A/N: Yes, it is April Fool's Day. Yes, I did update early. Yes, this really is the real Chapter 12 for realsies, and the life-and-death stakes make a thrilling comeback!
Updated 4 April 2022. Updated beginning A/N to be shorter and more tasteful. Updated end A/N because I did a funny and the funny is no longer on this fic but goddamn it I needed to immortalise this somehow!
The Light Invasion
PART I - DESERT THE ARMY
Link of Ordon: is your duty to your kingdom, or the parasite in your shadow?
Chapter 12 - In Her Debt
For the hours they rode that 'morning', there was a faint, golden speck in the distance. It never got any closer, nor did it catch the eye of anyone else in the party, but Link squinted at it. Scrutinised it. Questioned if it was real at all. At least this game of 'real' or 'fake' kept things somewhat interesting for a good while, but nothing new came of that little mystery. It simply remained a speck of a mystery. The smallest mirage the desert could offer in a world with no sun. How abysmal.
From beyond the dunes, the Hylian-crest-topped pillars rose higher, as did a coliseum of arches. In the darkness, the structure was merely a black cut-out from the star-speckled sky, but as the party rode closer, a dozen warm lights blinked. They were atop wooden towers and nestled within the small valley that led to the Arbiter's Grounds. Bulblin camps. Just as the mission brief had described.
Before the valley's entrance, two of the sentry-topped towers flanked a campfire with a few bulblins tossing something at their bulbos. Meat scraps, probably.
Auru ordered that everyone extinguish their lanterns and slow to a trot. Once behind a tall dune, they dismounted their steeds, handed the reigns to Auru, and began stuffing rucksacks with supplies from their saddlebags.
"So, this is where I leave you," Auru whispered, tying Ashei's horse to the saddle of his own. "As discussed, I'm placing Reed in command." The new leader saluted with a smirk. Auru tied the next steed to Ashei's. "Jay, under no circumstances are you to pretend to be Reed."
Jay crossed his arms. "Pfft! You're no fun."
Auru rolled his eyes but didn't lecture. "Ashei, play nice with your team. Everyone, play nice with Ashei. She's got the speed and the stealth to get you all past the enemies on the ground." Ashei nodded curtly.
Link awaited is instructions, but what would they be? Auru didn't know his strengths and weaknesses like he knew Ashei's and the twins'. He hadn't even used his blade in a real battle before! Din almighty, was he really going to debut his skills in a place where he was outnumbered twenty-to-four?
"Link," Auru began, "trust in yourself and your team. Always ensure someone has you back, and you'll make it out just fine." Yeah. Link was going to be fine. Of course he was. He nodded at Auru, who flashed a grin back at his soldiers.
"Alright, team." Auru stepped into the stirrup of his mare and hauled himself onto the saddle. "I'll be off. Expect an escort party camping here in six weeks' time. Anything else you need before I canter off?"
Epona, who was tied to the back of the trail, was staring at Link with wide eyes. Poor girl. She hadn't been separated from her best friend since Link was confined to his house during the white plague outbreak. If Link didn't do something right now, she was gonna tug against the other horses and neigh so loud that she'd summon a stampede of bulbos.
"Yeah, one more thing." Link scurried to one of his saddlebags and pulled out a red apple. It was a bit wrinkly but Epona snatched it from his hand before he had the chance to offer it. Link snatched another apple from the saddlebag and tossed it to Auru, who caught it with impressive reflex for a man of his age. "Ride while she's still chomping, then give her that too," Link said.
Auru chuckled. "Thank-you, hero, and goodbye to you all." He flicked the reins and cantered the way they came. Epona turned and, even though there were bits of apple and juice dribbling from her jaws, she still gave Link a heart-wrenching look. Nayru's love, Link needed to make it through the coming ordeals and fast, if only to get back to her. By then, he'd finally be a knight worthy of such a magnificent (if mischievous) steed.
When Epona, Auru, and the other horses disappeared over one dune, the party of four crept up the other. First on their feet, then on their hands, and finally their bellies. The sand shifted against them and seeped into Link's gloves, waistband, and boots. (Yikes, that was gonna leave a lot of embarrassing rashes.) Their heads peaked over the dune to survey the scene.
