies from. The real question was why they’d started following him in the first place. They shouldn’t be an Egyptian secret service, they’d followed him since Egypt sure, but they’d tracked him all the way into Italy without ever… doing anything. There wasn’t any evil magic about them, so they weren’t Ganondorf’s. Were they some kind of conspiracy group? Link… doubted it. Even if such a thing could really exist, they should have made a move. Link didn’t exactly want them to, but he just couldn’t see why they hadn’t.

He also didn’t want to be the one to make a move. When he’d gained memories of past lives, he’d also learned the people he’d fought for millennia were dead, but he had decided to protect the planet’s new inhabitants, humans, in their place. Especially since his ancient adversary clearly didn’t care if the world was full of Hylians or humans. For now, Link really didn’t have a better option than to ignore them, whoever they were.

He continued on this way south, feeling that beacon of magic calling out to him. Just where was he going next? If he concentrated on that beacon… maybe… at the bottom of Italy’s ‘boot’? He thought about the items he’d collected so far. Six powerful relics from the Hylian era: A Fire Rod, a Magic Cape, Golden Gauntlets, a Mirror Shield, an Eldin Earring, and one item he possessed no memories of. That last one was a multi-colored orb of unknown material. Link had, of course, tried to determine it’s use. He’d poured magic into the thing, exposed it to multiple types of elemental energy (both magical and non-magical), and even tried to break the thing; all to no avail, so it simply stayed in his inventory.

Setting aside the mystery item, since he couldn’t draw conclusions from a variable, the most likely item to be directly involved at this next location was the Eldin Earring, the reward he’d been given for killing the giant scorpion in the Valley of Kings. It made the most sense, even over the mystery orb. It protected Link from overheating and catching fire, magically snuffing out any flames on his body or clothes before they could do damage, at least in theory. Link had no idea what the limits of the gift would be, but he knew it would let him survive the heat of a volcano, if not the actual magma inside.

That was it. Italy and the islands around the Italian peninsula were full of volcanoes. Only one massive volcano had existed in Hyrule, though it’s name had changed several times. Could one of these be Eldin Volcano? Or perhaps… all of them. Link could imagine it, the changing landscape as planet Earth underwent millions of years of seismic activity, external events like meteors, and other catastrophes finally collapsing Death Mountain. But that pressure wouldn’t have just vanished. It would have made new outlets, dozens or even hundreds of them, poking holes in the earth’s surface. But in all that… a Hylian enchanted temple or shrine might still exist. Hidden away where humans couldn’t find it, and maybe even too buried to access even for Link.

It had been a stroke of luck that humans had twice uncovered the remains in the Valley of Kings, if a… fire temple or something similar was buried in one of the many volcanoes of the Mediterranean… there was no telling if Link could even access it. Of course, it was still possible, he would go and search. It might not have been luck that had made sure Link could get at the temple in Egypt. Someone had known what to leave him and where, and how to keep anyone but him from working out how to get at those things before he could.

Many… well actually all of his lives seemed to have worked like that. It spoke of… planning. In his first life it had been more obvious. A goddess risking everything on a single plan to stop an evil god from destroying everything she loved. But since then… not much had changed even though said goddess was no longer a resident of the heavens. He’d have dreams or hear a call to action. He’d be given a sword and a mission, and anything else he needed would be available if he just worked for it. True, he’d often have to accomplish the near impossible, both to get said items and even in using them, but the entire mission was the near impossible and he had always been given what he needed so that it wouldn’t be fully impossible.

He shook his head, clearing it of thoughts that wouldn’t help him. He needed to get to wherever he was going. His thoughts wandered to something, or rather, someone far more material for the duration of the day.

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Two days later, Link stepped onto the docks of the island called Stromboli. He was so close to the point his senses were guiding him to that he could tell he was too high above it. He needed a way into the island, a way below sea level. His eyes quickly found the volcano’s vent, the hole leading down into the earth’s crust. Too dangerous, he knew and he filed that option away as a last resort.

Instead he focused on his directional sense again, looking for just how much of the island his goal encompassed. It was more difficult than he’d expected for, now that he was paying attention, there was more than just a sacred place on this island, but also a cursed space like the one he’d sensed at the poisoned forest. The two places were, unfortunately but also unsurprisingly, partially overlapping; like a vin diagram. Ganondorf had found this one and now it was a matter of finding his way inside and clearing him out.

The problem was that the cursed area was the only part that touched the surface, and that piece wasn’t part of the overlap. So, possibly two known ways in, both apparently incredibly dangerous. There was a sacred area on the other side of the island that came… close to the surface though, perhaps a cave led to that point? Possibly three ways in and the best one was the least likely. Great.

He thought through all of this while moving through the town, heedless of people who tried to sell… whatever to him. He walked straight towards the edge of the town closest to the volcano’s crater almost subconsciously. He just didn’t want to be standing still and whatever he decided the faster he left the populated area the better.

Stromboli island only had a couple hundred people on it at any given point, almost all residents. The volcano did attract tourists, and people seemed to assume he was one of those, since his sword and shield were in his inventory, safely out of sight from those who would’ve gotten nervous. Still, his next destination was in an active volcano, and he knew how… fragile the difference between an active volcano and an erupting volcano could be. Ganondorf had already touched the island, so there was no telling if an eruption was inevitable or not, or even how violent an explosion would be.

And there was a more specific reason he needed to get away from people. When he’d focused and sensed the King of Evil’s touch on the island, there had been more than the cursed area in the underground. Five powerful points of black magic were already converging on Link, one was extremely close, and had been following him since he’d arrived. He assumed the only reason the black-robed figure behind him hadn’t attacked was because it wanted to wait for its fellows.

Link had three realistic options that he could see. The dumbest thing he could do would be to let the five converge and attack him. Even if he knew for certain he could take the five of them, which he did not, this option easily left the most room for error. It also allowed his tails to see him in action.

Second, he could attempt to fight them one by one. It certainly held more desirable fruit than fighting all five, but it still held the difficulty of five difficult battles back to back. It also still allowed his tails to watch him and these creatures in action.

Third, he could try to evade them. It would be difficult, especially with his magic almost completely drained. He only had a minute of time or maybe even less with the Magic Cape but the option continued his secrecy of his inhuman nature and had less risk of death. If he failed he’d simply be forced to fight them anyway. Though, he did have an edge: he could slowly refill his magic if he could get to the sacred ground hidden in the depths of the volcano.

He weighed his options carefully while keeping a close sense on that fact that he was running out of time to decide for himself. He chose to run. He took off at full speed, far beyond what a human would’ve been capable of, though he wasn’t sure by how much. The shade behind him bolted forwards, likely thinking it had only now been discovered, but Link proved faster. His tails would see his speed and his pursuer, but nothing else.

Link outran the shadow creature and he could sense all five slow and begin a search. Ganondorf had no idea that Link could sense the King of Evil’s touch, and probably couldn’t sense Link or, at least, not through these puppets. Now he could easily evade them and work out how to get into the volcano.

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When Link had darted off at great speed, Agent Hill thought her team had been discovered again. But, thankfully, that didn’t appear to be the case, as evidenced by the fact that someone else entirely had tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to follow. Link must’ve been spooked by the dark robed figure, whoever it was.

“Measurements are back” one member of her team said, “He had made it up to 45mph before we lost sight of him. For reference, unaltered but well-trained humans can only reliably reach about 25mph.”

“Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” Another agent asked.

“That depends on a lot of factors we don’t know yet” someone else replied.

Hill stayed silent. The dark robed figure had spooked Link. He’d outrun the thing, but hadn’t fought it. They’d found the man and hadn’t engaged, Hill was personally observing it now. It looked up at Hill and she saw under the hood. If she never did again it would be too soon and, for the moment, she was stunned into silence. She needed to report this, but her mind still reeled. She had this urge, an urge to find somewhere safe and hide there. She had to get away and safe from that thing.

The creature was still nearby, apparently searching for Link. Somewhere safe. Link had run from that monster. He, whom they knew to hide superhuman capabilities, had chosen to run rather than face down that… malevolence. Would anywhere be safe from such a creature? Her mind thought of a place, a small hidden room no-one had known of. She’d been a child when she’d found that place and she hadn’t thought about it in years.

She needed to get there. She needed to- pain shot up her leg and snapped her out of it. She’d stepped on something sharp, she hadn’t even realized she’d been moving. A few other agents were looking at her quizzically. Realization of what had happened crashed down on her.

“That dark robed guy, where is he?” She demanded.

“Uh, right over there, he still hasn’t seen us, we don’t think” someone answered.

“He saw me, we need to get away, it did something to my mind when I saw under the hood!”

The other agents moved instantly. They didn’t question her, they wouldn’t have questioned anyone who’d said the same in that instant. Questions came later, they were Shield. A hint of supernatural powers incited instant action and caution.

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Two hours later, Link found a hot spring right over the sacred area closest to the surface and dived straight in.

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Link sat, shirtless, bent over his tunic. He’d have to wash it when they got back to the Helicarrier, but he could still sew it now. He’d already repaired the chain links broken by his shattered sword. He’d learned how to properly maintenance his weapons and armor over a dozen times before, it hadn’t been hard this time. There was nothing to be done about his sword, however, and he carried no spares. If any further fighting was to be done, he’d have to use the other items in his arsenal. It would be like fighting one-handed. He had been successful with every other weapon he’d ever learned to use but the vast majority of his experience was with a sword.

“Has he said anything?” Fury asked over the intercom.

“Not a word,” Agent Romanov responded.

“Just get him here. We’re low on time.”

Link had to agree. Stark had scanned the area for energy signatures, but it seemed Loki had separated himself from the Tesseract for some reason. They still didn’t even know why he’d been there. Link had realized one thing in that fight, but now that he looked at it closely it didn’t tell him much. And with Loki staying silent, he had no way to gain any further information. He only had half a plan.

Loki, predictably, hadn’t stayed unconscious long. The god had recovered pretty quickly, all things considered, and from a hit that would’ve killed nearly anyone or anything else. He did periodically groan, however, so the hit must’ve managed to bruise even him. Still, it was good Link hadn’t killed him, with no Tesseract nearby he was their only real chance for finding it.

“I don’t like it,” Steve said.

“What? Rock of Ages not putting up more of a fuss?” Stark asked.

“I don’t remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wallop.”

“Well, still, you were pretty spry for an older fellow. What’s your thing? Pilates?”

Link looked up from his work, was Stark really going to start everything off by antagonizing Captain America?

“What?” Steve asked, clearly not understanding Stark.

“It’s like calisthenics. You might have missed a couple things, you know, during your time as a Capsicle.”

Steve turned to fully face Stark, “Fury didn’t tell me he was calling you in.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of things Fury doesn’t tell you,” Stark said.

“They told me,” Link said, and both other heroes turned to him so he elaborated, “They told me they’d asked Stark to come in. They also said that they weren’t sure he would, or that he’d actually help more than he’d hurt even if he did.”

Before the conversation could go any farther, however, Link sense a huge, but momentary spike in dark magic directly above him. His first thought was of Ganondorf, but in seconds the dark magic was gone, and only normal magic remained. Link looked out the window to see a huge storm brewing outside. A flash of lightning came dangerously near the quinjet.

“Where’s this coming from?” Romamov asked nobody in particular.

“What’s the matter? Scared of a little lightning?” Link heard Cap say.

Link turned in confusion, it wasn’t like Cap to... but he wasn’t looking at Romanov, he was looking at Loki, who did indeed look oddly worried.

“I’m not overly fond of what follows,” the god said, speaking for the first time since Germany.

Suddenly, something hit the jet, but it didn’t seem to take any damage, either there was some impressive design or... Link could still sense magic out there, it just wasn’t dark anymore. Link’s eyes widened and he rushed to put his chainmail and tunic back on. Stark put his helmet back on, completing his suit, and opened the hanger door.

“What’re you doing?” Steve asked, but Link agreed with Stark’s move: if this was who he thought it was, they guy could tear the quinjet apart while they were still in the air.

A stranger dropped down onto the ramp, but in the darkness Link couldn’t tell much about him other than he wore a cape. Still, it was a safe bet that Thor, Norse god of storms, lightning, and thunder, had come to call. Stark moved to intercept, but was knocked backward with a single push from the man’s hammer, the same hammer Link had seen in Shield’s files on the god.

Thor grabbed Loki by the throat, swung his hammer around a bit for some reason, then flew out of the quinjet with surprising speed. Link tried to grab on with his hookshot, but was too slow and the hook went over the two gods. As the chain reeled itself back automatically, Stark stood up groaning.

“And now there’s that guy,” he said.

“Another Asgardian?” Agent Romanov asked.

“Think it’s a friendly?” Cap continued the questioning.

“Doesn’t matter: if he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract’s lost,” Stark replied, already walking toward the open door.

Link agreed with him in all honesty, though the possibility of Thor killing Loki seemed low.

“Stark, we need a plan of attack,” Steve said.

“I have a plan: attack,” Stark said, and took off after them.

Link looked back at Captain America, “He’s probably stronger than all three of us, you know.”

“Doesn’t matter, we do have to try and get Loki back, Stark’s not wrong there,” he said, handing Link a parachute.

Link tossed it aside and they both walked to the doorway together.

“I’d sit this one out Cap,” Agent Romanov yelled back as said Captain buckled on the parachute.

“I don’t see how I can,” he answered.

“These guys come from legend, they’re basically gods.”

“There’s only one god, ma’am,” Steve said, “And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”

Link grabbed his arm before they dived out, “We need a plan of attack too, you know.”

“At this point, it’s pretty much just back stop Loki from getting away and back up Stark. He’s just forced our hand.”

Link nodded, really not liking the plan. Then they both jumped. Unfortunately, they were high enough that the clouds obscured their vision more than the darkness did. Once they were low enough, they could see Stark flying off into the woods, but then his rocket boots or whatever it was he used to fly turned off and they couldn’t see a thing after that. Link used his body to move himself more in that direction, and finally saw Loki standing on a mountain peak.

Link gestured towards him for Steve, who nodded. Link then veered directions for said peak. Cap pushed for the two other combatants. Once he started to come near the odd rock formation Loki was perched on, Link aimed with his hookshot again and fired. It easily connected with the rock and pulled Link straight there, canceling most or all of his previous momentum. He never had worked out exactly how this thing really worked, but it always did.

He landed easily only a few feet from Loki, who was now sitting comfortably and watching what appeared to be a battle between Thor and the Iron Man.

