Ogrim found himself overcome with melancholy as the rain began streaking down. The rain in this new world was different from that in the City of Tears; it was warmer, and lacked the soft blue luminescence of the water that fell from the Blue Lake...and yet, just the sight of the rain brought back painful memories.

It happened more often than he'd care to admit. He was an old bug, after all, and he had lost much in his long life. The King he once served, dead. The Kingdom itself, fallen into ruin. His brothers and sisters in arms, all gone. He'd left his den to visit Isma's Grove when he'd realized that the Infection was no more, hoping that she'd be there waiting for him. Instead he'd found only despair.

He had mourned at her grave for some time, until it felt like Isma herself told him to get up. And so, the old dung beetle, the most loyal knight of the kingdom, had stood up and walked away, firm in his resolve to save what was left of the kingdom. Ogrim would not see the memories of his friends tarnished by inaction.

He'd been overjoyed to see that the Princess still lived, and he'd sworn himself to her as the new Queen. The time since that meeting had only filled him with more hope. Against all odds, they were beginning the process of healing.

But even with that...he always felt the weight of his past.

With an exertion of will, Ogrim brought his mind back to the present, and refocused on the task that needed doing. The Queen wanted him to spread the word to stay inside, and so that is what he would do.

"Attention! By order of the Queen, please stay in your houses or retreat into the Crossroads while it is raining! Do not conduct business in the streets! Return to your homes! If you hear loud noises or see a bright light, do not be alarmed, it is normal for the sky to do that here!"

At Ogrim's shout, the bugs that were basking in the rain began to split up and make their ways indoors.

Nodding, Ogrim turned and began walking towards the next section of Dirtmouth. However...something stopped him. As an old warrior, Ogrim had a certain instinct that had served him well in many battles. A feeling, deep inside, that something was about to happen. He felt that now.

He looked around. He waited. He didn't see anything.

A boom sounded throughout the town, and a flash of light blinded him. Ogrim tensed, ready to fight, but after a moment of thought, he relaxed. Ah, this was the hot fire that the hy'leen had told Hollow about. His instincts must have been acting up in response to this unknown phenomenon.

Ogrim chuckled quietly and returned to his appointed duty.

. . .

"I bet you ten rupees that you can't hit that apple."

"Make it twenty and you've got a deal." Harth scoffed. At Teba's grunt, he withdrew his bow and aimed at the apple that hung from a tree over eight hundred feet away.

The arrow shot forwards, whizzing towards the apple. With their sharp eyesight, the two Rito saw the arrow hit the side of the apple, ripping a line across its skin, but not causing the apple to fall.

"Looks like you owe me twenty rupees." said Teba smugly.

"What? I hit it! You can see that I hit it!"

"You skimmed it."

"That's the same thing!" exclaimed Harth.

"It is not. It has to fall to count, everyone knows that." rebutted Teba.

"That's horseshit! The arrow touched the apple!"

"Hit implies a solid impact! Everyone knows that!"

The two Rito continued to bicker back and forth, until finally, Teba flicked a red rupee over to Harth and said "Whatever. Next time, actually hit the apple."

Harth imitated Teba under his breath, then the two returned to lazily swooping around in the air. Far below them, the group consisting of two Hylians, three Sheikah, a Goron, and a Rito ever so slowly inched forwards. Harth sighed gustily as he studied the horizon.

"Farore above, ground-dwellers are so slow. We could have been there yesterday...oh, look, storm's rolling in from the north-east."

Teba hummed as he rotated around in the air, and he studied the distant stormfront.

"Mmm. Looks like a nasty one too. It shouldn't hit us though, the mountains will stop it...the bugs are gonna get a thrashing though."

Harth grunted, then looked down.

"I'll go tell Link, the Princess, and everyone else about it. Not that it's that important, but eh...not like there's much else to report."

"Yeah, yeah, you go do that. Better than missing another apple up here."

"I heard that!"

. . .

Quirrel looked down at the Grimmchild sternly and wagged his claw at the little one.