Link kept his silence as Ashei and the twins bickered under their breath about who should shoot which tower from where, who should take out the bulbos, and more. Link wanted to say something, to sound useful, so very much, but his mouth was dry of words. In a few moments, Link was going to cut a life short. His first kill of a sapient creature. (Or at least his first attempt since a few 'days' ago. Don't think about her.)
Eventually, Reed put his foot down. "I'm the commander, and I say those bulblins aren't smart enough to figure out our location based on where the sentry's head gets pinned." Ashei scowled but didn't protest any longer. "If, by some stroke of genius, they come running in on their bulbos, count on me and Jay to pick them off. If they attempt to flee into the inner camp, Ashei and Link will cut them off."
"Yes, boss," Jay fake-whinged. Ashei kept her lips pursed as she nodded.
Great! They had a plan. They had a plan that wouldn't get anyone crushed by stampeding hooves or shot by flaming arrows. They could do this. Link could do this, and he could do it without Midna.
They carefully slid on their hips down the dunes. The sand seeped up Link's tunic and bracer hems, grinding against him with every other grain. How annoying would that discomfort be after a blood-chilling battle, really?
Near the bottom of the dune, and dozens of feet away from the campfire's glow, Reed raised a palm at Link and Ashei, then beckoned Jay to his feet. At Reed's half-circle motion, the sword wielders jogged around the light and as close to the ridge entrance as the shadows would allow. Ashei pressed her shoulder against the rock. Link followed her lead.
Together, the twins' tiny silhouettes aimed their crossbows for a tower each. Breaths were held. If either of them missed or shot out of sync, the remaining sentry would blow the horn on their belt and alert the whole camp.
With mirrored timing, the arrows flew. Reed nailed the closest between the eyes. Jay toppled the farthest. The bodies hit the sand within half-a-second of each other. The three grounded bulblins shrieked and clambered onto their bulbos. Link and Ashei sprinted into the light, drew their swords, and blocked the ridge.
They were right in the path of the charging bulbos. Seconds away from being gored. "What do I do?" Link asked Ashei, a pathetic tremor in his voice.
"Side-step and slash the straps, Peahat."
Ignore imminent impalement on tusks. Got it.
Training took over. Link swept to the side. The tusks sailed past him. He stabbed for the leather strip under the saddle, caught it on the hilt, and the sharp edge did the rest. The rider slid off with the saddle and face-planted into the sand.
There was a smash and an agonised roar, followed by another. Both riderless bulbos had crashed into the rock walls of the passage, but never mind that. The bulblins were picking themselves up. It was time to kill. No, it was time to wait for the runt to get to his feet and either flee or strike first. Shield up; challenge its beady glower.
The bulblin's club clacked against the wooden shield. A weak little swing from a weak little arm. Link could end it with a single swipe of steel.
When the bulblin reeled back its club for another swing, that was the opening. C'mon. Slash. Stab. Do something.
Link lowered his sword, raised his shield, and took the hit like an idiot. There. Another opening. Another chance to… the bulblin was small and impish, like Midna.
No. Stop it. Stab it.
On the third opening, Link thrust, but something else hit the bulblin. It lurched forward with a dying shriek, barely grazing Link's sword. An arrow shaft jutted from its neck.
"You alright there?" Jay (or was it Reed?) called as he and his brother jogged over.
No. It wasn't alright. Link didn't make his kill. Ashei had made hers. Two in fact. At her feet, blood pooled from a chest and a neck. She was already dragging a cloth over her stained blade.
Through the crevasse, they went. Winding and choking the party closer together. That was a common tactic to protect from invasions, right? To bottleneck them as they marched to the stronghold so the invaded could see the invaders first. What if the bulblins already knew the scout party was here? What if the next turn greeted Link with an arrow through the eye?
After eons, they reached a fork. And in the middle of that fork sat the brightest and most bizarre thing since Ordona's reveal. A wolf radiant as the sun. Golden fur. A single, ruby eye (like Midna). It patiently sat. Waiting for who? The soldiers? Or just Link?
Everyone else just eyed up each path as they approached, as if the wolf didn't exist at all. Link should say something. And be called a lunatic by Ashei again? No. It was best that he kept his mouth shut. Follow the crowd. If the wolf was benevolent, that should be revealed in good time. If not, then bad things could happen if Link chose to engage.