“Enjoying the show?” Link asked. There were no illusions this time.

“Look at them. My brother was always a muscle-bound brute. And the Iron Man, what a pretentious individual. Thinking to reach the gods with technology. Even when presented with a common enemy they cannot help but fight each other.”

“How do you know me?” Link asked.

“I don’t.”

“You called me, a ‘primitive from the dawn of time’.”

“You’re Hylian, I don’t know how it’s possible, but it’s true. Your people were among the firstborn of the universe, but instead of advancing and reaching the stars, you died quietly, quietly enough the that rest of the universe only learned about you after you were gone. You could have been gods, but you remained primitive. You’re no better than the fools below.”

Even as he spoke, Loki stood up, but there was a sheen of light around him and he left behind an image of himself, a perfect replica but to Link’s Lens of Truth, clearly a fake. Link watched the real Loki from the corner of his eye, but kept his eyes focused on the fake.

“You know, I think I’m going to have to apologize to Cap now,” Link said, smirking.

Fake Loki actually took his eyes off the fight down below and looked up with confusion, “And why is that?”

“Because he told me you weren’t a god, just an alien, and I discounted the notion. But He’s right. See, a god is a type of being that exists, or at least I believe in them, but if you’re part of just some alien race that happens to be more advanced in technology and/or magic... well then you don’t fit the bill.”

Loki’s face briefly lost it’s composed, in control, look and devolved into fury. He got it under control again with a breath, though.

“And what would a mortal know of gods?” he asked, sneering.

Link grabbed him by the collar and threw him back to the ground. Loki struck his head on the rocks but didn’t seem to feel it. Link added a high probability of quick healing to his understanding of his opponent.

“I know a god wouldn’t have to try such a cheep and easily seen through tactic. Trust me, I’ve fought real gods. It’s like fighting a storm that hates you,” Link said.

Loki opened his mouth to reply but, just then, a tremendous shockwave blasted out from where Thor and Iron Man had been fighting. It nearly knocked Link off his feet, but the reverberating tone in the wave told Link it had to be something to do with Steve’s shield. That metal hummed in the same cadence whenever it moved, but to do this, Link assumed it must’ve blocked something truly powerful.

He looked up and saw that a gigantic section of the forest had been cleared by the blast, Link suspected the only reason it hadn’t hit him as hard was his elevation. Standing the middle of the clearing, were Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, God of Thunder and Lightning. Loki looked as surprised by the display as Link felt, though perhaps more at Cap’s resilience than Thor’s strength. If the myths were even partially correct, Loki and Thor must’ve been in plenty of battles together.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who can face gods, either,” Link said.

Loki didn’t seem to like his implications.

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Thor ended up coming with them to the Helicarrier and, with him in the quinjet and Link’s own ability to see through his illusions, Loki clearly never felt he had a chance to make a move and stayed quiet for the rest of the trip. Upon arrival, SHIELD agents took custody of him. Link and the others were directed to the bridge, through Stark ended up not coming immediately to see his suit was properly secured somewhere. Dr. Banner joined them, however, and soon a video feed was set up for them… in the table.. apparently. It showed them putting Loki in a prison of incredibly thick glass.

“In case it's unclear. You try to escape. You so much as scratch that glass...” Director Fury said, throwing a few switches that first opened an enormous trapdoor beneath the entire cage then unhooked part the the cage itself, threatening to let the entire thing fall out of the Helicarrier, with Loki inside it. “Thirty thousand feet, straight down, in a steel trap! You get how that works?!” Fury yelled over the wind, then closed it all back up again and gestured to Loki, “Ant,” then at his control console, “Boot.”

Loki chuckled, “It’s an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me.”

“Built for something a lot stronger than you,” Fury said.

“Oh I’ve heard,” Loki looked straight at the camera, “A monstrous beast, who makes play he’s still a man. How desperate are you that you call upon such lost creatures?”

“How desperate am I?” Fury asked, “How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did.”

Link was impressed, Fury was being genuine. He suspected that didn’t come easily to the Director. He’d come because he’d sensed the gravity of the situation through Agent Hill, but somehow… this interaction here impressed it even more on him. And he didn’t have a sword.

“Ooh. It burns you to come so close,” Loki taunted, “To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is.”

“Well, let me know if ‘Real Power’ wants a magazine or something,” Fury said, walking away.

“He really grows on you doesn’t he?” Dr. Banner said.

“Loki’s gonna drag this out,” Steve said, still in his uniform, “So, Thor, what’s his play?”

All eyes turned to Thor as he answered, “He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.”

“Seriously?” Cap asked, “An army? From outer space?”

“So he’s building another portal,” Banner mused, “That’s what he needs Erik Selvig for.”

“Selvig?” Thor asked.

“He’s an astrophysicist,” Banner explained.

“He’s a friend,” Thor stated.

Link’s mind snapped back to reality again, hearing that. Something still didn’t add up about all of this but for some reason, his mind wouldn’t put the pieces together correctly. But hearing that the brainwashed scientist was a personal friend of Thor... it was another piece of the puzzle.

“Loki has him under some kind of spell,” Agent Romanov said, “Along with one of ours.”

She said that last line with worry. It was the first time Link had seen anything besides cold calm from her. Oh she’d been friendly enough, but never warm. Link took note of that as well.

“I wonder why he let himself get caught,” Steve mused aloud, “He’s not leading an army from here."

“I wouldn’t think too much on Loki. The guys’s mind is a bag of cats, you can smell crazy on him.”

“Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother,” Thor said, somehow lacing authority into the words.

“He killed eighty people in two days,” Romanov said.

“He’s adopted,” was all Thor could say in response. Link had to hold back a smile.

“I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?” Banner asked.

“It's a stabilizing agent,” Tony Stark said, walking in with Agent Coulson, then he said softly to Coulson “I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive,” then turned back to everyone else, “Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD.” Stark then walked up to Thor, and patted him on the arm, “No hard feelings, Point Break, you’ve got a mean swing.” He spoke up again for everyone to hear, “Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants. Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails.”

The last line was to the crew in the helm, but they all stared at him with confusion. Sensing the awkwardness, Stark redirected attention, “That man is playing Galaga. Thought we wouldn’t notice. But we did.”

Link was started to really feel the element of chaos this man would bring to the table, and couldn’t help covering his eyes for a moment as Stark kept talking, “How does Fury do this?”

“He turns,” Hill said.

“Well, that sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube.”

“When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?” Hill asked.

“Last night,” Stark said.

Link uncovered his eyes and stared at the man in disbelief.

“The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?” Stark explained.

“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Steve asked.

“He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier,” Banner said, helpfully.

“Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect,” Stark countered.

“Well, if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet,” Banner pointed out.

“Finally, someone who speaks English,” Stark exulted.

“Is that what just happened?” Steve asked no one in particular.

“I don’t know,” Link said, “But it sounds like those two will be able to work together at least.”

“It’s good to meet you, Dr. Banner,” Stark greeted, “Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”

Banner seemed a little uncomfortable with the praise, but answered, “Thanks,” all the same.

Fury walked in at that moment, “Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him.”

“I’d start with that stick of his, it may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon.”

“I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys,” Fury said.

“Monkeys?” Thor asked, understandably not having seen The Wizard of OZ before, “I don’t understa-”

“I do!” Steve cut in, strangely excited, “I understood that reference.”

“Shall we play, Doctor?” Stark asked.

“Let’s play some,” Dr. Banner agreed.

Link turned to Steve, “What do you mean, it works like a hydra weapon? What hydra did you fight that could even use weapons?”

Steve seemed to do a double take, “Uh, not a hydra. Hydra. A German organization in World War Two. They had the Tesseract and used it to make really powerful weapons. I was simply saying the way the staff fires blasts looks pretty much the same.”

“Oh. Got it...” Link said, remembering some basic info Shield had given him about Captain America’s battles.

“Can we talk a minute, Link?” Agent Hill asked from the side.

Link looked up, “Sure, no problem.”

He nodded to Steve and stood up to follow her. She led them only a short way, just far enough so nobody should overhear. Agent Coulson apparently chose that moment to talk to Steve as well.

“Why did you hold back?” Hill asked.

“When?” Link asked, “With Loki? I promise I didn’t.”

“No, not then. When you sparred with Captain Rogers.”

Link glanced at the Captain, Coulson had his ear and Link’s ears could pick up that Coulson was asking about trading cards, which was an odd topic, but neither would overhear this.

“We both were, we weren’t trying to actually hurt each other. Besides, if I’d gone all out and just... out sped him to win, I wouldn’t have learned anything.”

“You lost me fifty bucks in a bet with Coulson,” Hill said, flatly.

Link chuckled, “That fight was never about who won. We were testing each other. We needed to feel out each other’s strengths. Sorry you lost the bet, though, I wouldn’t say anyone actually ‘won’ that fight. He threw me down once, but I landed more hits.”

Hill seemed unsatisfied with that, which made sense, she’d already lost the fifty. Off to the side, Cap somehow managed to extract himself from Coulson’s fanboy conversation by promising to sign his cards later. Link’s mind wandered back to... whatever it was that was bothering him. It wasn’t just what Loki had said back in Germany, nor was it all these little details that didn’t seem to have any connection. If anything, it was this ship that bothered Link most. True, he somehow felt that all those things were connected in some way to whatever it was, but those details didn’t make any sense if it was the Helicarrier itself that was somehow the problem.

“There’s something I’m missing...” Link said to himself, “Some piece of this puzzle I haven’t figured out.”

“We’re all thinking that, I think,” Agent Hill said, unexpectedly. It was only unexpected because Link had somehow gone and forgotten her, though. She continued, though, probably unaware Link hadn’t actually been talking to her, “Loki’s movements look erratic. Like Thor said: he’s beyond reason, but I can’t help feel there’s something more. Something oddly... methodical about him. He needs a rare mineral, so he uses himself as a distraction. But that lands him here with us. It seems counterproductive, but he hasn’t acted like he’s as out-of-control as that. Banner said his mind is a bag of cats, but I have to wonder if that’s really true.”

“Yeah, but then he monologues about how much better he is than everyone else and you end up feeling like he’s crazy again,” Link agreed, “The only thing anyone’s said that seemed to actually get to him was when I challenged his godhood.”

Hill looked at him, “What?”

Link shrugged, “While Thor and Stark were fighting in the woods, Loki and I had a brief chat. All he said was more speeches about how lowly everyone else was compared to him. But, I implied that Thor was more godlike than him and it seemed to strike a nerve, it didn’t really get me anywhere. He regained control too quickly but it did work for a moment.”

“You found a sore spot and he regained control... just like that?” she asked.

“Sure, what of it? Like you said: it’s impossible to tell if he’s mad or conniving.”

“Well, in my experience, people who are genuinely crazy take wounded pride very seriously. So do people in authority. They lash out. The only reason he would have to hold himself back was if he already had a plan to crush you... and that would probably be true whether he’s crazy or not,” Hill said.

Link considered, there might be another angle they were missing, but she was probably right... but what on earth could that plan be? It wasn’t as if Loki could’ve known Shield would call him in. He needed time to work this out a few more steps. In the meantime...

“I think I’m going to guard Banner,” Link said, “I don’t think it’s really possible, but on the off chance something set him off, The Hulk will crush all our plans, Loki’s too.”

Hill nodded, and Link set off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce was scanning the scepter when he noticed Link walking up to the lab. But, instead of coming in, as Bruce had expected expected, the young swordsman simply took a position to stand guard outside. He poked his head out to ask Link what he was doing, but got a vague answer about needing a quiet place to think and having nowhere better to be.

Bruce went back to his scans and after a bit of analysis, spoke up for Stark to hear: “The gamma is consistent with the cube but these will take weeks to process…”

“If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops,” Stark advised.

Bruce chuckled, “And all I packed was a toothbrush.”

Stark laughed, “You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land.”

“Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of… broke Harlem.”

“Well, I promise a stress-free environment,” Stark said, walking closer, “No tension, no surprises-“ He suddenly jabbed Bruce in the side with an electrical prod.

“Ow!” Bruce complained.

“Hey!” Captain Rogers said from the door as he walked in.

Stark bent over and examined Bruce, “Nothing?” he asked.

“Are you nuts?” the captain accused.

“Jury’s out,” Stark said before turning back to Bruce, “You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?”

“Is everything a joke to you?” Rogers scolded.

“Funny things are,” Stark answered.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny. No offense, Doctor.”

“No, it’s alright,” Bruce said, trying to calm the situation down, “I wouldn’t have come on board if I couldn’t handle pointy things.”

“You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut,” Stark said to him.

Both of them were well meaning, and Bruce appreciated it, but their arguing was actually making things a lot harder…

“And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark,” the captain said.

“You think I'm not?” Stark asked, “Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables.”

“You think he’s hiding something,” the captain asked.

“He’s a spy. Captain, he’s THE spy. His secrets have secrets. And it’s bugging them too,” Stark said gesturing at both Bruce and Link, who was still sitting outside with the door closed, “Isn’t it?”

Bruce really didn’t want to be part of the conspiracy conversation, so he tried to push himself out, “I just want to finish my work and…”

“Doctor?” Captain Rodgers prompted.

Bruce took off his glasses and sighed, giving in he said, “A warm light for all mankind. Loki’s jab to Fury about the cube.”

“I heard it,” Rogers said.

“Well, I think that was meant for you,” Bruce said, gesturing to Stark, “Even if Agent Barton didn’t tell him, it was all over the news.”

“Stark Tower?” Rogers asked, “That big ugly…” he seemed to remember Stark’s presence in the room at the moment, and sheepishly finished, “… building in New York.”

“It's powered by Arc Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?”

“That’s just the prototype. I’m kind of the only name in Energy right now,” Stark said helpfully.

“So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?” Bruce finished.

“Any thoughts, Peter Pan?” Stark asked, though he didn’t raise his voice so there was no way Link would be able to hear…

As if to instantly make mockery of Bruce’s Physics degrees, Link suddenly turned and walked through the automatic door.

“Look, all three of you are right,” he said with a fair amount of exasperation in his voice, “Yes, Shield was afraid of how we’d react to certain elements of their experimentation, or we’d have been consulted earlier. But that’s not nearly as important as Loki’s plan. He intends to wage war on Earth. Steve is right to worry about division, we can’t be separate if this war actually comes. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t… consider what to do immediately after we stop Loki’s schemes but I suggest we be certain of stopping Loki first, and worry about Shield second.”

