Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Chain knew some of their number were absolute beasts in battle. 

They knew Warriors could defeat any sentient opponent, that he knew how people functioned better than anybody and could fight them far easier than any monster. They knew Wild could take out whole camps of monsters unseen while they slept. They knew Sky could cut his way through whole armies, that part was more because Sky had said he'd done it before but they had never seen it in action.

They knew some of them were very powerful. They had to be.

Legend was not the one they considered the strongest in any capacity, he was the one with the items, who had gauntlets and bracelets to increase his physical strength but still couldn't beat Twilight in an arm wrestle. He had all the magical items ever but Hyrule still outclassed him in magical prowess. They didn't consider him weak, but he wasn't considered the most powerful. They generally agreed that honor went to either Sky or Hyrule.

That is, until today.

Honestly? Legend was having a pretty good day. He didn't wake up in pain, which was always a great start, and they were working through a dungeon which was honestly pretty great. He was entertained by Wild's eagerness to complete puzzles and Warriors' confusion and new-found hatred of them. He and Wind got to tease the Captain for it, the two of them having gone through the most dungeons of the whole group, more than some of them combined.

Then they reached the last room, the boss room, and inside was a husk of a man, Legend didn't recognize the creature. It could've been a redead or a gibdo or something else, but he didn't recognize it.

"Maz Koshia?" Wild guessed carefully, and Legend almost hoped that meant it was a friend. He was interested in how a fight would go with such a thing, looks were almost always deceiving and he couldn't see a clear weakness on this... dehydrated corpse.

A voice seemed to echo around them. "No, I am not Maz Koshia, but I am a monk as he is," it said. Legend tensed, preparing for a fight, but Wild kept his hand up to keep them back while the husk simply extended its hand and beckoned them forward. "Send forth your greatest, and I will fight him alone. Only he can defeat me, any other or any combination of others even if he is included them, will fail and I will kill you all. Only one, and one alone, can defeat me."

"What?" Warriors questioned. "Champion?"

"It one of my monks, Maz Koshia was the hardest thing I've ever fought," Wild stated, and that definitely concerned Legend a bit. "We want to play it safe. If one of us is strong enough to beat him alone, then we want to do that. If this monk is anything like Maz Koshia, he can and will kill all of us."

Legend decidedly did not like that. He tried to pick out any visible weaknesses. If Wild was worried, and he had dragged Legend on an excursion to ride a lynel, Legend did not like it. And apparently only one of them could defeat this monk and they had to solo it?

"Then who do we send?" Four asked. "Sky?"

Sky hesitantly shook his head. "I don't think so. I might be the best with a sword but I think if we all fought without boundaries, I wouldn't win."

"Only one has been called the greatest of your number... send him."

"The Veteran," Hyrule suddenly said, and he sounded so confident, so certain, almost excited. Legend looked back at his successor, who looked back at him, his viridian eyes gleaming with pride.

"The vet?" Warriors repeated a bit dubiously and Legend had the heart to agree with him. "Traveler, I know you look up to him but —"

"No, that's how the story goes," Hyrule insisted, his face was so certain and confident as he looked at Warriors that Legend had to look away. "'And the Oracle of Ages told the hero: ‘Take heart, you will be the greatest of all who bears your spirit, this —"

"— this will not be your last fight.'" Legend finished the quote, suddenly remembering those words that once got him through a whole quest.

But since then? It hadn’t meant much to him, he mostly forgot it by now. And now that he knows the other heroes, how could Nayru, the Oracle of Ages, tell him that he would be the greatest of his brothers? He had met them now and they were stronger, smarter, better with a sword, better with magic, stealthier, they were all skilled in their own rights so how could he be the greatest?

"I remember," he said, a bit quieter and more reserved than he would've preferred to act as he looked over at the monk... corpse, thing. He could almost feel its eyes on him, calling him to fight. "Nayru told me on my second adventure." He didn't count Labrynna and Holodrum as separate adventures, honestly. He still couldn't remember which came first. "Surely someone else has gotten the same thing though, cause frankly I can't say I agree with her."

The following silence was almost deafening.

"You can do it, Veteran," Hyrule said confidently. "I know you can."

