Chapter 40
Army of Monsters

The appearance of the six-legged machine triggered different verbal responses from the good guys. Link called it a Guardian, while Centi called it a Rapture, and both were confused at each other regarding the name given. However, that didn't matter for now, as the machine was clearly hostile towards them, as evident of it firing a laser beam out of its single eye at them.

The good guys got out of the way in time, and upon landing, Link reached to his back to grab his weapon, only to realize that something was missing. "The Master Sword! I don't have it!" he gasped. What he had instead were a simple pair of bow and quiver of arrows, so left with no choice, he took it out and took aim at the robot's eyes and let go of the bowstring. The arrow struck the eye with great precision, but unfortunately, it failed to do much to the robot other than catching its attention.

The robot turned to Link and began moving towards him, only to have its attention taken away by energy bullets fired by Crown. She used her lance as her firearm, the front part of its opening up and firing energy blasts rapidly like a machine gun. With great precision, she fired at the robot's eye and clearly did damage to it, as the robot moved back while flailing its legs erratically.

Crown took off in its direction and leaped towards the eye with the intention of piercing it with her now closed up lance. But that did not happen, as the robot used one of its claw-tipped legs to grab her leg and flung her away to the side, though she was able to land in a crouching position.

Guillotine and Centi fired from their weapons next, using a machine gun and a nail gun that doubles as a grenade launcher respectively. Striking the areas around the eye, the girls were able to confuse and "terrify" the robot, making it unable to do anything properly with the onslaught of projectiles. Eventually, it began charging up its eye for a laser attack, only to be interrupted by a well aimed shot to that spot by Exia using her sniper rifle.

The eye was damaged, and this resulted in the robot moving around awkwardly and short-circuiting. Crown then jumped at it, thrusting her lance into the damaged eye. Its eye completely destroyed, the robot stopped moving completely and collapsed onto the floor. It short-circuited even more than before, prompting Crown to move back for protection, until it exploded.

"Yeah! We did it!" exclaimed Centi.

"Heeheehee! Nothing stands before the One-Winged Dark Lord and survives to tell the tale!" said Guillotine smugly.

"Whoa…! You girls are good!" commented Link in awe.

"Well, dealing with Raptures is what we're created for," Exia told him.

"I don't know what a Rapture is, but that thing was a Guardian, and they're supposed to be nonexistent now…" Link told her.

"Guardian? It sure doesn't look like any Rapture we've documented, and since you know what it is, I guess it's from your world?" said Exia.

Nihilister, who was seated on a rock nearby the whole time and did nothing, said to Link, "If I had to guess from what you said earlier, your world had issues with these Guardian freaks, right?"

Link nodded as he faced her and explained, "Yes, Guardians were created by the Sheikah tribe as defense against the Demon King, but the latter ended up taking control of them and used it against the Hylian Army. They should no longer be functioning now that he has been defeated."

When Guillotine heard a certain term, she perked up with interest and asked Link, "Did you say… Demon King?"

"Yes," Link said to her. "Demon King Ganondorf… He was an ancient evil who terrorized Hyrule for over ten thousand years, and over the years, different incarnation of heroes fought and defeated him. At least that's how the legend goes… I'm supposed to be the latest of these heroes who managed to defeat him. Hopefully for good…"

"Incredible…! This world is everything I've hoped for!" said Guillotine in awe. "Demon King… Legendary chosen hero… Not only that, I'm even looking at the chosen hero himself! What an honor! Am I really worthy of all this?"

"Eh, you don't have to be so formal… Just be casual," Link told her, chuckling a bit.

"So you're a chosen hero who once saved this world? That's quite a feat and burden to carry!" Corrin said to him.

"Well yeah, it's not easy being a big shot, but I had friends who supported me. We managed to make it through hardships and defeat the Demon King in the end!" said Link, sounding a bit proud.

"But you said those Guardians are supposed to all be destroyed after the Demon King's defeat, so if they are back functional again, does that mean he is back?" Exia asked Link.

A worried look appeared on Link's face. "I hope this isn't the case, but I'm prepared for the dreaded possibility… I only hope Zelda and everyone else are all right… Which is why we should be heading for the strangely restored Hyrule Castle to get answers."

"Hey, what's that approaching," said Centi, taking note of something running towards them in the distance.

They watched and thought they saw a white horse approaching, but the horse appeared to be metallic in appearance. Not only that, there were a large amount of people behind the horse, seemingly chasing it.

"Trombe!" Crown suddenly called out. She ran forward, approaching the horse and getting close to it. The mechanical horse neighed happily as he approached his owner, who petted it on the head. "Trombe! You're here too! I was so worried about you!"