The captain and Stark both looked chastened by Link’s words, but Stark quickly recovered, “I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of Shield’s secure files.”

Both Captain Rogers and Link looked taken aback by the casual revelation but it was the captain who spoke first, “I’m sorry, did you say?”

“Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide,” he held out his bag of fruit towards Bruce, “Blueberry? “

“Yet you’re confused why they didn’t want you around?” the captain asked.

“No,” Link said, “Like I said, just because we can’t let Loki get what he wants doesn’t mean Shield can go unsupervised as well. BUT, Loki is worse, he’s the enemy, whatever Shield wants, I doubt they’re planning on conquering the Earth.”

The Captain and Stark both begrudgingly nodded, then Rogers and Link left the room. Link took his spot back at the door and the captain went elsewhere.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took time, but Link finally managed to find and ask himself an important question: if he knew Shield was after him, that it posed the only real threat to his plans, how would he go about bringing it down? That one question finally clicked something in his mind. Normally, Link preferred to run from one place to another as quickly as he could, dealing with problems as they arose, but if Loki preferred to crush his opposition…

He checked inside the lab, everything seemed normal in there, Stark and Banner just working at the Staff and Cube. Banner might be the most volatile thing on the Helicarrier, but it should be impossible for Loki to reach him to set him off. Still, there were other options... what if the Helicarrier itself were the target?

Link walked back to the bridge, where Thor and Coulson were having a conversation.

“He talks about you a lot,” Coulson was saying, “You changed his life. You changed everything around here.”

“They were better as they were,” Thor said, “We pretend on Asgard that we’re more advanced but we... we come here battling like bilgesnipe.”

“Like what?” Coulson asked.

“You know: huge, scaley, big antlers. You don’t have those?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well they are repulsive. They trample everything in their path,” Thor explained, “When I first came to Earth, Loki’s rage followed me and your people paid the price. And now again... in my youth I courted war.”

“War hasn’t started yet,” Fury cut in, standing on a platform above Thor and Coulson, “Do you think you can make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?” he asked the god.

“I do not know. It’s not just a kingdom Loki seeks, it’s also vengeance. Against me. He will not easily relinquish that hatred.”

“Yeah, a lot of guys think that, until the pain stops.”

“What are you asking me to do?” Thor asked the director.

“I’m asking: ‘what are you prepared to do?’” Fury answered meaningfully.

Thor didn’t seem ready to answer that question at that moment, so Link decided to cut in: “I have better question.”

All three turned to him expectantly, he supposed it wasn’t a surprise they’d been aware of his presence so he just went on, “How would Loki fight us? What are his preferred methods? How would he go about taking down a flying fortress like this thing?”

“Loki is a prisoner,” Thor said, as if that dismissed the question.

“Then why do I feel like he’s the only person on this boat that wants to be here?” Fury asked, echoing Link’s own thoughts.

Thor seemed to grow concerned at that, and Link asked again, “You grew up with him, you know him. He may have done things that make him seem different now, but he can’t have changed so thoroughly. Why would he get himself captured? Did he ever do anything like this before?”

“Only as a diversion, as he has already done,” Thor answered.

“A diversion for what? How would he be certain of escape?”

“Well I or our friends would always break him back out afterwards,” Thor explained and the answer seemed to hit all four of them simultaneously.

“Barton’s coming here,” Coulson voiced and Fury nodded.

“Sir, we just detected a breach in our security,” someone called from across the bridge, and for a moment all of them assumed they’d just realized the truth too late.

Instead, it seemed Stark had been the cause, and had continued trying to uncover all of Shield’s ‘dirty secrets’. Link found himself heading back to the lab with Director Fury. It might not be the best timing, but it seemed it was time to talk about what happened to the Tesseract after all this was over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Agent Hill was fairly sure she should’ve been on the bridge while the Director was away but, when he along with Agent Coulson, Thor, and Link had been leaving to confront Stark, Link had motioned for her to join them. So, she’d gone along with them, though she lagged a bit behind. Link slowed his pace a moment to come even with her very quickly.

“I know Fury warned the crew Agent Barton may try something soon, but I want to ask you personally, how would he attack a place like this if he were trying to get Loki out?” He asked in low tones.

“He’d probably try to pass himself and a team off as Shield agents until the last possible moment, at least until after he got on board. The crew know to look for that now. He won’t manage it.”

Link nodded as they reached the lab that Stark and Dr. Banner were working in. The Director marched right in and started: “What are you doing, Mr. Stark?”

“Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you,” the billionaire replied.

“You’re supposed to be locating the Tesseract,” Fury reminded him.

“We are,” Dr Banner said, “The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile.”

“We’ll get the cube back, no muss, no fuss,” Stark said, “What is Phase 2?”

A loud clang sounded behind the assembled Shield members and Link turned to see Captain America standing there with a Hydra gun on the table, “Phase 2 is Shield uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow.”

The Director tried to regain control, while Link walked over to pick up the weapon apparently examining it with interest, “Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're-“

“I’m sorry, Nick, what were you lying?” Stark cut in, turning a monitor to show plans for a Tesseract-powered missile. Hill cringed internally, this wasn’t going to go well.

“I was wrong, Director, the world hasn’t changed a bit,” the Captain said.

Agent Romanov appeared from nowhere as Fury started to say that Banner should leave the room, an idea Hill was 100% behind. They argued for moment before Banner brought them back on topic, “I want to know why Shield is using the Tesseract to make weapons of mass destruction.”

“Because of THEM,” Fury said, pointing to Thor and Link. The statement was enough to silence the room and pull even Stark’s focus.

“Me?” Thor asked. Link, oddly, stayed silent.

“Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. Before that I had a team of agents attacked by a hoard of undead who were only barely rescued by a child with a sword. What we’ve learned is that not only are we not alone but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”

“My people want nothing but peace with your planet,” Thor said defensively.

“But you’re not the only people out there are you? And you’re not the only threat. How many monsters have you stopped Link? How many more are there? Your ‘Ganondorf’ curses the land as fast as you can find and kill them. The world is filling up with people who can’t be matched. They can’t be controlled.

“Like you controlled the cube?” Captain Rogers asked.

“Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war!” Thor said, shocking Hill and apparently others.

“A higher form?” the captain asked.

“You forced our hand, we had to come up with something,” Fury argued.

“A Nuclear Deterrent, because that always calms everything right down,” Stark said with heavy sarcasm.

“Remind me again how you made your fortune Mr. Stark?” Fury asked.

“I’m sure if he still made weapons Mr. Stark would be neck deep in...”

“Wait! Wait! Hold on! How is this now about me?” Stark asked.

“I’m sorry, isn’t everything?” Rogers retorted.

“I thought humans were more evolved than this,” Thor said with no small amount of superiority in his voice.

Suddenly a voice cut through all the noise: “Enough!”

Everyone turned, somehow equally silenced by the thundered word. It was Link, who’d apparently stayed quiet that long due to his examining of the files on screen. Hill was shocked, however, not to see anger on his face, as was on all the others. It was concern that showed in his eyes and when he spoke again his quieter demeanor seemed to have returned, though Hill remembered all too well what it was like to have Link scold her.

“Look at you. Is it really so easy for you to turn on each other?” Link asked the room, multiple people started to look uncomfortable at just that but he continued: “Are you all so incapable of staying on track that you don’t even realize who your enemies and allies are?”

Even Stark looked down in shame at that, and Hill had to wonder just how Link always seemed to be able to cut to the heart of an issue like this.

“Fury, I know from a certain perspective, the existence of people like... well, US,” he gestured around the room, “Feels dangerous. Shield is used to having some level of control over almost everything but now there’s people and monsters you can’t hope to control or fight. But here’s the thing, Director, you don’t need to control us to be safe. Honestly, if you did somehow manage to put reigns on us, we’d be far less effective.”

Hill noticed Stark nodding to this, and Link kept going, “The existence of heroes and monsters, be they monsters giant creatures or people, isn’t new. There have always been threats too big for normal people or even armies to face. There have always been those who have gained the power to rise to the challenge and protect those who could not protect themselves.

“But look at history, Director, every time you make bigger weapons and put them in the hands of the common people or soldiers or even secret agents: the result is greater death and destruction than ever before. The world is safer in the hands of a few trusted heroes than in legions. Let us keep you safe. We aren’t the threat: we’re the cure.”

Nobody spoke for a long moment after Link finished. Then, after a moment, Fury responded, “But how can we trust you?”

Hill shouldn’t have been surprised at what Fury had said, it made perfect sense. Realistically, she should have even agreed with him. But she didn’t. She was surprised to discover that it was true, and, somehow, equally surprised to learn that Fury didn’t. Everything she’d learned from her time with Shield conflicted with Link’s argument, yet she… bought it. Some deep part of her whispered that he was right. And she found herself listening.

Understandably completely unaware of Agent Hill’s new internal battle, everyone in the room turned to Link to hear his response. He looked at Fury for a moment, apparently contemplating how to answer the jaded spy.

Then he smiled and said: “Because you want to. I can’t think of any other reason you’d risk so much to bring us all here to help.”

Hill couldn’t speak for everyone there but she, at least, found the uncharacteristic shock on the normally stone-cold Director Fury’s face strangely… satisfying.

Suddenly, a beeping went off at another monitor and Dr. Banner shook himself free of the moment’s grasp.

“The algorithm found something…” he said as he walked over to it.

Everyone saw the look of terrible realization that passed over his face. Then the room exploded.

Chapter Text

Link recovered more quickly than most after the explosion and quickly assessed everything he could see. Everyone but Dr. Banner and Agent Romanov was present, if in varying stages of recovery, which was mostly good. Steve and Tony were right next to each other and fairly separate from the rest of the party, so Link moved closer to the three Shield agents. He helped Agent Hill to her feet and picked up the other two right after.

“Barton,” Coulson said.

“What’d he hit?” Hill asked.

“An engine, unless I’m an idiot,” Link said, “Where do you three need to be?”

“Bridge!” Fury yelled, perhaps more noise-blasted than the rest of them, “Coulson, initiate official lock down in the detention section then get to the armory! Move out!”

Link nodded and ushered them out of the room, Steve and Tony were already moving away on their own and, by the way they moved together, had reached some kind of unspoken understanding. Hopefully their bickering was a thing of the past. Link hated to have called them out like he did. He believed what he’d said but it wasn’t really his place to call them down.

Everyone they met on the way was practically panicking with disorientation, but it wasn’t a great distance to the bridge, thankfully, and as soon as the Director and Vice-Director were back on the bridge, they began reasserting discipline and started gathering information.

“Engine 3 is down!” someone yelled out.

Hill ran over to him, “Talk to me!”

“Turbine's loose. Mostly intact, but it's impossible to get out there and make repairs while we're in the air,” he said.

“We lose one more engine, we won’t be,” Hill noted.

“Stark, you copy that?” Fury asked through the intercom.

Link heard the reply through Fury’s earpiece even though he didn’t have his own: “I’m on it!”

Fury and Hill continued, well, directing the bridge while Link scanned his mind for everything he’d realized about Loki’s intentions. He still felt like he was missing pieces of the puzzle but... a roar shook the entire Helicarrier from somewhere deeper in it’s construction. Fury, Hill, and Link all looked at each other with terrible realization. They’d forgotten Banner, and that explosion had set him off.

“Give me an intercom!” Link shouted, he had no idea how he was going to fight The Hulk of all monsters, but he wasn’t left with much choice.

“Bring the carrier inwards and head south!” Fury shouted at the helmsman, “Take us to the water!”

A agent brought his ear piece over to Link and showed him how to operate it while the conversation continued: “Why water?” the helmsman asked, “Navigation’s recalibrating after the engine failure.”

“Is the SUN COMING UP?” Fury asked.

The poor helmsman checked, then nodded.

“Then put it on the LEFT! Get us over water! One more engine goes down and we drop!”

Link finished putting his ear piece in, then dashed up to the Director, “Where’s Banner now? I’ll try and stop him.”

Fury nodded and started getting camera’s checked for him. In only a few moments they found Thor and Hulk fighting in a hanger, “We need a full evac on the lower hanger bay!”

Hill nodded and prepared to leave but Link, whose senses were on red alert, heard something surprisingly distinct: a grenade pin. He spun and saw the item already flying low to the ground towards Hill. He reacted instantly, however, and pulled his boomerang from his pack and threw it at the grenade. It crashed into the little canister and ricocheted it back to sender. It exploded well before it got that far, but much farther away from Agent Hill than it would have done.

Several agents pulled their weapons immediately, but Link wasn’t planning on letting this become a firefight. He caught his boomerang on it’s back arc, switched it for his Ice Rod and sealed the entrance the grenade had come from with six feet of magical ice. He knew better than to seal off all their exits, however, and again switched his item out, this time for something he hadn’t used in front of any Shield agent: a magic whip. With whip in one hand and his Mirror Shield on the other arm, he turned to the only other entrance to the bridge.

“Link!” Hill shouted and when he turned back to her she continued, “What are you doing?”

“Keeping the fight off the bridge,” he said, “I hope you’ve got a lot more holding cells.”

With his shield up and his whip raised, he went to battle with Loki’s human allies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even though he’d been filled in on Dr. Banner’s condition, Thor had not been expecting such a challenging opponent in the Hulk. At first, he’d tried to reason with him, but it soon became clear was wasn’t listening to anything, so instead Thor had opted for option 1: hammer.

Unfortunately, option 1 was far less effective on The Hulk than it had ever been on anything Thor had ever met in his life. He’d trained with and even fought other gods before, and he had a general sense that his father, Odin, was far more powerful than he was, even in his old age, but when he hit something with Mjolnir he still expected it to get hurt, if not instantly die. All he’d managed so far was to make The Hulk even more angry.

Well, there was one other thing. Somehow, this monster was actually getting stronger. Thor had been surprised enough by Stark’s flying metal suit, which had, barely, allowed him to trade blows. The fight wouldn’t have lasted much longer, of course, but it was an impressive design. Then the one called Captain Rogers had fully repelled his blow with that incredible shield. He’d been informed, however, of the metal’s truly unbelievable qualities, and he no longer felt genuinely matched by the man.

The boy called Link was still mostly a unknown to him, though he’d heard from Captain Rogers that the child had somehow knocked Loki unconscious, he hadn’t had a chance to see his power for himself. He’d have to correct that later, but he seriously doubted the possibility that Link could stand up to Thor: God of Thunder and Lightning. The Hulk was a whole other game. At the battle’s beginning, Thor had been able to match the brute’s raw strength with ease. Combined with his martial prowess honed over literal millennia, he’d had control of the fight for a good while.