When the party got within several feet of the wolf (Link could see the other eye was scarred over), it stood and strolled down the left pathway.
"Right," Reed declared, so right they crept, scarcely grinding the sand upon which they walked. Somewhere ahead came a jingle. Faint and rattling like a rusty wind chime. Haunting. And drawing closer. This was worth whispering about. Link wove around Jay and leaned towards Reed. "I hear something ahead."
Reed halted, and the rest did too. Ashei hissed. "Why did we-" Reed's palm cut her off. There was not a sound from the soldiers. Not a word. Not a breath. Not a muscle.
The rattles drew louder, and from around the bend came a ghostly glow. "Poe," Jay whispered.
"Run," Reed hissed.
They tore the other way, kicking up sand, bumping into each other like apples rolling down a ridge, as that horrible jingle hastened, and a ragged, sprite-y sneer nipped at the hair on their necks. Running, running, running, until they were up the left path, and up ahead was another fork where the same wolf waited. "Left!" Reed almost shouted.
"On what logic?" Ashei snapped.
The wolf disappeared right. "Follow me!" Link ordered, though it wasn't his place to. He chased the wolf up the path and the soldiers had the sense to follow him.
When the wolf ahead slowed to a trot, Link slowed to a brisk walk. The party quickly muffled their panting, for while the rattle no longer chased them, a torch blinked up ahead, illuminating a gate of wood and iron. The wolf cantered ahead and sat in the centre.
The ridge widened to a fortress of sandstone several feet high. Beyond it, the magnificent pillars of the fabled mirror chamber towered like the turrets of Hyrule Castle. But grand as they were, the 'pillar' to focus on right then was yet another tower with a bulblin's yellow eyes sweeping the scenery.
All but Reed pressed themselves against the sides of the ridge. He aimed his crossbow and nailed the skull. There was no thud audible from where they were, nor any bulblins frantically gurgling over their fallen, so they crept towards the gate.
Ashei whispered it would wake the sleeping bulblins if they opened the heavy gate, but fortunately, to the right, a combination of fallen wall and piled sand made for means of progression. Jay only needed to take out a guard slumped beside a torch.
From there, they wove between tents and bulbo roasts above smouldering campfires. Ashei led the way, instructing everyone to follow her steps exactly. Snores and whistling breath tickled the hairs on Link's neck. A few more sentries fell to the Larksons. Link's heart panged with pity for them, but the same way it panged for the animals he trapped and killed for food or the goats he and Fado slaughtered.
It still didn't feel right, striking first, but perhaps Rusl's philosophy was flawed, or at least impractical under certain circumstances. Striking first meant they weren't on the righteous defence, sure, but it was a means of prevention. If an arrow didn't kill each sentry, they would surely kill the scouts first. In war, survival of the cause mattered above all else, but gods, that lesson was as hard to swallow as a fisheye. Link kept gagging on it. Rejecting it. How immature he was compared to these other soldiers.
The party huddled behind a fallen sandstone pillar as Reed aimed at the final sentry between them and a padlocked gate. The body fell, towards a tent with the glow of a torch behind it.
"Duck!" Link hissed. The bulblin guard behind the tent sputtered in shock, then came the raspy bellow of a horn.
Bulblins scrambled out of tents, snatched up bows and clubs. Under the pillar's cover, Reed fumbled to load his crossbow. Ashei and Link drew their swords. Jay poked above to shoot but ducked again. Two flaming arrows sailed over.
"Five archers, six meelee," he said. "They're closing in."
Reed swore under his breath. "Link. Ashei. Take the sides." Link had never fought while crouching before, but he shuffled to Jay's left anyway.
A crossbow clicked. A squeal answered. A twin cheered. One archer down. The first bulblin ran behind their cover, past Link, club bound for Jay. Don't think. Do. Link stabbed between the ribs. The club fell and rolled down the sand. With a strong push, Link freed his blade of the corpse and it tumbled after its weapon.
A few more bulblins from behind tumbled. Ashei was holding her own. Better than him. Link's blade caught another's ankle, and a stab to the back hushed its agonised scream. As it tumbled, something silver twinkled on its belt. Only two more to add to the pile. Link poised his sword, ready to defend against the final clubbers and leave the blood on his hands behind, but they never came. Instead, more bows pinged, and more arrows rained, but this time they arched high and shot straight down.