"If he's the only one who's been explicitly called that, I think you should fight it," Wild said, eyeing that husk. "He asked for you specifically in that case. Be careful, they're fast and can teleport and summon things."

Legend sighed, almost tired of this. "Got it. Just stay clear of getting caught in any blast radius."

Time caught Legend's arm as he moved to step forward.

"Be careful, Veteran," their eldest said. "It said you had to fight alone."

Legend almost wanted to scream that he wasn't their greatest, that if only their absolute best could win this then he was definitely dying, but if the monk’s actual criteria was just the one who was called the best, he may be able to pull it off since he was apparently the only one who met that.

However, despite the urge to scream, he managed to flash Time a wry smirk due to his choice of words. "Don't worry too much, old man. I'm never really alone."

Three presences filled his mind, a fourth pulsed at his back and then in his hand as he drew the Golden Sword.

"So?" He called out to the dehydrated husk of a monk. "Is it me you wanted? Or was Nayru a bold faced liar?"

The monk rose from its mat where it had sat cross legged. "It's good to finally meet you... Legendary Hero... best of luck."

It then disappeared, and so did the rest of the chain.

Legend spun around, he readied his sword and tightened his grip on the handle before relaxing it properly, his eyes flicked across his surroundings. Wild said it could teleport, but not that it could teleport others. Thought that meant its 'summoning' thing could be teleporting other things into the field.

He saw the others reappear on a ledge far above him and away from the main area of the cavern, almost a viewing area.

The hair on the back of his neck raised and Legend was moving. He slashed at where he had been standing moments ago and the monk only barely dodged away. He pulled out his ice rod in his other hand as the monk disappeared again. 

It reappeared a distance away, and then lunged straight at Legend with terrifying speed.

Legend kicked his Pegasus Boots into action, he slipped aside and then darted after it as it came to a stop behind where he had been standing. It barely teleported away as Legend blasted the area in ice with a wide arc of his rod and amplified and empowered the magic with his own. The ground turned to complete ice and he grinned as the monk slid a bit in its landing while he took full advantage of the changes. Fighting in an extreme winter that he caused was not unusual.

The monk teleported much more, as a result, but that meant it couldn't really get a solid hold against Legend. It was becoming predictable.

He grinned. The monk teleported a large distance from Legend and did some kind of hand sigils that he didn't recognize. Multiple portals — none of the ones he was familiar with — appeared and nine monsters were dropped in.

Two lynels, one from Rulie's Hyrule and the other from Wild's, a Stalfos from Sky's that looked like a pirate, he swore the first of them had told a story about that one, then a pair of frozen knights with javelins? He wasn’t too sure. Then three of Four’s Darknuts, oh goddesses he hated those. Lastly, a sort of opaque, ghostly or withered looking mage, a Wizzrobe most likely.

Legend distantly heard several outraged cries and worried yelps from his companions, but disregarded them completely as he lunged at the closest monster — Hyrule’s lynel — and decapitated it so quickly that when the monk had dropped on him from above, he was already jumping back and out of reach of the husk. He switched his ice rod, which would need a recharge, for his fire rod and swung that in a wide arm, a huge blaze of flames filling the field. The monk escaped it, but the monsters were injured and the ice was gone.

Hyrule was horrified when the flame and smoke settled and he saw Legend get thrown across the large coliseum, hit by a spell cast by that Wizzrobe thing and slammed into a wall.

Legend expelled the effects of the spell with his own, far more powerful, magic but the effects that took hold before he could still held true and the hit from the wall still hurt.

He pushed himself up fast, staggering as the world tried to spin and spitting out blood onto the ground. He reached for his neck and grabbed an amulet.

A huge cloud of frost exploded around him with a slash of his golden sword.

Then he dove inside, he moved as quick as he could under the cover of the frost. The Darknuts were far easier when blinded, he took out two of them before the frost began to fade and he spotted the monk.

He spotted two of them, but he had fought with worse concussions before, and he lunged.

The monk was fast, but so was Legend. It brought out a glowing blue blade, not completely unlike Wild’s guardian blades, and the dehydrated corpse dodged and slashed as quick as Legend did. However Legend wasn’t having any of that, pouring some of his magic into amplifying the effects of his items, he moved faster and landed a hit on the husk.