Somehow, The Hulk had turned the tables on him, and Thor wasn’t happy about it. Beyond that, there were still people around them, and despite their lack of strength, he considered Shield and each of it’s members, allies. Especially Agent Coulson.

Thor summoned his hammer back to his hand and tried to strike The Hulk’s head, but the monster had apparently wizened up to Mjolnir’s basic tricks and he struck Thor in the forearm and forced him to let go of the enchanted weapon. Frustrated by his inability to make use of his more godly abilities, Thor delivered a series of rapid punches to the monster, who took them far better than he had even a few moments prior and grabbed Thor by the neck.

Thor’s eye’s widened as he realized the beast’s intention to crush one of the softer parts of his body but returned the earlier favor by attacking the forearms and forcing a release of grip. They continued traded blows for a short amount of time when, suddenly, the hangar door opened and a single-man flying ship appeared and, after only a few seconds of delay, opened fire on The Hulk. Thor dived for cover, unwilling to test his bare skin against anything that big that could fire so fast. The Hulk, on the other hand, appeared only to have his focus shifted from Thor to the aircraft.

He launched himself at the offending party, who immediately careened out-of-control, spinning away from the Helicarrier. Thor could only presume this was the intended effect and be grateful he didn’t have to face The Hulk anymore in such unfavorable circumstances. At any rate, he wasn’t on the Helicarrier anymore, and there were more concerns Thor had to deal with. He might not know much about Link’s capacity as a fighter, but he certainly felt the child had been right about basically everything he’d said. That included his guess as to Loki’s plan. Thor left for Loki’s cage, hoping against hope he wasn’t too late.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Link snapped his whip and cracked a fake Shield agent on the helmet. Even unarmored, the man would’ve been fine. The whip wasn’t dangerous, though Link suspected it delivered a heck of a sting, and was the perfect tool for a fight where Link didn’t want to kill anyone. All he was after was disorienting his enemies enough to get in close. He was easily fast enough to block bullets with his shield, but the less he had to do so, the faster he could move.

He jumped at the poor guy and knocked him flat, then he spun his shield into the next two guys standing nearby. He was actually surprised by the number of enemies he’d had to take down, how had Agent Barton pulled this off? Satisfied that his current opponents were unconscious, Link moved on, listening intently for signs of more enemies.

The next set of were around the corner, coming up quickly. He lifted his Ice Rod, he’s been using the whip, boomerang, shield, and Ice Rod interchangeably throughout the battle as they were the easiest to keep from accidentally killing the fragile humans. Here, he waited for the right instant, and sprang around the corner and froze the floor over. The agents reacted quickly, and raised their weapons to fire but, when the first one tripped and fell, he brought the entire squad down with him, and Link walked easily up to them to knock them out.

Just then, he felt the entire Helicarrier lurch and he nearly lost his footing. His enemies, who where busy trying to stand back up, fared far worse, however, and accidentally fired some rounds into their own. Link saw blood begin to pool underneath them.

“It’s Barton!” Fury said over the intercom, “He took out our systems. He’s headed for the detention level. Does anyone copy?”

Link rushed for the men and examined their wounds as his earpiece responded, “This is Agent Romanov. I copy.”

Her voice sounded shaky, but Link didn’t have time for that. None of the injuries were life-threatening unless left completely alone, somehow, so he reached up and tapped the comm as he’d been shown: “This is Link. I’m pretty sure I’ve taken out all the guys coming for the bridge. They are wearing Shield uniforms, some are badly injured. Heading for the detention level now.”

As he ran his earpiece kept relaying messages.

“Stark, we’re losing altitude!”

“Yeah, noticed!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just as Thor reached Loki’s cage, he saw the door opening to let Loki go.

“No!” he shouted, hurling himself at his brother.

Loki reacted to the assault, crouching to brace for the tackle, but Thor flew right through the illusion and into the glass prison. Standing up, already annoyed at himself, he saw the door close again, sealing him in.

“Are you ever not going to fall for that?” Loki asked.

Angry, Thor slammed his hammer into the glass door, which cracked, but did not shatter, as he’d expected. About half the restraints on the cage unclamped themselves instantly, and suddenly Thor remembered who this cage had been made for, and how it worked.

Loki smiled and walked over to the control panel, “The humans think us immortal. Shall we test that?”

He started to enact the machine, but the sudden collapse of the man who’d come down here to release him took both god’s attentions.

Agent Coulson stood over the unconscious man holding a truly large gun, “Move away please,” he said.

Loki warily backed away from the panel of buttons.

“You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent The Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you wanna find out?” the friendly agent asked.

Suddenly he gasped as a blade rammed through his chest, right where his heart would be.

“NO!” Thor thundered in anger as his near-friend slumped to the ground.

Loki calmly walked over to the control panel, pressed a button, and Thor’s prison dropped. Suddenly, it stopped dead and Thor crashed to the current bottom on the containment. He looked up through the glass to see Link leaning over the edge of the hole in the Helicarrier, holding the cage with some kind chain stabbed into the glass directly above Thor. For him to be able to hold this whole thing up without tipping over, Link’s strength must be immense...

The warrior did even better though, and started dragging the cage back up by hauling his chain up, hand by hand. Thor stopped waiting around to be saved, though, and began spinning Mjolnir before launching himself through the weakened glass and back up to the Helicarrier. He flew up into the flying boat just in time to see Loki blasted away from Link by Coulson’s big gun. Link’s chain came back to him and he turned with Thor to get eyes on Loki.

Loki groaned but stood up quickly and, unfortunately, he’d landed near the exit. He ran for it and Thor was tempted to follow, but he noticed Link heading back for Coulson. Thor wavered a moment but it would be Coulson’s final moments. He should have people, plural, there with him at the end.

Link was apparently busy checking the mortal wound, but Coulson was trying to say something.

“Get... Loki... face him... together,” the dying man said, “Don’t let him destroy my world.”

“You’re not going to die,” Link said, and Thor looked at him, confused. Even an Asgardian would die from a wound this severe and only human medicine to help. Link, however, pulled a vial of something from the pouch at his waist and uncorked it, “Drink this,” he commanded.

Bewildered, Thor watched as Link poured the liquid down Coulson’s throat. The man gasped and coughed a moment but his breathing stabilized. Impossibly, the wound closed up entirely and the color came back into the man’s face.

After a moment, Coulson shook his head, “What...?”

Link smiled, flipping the empty vial in his hand before putting it away, “Red Potion. You’d probably call it a healing potion, but the word translates better as ‘red’. As long as you aren’t dead yet, it can save you.”

“That’s... impossible!” Thor said, even though he’d just seen it.

“How much does your people know of mine?” the wonderful man asked.

“Your people? Humans?” Thor asked.

“Hylians,” Link replied, and Thor’s eyes widened in total shock.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A lot could happen in thirty minutes. The entire attack hadn’t even lasted that long, and the amount of damage Agent Barton had managed to do was surprising. After saving Agent Coulson, Link had gone with Thor to try and catch Loki, but they never caught up with him. Link had kept his Lens of Truth on the entire search, just in case, but it had proved fruitless and now he was running very low on magic. If he didn’t find a way to replenish that soon: his arsenal would shrink drastically.

Eventually, they’d heard that Agent Barton had been knocked out and contained by Agent Romanov, and that Loki was no longer on the Helicarrier. Steve and Stark had managed to get the destroyed turbine running again, and the Shield Agents had managed to descramble their systems enough to turn the other back on. Banner was who-knew-where, Shield’s communications were down among other issues and had no news of the outside world, the lab where the information regarding the whereabouts of The Tesseract had been destroyed in the attack, and Stark’s Iron Man armor had taken severe damage.

Link sat at the main table on the bridge along with Thor, Steve, and Stark. Agent Romanov was with Barton, Link wasn’t sure why he hadn’t picked up on it but those two were apparently very good friends. The mood was dour, the losses they’d taken weighing down on them. The main problem was that nobody knew what to do next. With the lab destroyed, all they could do was wait for Loki to open the portal and react to that.

“I lost my one good eye,” Fury was saying, but Link wasn’t listening.

He knew everyone was thinking about the same things, that the silver linings weren’t holding up to the losses they’d suffered, that they needed to find some way of knowing where the portal would be opened before it was, and that their ability to fight an alien army was heavily diminished.

Based on prior experience, Link would be able to sense the portal once it was open, but by then it would almost be impossible to get there in time. They couldn’t afford to let that army form ranks.

“Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract,” Fury said, “I never put all my chips on that number, though, because I was playing something… even riskier.”

Link’s ears perked up, wondering what move the Director had left.

“There was an idea, Stark knows this and Link… you picked up on it, called ‘The Avengers Initiative’. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something greater. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could.”

“Well that’s what Link was saying, wasn’t he?” Stark interjected, “You can’t control us, so you need to trust us. We’re not soldiers, but we can be heroes.”

“That becomes a problem when the people in question are people like you, Stark,” Steve said, “Some of us have been soldiers long enough to know the difference between when to act on our own and when to follow orders. Heroes aren’t heroes unless people believe in them, who do you think believes in us?”

“I do,” Coulson said, immediately. Steve turned to counter but stopped when he saw the obvious blood-stain on the agent’s shirt and jacket. It clearly gave him pause.

“So do I,” Agent Hill said, and Link saw she was looking directly at him. He read admiration in her eyes. When had that happened? He nodded his thanks to her anyway.

“Captain,” Link said, a plan finally forming in his mind, “We can still save this world but it has to be we. Fury’s right, we have to work together,” he tuned to Stark, “All of us.”

“I will be proud to fight alongside you, Link,” Thor said, and Link nodded appreciatively.

“We still don’t know where to go,” Steve said.

“Why do you think Loki hit us here?” Link asked, “Right where all his only threats gather he walked right in and slapped us across the face, why?”

“He made it personal,” Stark said, realizing what Link had only moments ago.

“I don’t think that’s Link’s point…”

“It is the point, it’s Loki’s point. He hit us all right where it hurts… why?”

“To tear us apart?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, divide and conquer is great and all but… he knows he has to beat US to win, right? That’s what he wants!”

“Right,” Steve said, catching on, “So where can he get both an audience and a power source?”

“A… capital city of some kind?” Thor offered.

“Yeah…” Stark said, pointing at Thor, “Somewhere he can beat us and be seen doing it, he wants the world’s best to stand up to him and fall at his feet.”

“He thinks he’s a god and he wants the world to see him the same way,” Link said, continuing the line of thought, they’d already gotten past what he’d been able to work out for himself but the train of logic was easy to follow.

“Exactly,” Stark agreed, “He wants an altar, or… a monument built to the skies with his name plastered on it—” he stopped short for a moment where they all realized the truth. “Son of a—” Stark swore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some time later, they’d been delayed by waiting on Stark needing to fix his armor, Steve walked into the room Agent Romanov was watching Barton in, Thor had been sent to find Banner, if possible, to bring to New York City and Link was securing a Quinjet for use.

“Time to go,” Steve said.

“Go where?” the Black Widow asked.

“I’ll tell you on the way, can you fly one of those jets?”

“I can,” a new voice said, and Steve turned to see Agent Barton returning from a bathroom, apparently washing up.

Steve looked a question to Romanov, who nodded, “You got a suit?” he asked the Agent.

“Yeah.”

“Then suit up.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maria turned to see Link return to the bridge and toss a really big gun to Agent Coulson, who barely caught it, “You’re gonna want that.”

“I can’t come,” Phil protested, “I’ve got… stuff here,” he gestured around.

“You saved my life with that weapon,” Link said, and Hill raised her eyebrows in surprise, “You’re one of us, now go get yourself a new suit, Avenger.”

Coulson looked shocked for a moment, but recovered quickly, and dashed off the bridge, giant experimental gun in tow. Link turned to go, and Maria felt a ping of jealousy, she’d known Link for years, but about 24 hours on this boat and Link added Coulson to the self-forming Avengers instead of her? She understood, really she did. Coulson was a better fit. He didn’t know it, but Director Fury had actually put him on his list of people he wanted as Avengers. More than that, well, he’d fought Loki, and he and Link had saved each other from the god. It was fitting. She just wished she could go too, even if she knew she shouldn’t. Her duty was here. She could do far more good here than in some firefight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Link watched Captain America, The Black Widow, Agent Barton?, and Agent Phil Couslon come up to the Quinjet he’d commandeered with a smile on his face, though, they’d really have think of a title for Coulson. Maybe… Agent Shield? No that didn’t work, eh someone would come up with something. Anyway, some Shield Agent tried to stand in their way for a moment. Link hadn’t been challenged, for some reason, and was surprised to see them be stopped, but Steve said something and the agent gave up pretty quickly.

In a moment they were taking off, Agent Barton flying, apparently Natasha had fully cured him of the mind control.

“So, they’re using Stark Tower as their power source?” Romanov asked.

“Seems likely,” Link said, “Are we sure Barton is fine now? Could he be faking? I don’t sense any magic on him but that’s not proof, none of the men who attacked the Helicarrier did.”

“He’s clear,” Agent Romanov said, and Link found he trusted her.

“He’s Hawkeye again,” Coulson said, and when Link gave him a questioning look he explained, “That’s what he was called before Shield. He wasn’t a bad guy then, just insanely talented and skilled. Hawkeye makes a great superhero name, right?”

Link nodded, but apparently Coulson wasn’t really done, “What about you, Link? You ever have a cool hero name in your time?”

“Uh…” Link said, “Well… I suppose, but each time I reincarnated I got a new one so… it feels wrong to use one of them. But I had a lot of them, because of that: The Hero of Time, The Hero of Winds, The Hero of Twilight, The Hero of the Wild, it kinda just depended on what specific skills I had to learn in that incarnation, really.”

“Hmm…” Coulson seemed to consider this for a bit, “So, you’re a Hylian, right? That’s what your people called themselves?”

Link nodded.

“Ok, how about… Hyrule Warrior?”

“Been that one before, actually.”

“Ok… how about… Monster Hunter?”

“Isn’t that a video game series?” Link asked.

“Relic Hunter?” Coulson amended.

“Hey, that works,” Natasha said.

Link groaned, already knowing he wasn’t getting away from that title.

Chapter Text

Tony Stark arrived at New York City well ahead of the rest of the team, which was good because he needed a new suit. Even as he flew in, his boosters stuttered and came close to giving out. That wasn’t his main concern, however. Nor was the portal machine he could see sitting atop his building, though that was high on the list. It was actually something Link had said before.