Link snatched his shield and pulled Jay under it. The arrows pelted what could've been their skulls. Ashei had no shield, but she had pulled off her armour bodice and was using that to protect her and Reed. The arrows rained thicker, grazed closer, snagged on the fabric and scratched the leather they couldn't shelter. There wasn't an opening to fire back. There wasn't anywhere to run. But what did sitting tight do? Buy them seconds?
The padlocked gate tempted Link, but he had no key.
That dead bulblin did.
Should he do it? Could he? There was a strong chance he'd have a lot in common with Uli's pin-cushion, but Jay was hugging his crossbow to his chest, Reed's eyes were unblinking as he muttered a prayer, and Ashei was sweating under the weight of the arrows and the armour. (Link's arm was also beginning to ache.) This unit needed a hero. Someone with the courage —or stupidity— to chance the hits.
"Take my shield," Link said to Jay. Going into the arrow rain was suicide without a shield, but leaving Jay without one was murder.
Jay seized the sides and Link slipped his arm from the loops. The arrows kicked up sand like bangs of smoke. There was no way he was getting out of this without a few stuck in him, but maybe, just maybe, he and his comrades would live to tend to his wounds.
Link rolled down the hill until he crashed into the pile of wet, squelching flesh. The arrows whizzed by his ears, brushed his bristles, but not one hit. He should have three in him by now, but never mind that. Where was the key? He shoved the top corpse –piked with arrows– off the pile. The shafts snapped as it landed on its back. The key jangled on its belt. Link gave it a good, hard yank, breaking it off, and scrambled up the hill.
"Get back to cover!" Reed roared, but Link threw himself at the padlocked gate and shoved the key in. If Link wasn't shot before, now he should be. Those archers were only several feet away, and yet every arrow only glanced the sheathe on his back. There was something magical about it, supernatural, but no, it couldn't mean that she was still here.
The lock opened. Link tossed it, ploughed through the gate, and beckoned his comrades into the dark stable. "C'mon! There's an exit." It was an opening on the other side leading to a sandstone corridor.
But the soldiers did not move. Their jaws were slack, and their eyes bulged at something. Something behind Link.
Fingers snapped. The gate glowed with Twili runes and snapped shut. A grubby curtain fell over it, then two-by-two, torches ringed the room.
Flame outlined a hulking silhouette with thick, curving horns upon its head. Light shined against sweaty green belly rolls and a scraggly, yellow-toothed smirk. But most insidious of all was an axe of wood and bone nearly twice as long as Link. Perfect for crushing lonesome little heroes.
"Welcome, human," the menace taunted. "Come to play?"
No. Link wasn't here for whatever this sick bastard called sport. He was here to get himself and his team out of this mess, even if it meant paving the path to Hyrule's rejuvenation with yet another bloody corpse. Forget play. Link was here to wage war.
Link drew his sword and reached for… Oh no. Jay still had his shield!
A chuckle tugged at the bulblin's smirk, then he raised his axe and bellowed. Link rolled aside. The impact shook the stable. There was no parrying this monster. No catching it off guard or throwing it off balance. This was a raw gamble of kill or be killed.
The beast swung wide. Link fell to his knees and arched back. The breeze of bone stung his nose. He stumbled to his feet and rushed in with a stab for the gut. The axe shaft caught Link's blade. It was stuck in the wood. The bulblin twisted the axe, and Link's only weapon was wrenched from his hand and tossed across the stable. The monster sidestepped in Link's way, a meaty barricade between the young hero and his tool of heroism.
Link dodged and rolled from every quaking blow, gaining no inches towards his weapon and losing every foot. On the next swing, Link stumbled back with too much haste. He tripped on some rusty pail and slammed his spine against a wooden scaffold. It knocked the wind out of him.
He heaved for air, heaved for the means to move away from the rising axe, but no. The axe came down like a pine tree, and all Link could do was fall onto his side and squeeze his eyes shut.
Not every chosen hero got to be a legend.
The very next sound was not the crunch of his bones, nor the wet combustion of his flesh. No. It was a snarl. A shrill snarl.
A snarl that should've long departed.