"Bokoblins!" shouted Link suddenly. Everyone looked at the approaching army up ahead and saw that they consisted of brown-skinned creatures vaguely resembling humanoid pigs, many of them armed with weapons like clubs, swords, knives, and spears.

"What are those?!" asked Centi in shock.

"Bokoblins are armies of the Demon Lord and a menace to people out in Hyrule Field!" explained Link, getting his bow and arrow ready.

The Bokoblins closed in on the good guys, who began fighting to defend themselves. Link skillfully used his bow and arrows to precisely aim for the Bokoblins' foreheads and chests, striking them in places that could take them out in one hit.

When a Bokoblin thrust its spear at him, he dodged it by stepping aside and then grabbed and yanked the spear out of the Bokoblin's hands, much to the monster's surprise. Taking the spear for himself, Link jabbed the Bokoblin to death and then proceeded to go wild with his newly acquired weapon against the Bokoblins that surrounded him.

When the Bokoblins were killed, they exploded into purple smoke, leaving behind nothing afterwards, a sight that surprised the Nikke and Corrin.

Guillotine gunned down the Bokoblins around her with little effort, and as she did so, she said, "Using guns in a fantasy setting may not be fitting, but I have no choice. Surely my chosen weapon awaits me somewhere, waiting for me to collect and use! I can see that it will be a sword of great power that will unleash judgment on my enemies!"

"If you want to, I can make you a sword," said Centi as she loaded some bullets into her nail gun. Taking aim at some Bokoblins approaching some distance away, she pulled the trigger and fired a large bullet that exploded into smaller bullets halfway, but those smaller bullets grew in size until they became large girders. The girders collided into the Bokoblins, knocking them down and piling on top of them.

"It will not be the same! Either it has to be found, or it has to be created in a special way," insisted Guillotine.

"But I assure you that anything I make is special!" Centi told her.

"Can we argue about that some other time? We're busy fighting for our lives here, and I've never been in such a desperate situation before!" said Exia, aiming around and shooting for her life, and occasionally taking a peek at her gaming device.

When Corrin saw some Bokoblins charging at her, she reached for her weapon, or at least tried to, because she saw that her usual sword was nowhere in sight. "The Yato! It's not here!"

Looking up, she saw a Bokoblin leaping at her with a stone ax held over his head, ready to swing it down on to her. However, he never got the chance to hit her and instead came to a sudden halt in the air, as out of Corrin's head grew a pair of horns resembling deer antlers, impaling the monster. With a shout, she swung her head to the side and tossed the monster away.

The other Bokoblins were surprised at what she did, but nevertheless closed in on her to attack. Corrin began fighting in a bizarre manner, transforming her arms and legs into pointy lance-like appendages to impale and knock away the enemies around herself. She even grew a tail to whip away Bokoblins that approached her from behind.

As if that wasn't enough, she reached out her hand, which transformed into a jaw-like appendage that shot out blue energy balls, blasting away the Bokoblins.

Nihilister, from her same seat on the rock, watched Corrin fight with interest and commented, "Oh, that girl's got some never-seen-before tricks!"

A Bokoblin leaped at Nihilister from behind, but one of her dragon heads turned around to him and shot a blast of fire that instantly blew it into fiery chunks of flesh.

After much fighting, all the Bokoblin were killed. The good guys took breaths of relief, glad that they won. "Phew… We did it… Everyone all right?" Link asked everyone.

"Never better!" said Centi, giving a thumbs up while wiping her forehead with her other hand.

Exia sat down on the floor while panting. "Man… I hate doing physical activities… Come to think of it, it's been a long time since I've done combat… I forgot how tiring it is…"

Crown approached Corrin and said to her, "If I may ask… I couldn't help but notice that you possess unique combat moves. The way you changed your hands and legs seamlessly into weapons…"

Corrin was a bit nervous when she asked that, but she decided to tell her the truth. "You see… I… I… I'm not sure if you will find it easy to believe, but I'm not completely human… I'm… half dragon, half human."

"Huh? That's new… I never knew there was a Nikke designed to be a combination of a dragon and a human," said Centi with interest.

"Hey, look over here!" an annoyed and offended Nihilister called out to her while pointing at herself

"Which manufacturer do you belong to? Or are you perhaps a Pilgrim?" Centi asked Corrin.

Corrin was confused to hear those questions however. "I have no idea what you mean… Manufacturer? Pilgrim? Nikke? Those are new to me…"

Now it was Centi's turn to be confused. "What do you mean? If you can perform non-human feats, then you must be a Nikke."

"Or perhaps she is telling the truth about not being a Nikke. Likely, she comes from another world and has been pulled to this place like us," pointed out Guillotine, "and those are the natural abilities of her kind."

"I guess that makes sense. Why would we Nikke be the only ones to be pulled into this world? You'll never know if people from other worlds came here as well," said Exia.

