Chapter 1
The castle walls of Hyrule had endured twenty-three sieges from invading armies of moblins, resisted dodongos who made the charge against their bricks and mortar, and survived every storm, their stones unweathered, unaffected.
"Never will we see the day," Queen Zelda had said once, "will those within our walls ever fear the axes or lances of an invading army. Never will their homes be light aflame, nor will their ground be soiled with their own blood."
When the scent of burning wood and the sound of screams woke the young queen from her slumber, she thought she was still stuck in a dream—a nightmare, perhaps—where Hyrule had been sacked.
The shuffle of armor outside her door told her otherwise.
A sharp twirl of the finger summoned her garments from their draws. Her sleek, elven form was garbed by her queenly gown. The Symbol of the Triforce was emblazoned on her torso. Under the clothe sat ancient runes. The silk—sturdy enough to block the edge of a sword—though not the blunt force of impact.
Sounds came louder, just outside her door.
Zelda readied an enchantment, a ball of fire that surged and seared to life in her palm. Make one move—just one. She'd send a tornado of flame strong enough to peal the flesh off their blackened bones—
The door opened. Zelda held her hand. Her knights stood there, her loyal sentries. She let the ball of flame turn to ashes in her palms. "Surely there are better ways of waking up your queen." Zelda settled herself in a chair, legs folded. "How bad is the situation?"
"My queen, we must take you to safety. Now."
That bad. Not even enough time to explain.
Never since she was a girl, since she had sent the betrayer Ganondorf to the realm of shadows, had Zelda felt this rush of fear. Heart racing. Pulse quickening. She obeyed her first instinct before following the guards to the subterranean bunker.
She took her sword, arrows, and bow.
Down the tight, narrow path. None of the eight sentries flanking her said a word. They marched—standard formation, halberds up, eyes straight ahead.
Though, even through these walls, Zelda could smell the smoke.
No one spoke until the Queen was put in her private carriage. Bound to four horses, the carriage looked like any ordinary structure from the outside. Under the wooden paneling, however, were layers of reinforced Hylian steel—same material that shields were made of. Zelda spent the few seconds she was stationary reinforcing the steel with her own magical enchantments—she had learned much in her studies. The Triforce of Wisdom—its crest visible on the back of her hand—augmented her magical powers.
With this enchantment, they'd have to drop a moon on the carriage to dent it.
Of course, there was more than one way to destroy a carriage than just throwing things at it.
After half a minute of lingering, Impa emerged. Her oldest mentor, trainer. Impa had known the queen since she was so weak that she could barely hold onto her sword after a brief parry. The loose fingered girl of the past was long gone. Defeating a traitor before they had the chance to bring ruination to a kingdom would do that. "What's the situation?" the Queen finally asked once the cart began to move.
Impa was covered in bruises. A small cut above her eyebrow bled into her lashes. She eyed the back of the carriage, out through the little gaps between panels that served as windows. "The invaders came out from the ground, my queen. We had no time—no time at all—!"
Now outside the castle limits, Zelda could feel vibrations in the air. She had always been at one with nature, with the elements. Such qualities made her worthy of her piece of the Triforce, but these vibrations were unlike any she had heard before. They felt alien. Unique.
Dangerous.
"What are they?" The Queen loaded an arrow, and peered out the carriage's window. She couldn't catch a good glimpse of the streets outside. Too much smoke. Too much fire—!
The dull sound of impact. The driver hit the back of his seat. Blood ran through the cracks in the front of their carriage den.
Then, the whole carriage flipped.
Impa's wrapped her strong arm around Zelda's waist, before catching herself along the wall. She held the two of them up as the carriage rolled across the street. Zelda never made contact with the walls or floor or ceiling.
Once the carriage came to a rest, Impa lowered her ward to the ceiling. Her great sword had been unsheathed. "Sit still, my lady."
The Queen of Hyrule ignored that order.