"I know that they are quite annoying, but we do not set other bugs on fire. Or hy'leens, or anyone else. Not unless they're attacking someone else, or attacking you."

Grimmchild hissed and released a puff of flame at Quirrel, but the pillbug was unmoved.

"No means no, little one."

Grimmchild mewled at him pitifully.

"I'm not falling for that either. You are very cute, but this doesn't change my mind," Quirrel said, and he sat down beside the firefly, "Please...promise me that you won't do something like this again."

Grimmchild grumbled, but after a long moment, he looked up and nodded.

Quirrel let a breath of relief out of his spiracles, and he patted the Grimmchild on the head. The little one leaned into his touch, purring.

"Good. Now, why don't we have something to eat? I managed to get my claws on a slice of that black giant meat that everyone has been talking about. What say we try it, mmm?"

"Mmmeat? Good meat! Yes!" said Grimmchild excitedly.

Quirrel laughed and went to retrieve the chunk of exotic flesh from the icebox. The two of them had just begun to dig in when the screaming started.

. . .

Hornet's head snapped up at the sounds of distress. After her meeting with her advisors, she had been ready to wait out the rain and hot sky fire in her house with Hollow. Now, it seemed that that wouldn't happen.

"Grab your nail."

The two siblings swiftly departed the house. Internally, Hornet wondered if this was a false alarm. A bug that had gotten spooked by the loud noises and flashes of light.

The screams grew louder and more numerous as they ran towards them. Soon, Hornet and Hollow were in sight of the cause.

Crowds of bugs ran through the streets, fleeing from beings that Hornet had never seen before. There was hemolymph on the ground, and the scent of death mixed with that of freshly fallen rain. Steel flashed through the air, and another life was snuffed out before Hornet's eyes.

She froze for a single moment as she realized what was happening.

Hollow, however, did not hesitate.

The Vessel immediately moved forwards with speed that belied their immense size. A single stroke of their greatnail, and the head of the monster was cleaved from their thorax. When the head hit the ground, Hornet found her wits again, and she unholstered her own needle.

"I did not watch over this kingdom for almost forty cycles to see it fall now!"

With that, Hornet dove into battle.

A twist of her body, and she threw her needle forwards, the end puncturing one of the smaller monsters and emerging out of the other end. She pulled on the thread attached to her needle, and it left the monster's body with a wet, meaty sound. Her needle was back in her claw just in time to deflect a blow from one of the larger monsters, the ground cracking underneath her from the force of the blow. Hornet had taken blows from stronger foes though, and she fought through the tingling in her limbs and slashed the monster at the place where its legs connected to its body.

Away from Hornet, Hollow waded through their enemies with implacable focus. They towered over even the largest of the monsters, and their greatnail was fast and deadly. They left a trail of corpses in their wake as they marched forwards. When the monsters balked in fear and began to run, Hollow did not let them; with a quick exertion of Soul, pale spikes flew through the air, cutting down the invaders in their tracks. Their bodies fell into the mud, unmoving.

Hollow did not pause in their slaughter, though they did make note of a new emotion they were feeling. They tentatively labelled this one 'fury'.

. . .

The Lynel looked at the bodies surrounding him with some confusion. Bugs? Since when did giant bugs live in Hyrule?

They were cowards too, running away from his forces at the first sight of them. The Lynel sneered in disdain as a strike of his maul crushed yet another insect into paste.

Weaklings. They would fall before the forces of Ganon.

With a bellow, the Lynel sent the two Black Hinox in his company forwards. The giant beasts rumbled in pleasure, and they began to demolish the strange shell-like houses that the bugs lived in. One seized a particularly fat beetle from the ruins of one of the houses and popped it into their mouth. The crunching of shell was only slightly drowned out by the pouring rainfall.

A tiny bug charged at the Lynel with a mining pick. He smacked it to the side with idle disgust and shook off the green blood left behind. Useless.