Ok, well actually it was Captain Rogers who’d first said it but, somehow, it was Link’s agreement that stung. Of all the ‘Avengers’ he, Tony Stark ‘The Invincible Iron Man’, was the one that people found hard to trust. Still, he shoved that thought down for later. Right now, he needed to try and shut this science project down.

“Sir, I’ve turned off the arc reactor,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “the device is already self-sustaining.”

Tony came to a halt in the air at the top of his tower, “Shut it down, Dr. Selvig.”

“It’s too late!” the doctor yelled with a laugh in his voice that bordered on fanaticism, “She can’t stop now. She wants to show us something. A new universe.”

“Ok,” Tony said, knowing immediately there was no reasoning with the flying monkey. He fired repulser blasts at the machine, but the attack struck a force field that sent his attack right back at him.

As he stabilized, Jarvis helpfully chimed in his ear, “The barrier is pure energy. It’s unbreachable.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Tony said, looking down at the dock for his suit, and at Loki who seemingly waited for him outside the very lobby Coulson had invaded to recruit Tony in, “Plan B.”

“Sir, the Mark 7 is not ready for deployment,” Jarvis cautioned with as much urgency as his AI voice could muster.

“Then skip the spinning rims, we’re on the clock,” Tony said as he landed on the dock. He walked forward and those same spinning rims rose up to remove the damaged suit.

Loki turned and walked inside as the suit was disassembled and put away. Tony knew that, god or not, the man would be able to kill him without much effort without his armor. He’d have to play this very carefully.

“Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my ‘humanity’,” Loki mocked as they entered the room opposite each other.

“Uh, actually I’m planning to threaten you,” Tony said, semi-truthfully.

“Ha, you should’ve left your armor on for that,”

Loki advised, pointedly pointing his magic staff at him.

“Yeahhhh, it’s seen a bit of mileage, and you’ve got the Glow Stick of Destiny,” Tony quipped, “Want a drink?”

“Heh, stalling me won’t change anything,” Loki warned.

That was too close to the truth, so Tony countered quickly, “No no no, threatening. No drink, you sure? I’m having one.”

“The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that,” Loki said, turning and looking out the window at the world he intended to wage war against, “What have I to fear?”

“The Avengers,” Tony said, popping the cork of a nice bottle of bourbon.

He looked up, waiting for Loki’s confusion to show. When it did he continued as if he’d just forgotten to explain, “It’s what he call ourselves. We’ve formed a team. ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ type… thing.”

“Yes,” Loki said, “I’ve met them.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, “Individually, yeah. It took us a while to get any traction, I’ll give you that. But… let’s do a headcount here: your brother, the demigod,” (Loki let his spite show and he turned away). Taking the opportunity, Tony slipped the tracking bracelets on as he continued, “The supersoldier, the living legend who kinda lives up to the legend. A man with breathtaking anger management issues,” (Loki actually chuckled at that one), “A couple of master assassins, their boss with a really really big gun, you would know, you survived it. The oldest hero probably to exist in the universe and YOU, big fella. You’ve declared war on the one planet they all care about,” he finished, accusatorially.

“That was the plan,” Loki said, as if that should instill fear.

“Not a great plan,” Tony said, brushing it aside, “When they come, and they will, they’ll come to stop you from ravaging their home and their people.”

“I have an army!” Loki hissed, the threat finally sinking in.

“We have a Hulk.”

“Oh, I thought the beast had wandered off?”

“Yeah, you’re missing the point: there’s no throne. There’s no version of this where you come out on top. Now maybe your army comes and maybe it’s too much for us, but we won’t go down, and we won’t give up. Because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it,” Tony finished, taking a sip of his bourbon.

Loki walked up, looking truly angry, “How will your friends have time for me, if they’re so busy fighting you?” he asked ominously as he raised his staff.

Tony had just enough time to hope his hunch was right as the scepter glowed and it was pressed against his chest. He flinched but a clink sounded and the energy faded back into the gem. Loki adopted a look of confusion and tried again, producing the same effect, minus Tony’s flinch.

“This usually works,” he said, which Tony found funny.

“Well, performance issues,” he grimaced dramatically, “not uncommon, one out of five—”

He choked as Loki grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the ground near the window.

“Jarvis? Anytime now,” he said as he tried to stand up.

Loki grabbed him again and, while Tony struggled to breathe, he raged, “You will all fall before me!”

“Deploy!” Tony shouted with the last of his air while Loki lifted him further, “Deploy…” he croaked as he was thrown through the window.

He fell fast, but spread his arms and legs to increase air resistance. If he hit, it would still absolutely kill him, but at least he had a plan. He heard the sound of his suit catching up with him and within seconds it had locked on correctly and began forming itself around him.

With only moments to spare, the Iron Man fully connected around him and he used his repulsers to catch his fall and right himself. He rocketed back up to the top of his tower to find Loki looking very upset.

“Because, here’s the thing,” he shouted at the would-be-conqueror of Earth, “nobody looks up to tyrants, but they put their trust in heroes.”

Loki raised his scepter to fire, but Tony was faster, he blasted Loki off his feet with a repulser beam. Then the device on the roof shot a blue beam into the air, opening a portal large enough to swallow a skyscraper in the sky. Dozens of small flying machines all but instantly raced out of the hole in the sky.

“Right,” Tony said, as his suit automatically switched to full combat mode, “Army.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Quinjet was almost to New York when Link felt the portal open.

“Drop me off as soon as we get to the city!” Link said, “Loki just activated the portal.”

“Yeah, see it,” came Barton’s reply.

Link, Steve, and Coulson all came up front to see out the windshield. Link had seen a lot of bad things, Blood Moons in particular seemed the closest to what he witnessed now. Not that it looked the same, technically, but it had the same feel. Last time Link had sensed the Tesseract, it had been from extremely far away and had only been active for a moment. Now it poured power like a skyward bound waterfall. Energy surged upward and coalesced to punch a hole in space, then a waiting army spilled forth to ravage his world. In that way, it was very much like the Blood Moons.

“Might want to charge that gun up, Coulson,” Steve said.

Link focused on the army itself. So far, they’d only sent one variant through, humanoid creatures riding some kind of flying chariot in pairs. Already, though, several dozen raced through the streets, firing energy-based weapons at everything they saw. Oddly, it seemed they were aiming for carnage more than actually death. They seemed to be firing mainly at the vehicles than the people, though as many people were in said vehicles, it wasn’t like they were shying away from it. It just didn’t seem to be their main goal. For that, Link was grateful.

“Alright, Link, opening the bay door for you.”

Link turned and waited for the door to open enough for him to leave, slipping on his Hover Boots, then took a running leap out. He soared in the sky, free falling, for a few moments while he picked a target, then fired his Hookshot at the leading chariot of a squad. It hooked in perfectly and he flew straight at it, grabbing on and drawing his sword, what was left of it, and killing the aliens on board. They cut like paper, even against the broken blade, and as the chariot lost control, Link simply ran to the next in line with his magic boots.

He killed each alien and kicked the chariots into places where they’d already done what damage they could with their energy attacks. Then used the Hookshot to find another squadron and wipe them out in the same fashion. He noticed Loki shooting down the Quinjet, but he doubted his fellow Avengers would be in any real danger.

Someone eventually figured out what Link was doing, for these Chitauri started shooting each other down trying to hit him, unfortunately. His sword might’ve been damaged, but his Mirror Shield was perfectly fine, and reflected the blasts right back like it was a lightsaber. Unfortunately, one finally shot the chariot underneath him instead and he fell down to ground level, though he pulled his bow out and shot the drivers of the remaining chariots in sight before he landed safely.

That was when a roar shook the entire city. Link looked up at the portal to see a monster larger than most of the skyscrapers in New York City coming through.

“Stark, you seeing this?” Link heard Steve ask through the comms.

“Seeing. Still… working on believing,” came the reply.

Link pulled his bow free and coated an arrow with light magic, using most of what he had left. He loosed right as Captain America started to reply. The arrow flew as fast and hard as a laser and hit its mark: right into the creature’s mouth. It roared in pain, but did not die.

“Ok, change of plan, Link have you got anything else you can try?”

“Plenty,” Link said, “but I’ll need it to come down here to try anything else. Stark, can you get it’s attention?”

“On it, Thor and Banner shown up yet?”

Link closed his eyes and tried to sense any sources of magic through the very distracting beacon of the Tesseract. There was something inside the city… but it was faint and couldn’t be Thor’s power…

“Not yet,” Steve said.

“I think I sense Thor,” Link said. “At least something’s moving very fast this direction.”

Then about ten Chitauri landed near him and he drew his sword and shield to dispatch them. That was when he noticed Stark had lead the… big thing overtop of him. He used the Hookshot to make his way on top, but on the way up noticed how many troops it was dropping off everywhere it flew. Those ones would probably be after civilians. Grinding his teeth, he set about cutting off the source, then he could… Link stopped.

Several of the aliens had been launched directly into nearby buildings, and had drawn various forms of weapons to attack anyone they found. It looked like his earlier assumption that destruction, not death, was their main objective needed revision.

“They’re cornering civilians!” Link yelled, dashing back off the monster to try and get to the nearest aliens he could see actively attacking people. “In the buildings!”

“Oh sure, leave the living Star Destroyer to me, why don’t you?” Stark quipped, but he didn’t seem sincere. He understood, despite the joke.

Link crashed through a window and rolled to his feet. He could see three Chitauri in on this floor, and only two had turned to face him, the third kept his weapon trained on fleeing office workers. Link moved with all the speed he had, slinging his boomerang at the third creature, and raising his Mirror Shield against the first two. All three fired and everything happened in a split second. Link’s boomerang caught the blast of the third and continued its path, unhindered. The energy blasts aimed at him struck the Mirror Shield one after the other, with just enough delay that Link was able to angle the shield with precision.

The first bolt was redirected into the third alien, hitting him in the back, hopefully killing him. The second shot took the one who’d first fired at Link in the head, definitely killing him. And then the boomerang arced back around and struck the second alien in the back of the neck, hitting him so hard he fell to the floor. Link, who had dashed forward the instant he’d deflected the second bolt, stabbed his head with what remained of his sword and scooped up his boomerang. Of course, by then, more Chitauri had arrived.

Link gritted his teeth, he wasn’t used to fights like this. Still, it only took seconds longer to clear out the floor. He moved back to the smashed windows and looked out to see where he should go next.

“Thor and Banner are back,” Steve said over the comm.

Great, they really needed to regroup. They could keep fighting the enemies right in front of them all they liked, but that would make them easy to distract, while the city fell all around them. Link hitched a ride on a passing group of flying chariots to meet up with everybody else. Of course, he left them tips. Big round blue ones with a fun surprise.

As the last one shattered into dozens of pieces, Link landed near his friends, rolling to break the fall. He did that more out of habit than actual need, though. He hadn’t been very high up.

“I’m bringing the party to you guys!” Stark said over the intercom.

They all looked across the street, where the Iron Man rounded a corner, closely followed by an angry flying alien. Somehow, despite having stood on its back, this scene really hit it home how big the creature really was, like some kind of space whale. With really, really big teeth.

“I… don’t see how that’s a party,” Natasha said.

Coulson uncertainly hefted his big gun and Thor brandished his hammer but Dr. Banner just started walking towards the monster.

“Dr. Banner,” Steve called after him, “now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”

Link agreed but doubted it could really be that simple.

“That’s my secret, Captain,” Banner said, looking back, “I’m always angry.”

Then, with no further explanation, Banner turned back to the creature, already impossibly growing in size and turned a bright green color. Just as the monster reached him, The Hulk punched it in the face. The armor running all across the alien’s body crumpled like paper, and Link knew instantly the Hulk had caved the monster’s skull in. All that momentum still had to go somewhere, and The Hulk was pushed back towards the group, though he was clearly unhurt.

The monster started to flip over, threatening to crush the lot of them, but Stark swooped in with an “I’ve got it,” and fired missiles that hit skin instead of armor and exploded, altering the beast’s momentum enough to shove it aside. All eight Avengers together heard the cries of anger and disbelief come from the Chitauri across the city as they watched their biggest monster felled in one, singular, punch.

They had their moment, however, and now it was time for things to get worse. Link was unsurprised to hear the Black Widow give a concerned, “Guys?”

They all looked up and watched three more of that same monster type dive out of the portal to descend on New York City.

“Call it, Captain,” Stark said.

“Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal our priority is containment,” Captain America said. “Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything, call out patterns and strays.”

The man nodded in understanding.

“Stark, you’ve got the perimeter. If anything gets more than three blocks out you turn it back or you turn it to ash.”

“Wanna give me a lift?” Hawkeye asked the Iron Man.

“Right, better clench up, Legolas,” Stark responded, grabbing him and rocketing off.

“Thor, you gotta try and bottleneck that portal,” the Captain continued, “you got the lightning, light the monsters up.”

Thor took off in a rush from his hammer, and Link honestly wanted to know what that thing’s deal was. It seemed to do… everything.

“Link, you’re where the people aren’t, make yourself the target, keep the Chitauri’s eyes on you, not those who can’t fight back. Be everywhere and be flashy.”

Link nodded, he could do that. He reached into his pack and pulled out a bottle, uncorked it and drained it. It was his last bottle, but it refilled his magic instantly.

“The three of us,” Steve said, gesturing to himself and the two remaining Shield agents, “protect civilians, kill anything that comes close and get them underground.”

Magic refilled, Link made to take off to find his first targets, but hesitated and looked back when he heard the last line of instruction.

“And Hulk,” the Captain said, the Beast looking right at him. Steve pointed up with one finger, “Smash.”

The Incredible Hulk grinned and jumped higher than Link would’ve thought possible, even for… well The Hulk, and slammed into a group of Chitauri grunts hanging on the wall of a skyscraper. Link decided he didn’t really need to overthink this. His task had basically been the same as The Hulk’s after all. As a squad of chariots passed overhead, Link grabbed on with his Hookshot and began wreaking havoc.

The next while passed in a blur, Link killed Chitauri ruthlessly, using every item he’d collected over the past years. His whip and hookshot yanked on weapons and aliens to keep them off anyone else. His Mirror Shield redirected their own attack against them. His Fire, Ice, and Wind Rods killed them by the squadron. His arrows took stragglers or far off enemies who had their attention on killing rather than him.