"So you come from another world different from these girls?" Link asked Corrin.

The latter nodded. "I believe so, since they are mentioning things I've never seen before, and I've never seen the weapons they're using before. They're like staffs that fire… things…"

"Ah, it's only natural that someone from the land of fantasy to not be familiar with modern day firearms," said Guillotine. "That is the evidence we need that you come from a different world."

"Well, those things look new to me, but the concept of tools that shoot projectiles isn't exactly knew to me," said Link. "I've used some stuff that are very similar to those firearms you girls used."

"You're telling me you have a computer tablet and even robots in your world, but you don't know what a gun is? Huh, this world is confusing…" said Centi.

"All right, let's get things explained," said Exia. Pointing at Link and Corrin, she said, "Since you don't know what Nikke are, I'll be explaining it in ways you ancient people can understand. We five girls are Nikke, artificial constructs made of metal. However, our brains are that of humans, as we used to be humans. Our brains were remove from our human bodies and put into our current metallic bodies."

Link and Corrin were understandably surprised to hear this, and even freaked out by it. "Your brains… were removed and put into artificial bodies made of metal…?!" asked a disturbed Corrin.

"Okay, this is definitely a whole new level of weird, even if I've seen a lot…" said an equally disturbed Link.

"Yeah, it's understandable you would be freaked out by this, but in our world, this was done to allow us to fight enemies known as Raptures, whose appearances aren't that far off from the Guardian thing we fought earlier," Exia further explained. "Normal humans are too weak to fight Raptures, so Nikke like us were created to fight them, and there are only female Nikke, because males cannot survive the transformation process."

Meanwhile, Trombe looked to the side, and spotting something, he let out an aggressive-sounding neigh that grabbed the others' attentions. Crown petted him in the side and looked at where he was looking at. A large army of monsters were seen approaching from the distance, coming in a variety of species. "It seems that we are expecting another round of battle soon," said Crown.

A look of annoyance appeared on Exia's face as she said, "Again…?! We just had one earlier… I don't think we have enough ammo to get through another one!"

"I admit… The sheer number of them can be overwhelming even for me…" said Link as he looked at the approaching army nervously.

As the others were nervous and wondering what to do, Nihilister said in annoyance as she stood up, "Tsk! You guys are a bunch of wusses! How about I show you lot how a pro gets things done instead?"

"There's more people approaching from that side too!" said Corrin all of a sudden. Everyone looked and saw a large number of horses with people riding on them charging towards the army of monsters, and when the monsters saw them, they changed their attention from the good guys to them instead.

"Take them all down!" shouted the person in charge of the new army as he raised his sword. He was a human.

Both sides collided, and a fierce battle erupted between them. The good guys became bystanders, watching the fight go on without their interference, as nobody came in their direction, so they did not need to do anything.

"Such battle! One fitting of a fantasy world!" said Guillotine in awe.

"Man! That's something intense madness going on there! I cant' tell who's going to win!" said Centi.

As Link watched the fight, he saw another person flying around in the air, shooting arrows at the monsters down below. He took a closer look at that person and then came to a surprising realization. "Teba! That's my friend over there!"

"Your friend is a bird?" Nihilister asked him.

"Teba is a Rito, a species of bird people," Link explained to her. "He had a hand in fighting the Demon King's army and is a great ally."

As Corrin watched the fight, her eyes widened in surprise as she noticed some familiar people among them. "Xander! Leo?! What are they doing here?!"

Fighting against the monsters were royalties of the Nohr Kingdom as well Corrin's adopted family members. They were the last people she expected to see in this world, and fighting against the monsters, no less.

"But if this isn't your world, there shouldn't be people you know," Link said to her.

Corrin nodded. "Yes, which is why it's strange I'm seeing them here! This doesn't make sense! Did they get transported here as well?"

As she continued to watch the fight, she noticed a silver-haired girl holding a staff and riding a horse standing at the sidelines. However, a stray arrow fired by a Bokoblin ended up hitting her horse, causing it to neigh in pain and shaking its body. In doing so, the girl fell off onto the side, and then a Hinox was seen approaching her.

"Elise!" gasped Corrin. She wasted no time in running towards the girl to help her. Just as the Hinox was going to grab her, Corrin leaped at the cyclops and changed her arm into her dragon form's limb, impaling him in the eye. The Hinox cried in agony and backed away as Corrin tore his eye out of its socket, and then the he fell on his back before exploding into purple smoke.

"Thanks…!" the relieved Elise said to Corrin.

"Are you all right, Elise?" Corrin asked her. "And I'm so glad to see you here, even though I'm confused why you're here."

"Do I know you?" Elise asked her in response, which made Corrin even more confused.