Once they were finished mopping up these insects, they would move onto the settlement in the lake, hacking and burning and killing until it was wiped from existence. After that, Akkala would become the grounds for the offensive against the Hylians who had dared to kill the King of Evil. True, he and his kind had lost the protection of immortality, but the shock of that loss had enraged them; no longer were they content to sit and wait, only raiding when they wanted to. Now was the time for war.

The Lynel was jerked out of his thoughts of the future by the sound of screaming. It wasn't the shrill, buzzing screams of the insects, nor did it sound like the screams of Hylians, or any other beings of Light. No, those sounds were made by Bokoblins and Lizalfos.

Snarling, the Lynel charged forwards, hooves splashing across the ground as he ran towards the source of the shameful noise.

It didn't take the Lynel long to pinpoint exactly why his underlings were screaming.

An enormous black bug was wading through the battlefield, a sword even longer than the Lynel's own maul in hand. Nothing that faced it lasted more than a few seconds, and the path it made through the streets was strewn with fresh viscera and bloody mud.

Upon seeing it, the Lynel blinked in shock, then he smiled savagely. Finally...a worthy opponent! He would keep this one's head and sword as trophies.

The Lynel roared then, a booming challenge that echoed throughout the wetlands. He raised his maul with both hands and then thrust it into the earth. Fire erupted around him, setting houses, bugs, and a stray Bokoblin aflame with ease, though the flames were quickly doused by the rain.

The bug that had been slaughtering his underlings certainly took notice of that. It began to run at him with unnatural speed, and the Lynel hefted his maul, ready to fight.

. . .

Everywhere around Dirtmouth, many bugs ran for their lives or cowered inside of their homes, the sounds of battle and death joined by raindrops and loud rumbling. They were afraid, and unused to conflict. For so long, they had depended on the strength of the Guard, a strength that had been shattered cycles ago during the Infection.

However, other bugs were well used to the rigors of battle, and they faced the invaders head on.

Quirrel, nail in claw, was a blur upon the streets of Dirtmouth; his nail strikes were faster than the eye could follow, and sprays of water erupted alongside monstrous red hemolymph with every stroke.

The Grimmchild laughed as he set another not-bug alight, the blaze of Nightmare's Flame unhindered by the rain. He could feel the magic that they wielded, a crackling energy so unlike his own inner fire. They tried to shape the blackened sky, but if he spat his flame at them, their concentration broke and they began to dance. How fun!

Iselda and Cornifer organized willing bugs into defensive bands, blocking off certain roads from the monsters with whatever they had lying around. Elderbug bashed a monster across the head with an old iron pot lid and then swiftly ran to help a beetle that had fallen into the mud.

Ogrim tackled one of the black giants while rolled up into a ball, his momentum and mass causing the giant to stumble. The Last of the Great Knights beat his thorax and gave his challenge to the beast, who responded in kind. Ogrim, uncharacteristically serious, rushed into battle with the beast.

Others fought as well. A Moss Knight, visiting from Greenpath, defended a household with her shell in claw. A former Guard, well used to fighting in the rain, flew over the houses of Dirtmouth while targeting swarms of fly-like creatures. A brave miner, pick raised high, charged at those who entered her new home.

The battle of Dirtmouth raged on.

Author's Note:

Ugh, for some reason this chapter was like pulling teeth. I was continually putting it off, or getting distracted, or staring at the doc page with zero idea of what to write next. Fight scenes are not my forte, so forgive me if this isn't up to my usual standard.

Anyways. Thanks for reading, and feedback seems to indicate that pale ore should remain a uniquely Hallownest thing. Cool beans. Now I just need to think about how how Void will interact with Malice if they ever come into contact...well, among other things, but that's the one that I've been thinking about lately. Oh, and agriculture; I'm not sure if a species that lives in a cave that the bugs use for livestock would do well above ground. Or maybe they'd do too well? Vengeflies will definetly become a major invasive species in the future, they might even outperform Keese, but Gruzzers are quite slow and stupid.