His bombs did as much damage as the Chitauri did, so he had to be careful with them, but they killed dozens at a time when he set it up right. His hammer and broken sword killed anything that chose to attack him directly. Even his gauntlets and other worn options helped him gain those slight edges to stay completely out of the alien’s league.

And he didn’t fight alone. Frequently Thor’s lightning, Iron Man’s repulsers, and Hawkeye’s incredibly varied arrows rained death on the enemies around him, sometimes saving him, sometimes just saving his ammo or time, but always welcome. He even fought back-to-back with Captain America for about a minute, and they cleared multiple squadrons in that time. Hawkeye consistently called out advice and new targets for him whenever he needed it.

At some point, Link noticed how many different types of guns the Chitauri carried, and decided to start a collection. Soon enough, he was shooting energy blasts back at the enemy, and he decided he favored a bayonet-like gun the most. He saw that the Black Widow had come to a similar conclusion, for she spun this way and that, stabbing those that got close and shooting at those still to far.

At one point he got pulled into another fight inside a building with about a dozen civilians trapped inside. Link vaguely thought it was a bank. For some reason, more and more Chitauri kept coming to attack this one spot, so he ended up fighting for a while, making use of several magic items and somehow preventing anyone from getting hurt, though everything happened so quickly even he couldn’t really recall what all he’d done.

There was finally a break when the others noticed what was happening, Link hadn’t had the hand to spare to activate his comm, and Thor killed those that were still coming while Agent Coulson came to escort the people out of the death trap the building should have been.

Link stood still for a moment, catching his breath, gods… he felt like he’d been sprinting for… well… long enough to wind even him.

“Who… who is he?” he heard a woman ask.

“He’s The Relic Hunter,” he heard Coulson reply.

Fortunately, Link’s mind caught up and he looked around. Wait… there were hundreds of bodies here, all Chitauri. How long had it been? He didn’t know. He took out a stamina potion to recover his strength, this fight was seriously going to drain his resources.

Strength renewed, Link fired his Hookshot and latched onto another chariot. It flew high, trying to throw him off. He broke it with his hammer and dropped onto one of the gigantic flying aliens. Deciding to try to take it down, he grabbed onto one its plates of armor and pulled with everything the Golden Gauntlets gave him. It peeled off it was was clearly a painful manner, for the beast roared its disapproval. After he got the thing fully off, he spun with it and cleared all the humanoid ones that had landed on the beast to fight him there, then threw it into some flying chariots.

With a brand new chink in the monster’s armor to work with, Link called to the others through the comm, and Stark put some kind of missile inside, which exploded inside the beast instead of on impact. As the monster crashed to the ground, Link suddenly sensed something that put a halt to his efforts. Four points of evil magic, surrounding one very small beacon of light magic. Something, no, someone, who could use magic was letting it loose in a steady stream. There should only be one person in the world capable of such a thing: Zelda.

And she was surrounded by four of Ganon’s servants.

Chapter Text

Ashley (Zelda’s latest name) had no idea why she’d found herself in New York City. She’d traveled here, of course, it wasn’t that she had trouble remembering her journey. Just that she’d been here for months. After leaving the… the… well, wherever she’d found the Master Sword, she’d followed her directional sense right to the largest city in America. To nothing.

No traces of ancient, forgotten, Hyrule existed in this city, she’d become nearly certain of it. There were very few ways to dampen power like that and those left other marks just as clear. She’d been led here though and… that was it. She’d contemplated leaving very frequently, though had never acted on it. She’d been led here, after all, maybe she was just early. She wished now that she had listened to herself.

Hiding from (or at least escaping) the creatures she’d dubbed ‘Black Drones’ in the city had been easy: she could sense them getting close each time. Living here had been… challenging, though, as her grasp of English was fuzzy and the people here were… vulgar. Then, however, Tony Stark had punched a hole in space and the world started coming to an end.

She’d been only a few blocks out when it happened and anyone could just look up to see what it was. An… an… alien army charging out of a portal in the sky, a portal stemming from Stark Tower. If she thought back, the power was pretty much the same as those huge bursts that had terrified her back when she’d been searching for the Master Sword. This time, however, the portal stayed open and the Earth had come under attack.

While the New Yorkers ran away, all but uselessly, Zelda had run towards Stark Tower. She saw the Iron Man in combat with the aliens, which was odd, he had to be the one with the portal, right? Didn’t matter, she had to get to whatever was holding it open. It was magical in nature, that much she could sense, so she figured that, whatever reason was preventing it from being closed, she might be able to do something about it.

Another part of her remembered a voice, a voice she couldn’t remember the origin of: “Remember, you face not only Darkness, but Infinity.”

Infinity. She’d had no idea what that might mean. She now wondered if this was it. Nothing, nothing in her memories had this much power, save maybe the Triforce itself. If it had been directed into the Earth instead of the sky, she felt certain it would have been destroyed.

A roar echoed from the portal, and Zelda looked up to see a monster of unfathomable size fly through the portal. Then a source of magic appeared, extremely briefly, and a tiny beam of light streaked into the sky and entered the monster in the mouth. She recognized that spell: a Light Arrow. Link was here. He’d finally arrived, just in time for an alien invasion.

The surge of hope within her upon realizing this was tempered, however, by the knowledge that even Link, first and greatest of all heroes, could not hope to fight this entire army. Still, she had to get to him. More soldiers started to launch off the enormous monster and attack anyone they saw. She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to sense Link’s actual location, though it was difficult to ignore the ceaseless beacon of power that held the portal open.

She did sense him, apparently he’d already made his way to fight the beast head on. There was one more source of magic large enough for her to pick out, though. And it was headed toward the city at an incredible speed, though it didn’t seem to be evil magic, what was that? Didn’t matter, she needed to keep moving.

She tried following Link around, but he moved far, far too quickly for her to catch up, and for some reason he’d apparently stopping trying to kill the flying Leviathan, though the Iron Man seemed to be trying to get through its armor. Finally, though, she rounded a corner to see a group of seven people, Link included, standing together as the Iron Man led the giant monster right to them. Who… were these people?

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped as one of Link’s companions suddenly grew into a monster in his own right, several times the size of the man he’d been, green, and a muscle structure that showcased unbelievable strength. At the same moment he transformed, he punched the Leviathan in the face and Zelda realized that her estimation of the brute’s physical strength had been greatly below the truth.

Even the alien horde seemed to be as disbelieving as Zelda herself, judging by the screams of indignant rage. Finally recovering herself, she tried to run for Link, but it didn’t take long for his new friends to start separating off to fight the alien invasion, and Link did the same, using some kind of chain mechanism to launch himself through the air. So that’s how he was getting around so fast. He passed right over her without seeing her, laying waste to a squadron of the flying chariots.

Zelda almost despaired, it seemed like catching up to Link wouldn’t be any easier just because they were in the same city, finally. A sudden burst of magic made Zelda look up, and felt her eyes widen again as a storm brewed from absolutely nowhere and sent a lightning bolt right down onto the Empire State Building, which then sent it back at the portal above. The bolt obliterated multiple squadrons of chariots and hurt at least one Leviathan that was trying to come through.

What kind of friends had Link found? How were they so powerful? How had they reacted to quickly to the sudden appearance of an alien invasion? A dozen questions spun through Zelda’s mind as the battle continued to unfold around her. She finally decided she was not going to be able to catch up to Link while this was going on. She instead had to help them win the battle and that meant closing the portal.

She turned towards Stark Tower, from which that skyward beam emanated, and began to run. At one point, she found herself cornered by several aliens who didn’t seem interested in taking prisoners. Just as she was about to let out a magical pulse, hoping it would actually do anything, an energy blast struck one and sent him flying into another. The aliens turned their attention to a man holding the biggest gun Zelda had ever seen, who fired again and took three more down, their corpses barely recognizable from the damage that weapon was causing.

The one remaining alien decided he couldn’t win by just shooting back, and had the bright idea of charging the man, who responded by pulling out a simple handgun and putting a hole in his enemy’s head. Even though she just been rescued by the guy, Zelda didn’t want to get stuck answering questions, so she turned and ran towards Stark Tower as before. If he was one of Link’s friends, she’d likely get to meet him properly, assuming they all survived this catastrophe.

Unfortunately, it almost seemed the army knew what she was trying to do, for at every other moment some of them would appear to slow her down. She used what little fighting ability she had, mostly from the times she’d learned the ways of the shinobi-like Sheika people, but it was only so helpful against so many. Even the most normal-seeming of Link’s allies had come equipped for this battle.

As she backed away against this latest lot, a squadron of chariots passed overhead… and were struck down with lightning, not as impressive as the one from earlier, by any means, but also still something Zelda would’ve considered impossible. A man dropped down where she stood, dressed in an almost medieval manner, except for the scale-like armor instead of chain. His red cape didn’t seem to hinder him as he casually spun a small hammer around so fast she genuinely couldn’t keep up, even with her Hylian senses. The man battered away her attackers with ease, and they flew as if struck with a battering ram, not a tiny hammer.

When they were all gone he turned to her, “There is shelter that way,” he said, pointing behind her. Then he was gone, flying off hammer first, presumably to seek more foes.

“W-what…?” she heard herself say, unable to finish the question aloud: What is he? Then she shook herself out of it and hurried onward, she had to get to that tower.

She almost made it. She was stalled by a few aliens as had happened before, but before she could even begin a fight, a pure black sword rammed through the creatures neck. Zelda stopped dead. She realized her mistake now, she’d let that giant beacon of magic and alien invasion distract her. It was stupid of her to forget that Ganondorf’s minions had hunted her ceaselessly.

The black sword was pulled free of the alien’s corpse, which fell and revealed a black figure whose dark cloak was a part of its body. Zelda turned to run, but found another Black Drone advancing on her from that direction. She desperately searched for a way out, but on one side there was only the smoking remains of a building, entrance blocked off by what had been its own upper floors, and on the other two more drones closed in.

There… there was nothing she could do. She wasn’t a fighter, she didn’t have even a part of the Triforce. A few aliens weren’t very powerful, but these agents of darkness, sent by the King of Evil? She’d never even scratch them. She’d die here and Link would never know. Zelda felt numb as tears began to roll down her face, she’d been so close.

Hands roughly grabbed her arms and started to drag her almost faster than she could walk. Were… were they not going to kill her here? Why not? What would they gain by changing the place of her execution?

No, you foolish girl! she thought to herself, use that brain of yours and THINK. There wouldn’t be any point to that so it must mean they mean to take you alive! But for what? Does Ganondorf think you know something he needs? Or… am I bait? Either way… either way it means you still have time. Is… is there some way to signal for help? Link and his allies, whoever they are, came here to fight that army… they knew this would happen. That beacon is making it hard to sense magical forces, since it’s so large… but what if I actively used magic? Could I make it big enough? I have to try.

Resolve strengthening her heart, Zelda let her magic flow out. She really could only manage a few tricks, really. Unfortunately, her practice with her powers had been… limited. A bit of illumination, some power to rewind an object’s time, a fair amount of healing, but she’d never had the luxury to actually train, as doing so would just point a beacon at her for Ganondorf, or his minions at least, to follow. But she was already captured. Now she just… let it out. No spell, just power radiating out from her body. No effect, or at least not traditionally, but it was a beacon of her own.

The Black Drones noticed, of course, and one raised its hand and sword to strike her head and Zelda panicked. If she fell unconscious, she’d never—!

Link took its hand off in one swift blow and for the first time in her life, she heard a Black Drone scream. It was a sound of rage, not pain, and it did not last long, but it made her crouch and cover her ears. That, apparently, saved her life. For when she looked up, Link stood over her, blocking multiple blades with his shield. Suddenly, he twisted his sword, she felt him pour magic into his blade, and he spun; sending the released magic out in a laser-like circle that expanded. All four drones dodged backwards easily, but it gave him the chance he needed, apparently, for he sheathed his sword, scooped her up like a sack, and used the chain mechanism she saw before to pull them far away from her attackers.

Wind rushed in her ears as they moved away, and her brain started trying to catch up with what had happened. Link had come, but… too quickly. There was no way it had been her signal that had alerted him. He’d sensed her before that. He’d come, just as he always had, and all she’d done by letting her magic out like that had endangered herself further. Another thought pushed through: the sword Link has used was broken, barely half a dozen centimeters of steel had extended from the hilt.

Suddenly, they were falling, Link had been using his chain thing to rocket them farther and farther away, but something had happened to his anchor point and now they tumbled through the air towards the ground at an alarming speed from an alarming height. Link moved fast, changing his grip on her to cover as much of her as possible with his own body, and when they hit, they landed on Link’s back. They rolled, but Link took almost all of the damage, all Zelda had felt was some rough jostling.

When they finally came to a stop, Link unfolded himself from around her and groaned: “Ow… darn Chitauri. I needed that wall.”

Zelda knew her English was bad, but she had never heard the word ‘Chitauri’ before. Were they the aliens? He stood up, setting her on her own feet, though she rocked a bit. He said something in English again, but she had trouble making it out. She looked around and realized Link was talking to… to… no way… that was… just impossible! Captain America?!

Link turned to face the way they’d come, and Zelda saw a terrible sight: all four Black Drones rushed towards them, but they weren’t the black-robed figures she was used to anymore. Now, all four of them were perfect copies of Link in all but color. They still appeared black as midnight.

Link spoke again, but in English too fast for her lack of understanding to keep up with. He drew his broken sword and walked towards the clones, preparing to engage them. What followed was horrifying to watch. Link was good, possibly the best swordsman ever to live. Unfortunately, these creatures had all of his skill and weapons to throw back at him, and there were four of them. To make matters worse… their swords weren’t broken. Link took hits and slashes as he tried desperately to fend all four off and, though he landed hits of his own, the Black Drones healed from any damage done to them.

Before she knew it, she spoke aloud in her native tongue, “Komm schon, Link!”

What she didn’t expect was to hear a response in that same German, “Du bist Deutscher?”

Startled, Zelda turned to the speaker, who turned out to be Captain America… which actually made sense now she thought about it. Still she rushed to make use of this surprising connection: “Please, Link needs help!” she pleaded in German.

“Link told me to to take care of you,” the Red, White, and Blue soldier answered, “but yes, I can see he needs help.”

He pointed at the battle, Link, after under a minute of battle was stumbling backwards, bleeding from a dozen wounds. One of the Dark Links rushed in to finish him off, but an arrow took it in the head and exploded. Even as it recovered, the other three made to claim the kill, but a lightning bolt blasted all four. As Link retreated, the man with the hammer dropped down to face them. But right as the battle would’ve engaged, Iron Man swooped down and used his hand weapons to blast two of them backwards about 4 meters.