Link's sword hovered high, caught in orange lightning and shaking under the hook of the axe. In the dark, torch-lit stable, he couldn't see her, but he could see the bulblin's gawping face through a haze of shadow. She was there, right in front of him. Protecting the one who had almost exterminated her mere 'days' before.
Midna's sneers grew more strained as the sword lifted higher, taking the axe with it. The bulblin gritted his teeth, dug in his ankles, and fought against the magical force, but the axe kept rising, and the bulblin's body went taught, and his meaty grip slid down the shaft, until he lost the grip altogether. He bellowed insults at the imp, and at last Link made out a motion in the torchlight. The flick of her wrist. The axe flung from the blade and spun into the opposite wall with a mighty crash.
The beast whirled around, and that was his fatal mistake. The sword near the ceiling rounded to its target and shot like an arrow. The tip burst from his back, spraying Link's face with blood.
The monster was still standing, but crooked, wheezing, shaking, and howling in pain. But he was still standing, still standing, still… Thump. On the floor. Dead at last.
Midna spun around, and in that whirl, it was as if the flames burned brighter, and personally carved the outline of Link's vicious saviour. Her finger pointed between his eyes like a nocked arrow, and her glare pierced him like a scalding blade from the forge.
She bared her fangs and spoke with a rage that could level Castle Town. Three words. The very words that Link, Chosen Hero of Light and loyal soldier of the Hyrulean army, dreaded more than death itself.
"You owe me."
He did. He really did. He owed this mysterious imp, this nefarious insurgent, every ounce of his existence. He owed her every beat of his heart and every breath he took and every thought that galloped through his head. He owed everything, everything, to the one who demanded that he abandon his comrades, betray his kingdom, and follow her every order.
Link was indebted to the parasite in his shadow, and what a terrifying reality that was.
Something disturbed the drape over the entrance. Kicking at the gate. Midna vanished like flame into smoke. Another firm kick, and the gate swung wide, lifted the curtain, and Ashei and the twins flooded inside. Then all three were rooted in shock. The corpse on the floor. The axe in the smashed wall. And Link, still on his backside, still heaving like he had just broken the surface of water.
How did this look to the soldiers? How did it all look, because it sure as hell didn't look like the bulblin was Link's kill. Not when the beast's back was turned on him and it was stabbed from the front. Not when its axe, which was twice as long as Link, had been thrown across the room with more strength than the bulk of Link's muscles. It was obvious, too obvious, that Link didn't handle this beast alone, and in a stable as open as this, where else could an illicit companion hide than the shadows themselves?
They were going to figure Link out. They were going to smash a nut, discover his stowaway, and they were going to punish him for it. And if they knew that a soldier in their midst was indebted to the enemy? They might decide that no matter how tightly Link clung to a fraying strand of loyalty, he was too risky to keep around. Or alive.
There was no scuttling back to the status quo. No loyalty without dishonour. No-
"You killed him," Reed awed. "By Din's power, you killed him." What? Was Reed too thick to see the Very Damning Evidence to the Contrary? More importantly, were the others?
Jay slapped his thigh with a triumphant laugh. "We have a true hero in our midst, folks! The goddesses sure know how to pick them."
Link wet his lips and asked the most stupid question he could've. "What did I just… do?"
The twins' eyes bulged. "You don't know?" Reed asked. "Could've sworn they mentioned this guy at the mission brief."
"King Boargorak," Ashei said. Unlike the twins, she wasn't reeling from some false feat of strength. No. She was pacing around the corpse, scrutinising it. "Leader of the bulblins." Her foot prodded the corpse's shoulder. "Notoriously hard to kill."
"Was notoriously hard to kill," Jay corrected.
A King Boargorak had been mentioned at the briefing, but no one had thought to mention that he looked nothing like the typical bulblin. Link had 'slain' Hyrule's most fearsome menace of the past 20 years, and no one suspected otherwise. Perhaps Link still had time to figure out what to do about his new… connection with his shadow.
"I dunno about that," Ashei said to Jay. "Reports say this guy survived worse than a stab to the gut."
Jay strolled past Ashei with a scoff. "Well, the important thing is that he isn't moving and trying to kill us." He offered Link a hand, pulled him up, and returned his shield. "Seems pretty dead to the rest of us."