Corrin was surprised to hear her say that. "It's me, Corrin, your big sister! How can you forget who I am?"

"But I don't remember you among my siblings," Elise told her.

This made Corrin even more confused. The person before her was obviously Elise, yet the latter insisted on not knowing who she is. Had their last meeting been so long ago that she already forgot who she is? This shouldn't be possible and didn't made sense at all to Corrin.

"I know! You must have someone you miss a lot who looks like me and has the same name, so you mistook me for her!" said Elise.

"Um…" Corrin wasn't sure what to say.

"It must be painful not being able to see the person you miss. Don't worry; I'm sure you will be able to meet her again!" Elise cheerfully said to her while patting her in the face. "We can talk again after this fight is over."

"Yeah… Sure…" said Corrin, still confused.

Xander fought valiantly, taking out several enemies that surrounded him. Some Moblins and Bokoblins rushed towards him from the side, only to be taken out by Crown riding on Trombe when they charged into them from the side.

Xander's attention turned to her, and he said, "I don't know who you are, but you have my thanks in helping us in this fight!"

"I am glad to be of help," Crown said to him. "Let us fight together and put an end to this army of evil!"

"Yes, let us do so," said Xander with a nod in agreement.

The fight raged on for a while longer, and eventually, the last of the monsters were defeated. The good guys did not suffer any loss, and everyone cheered in triumph, glad to have come out victorious in the battle.

"Good job, everyone! It seems that everyone made it out unscathed," Xander addressed his army. "You all fought well, defending Kakariko Village before it was attacked by the Demon King's army!" His head then turned to the good guys who helped with the fight. Actually, Nihilister did nothing once again. "And we had help from outsiders, and it is a big welcome! You have my thanks in supporting our cause!"

"I'm just glad we didn't have to do everything ourselves…" said a tired Exia. "I ran out of bullets already…"

Corrin approached Xander and said to him, "Xander, it's me, Corrin!"

Xander looked at her and asked, "And who might you be?"

Corrin was shocked to hear such a response from him. Elise didn't know her, and know Xander didn't know her as well. She wondered what on earth was going on. "It's me, Corrin, your… your… adopted younger sister!" she told him.

Hearing this, Xander and his army were surprised, and the latter murmured among themselves about what this could mean. Leo approached Corrin and said to her, "What on earth are you talking about? Big brother Xander and our family don't have an adopted sister! Are you out of your mind?"

While Corrin was confused by what was happening, Link was having a similar situation of his own. He started a conversation with Teba regarding his presence, only for the Rito to reply, "Sorry, you don't ring a bell at all."

"What…? You don't know who I am…?" asked a confused Link. He wondered what was going on with Teba that he didn't recognize him, and when he saw that Corrin's supposed allies didn't recognize her as well, he started to think if something suspicious was going on. Remembering about Hyrule Castle, he asked the Rito, "About Hyrule Castle… When was it patched up?"

Teba narrowed his eyes in response and said, "You're a weird fellow, you know that? Hyrule Castle was never in a bad shape! It never needed patching up!" Link could only stare at him with widened eyes of surprise, unsure what to say.

Meanwhile, Xander asked Crown, "Who are you people? Where do you come from?"

"You see, it's a very strange tale," Crown told him. "I believe we come from somewhere far away, but without a warning, we were engulfed in bright light and found ourselves transported here without an explanation. Even now, we are very confused about how we got here and even what this place is. We are very lost…"

When Xander heard her explanation, his eyes widened. He became in deep thought for a while and then said, "Please come with us to Hyrule Castle at once. The king will very much like to meet you."

"Really?" said Crown with interest. "What is the reason for you to suddenly say that, may I ask?"

"If what you said is true, then I believe that you and your group are the prophesied heroes who will save Hyrule!" explained Xander.

Meanwhile, in a different location, located within a creepy castle of darkness… Within its interior, in the throne room, a dark-skinned man with red hair was seated on a throne, overlooking a brown-skinned woman wearing a black leotard with a long blade-tipped tail.

The woman knelt down before the man on the throne and said, "My lord, the army of demons sent to Kakariko Village have all been wiped out by the Hylian-Nohr Alliance Army."

"That is disappointing to hear, but I am not surprised, given the army we sent was not a strong one," said the man.

"What action should we take next?" the woman asked him.

"It would seem that we need something with greater power, and I believe I know just the thing!" said the man with an evil smile. "Send word to Garon and tell him that he has my permission to free the monster locked up in Wind Temple."

"I will, my lord," said the woman before standing up and leaving the place.

The man laughed silently to himself and said, "Let's see how long you can hold up against me, King of Hyrule! Soon, I, Ganondorf the Demon King, will rule not only all of Hyrule, but the entire world!"

TO BE CONTINUED