Beta read by: Herr Wozzeck, and Babycharmander.
Horizon
My name is Meta Knight. I was once a Smash Brother.
It happened on the third day of the third Smash battle royal. The arena was a hovering shelf of rock we simply named the Battlefield. Many hundreds of strides below the arena a pristine mountain wilderness gave way to a bay of calm blue waters. Was any of it real? I will never know.
This was my first match of the tournament—a team battle: my red team against the hero Link and Princess Zelda for the green.
A hole opened in the world. Through the unholy portal he thundered into our midst on the back of a black charger. He was neither late nor early for his match, but exactly on time. Alone on the Battlefield he stood tall, arms crossed, like a statue of an emperor of old come alive. A vision of death's construction. My soul shook to gaze upon him.
My gladiatorial partner…Ganondorf.
No signal we exchanged, no words or gestures. The sorcerer watched our opponents as they watched him. I tore my eyes away in an effort to do the same.
We received the signal to begin. Ganondorf chuckled and beat his open palm with a gauntleted fist.
My cape formed wings and beat the air. Quickly I gained the advantage of height. I no longer spared my partner any attention. My target was in sight. From above I sized up my foe, Link. Though he was no knight, all the same I was eager to test my swordsmanship against this living legend—the salvation of his kingdom was said to rely entirely on his sword arm and the peerless weapon it gripped, the Master Sword.
Link, though young, displayed an unhurried economy of movement common in experienced warriors. He did not go for his bow or throwing club as I expected, but instead unsheathed that blade of legend and rushed forward.
The wings of my cape straightened out behind me, and I dived with a raptor's grace upon my prey. The morning sunlight transformed my blade into molten gold, its barbs cruel and sharp as dragon's teeth. I braced for the lick of steel on steel, the sweet tension that would fill me when I pressed my blade against his. Alas, it was not to be.
So keen on my prey, I did not mark the Princess Zelda until she was standing before me. A blue aura encased her for an instant. The light deflected my blade, as if I had attempted to hew a wall of sheer granite. Link sprinted past us to engage Ganondorf. I realized then our opponents had planned thus: The paragon should topple the tyrant once more while the princess and her parlor tricks distracted the one they deemed the lesser threat.
My indignation knew no limits. I tore into Zelda with a ferocity I might have, in a calmer state of mind, deemed unbecoming of a knight towards a member of the fairer sex. I was a cyclone. A relentless drill boring into the smooth cheek of her defenses. Her magic bolts never came close to touching me in my fury. At the last, she attempted a transformation into the lithe Sheika form that served her so well against fleeter opponents. Before she emerged fully from her chrysalis of fairy light I threw my cape over her and delivered the final cut.
I shunted her limp form over Battlefield's edge and scored my team one point.
With contempt still seething in my heart, I turned to find Link dangling above the ground, boots kicking uselessly in the charged air. Ganondorf's great fist crushed closed over the Hylian's delicate skull. Dark energies roiled from between those fingers. The veins on Link's neck ran a poisoned purple. The air reeked of corruption.
Ganondorf whispered to the Hylian. "Do you hear the winds of change howling, boy? It is the savage gust that once swept desolation and death over the land of my birth. Here, that same wind heralds my victory. There are no prophecies left to save you in this place. Compared to the reign that is to come, the era of you and your ilk's triumph is but the lifespan of an insect. Only I remain. The eternal cycle is now broken. The wind claims you."
A furious gale consumed the Battlefield. Bitter cold, it filled me with inexplicable dread.
Ganondorf tossed Link unconscious into the rushing wind, where he was blown clear from Battlefield to plummet helplessly into the yawning chasm of empty air. Though I know it to be impossible, before I was able draw my cape over my mask I felt the agony of sand blowing into my eyes.
The battlefield grew silent at once. The wind had vanished. My eyes were clear. The match was ours.
Link and Zelda were never the same. Broken things, they moved through an uncaring world, silent, numb. The Hylians fought no more matches and left for Hyrule soon after.
I called on Ganondorf in his state room that night. He reclined naked on a pile of silk cushions, plucking grapes from a vine and dropping them into his red mouth. The hard magnificence of his body, greenish bronze skin striped and puckered with ancient scars, stole away my breath.
I asked him if I could learn to hear the winds of death and destiny, as he did. Like skin withdrawing from a knife cut, Ganondorf's smile split wide open.