The monk staggered after a hit, and it teleported back away from Legend.

“Third stage,” Legend muttered to himself as the the monk conjured some spiky balls that Legend was certain would explode upon impact.

As the monsters — only down two Darknuts and a lynel — closed in, Legend took a breath and he moved.

He managed to dove beneath the Wizzrobe’s spell, and then break one frost knight’s javelin and the other one’s skull.

The spike balls were sent at him.

Legend ran and threw a spell that Fable taught him back behind him, an orb of flames exploded when he willed it, just in time to hit the spike ball as it was above the remaining darknut and frost knight. Both were gone by the time the smoke settled but Legend hadn’t expected his own attack to essentially get turned on him.

Wild’s lynel sent a giant ball of flames at him. Legend barely registered it in time to conjure a shield strong enough to handle that level of a fireball and the second the shield and fireball shattered, Legend felt a blade cut deep into his side.

The monk caught him off guard and Legend slashed. He cursed to himself, scrambling away and tuning out the cries of worry and fear from his companions.

He could handle this. He had to handle it. If he died then so did everyone else.

He couldn’t let that happen. Even if he wasn’t the greatest of them, he had to be great enough.

Focus.

Legend deflected another attack from the husk, he dodged the Stalfos’ blade and he threw a blast of fire with his fire rod at the Wizzrobe, diving aside as the withered mage’s spell exploded where he had been standing.

The lynel had gotten behind him.

Legend was sent slamming into the far wall, his body crumpling as he hit it and landing in a heap on the ground. His ears rang painfully, his skull squeezing in on his brain, he swore he heard a crack from something but he couldn’t tell where. Maybe his skull, maybe his ribs, actually probably his ribs with how breathing felt right now.

He couldn’t think, all he knew was that he was probably about to die. His magic was erring on low, which was a rarity in of itself, his head spun more than a tornado, and everything hurt.

Despite that, he pushed himself up. It’s all for nothing, a part of him whispered. Rulie’s Hyrule was a wasteland, nothing he did mattered, did it? If everything was destroyed anyways… he could die here.

He staggered, legs trying to give in.

He was definitely facing far less than seventeen enemies, Legend was… kind of sure of that. There was definitely too many duplicates of the same enemy… but he couldn’t figure out which one was the real one. He couldn’t focus, they blurred in and out of clarity and his mind refused to even err near clarity.

He had no chance, did he? Even if he wanted to keep fighting, there was no chance, was there?

Well, he had a chance.

Legend sheathed his sword as he trembled to his feet. The several lynels prepared a charge, many flares of magic from the Wizzrobe’s formed to be thrown, the stalfos moved forward.

Legend ran toward them, meeting the lynels head on as his ears pricked to give him direction.

Legend heard their screams, his brothers crying out his name that took him far too long to realize was his name.

He grabbed the medallion clinking against his chest and activated it.

An explosion ripped through the air.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, and his sense of smell was absolutely shot, but those explosions never harmed him, even in volume.

He unsheathed his sword, spun around, and slammed the dehydrated corpse against the wall, blade at its throat and it was solely a matter of exhaustion he didn’t decapitate it then and there.

He panted heavily as the smoke settled.

"Do I win?" He demanded, ready to at least try and finish the job.

The monk disappeared, fading into mist completely different from its teleports from before. 

Legend staggered back, he spun around wildly, expecting the fight to continue but he could vaguely make out a shape he recognized as a chest, a victory chest and the gold and red heart floating down to the ground.

Oh, he thought as multiple shapes materialized near the entrance of the room and he stumbled as he nearly lost his balance.

Oh, he did win.

Hands grabbed his arms as his legs near gave out and Legend frankly didn’t have the energy to fight.

“Vet! Hey, hey, stay with me,” someone said and Legend was certain he knew that voice. Green swarmed his vision but even then he couldn’t place it. All he knew was that they were safe, he knew that.

He tried to push himself up, to get a better view, to figure out who it was. There was blue. “C-Cap’n?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m right here,” a second voice, a different one, said but they instilled that same sense of safety.

Legend felt some kind of twinkling magic fall over him and clarity tried to push at his throbbing mind.