“Come on!” Captain America shouted in German. And he took off towards the fight.

Link needs my help, she told herself, and ran towards him. As his three friends engaged in battle against the dark copies, Link staggered away, wounded and bleeding. To her. Somehow, that emboldened her.

She grabbed him and began healing his wounds as fast as she could.

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As soon as Link felt strong enough to fight again, he tried to pull free of Zelda’s grasp to go help his friends. Stalling for him was all well and good, but he’d realized very quickly that these enemies wouldn’t go down for anything less than magical attacks, they healed too quickly, rarely blocking or dodging blows that they could heal from.

“We need magical attacks!” he told Zelda, but she shook her head.

Zelda, instead of speaking in English, chose to sing Hylian instead. Hylian wasn’t technically spoken, it was also sung. Tones and notes gave inflection to combine with the words to convey more accurate meanings than any human languages Link had learned, and he’d learned most of them to at least some degree.

“I’m not good at English, Link,” she sung with urgency.

Singing more by instinct than practice, and hoping it was enough, he tried again in Hylian, “Only magical attacks can really hurt them, but they can counter my magical items too easily.”

Zelda nodded and sung with determination, “Show me that broken sword of yours.”

Link drew it, and Zelda held her hand out to it, using magic to do… something. It glowed with a bright, almost golden, light.

“Raise your sword Link. It calls to itself,” Zelda sung with tones conveying glory and awe.

Link obeyed, wonder what ‘calling to itself meant, but he soon found out. The broken shards of his sword came from the sky and… the sword repaired itself, right there in his hand. That wasn’t all though, for Zelda against raised her hand to the weapon, and poured her magic into it. The simple steel sword, given to Link years ago, now glowed with a brilliant aura.

“Hurry, Link, that enchantment will not hold easily to such a dead metal,” Zelda sang in urgency.

Link wasted neither time nor words, he charged back to help his friends in battle.

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Adrian watched the television with his family. Nobody even thought about the other tasks the day should have had for them. They all watched the events unfolding in America with grave solemnity. As aliens finally left the pages of The War of the Worlds and invaded mankind. As the police and National Guard struggled to mount so much as a line against them.

Only a very small few had any real success fighting back. The Iron Man and Captain America were named on the news, but the others nobody had heard of. Adrian knew the name of one more. The boy he’d met only a few years ago fought with magic and… it was hard to tell from this distance but…

“That boy broke my sword,” he said in indignation before his mind remembered to stay quiet. He looked around his son’s household to see if anyone had pick up on the oddity of his statement. He seemed safe.

However, a new face soon changed things, a girl Link had apparently saved used magic to repair the blade, and make it glow to boot. Adrian smiled, it seemed the boy was no longer alone in his fight.

Adrien knew he didn’t have much longer. The magic pool had not cured his age, only taken some of the years off his mind and body. He no longer had trouble remembering things, but his body had begun to fall apart again almost as soon as he’d left that pool. He hadn’t gone back, he’d begun to weary of life, though he treasured the return of his mind to enjoy time with his family these last years.

Link attacked the black figures that seemed to be holding their own against the great warriors that were the boy’s allies, fighting in tandem with them, four on four. The rest of the battle raged on around them but, somehow, Adrian knew this was separate from the alien invasion. This power belonged to the being he’d only glimpsed in the pool he’d discovered as a young man.

Adrian still worried about that being, not for himself (he doubted he’d survive the year), but for everyone he cared about. Dark times would, in all likelihood, come before that boy’s journey ended. Yet, by giving the world’s heroes a softer challenge to rise to, Adrian thought this cursed alien invasion was likely to bless the world more than it would hurt it. He smiled as the irony in his own thoughts. A blessed curse.

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The power Zelda had filled Link’s sword with only lasted a few minutes, but it was enough. He and Thor could harm the four Dark Links with hammer and sword respectively and with the Iron Man and Captain America able, at least, to fight if not harm them the fight did not last long. Unfortunately, the whole situation had forced all four of them into one place, leaving only The Hulk and three regular humans to fight Loki’s war. The Avengers had to split up again in haste, Link promising to explain later.

He hurried back to Zelda. Zelda. Here. He’d wondered for years when he’d hear even the faintest scrap of news about her, and she just appeared seeming out of nowhere in the middle of the one adventure he’d been having that didn’t concern her at all. Well, Fate could be odd sometimes. At least she’d only gotten caught at the same time their paths finally crossed.

Zelda spoke (or sang) in Hylian again as he approached, “Link, you must get me to the top of that tower, where the portal comes from. I may be able to close it.” The only tone she used was urgency.

“Stark and Thor both already tried, there’s a barrier around the machine,” he sang with reluctance. Then he added worry, “Escorting you would be next to impossible, even leaving aside the possibility of more of Ganondorf’s minions…”

He faltered a moment as he thought of an obvious answer, “Unless…” he sang with consideration

He handed her his Magic Cape, “That will make you both invisible and intangible. You’ll have to take it off to interact with anything, and it uses your own magic, so I hope you’ve got plenty,” he sang with explanation.

Zelda’s face hardened with determination, and that same emotion filled her next verse: “I will return this to you, Link.” She flung the cape over her shoulders and vanished.

Link looked down at his remade sword, the extra power Zelda had imbued in the blade was gone, but the sword itself remained intact. He looked up to the sky. Two of the armored space whales still coursed through the sky, smashing buildings and dropping off foot soldiers. This battle was far from over. He heaved a sigh and used his Hookshot to get back to work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Agent Clint Barton, or Hawkeye, saw everything. It wasn’t what some people thought, though. He had perfect eyesight, but he didn’t have supernatural eyesight. What he could do was understand what hen saw better. It was a training thing, really. The same was true of his aim. He could use guns basically as well as the bow, but the bow felt more comfortable in his hands. Of course, the ‘trick arrows’ Shield had developed and supplied him with made it almost, if not more, deadly. When it was used competently.

He watched a chariot pass his line of sight and, with skill trained and used so long he didn’t have to think about it anymore, he attached an explosive arrow and fired off where he knew it must be, even if he couldn’t see it anymore. He heard the explosion and knew it had found its mark. It was all as simple as that. Difficult, but simple.

His friend, Natasha, fought simply too. Skillfully, dodging and shooting and stabbing with one of the Chitauri’s own weapons. She used what was to hand: the terrain, the weapons, the non-weapons, and her own body to fight. It was so simple he doubted she thought about what she did. You could watch her and know how she pulled it off. Simple.

Coulson and Captain America fought simply too. Mostly. Their weapons were less simple, with that shield completely ignoring the laws of physics and Coulson’s gun imitating alien tech, but they still fight in ways Clint could understand: punch, kick, shoot, throw. They also acted with skill and practice that made them incredible to watch, but they fought simply.

The Hulk was perhaps the most simple of all. He was unbelievably, even impossibly strong, but all he did was use that strength to… well smash. Simple.

Even the Chitauri themselves were simple. Oh their weapons and gear took a little getting used to at first, but they were basically a space-age army. A cruel army, sure, but their patterns and tactics were very much like the modern kind Clint knew on Earth. Made it simple to understand and predict them. Clint liked simple.

That… was kinda where ‘simple’ ended though. The remaining Avengers didn’t seem to do simple, nor the remaining enemies. Tony Stark’s Iron Man had a seemingly inexhaustible arsenal of self-made weapons that he used to cause devastating damage to the enemy forces. Clint watched in bafflement as he flew directly into the mouth of one of the space whales and blew it up from the inside. He never repeated tactics either. Something worked once, and he went and came up with something new to deal with the same problem.

Thor… Thor combined The Hulk’s raw power with the skill of any of the agents. If that had been it, Clint could’ve called his fighting simple… but of course it wasn’t. No, he just had to be some kind of god from the ancient myths, and quite capable of the things those myths talked about. He summoned miniature storms, lightning bolts, and powerful winds to kill even the armored space whales with ease.

And then there was that hammer. Clint had been in New Mexico. He knew that thing shouldn’t have been able to be lifted. But some kind of magic made it light as a feather to Thor’s hands, though judging by the way everything crumpled when Thor hammered it… it still had all that weight somehow. And it just… came back to him. Because magic. Not simple. Oh Clint was glad to have him on his team, but it was a bit mind-bending.

And yet… somehow… Link was crazier, not as directly powerful as either Stark or Thor, but crazier. Clint found himself simultaneously wanting to watch Link fight more and less than everyone else. He moved with speed and skill that none of the others, even the god with thousands of years of experience, could match. He’d get completely surrounded and just… win anyway. Even before his sword had been repaired by… whoever that was, he’d used it flawlessly to make corpses of enemies.

But it wasn’t just the sword. Clint had been watching everyone fight, and if Stark always seemed to have a new trick he came up with on the spot, Link had as many or more already prepared and practiced. And his arsenal was as varied as either Stark or Thor. Clint still wasn’t sure he’d seen every weapon Link had to throw at the Chitauri. Wherever he went, every Chitauri died, and every human lived, and Clint couldn’t always even see how he’d done it. If there had been an exception, Clint hadn’t seen it. If Stark and Thor could be mind bending, Link was unfathomable.

He could see why Coulson had dubbed him ‘Relic Hunter’. The name had two meanings, really, and both fit… kinda. Neither really were perfect, but… Clint admitted he couldn’t think of a code name that really worked for the kid. Maybe he could’ve if he’d known him better, but just off how he fought… he was too varied. He was too skilled at everything he did, which was also seemingly everything.

Clint’s thoughts were interrupted by Natasha, “I’ve got Loki on me, can someone get him off?”

Clint started and looked around, finding her speeding through the air… on one of the Chitauri chariots. Loki followed behind her on one as well.

“Nat, what’re you doing!?” he had to ask.

“Uh… little help?” she asked, not answering the question.

He drew an arrow and aimed carefully, “I got him.”

He let the arrow fly, and Loki casually grabbed it out of the air, without even looking. Seriously, this guy made almost as little sense as Link. The arrow exploded and Clint allowed himself a triumphant smile. Sometimes simple could be a lot better than crazy.

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Loki landed back on Stark Tower after the exploding arrow took him by surprise. He pushed his way to his feet and was about to go get revenge on that traitorous archer when the big green beast suddenly appeared and tackled him through the window into the building. With ever so slightly more time to realize what was happening, Loki managed to roll the fall and be on his feet.

The idiot monster made to attack again, but Loki had suffered one indignity too many.

“Enough!” he shouted at The Hulk, who halted. “You are all of you beneath me!” he raged at the beast. “I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by a—” and that was as far as he got.

The entire process took only a few seconds, but those seconds felt like an hour. Loki’s mind tried and failed to keep up with the room flailing about around him and the constant battering of his body as it was smashed against two different portions of the floor. Loki might call himself a god, but in that moment he was as helpless as a rag doll in the hands of a child. A very, very angry child.

When it was over, Loki found he didn’t want to move. Some subconscious part of him heard The Hulk’s remark about him, but it was a while before it really registered. All he really knew was the aching all over his body as it tried to put itself back together after such a brutal pounding. That and the echo of a voice, not The Hulk’s, but the Hylian’s: “I’ve fought real gods. It’s like fighting a storm that hates you.”

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Zelda shook herself out of the shock of what that green giant had done to the so-called god. She didn’t know who he was or why he was here, but from that partial speech he’d given, she guessed he was the real reason aliens were attacking her planet. It… didn’t look like he’d be getting up anytime soon, though, even if he wasn’t just dead. Still invisible, she hurried up to the roof.

She rushed out onto the balcony, looking for a way up. The elevator had only taken her to this floor. She spotted an odd object laying on the floor, though: a scepter… or maybe a spear. Mostly golden with a blue gem, it looked to be very similar to the armor of the invading army. Zelda could also sense magic from it. An alien army with a magic item? She walked over and tried to pick it up, which, of course, didn’t work.

She took off Link’s Magic Cape and picked it up, examining it. The magic felt… incredibly similar to the type generating the portal above. She looked up at the roof… and saw two people looking down at her! An old man and a red-haired woman with… incredibly tight fitting leather clothes.

“Could… you throw that up?” the redhead asked.

Startled, Zelda responded more earnestly than she normally might with what English she knew, “What for?”

“It can shut down this portal!” the old man said just as loudly.

Zelda considered. If they wanted to shut it down, and this spear could do that, all to the good… but… was that really their goal? She didn’t know them. She decided trust might be the wrong virtue to exercise in this case. Instead of throwing it up, Zelda crouched down and leapt up about three meters to grab onto the ledge with one hand. Shame, she’d hoped to clear the ledge and land on the roof with them. Still, they helped her up, a necessary thing, with one hand still grasping the spear.

“Who… or what… are you?” the old man asked.

“A friend of Link’s?” said the redhead, her voice saying she guessed it already and was only seeking confirmation.

So this woman was with the group Link was fighting alongside? Maybe trust wasn’t so foolish here after all.

“Yeah, not good at English, though. You can fixed stopped the portal?”

“That scepter is the key,” the old man began to explain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony Stark was starting to run out of weapons. And battery. The arc reactor was a powerful generator, but he still hadn’t found a way to make it too much better than he already had a few years ago. And at this size, his Iron Man suits could drain it faster than it could generate. Not all at once, but in an extended battle like this one? He could tax it too much if he wasn’t careful. He didn’t have the ability to be careful.

Chitauri were everywhere, threatening everything. For each squadron he or another Avenger destroyed, two came through the portal. They were making a difference, nobody could deny that, but they were slowly getting overwhelmed. Eventually, they’d start getting picked off.

For some reason, that wasn’t the main thing on Tony’s mind. Maybe half an hour ago, Hawkeye had called out that Link had been pinned, and Tony along with several other Avengers had gone to dig him out. The insane amount of Chitauri dead in that building had been insanity, and Tony regretted not getting to witness the incredible display that fight must’ve been, but what stood out to him had been the civilians trapped there with Link. Not one had died, and they all had looked at Link with hope and awe, though he didn’t think Link had noticed.

They hadn’t known Link before that moment, certainly. They had been saved by him, though. He’d appeared without warning and saved them. And they happily placed their hopes of survival in him, staying where he could protect them instead of running. It was the opposite wherever he went. Sure, most of his skirmishes were fought in the sky, but when he entered a building to kill the Chitauri that had tried to pick off randoms hiding under their desks, those people had run the moment the Chitauri turned to fight him. It wasn’t really a one for one example, but it happened so often Stark had begun to wonder what he was doing wrong.