"Finally, some good sense from you," Reed teased. "Link, take your sword and we'll be on our way. Maybe when we come back, we can collect this loon's head and offer it to the general with all the fanfare of a flower bouquet. She'd like that, right, Ashei?" Reed nudged her.
She rolled her eyes. "By then it'll be too rotten for taxidermy."
"Ah, but the skull would be such a pretty ornament upon her mantle," Jay said.
This was… surreal. No one knew the truth. No one suspected a shred of Link's treason. Instead of interrogating him about the inconsistencies of the scene, they were joking about macabre décor. Thank the goddesses for giving him more time. It didn't matter if he didn't know what the right thing was anymore, because he had the relative safety to figure it out, and he would figure it out.
As Reed had ordered, Link approached his sword. It was buried in the stomach, right to the crossguard. Ashei stood fast beside him, hand on her hilt, as if she expected the monster to spring upright and crush Link's ribs.
When Link took his hilt, it took three tugs to free it, and on the final, wet pop, something twitched. The beast's face. That had to be a trick. A superstition egged on by Ashei's paranoia.
The hairs on its chin fluttered, and yet there was no breeze.
Outside the stable, there were only bodies. Some in pieces. Some still groaning in pain. Not a single one moved as they crunched by. Reed led the team through a narrow passage of sandstone walls engraved with Gerudo script. If only Link could read it. Fill his mind with something more than the snarky little saviour in his shadow. Something other than the soldiers he was passively lying to at this very moment.
Eventually, the space opened to a crumbling staircase surrounded by snapped pillars. Waiting at the top of the stairs, before the dark, gaping entrance, was the golden wolf.
What a relief. It was here to guide Link. Show him the right way forward to whatever the gods willed. Everything was going to be fine, for destiny still paved a path for the hero to follow.
But as Link ascended the flight with his comrades, something contaminated his hope. The wolf's nose was scrunched, its fangs were bared, and its brow crushed its piercing red eye. From the back of its throat, a growl rumbled. A growl that threatened to break Link's neck between its jaws.
Link was a fool to keep walking closer, to come in range of the wolf's pounce, but it didn't pounce. It continued to sit straight like a prince posing for a portrait, and it continued to turn its head and growl as Link passed him by.
The message was murky, but Link had a guess. In that stable, he had made an earth-shattering mistake. He was sloppy. He was weak. He shouldn't have gotten himself trapped alone with that monster. He shouldn't have let himself get disarmed with the ease of a child. He shouldn't have gotten knocked down, and he absolutely should not have been rescued by a Twili.
Yes, Link owed Midna, but that didn't change the fact that Link was a soldier of Hyrule, and the goddesses' chosen hero. He couldn't allow anything to conflict with that, could he?
Link straightened his back and followed his comrades down into the Arbiter's Grounds, where he would protect them from every restless spirit and every wandering corpse, just as they would for him. After all, he was no traitor.
No traitor to Hyrule, at least.
A/N: See? I told you it was a real chapter! How the turns have tabled in the story and the author's notes! Lamp-shading? Why would you think I was lampshading? Okay, fine. Here are the reasons why I updated on April 1st:
1. Currently I update my fic and my YouTube channel fortnightly... on the same fortnight. I wanted them to be alternating weeks instead, hence why I updated this fic on a week when I wouldn't also be posting to my YouTube channel.
2. There is an April Fools Day joke hidden somewhere in this fic... but not within the chapters themselves. If you spot it, you get 2 weeks worth of dirt-flavoured pickled pumpkin and a cat named after you! (Disclaimer: not rly lol) It will be removed once Monday AEST rolls around, though.
UPDATE: You missed it. You missed the funny-as-hell joke, but fortunately I have immortalised it on my Tumblr scarlet-curls. Just search 'the light invasion au' on my blog and you should find it along with all my other ramblings about this fic.
Next chapter will be the last one in Part I. I'm not gonna go super in depth with navigating the Arbiter's Grounds because this isn't a novelisation. Would rather focus on what makes this AU different from canon.
It's high time we answer the very question that has been hanging over us this entire time: Will Link finally side with Midna? Last call for you to type up your answer for your chance to win a jar of jellybeans! (Disclaimer: There are no actual jellybeans.)