“Vet, hey, how many fingers am I holding up?” The second voice asked. Legend blinked slowly, exhaustion pressing against that sparkling clarity formed by the intrusive twinkling.

“F-Fou… s-seve…?” His eyes drooped and he heard others talking but frankly couldn’t be bothered to make out anything. “Don’ thin’ I can tell, cap’n.”

“Hey, no, Vet stay awake for me!” The first voice said quickly, accompanied by that attempted clarity trying and failing to take hold. “Captain, get him potions!”

“We’re out!”

Link could feel things haze, he wanted to go to sleep, just take a quick nap… he’d fix it later. He’s passed out in dungeons before. He would be fine.

He let his body give out, he heard some distant cries and someone crying out ‘Legend’, which he vaguely associated with his own name, but the dots refused to reconnect just yet.

“I can’t do anything else for him,” someone sobbed.

“No. No! Please — he can’t die!”

“Go search the other rooms for a fairy!”

“We cleared them ages ago!”

“Check again then!”

He slid his eyes shut, letting his high-rung body relax as he forced himself to accept something that was so long coming.

The Heart Container.

A sharp chime cut through Legend’s mind, information and clarity forcing its way to the forefront as well as a small burst of strength that — immediately — he knew wouldn’t last long.

He was slumped against someone and he twisted, ignoring the cries he managed to stand before anyone grabbed him.

“How —“

“Heart,” he gasped out, blinking rapidly as he tried to spot it. He couldn’t let her support him for too long.

Hyrule’s face became clear for a brief moment before it all became a haze again. An arm wrapped around him and he stumbled as someone pulled him and he could see the blurred form of red and gold as she gave him a warning that she was at half power.

Legend pushed himself off Warriors and his hand grazed the heart container.

Her descending, weakening chimes immediately ceased with a calming ring. He let himself hit and turned to lay on his back, breathing heavily as everything slowly cleared. Selfishly, he ignored the many voices crying out and panicking.

He just needed a moment as he grabbed the hilt of the Golden Sword. He heard the voices quiet out from the screams and panic but still speak. He waited to hear her weak assurance before he let out a relieved sigh and pried his eyes open to a far clearer sight than he had been seeing.

He immediately groaned and he pushed Warriors back, getting the other hero out of his immediate space as he dragged himself up.

“Hey! Don’t —“

“Shup,” Legend gave a vaguely silencing gesture. “Head hurts, no loud noises.”

The following silence was incredibly amusing. His body still ached despite the healing properties of the heart container and his magical core was still extremely drained.

“I thought those heal everything?” Hyrule asked worriedly.

“Only health, my magic is still drained,” Legend explained. “So, you are not getting me to stand unless I have no other option and even then I can’t promise it’ll last longer than like five minutes. So, shut up, let me take a nap, then we can leave.”

”You promise you’re feeling okay?” Sky asked, knelt on the same side as Warriors and sharing a look with the other knight.

Legend fell back onto his back, halfheartedly keeping himself from slamming his head down. “Yes, just magically drained and very physically tired. Ten minutes.”

He was already about to pass out in all honesty, magical exhaustion for someone whose blood itself was half magic tended to hit far harder than even fair folk.

”Or we could leave now.”

Legend yelped as he was picked up, instinctively he wanted to fight or run except he realized quickly that it was Twilight. Problem was, Twilight was strong, and he clearly had no intentions of releasing Legend.

He frankly lacked the energy to fight, just groaned. “I swear to the goddesses, Rancher I will smite you if you don’t put me down.”

Twilight just hummed. “Nope. We’re leaving now and you can bet your ice rod that you’ll be getting the same treatment I got.”

Legend gave in, he did the token protest but he wasn’t going to keep it up. He was exhausted, Twilight was safe, and frankly falling asleep without waking up smelling smoke and burnt flesh would be nice.

Though the idea of getting the same treatment Twilight did after his near-death experience sounded awful, but Legend honestly knew he wasn’t escaping that for at least three days if not more.

”I want the loot from the chest,” Legend murmured sleepily, relaxing into Twilight’s chest.

”Cub’s already grabbed it, you’ll get it when you’re better.”

Legend hummed, then he let sleep take him.