Something hit him hard from above, and he crashed to the ground, rolling through a payphone. As he tried to get up, more Chitauri came in and started dogpiling him, stabbing at his armor with their alien bayonets. Oddly, that’s when he realized the difference. Link has consistently placed himself between the Chitauri and anything else. While Stark had gone around obliterating anything he saw, Link had gone around saving any humans he saw. He’d gotten pinned doing that… but as a result, nobody had died. Not there at least.

“Stark, you hear me?” Fury’s voice suddenly came in, while Tony was still trying to throw the aliens off himself, “You have a missile headed straight for the city.”

“How long!?” he shouted back.

“Three minutes, max. Payload can wipe out midtown.”

“JARVIS, put everything we got into the thrusters!” he shouted, blasting the last of the Chitauri off him.

“I just did.” JARVIS said with a tone that almost reached urgent.

Tony rocketed off the ground and started tracking the missile with his satellite.

Just as he laid eyes on the thing, Tony heard Natasha’s voice: “We can shut the portal down, can anybody copy?”

“Do it!” the Captain yelled.

“No, wait!” Stark countered.

“Stark, these things are still coming!”

“I got a nuke coming in, it’s gonna blow in less than a minute!”

He arced under a bridge as said nuke went over the same one, and started chasing after it, gaining ground quickly.

“And I know just were to put it.”

There was no way to stand in between the enemy and the people with this one. But Roger’s voice mixed with what he’d observed from Link. He couldn’t cut this wire. He could lay down over it, though. And only he could.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Stark, you know that’s a one-way trip.” Link heard Steve say.

“Save the rest for the turn, J,” was all they heard in reply.

Link gave a sad smile. He’d agreed with Steve, in a way. But it seemed Tony was starting to learn. Despite what Steve said, though, there was a chance Tony Stark would escape this. There was also a chance he failed entirely, but he supposed nobody could criticize him if that happened.

“Hey, mister hero!”

Link turned and saw an overweight man in a dirty black hoodie holding his phone up, recording him, Link guessed.

“What are these things?” the man asked.

Link’s mind raced and came up with a plan, “You want to film the most watched video ever?”

The man blinked in confusion, but nodded.

“Then film that!” Link said, pointing at the missile that Stark was pushing towards the portal.

The man instantly complied and Link smiled for real. Whether or not Tony Stark survived today, the Iron Man would be known and, more importantly, trusted as a hero around the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zelda hadn’t followed most of the conversation, she really needed to learn English properly. Still, she couldn’t understand why Natasha wasn’t closing the portal. A quick test had proven she couldn’t get past the magic barrier around the device, but with some setup, it seemed that spear she’d found and brought up here could. Natasha held it now, piercing the barrier with obvious effort, but was just holding it there.

Abruptly, something rushed right past them. Zelda looked up with Natasha and Dr. Selvig to see the Iron Man carrying a missile about twice his size up into the portal!

Even as he climbed higher and higher, multiple alien chariots came up at his tail, firing their energy blasts, trying to stop whatever attack this was. Desperately, Zelda summoned time magic and caught as many of the chariots as she could in the spells. About three of them stopped dead, frozen for just a few moments. The final two stayed on Iron Man’s tail, but were suddenly shot down by light arrows. The armored hero passed through the portal unhindered.

Everyone held their breath. Zelda felt as though the world was holding its breath. Suddenly she heard a deep rumble, like a groaning whale off to the side and she turned to see one of the alien space whales just… turn off and fall, like it had been a robot, not a living creature. She looked back at the portal, this must have been Stark’s intention but… was he coming back?

“Come on Stark,” she heard Natasha whisper, and Zelda shared the sentiment.

A red light shone through the portal. Nobody could have been certain, but it seemed as though the explosion was almost coming through. Natasha acted before it could and stabbed the device with the scepter. The overwhelming magical force stopped and the beam powering the portal ceased. The hole in space began to close. The world would weep for the Iron Man.

At the absolute last instant, the Iron Man reappeared! He fell limply, and appeared to have no control. Once again, Zelda summoned time magic, she didn’t stop or reverse his time, she slowed it. He’d hit the ground with all the same force, but maybe…

The green giant suddenly bounded up the side of a building and leapt into the air, catching the falling hero out of the sky. Zelda released her spell and sagged. Today had been exhausting, more emotionally than physically… but still… exhausting.

She’d lost consciousness before she hit the floor.

Chapter Text

Loki started to sit up as his ears had finally stopped ringing. Of course, he knew he’d already lost. He’d sensed the portal shutting down, and for all he hated it, he knew full well those fools calling themselves ‘The Avengers’ could handle however many were caught on this side. He could still slip out, though. Maybe even snag the cube on the way—

His thoughts shut off when he noticed who else was in the room. All eight Avengers, most pointing weapons at him, including that huge gun that had hurt so much back in the Helicarrier. That… beast was here too. Loki considered using magic to vanish but he noticed Link there. Not holding any weapons, not looking particularly angry like some of the others. He was at his ease. But Loki remembered trying to sneak up, fully invisible, on the Hylian. He remembered getting grabbed out of his illusion and tossed to the floor like a sack of grain. Loki decided not to risk anything just now.

“If it’s all the same to you… I’ll have that drink now,” Loki said, eliciting a grunt from more than a few of them.

Thor produced a set of handcuffs from somewhere and Loki was well and truly captured. He only had one more weapon left to him, his tongue. He started to mock the muscle-brained fools, if he could make one of them angry enough he might get a chance at escap—

“Shut. Up.” Thor said with a complete lack of patience as he slapped a metal gag on Loki’s face.

Loki decided it might not hurt to stay silent for a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was six hours later, six hours of playing keep away with shield for the Tesseract and Loki for some of the Avengers, for others it had six hours of search and rescue; but for Link it had been six hours of Urgent Care. Not for him, but for Zelda. She lay sleeping now, thankfully, but she’d pushed herself. Hard. Link could not fathom what her life must’ve been like to bring her, a Hylian, to an exhaustion near to death, but she’d survive… now.

He sat, exhausted himself, next to her bed. The hospitals had all been extremely full and shortstaffed, but the efforts of The Avengers had not been for naught. Places like this had not been the focus of the attack, and Cap’s plan to draw the Chitauri’s attention had worked extremely well. There was damage, there were losses, but the city was still functional, and places like these were designed to be the last buildings to lose power and functionality.

Everybody knew why the city had survived. The Avengers were the talk of the city, the names ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Captain America’ and even ‘The Avengers’ were on every tongue, along with partial or outright false names for the rest of the Avengers. He’d heard himself referred to as a dozen things, usually nonsense. He was starting to think Coulson had the right idea providing a name ahead of time. ‘The Relic Hunter’ was the most common name he heard people whispering and it was far better than most.

Coulson had a hundred names already, but the more time went on the more he heard ‘Agent Avenger’ being spoken, which Link found objectively awful. Hopefully, something better would surface.

Anyway, being known had been very important, Link had brought Zelda’s unconscious and slowly dying body to the nearest hospital he’d found and, when he’d explained that she wasn’t human and the doctor’s expertise was close to useless, they’d given Link a room and anything else he asked for. Zelda had been malnourished and dehydrated, exhausted and delirious when her mind resurfaced. He’d saved her, without potions and with human tools. Okay, many human medical inventions were incredible, but most were useless to HIM.

He didn’t know if their normal treatments for malnutrition would work. He’d had to make a soup of what he’d had on hand in his inventory. Which was actually quite a lot. He’d bottled what was left after forcing down as much as he could manage. Zelda had woken briefly, taken a little more, and fallen asleep. Just asleep. Link breathed a lot more easily after that. She’d need more, and she’d likely wake soon. He’d be here when she did.

A knock sounded and he looked up to see Tony Stark at the door. Link waved him in and he took one of the other chairs in the room.

Stark gestured at Zelda’s sleeping form, “She gonna be O.K.?”

Link nodded tiredly, “She was close to death, by Hylian standards at least, but I got her stabilized with hours, maybe days, to spare. She needs rest and food, though, as much as she can get.”

Stark nodded, “I’ve already settled the bill for you. Anything you use, from the room to any narcotics you want, will be paid for. Do what you need to do.”

Link nodded gratefully, “Thanks. I’m sorry that I bailed on you guys.“

Stark waved dismissively, “You had something only you could do. Anyway, we’re about to take a break and get some shawarma, can you come or do we need to bring it here?”

Link looked up, “I can’t go anywhere, anytime she wakes she’s going to need more of my soup. But we can’t all fit in here, surely you can see that.”

Stark raised an eyebrow, “Who do you think I am?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About twenty minutes later, Zelda had been moved to a private room on a higher floor, one apparently intended for the super rich to have some privacy and space along with their care. The Avengers sat around a table Stark had somehow procured and Steve had brought in. They ate in silence. The shawarma was good.

A nurse came in, “Uh… mister Hunter?”

It took a look from Coulson for Link to realize that was for him, “Uh, oh yeah. Yes?”

“We… just need you to sign this saying you take full responsibility for the outcome of miss Zelda, since you refused any licensed medical advice or treatment.”

Link waved her over and signed the waiver. For some reason, she gave an unpracticed bow before leaving. Well, people had given some very odd gestures to him over the years.

“I think the Relic Hunter name is catching on,” Coulson said.

“Yeah,” Natasha laughed, “and so is ‘Agent Avenger’.”

Coulson groaned, “That doesn’t make any sense, where did it come from?”

“We could change it if we made some announcements via the press,” Stark offered. “If you’ve got a better name in mind?”

“What about Agent… uh… agent…” Coulson floundered.

“Agent Impact?” Link offered. “That gun packs a huge punch.”

Nobody else thought it worked. The silence broken, they bantered about names until time was long past when the others should continue on elsewhere.

Zelda woke briefly, but they only exchanged a few words while Link gave her more soup. Then she was asleep again. Link fiddled with the another gift Stark had given him. A phone of Stark’s own invention, it supposedly connected via Stark’s own satellite array, meaning there were no blind spots on the Earth’s surface. It was a good way to stay in contact, the other Avengers knew Link had his own mission to mind, but they knew he’d help if asked and able. Link supposed he’d have to remember not to keep it in his inventory, though, or he’d never hear it if they called.

“L… Link?” Zelda sang, weakly.

Link was up in an instant, “That was quick, how are you feeling?” he sang with surprise and concern.

“I am feeling much better, Link,” she sang with consolation. Then she switched to gratitude, “You saved me, again, Link. You do not need to worry any more for the present.”

Link relaxed, but he still had questions: “How did you end up like this?”

“I have been on the run for six years, Link,” she answered with tiredness and sadness.

“Two years longer than I’ve known who I was…” Link said to awe.

“What… happened? How did… alien invasion?” She asked with exhaustion and curiosity.

“Long story. Short version is that I got myself noticed by an American secret service investigating a Hylian temple in Egypt. We found some common ground and I agreed to help with the alien invasion they found out was coming.”

“And… the others?”

“A team, originally it was meant to be a temporary thing to deal with this one problem. But I think we’ve agreed to remain allies. They’re good people, I trust them. Hopefully, we can earn the trust of the world.”

Zelda nodded, “I don’t suppose this alien threat had anything to do with Infinity did it?”

Link shook his head, “Loki never brought it up.”

“Well… that’s something. Link, you have my pack?”

“There wasn’t one,” Link sang to trepidation.

Zelda breathed deeply, as if suppressing a violent urge. After a moment she continued, “There was a map in it. We need it to take us to the Master Sword.”

Link frowned, “The… what?”

Zelda’s brow furrowed and she sang with unease, “You said you knew who you were. If you visited the Goddess pool in Kyoto you should have memories from our past lives.”

“I found one in the Parthenon, I’ve never been to Japan, let alone Kyoto. Anyway, I remember a great deal… but I’ll admit I’ve noticed a hole or two…”

“The Parthenon… I suppose that makes sense. Then… then there’s probably one more. Most likely we’ll need to visit all three and reclaim more memories. But first we need that map. You need the Master Sword. Without it… Ganondorf cannot be stopped.

Link nodded, trusting her wisdom and memories. As he’d said, there was one thing at least that had been missing from his memories. One thing that had bugged him since discovering the hole.

“Zelda…” he asked with tunes conveying worry and hope both, “Who were our gods?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Titan sat on his throne facing the infinite expanse of stars. The light was beautiful, but he found it saddening in its own way. The universe needed rebalancing. Unfortunately, he’d discovered very quickly that, while no world could resist him and his armies, he simply could not hit every world one by one until the work was done.

There were two reasons he’d found this to be true: first he’d realized that his own lifetime was just not long enough. He’d originally sought to fix this by raising a successor but that plan failed to help with the second problem: eventually the shortsighted inhabitants of the universe would rise up and crush his armies with sheer numbers.

It was an unfortunate truth: the universe demanded his saving hands, but its people would not see a savior, except maybe when the work was finished. If he continued his crusade those people would band together in dangerous ways. Apparently, this had already begun.

“The people of Earth are not the weaklings we were told they were,” his spokesman said. “They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled. And they have ancient protectors. A Darkness bubbles on their surface, tainting the land and giving its people the challenges they need to grow. To challenge them… is to court Death.”

The Titan knew he was being goaded. He stood up anyway. He turned to the speaker, and smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Darkness watched as the Asgardians left his planet. That conflict had been… unexpected. He had been about to rise up himself. No alien had any right to this planet. It was his. But… well, he was glad he hand been beaten to that fight.

The Avengers? Bah! Most of them were worthless. Negligible. Of course… not ALL of them were. His drones had been killed, after all, if only because he’d allowed them to die. They were little avatars, not worth keeping around after they failed their task. The others had been missed, and the Darkness had continued to watch, intrigued.

One held an interesting find now. A dropped travel pack. No magic, so it wasn’t an Inventory. But.. he could sense… something. The drone searched again at his behest. A map… to THAT SWORD?!?!. Ganon raged and nearly shredded the map. How dare that weapon still exist? But then Ganon calmed for a moment. Ganon? That was… his name? He had forgotten. And with his name he remembered… planning. Traps. No, he would not destroy this map out of anger.

He made the drone put everything back the way it had found it. He knew where The Sword was now. He would… prepare. Odd… when was the last time he’d done that? Had… his madness retreated? He would have to see.