She sprang out of the carriage seconds after Impa, aiming her bow at everything that twitched. The clouds of smoke were heavy with ashes and embers. A simple spell, a simple charm-
With a thought, an icy wind burst from her skin. Her gown billowed under her. Frost swallowed the ground beneath her feet. Flakes of ice drifted in the air—solidified dew—before spraying out across the field. The fog of war cleared, and, finally, Queen Zelda saw the faces of her adversaries.
Tiny folk. They resembled humans, but stood no taller than the kokiri people of the forests. Shorter, even. Atop their heads sprouted the bulb of a white mushroom, adorned with red spots. They stared, blankly ahead, with dead faces plastered with empty joy. Perpetual smiles. Unblinking. Unwavering.
The queen watched as a group of these freaks unleashed balls of flame from their stubby hands, roasting a building aflame. Heat burst from ever window, spraying glass into the streets. Screams. Cries.
Unmerciful smiling.
The guards, with their metal armor, roasted as these flame throwing freaks unleahsed hell upon them.
A horde of these creatures stood over a fallen knight, ready to throw handfuls of fire down the knight's helm and joints—
Zelda sent her flames among their ranks first.
Their mushroom heads caught flame immediately. They scurried around, wailing and screaming. Zelda let them burn. They were no threat when on fire, except to themselves.
The first arrow went like a jet of light, arching through the air, straight through her target's eye. A second arrow pierced one of their hearts. The third—fourth—fifth—all met their mark.
The knights, seeing their queen among their ranks, regained some morale. A few even thrust their halberds through an enemy's massive head—though many more struggled in such close proximity to these magical creatures. They weren't trained to fight magic. Zelda blamed herself. The walls could hold off so many adversaries. Too few of her guards had seen combat. Only the troops in the outer limits had seen substantial conflict.
Only a few had been like the Hero of Time—!
A ball of flame soared for Queen Zelda's face. She drew back, and watched the fireball fly through a hut's door. The whole building went up in flame. Force of impact blew the walls apart. Cinders and debris soared across the street. Hot smoke blew over her, flooding her nose and mouth with hot ash.
Sensory overload.
She almost missed the white and red blur coming for her.
Impact was wide, soft, but overwhelming. Across her breast, face, and abdomen. Queen Zelda hurdled away, her bow tumbling from her finger. The strung arrow slipped out of place, pattering across the street. Zelda spun without any sense of direction.
Zelda remembered her training with Impa. The two had sparred with swords for years, but most sessions ended with the superior warrior knocking Impa flat across the floor. Strike across the chest. Thrown to the floor. Impact from behind. Knocked to her belly. Training had been exhausting. Sometimes, even now, Zelda lost her spars.
But she had learned how to land with dignity.
Zelda touched down on the floor. She skidded to a halt, and went for the sword sheathed at her hip. The mushroom blur came for her, headlong, sprinting right for Zelda. She poised her sword, ready to plunge the blade from the creature's crown to crotch—
Impa dove between the two, and, with one slice of her greatsword, sliced the incoming adversary in two. Instead of red blood, black, dried up ink sprayed into the air as the two halves bounced along the floor. Corruption oozed out from the body, blackened organs that had shriveled up. Vein-like growths had spread throughout the creature's body, overtaking the organs that clearly had been there originally.
"What are these things?" Impa nudged half of the creature with her toe, then recoiled when black puss sprayed out from an internal postule.
Now that the dust began to clear, now that Zelda took a good look at her enemies, the sentries throwing fire balls didn't look very eager to kill. Their smiles twitched, as if their smiles and joy were frozen in place. As if something had grown within them, replacing all that had once been there with a cruel, savage, merciless fiend.
"Where's the portal?" Zelda asked Impa.
"We can't access it. There's too many of those things guarding the portal."
Zelda didn't wait for Impa to continue. She scanned the horizon, looking for the densest cluster of these damned creatures. Down in the city square. To the south. The Queen didn't wait for Impa. She charged toward the cluster. Each of these things that happened to cross her path were cut down. Their fire spells soared for Zelda's face. She danced out of each blast's trajectory. The creatures threw themselves for Zelda.
Almost as if they asked to be cut down.
She obliged.
Eventually, she reached the cluster. Her own royal guard held their place, circled around the mushroom headed forces. Their lances were held at the ready, jabbing and piercing through the incoming horde. For each one they impaled, for each one they cut down, ten more replaced them, bombarding the pikemen with fire and flames. The flames would burn holes through the containing forces, through which the adversaries would break free to wreak havoc.
Zelda had come close enough.
"Contain them," the Queen shouted, "This will all be over soon."
She held her hand out, summoning the powers of the Triforce of Wisdom, of the Goddess Nayru, of the infinite power of knowledge and the sea. She felt a cool presence wash over her, from toes to fingers. For a momoment, all faded from Zelda's perception. There was no army. No Hyrule. No battle.
Just the design of the universe, at her finger tips.
And, ahead of her, a fold in the universe. A portal to another reality. All of reality—of time, space, and worlds beyond hers—began to distort in the distance, as though a key element of reality had been misplaced.
A misplaced power.
The Triforce of Power.
The wielder of the Triforce of Power had beaten against the boundaries between worlds, had blasphemed the strength of reality by bombarding the structure of reality with his raw power. Whoever wielded this weapon lacked Ganondorf's planning. From what Link told her, the Ganondorf who split the Golden Power was capable of brilliant planning and tactics. Whoever wielded this Triforce of Power was a blind fool, an idiot who thought himself above nature, so decided to beat nature into submission.
His lack of knowledge would be his undoing
She could feel her Triforce strain against this opposing Triforce. The portal begn to distort. She could feel a rush of heat pull her from Nayru's security. But it wasn't enough.
With one mighty push of the mind, with one more rush of thought, she twisted the edges of the portal. With a whim of her will, Queen Zelda of Hyrule broke the link between worlds, severed the bond. The portal, once broad and mighty, evaporated into a dark mist.
The mushroom people clutched at their heads, screaming into the heavens. They fell to their knees, convulsing and shaking and rolling until they fell still, motionless. Dead. Black corruption leaked from their open mouths. Black tears beaded up in the corners of their wide-open eyes.
Their smiles never faded.
Their faces were paralyzed into eternal, unyielding grins.
Nayru's light left the Queen's body, leaving her drained and exhausted. She fell to her knees, propped herself up on her fingertips, wheezing as she struggled t o breathe. The expenditure of such power left her drained. The sound of Impa running over—dull, muted, in the background. Took a second to register in her mind, with all the ringing in her ears, with all the sweat beading along her forehead and neck.
"My Queen!" Impa's mighty arm reached under Zelda's, heaving her to her feet. "You've expended too much of your power. Please, return to the castle. Rest."
Zelda turned toward her castle. Thought the buildings were still aflame, the castle remained undamaged. The civilians had suffered the consequences of this military strike. She had been the target. Or, at the very least, her castle. "Evacuate the civilians," Zelda said, "or at least who's left of them. Hyrule is no longer safe."
"The roads are less safe, with the moblins and octoroks and—"
"They're the devils we know We have never encountered these adversaries from beyond our world." Zelda stabbed her sword into the earth, and propped herself up on it. She leaned on it like a walking stick. "We can't afford to take chances. We're at war with an adversary we know nothing about."
The silence drifted across the battlefield. As soldiers stopped fearing for their lives, the fear for their futures began to overtake them. Impa, in a hushed voice, asked "What do we do now, my Queen?"
Queen Zelda considered the question. She looked for other options—for secondary paths to take—for tertiary strategies—but always returned to the same conclusion.
"Where's Link?"
A/N – This is the first epic fanfic I've written in years. I hope to make this into a larger epic. I value strong feedback and stronger criticism. I'll try to update this regularly, and I will listen to all the feedback I receive. Thank you for reading this far.