izy

After ambushing the chain, Dark Link is captured and forced to travel with his most hated enemies. He couldn’t be more against this plan.

First post on Tumblr, so bear with me. This fic is already posted on ao3, but I thought I’d start posting snippets here as well. If you’re interested in reading more, check out Dark Times Call for Darker Measures under dizyeggs.

It wasn’t every day Dark Link found himself facing an angry god on a blood soaked battlefield, but here he was, at the end of the biggest sword he’d ever seen, surrounded by his light-loving alter egos.

Dark, it seemed, was out of luck.

The battle had been going fine—great, even—just fifteen minutes ago. Dark Link had spent weeks gathering the troops for the fight, at the behest of that vexing voice he had come to know as Demise, and had grown honestly convinced there was no way those pompous heroes could resist such a force. He had hundreds of bokoblins and lizalfos, ten squads of moblins from across the eras, and even a few lynels he’d managed to drag from their respective territories. If there was one way to describe those beasts, it was antisocial; as such, Dark was quite proud he’d managed to gather so many.

When Dark finally gathered the means to supply his army (lizalfos were surprisingly skilled at smithing, but stubborn enough to make working with them a struggle), he bid his time for an opportunity to strike the heroes at their most vulnerable.

The moment came when Hylia’s heroes stopped to rest in a swampy valley surrounded by cliffs on three sides; the perfect place for his archers to rain hell upon the men while his troops cut off their escape from the other end. Night had fallen, thunder growled menacingly from above, and thick sheets of rain hammered Dark’s enemies as they tried to seek shelter in an odd blue mound. He could have ambushed them in the enclosed space and ended this fight quickly, but…

Wouldn’t it be more fun to watch them struggle?

As the group trudged through the slough of mud to a platform in the center of the valley, he raised one arm to signal his archers to ready. Far below, hidden well in the dips and valleys beyond the plateau, his hordes of monsters sat watching in wait. At his signal, lizal and boko archers began their rain of Demise’s fury into the valley as they shot a barrage of arrows at the courage-wielders.

With the fight begun, legions of dark blooded monsters rushed to meet the heroes with blades of sharpened steel, roused by the foreign rage of a hateful god which swallowed any independence they had.

The heroes lasted impressively long, considering Dark had stalked their movements to catch them at their weakest. Although they were tired, weary, and exposed to a torrent of rain, the heroes of courage continued to fight even as the sun crested the horizon. They battled with every tool in their arsenal, many of which Dark had never seen: one man wielded a whip to snatch his dark beasts from the sky, while another threw more bombs than he had stocked his entire army with. One hero even jumped on a spinning, oversized top, which Dark noted to swipe off his corpse later.

But, alas, Demise just had to ruin his fun. The god, watching from within his sacred prison, surged with intense delight as one of the heroes collapsed. The feeling was overwhelmingly, intoxicatingly powerful, and every creature on the damned battlefield save for Hylia’s heroes lurched at the alien wave of manic excitement, overcome with a newfound determination to show those saintly heroes what for. Dark included.

Dark dissolved into the shadows at his feet, half maddened with the urge to rip each hero apart, and found himself suddenly in the center of the battle. The wrathful god in his head refused to relinquish control as he surged Dark forward to the front lines, where the heroes had been backed into a tight formation around their fallen teammate.

What neither entities accounted for—nor any of the other heroes, based on their expressions— was the trump card one hero of Time had yet to lay down. As Dark approached the group, either to gloat or kill them himself, the hero of Time pulled out a strange mask and grimly set it on his face. Where a hylian soldier once stood was now a nine foot tall being of pure power, quickly tearing through Dark’s army with a double helix sword that treated monster flesh like softened butter.

In seconds, the tides of battle turned. Where Demise’s elation had been was now acute fury, so strong the remaining monsters could barely think as rage blotted out their sanity. In place of Dark’s monster warriors were mindless beasts ready to attack anything in their way, including allies. Dark himself struggled to hold back the rage as it sank its claws into his mind, burning, ripping, tearing him apart—

When Dark looked up again, his legions were gone. Not a single monster remained on the blood-stained plateau, save for himself. And right in front of him, that divine sword dripping clots of black onto his muddy, soaked tunic, stood what Dark could only describe as a fierce deity.

Dark had been surrounded, caught in a rare moment of weakness as Demise’s wrathful shouts crowded out any awareness he’d had. Now, with a sword pointed at his throat, the god was utterly silent.

What an ass.

“You,” the fierce god before him bellowed as sunlight peeked through the tapering rain, “Have made a grievous mistake.”

The hero of Time watched him with an icy expression of calm. His mask, a perfect replica of his face save for the tell-tale white hair of that fierce god, had been taken off and put away as soon as a shorter, long-haired hero declared the perimeter safe. Safe, save for the dark creature tied up at their heels.

He was surrounded by no less than five heroes, all with a sword in hand and an expression so loathsome Dark wondered if they’d been taking lessons from Demise. The other three—good goddess, how many of them were there?—were crowded around the blue mass of the fallen hero. Apparently, his monsters hadn’t done a proper job in dispatching the boy, and now another hero was nursing him back to life. Dark always told them: “cut off the heads, you brainless pigs!” But why listen to your commanding officer?

“Eyes on us, shade,” one of them spat, his pantless legs shivering from the rain. Who in Hyrule had let him out in public like that? If Dark remembered correctly—and how could he forget, having fought the prickly asshole so many times—this pantsless, pink haired man was the hero of Legend.

Dark refused to comment. He was admittedly sulking at the loss of all his hard work, and couldn’t yet be bothered to answer the hero's questions. He absolutely wasn’t embarrassed that he was caught suffering from Demise’s rage. He also was not still reeling from the sudden grip of wrath on his soul. Absolutely not.

Dark was ripped from his thoughts as a hand yanked the rope around his torso, turning him to face the hero of Warriors. “How did you know where we were? How did you ambush us?” He’d only seen the man briefly during the War of Ages, but that scarf was unforgettable. It was also something Dark fully intended to choke the hero with as soon as his hands were untied.

“Wars, calm down. We won’t get anything out of him if he sees us sweat.” Another hero outside of Dark’s periphery spoke calmly, though a deeper anger hid beneath the words. “Let’s start with an easy one. Who are you, and why have you been following us?”

Easy? That was an easy question? “As amusing as it is to watch your attempt at interrogating me, this is getting old. Why not kill me? I see your sword hands twitching.”

The Links all jolted in eerie similarity, and Dark realized that was the first time he’d spoken to them. Damn it, now that they know he can talk, they might keep him here for hours trying to get information. Not that they hadn’t already; it had been an hour and a half since the battle ended, and Dark was starting to feel the after effects of transporting so many monsters with his shadow magic.

“You—you can talk?” A caped Link exclaimed, earning an elbow from pinky. This one, Dark didn’t recognize. While he had encountered many Links over the years—mostly through involuntary trials—there were apparently still a few he’d never met.

Well, no use playing mute anymore. “How observant! Have you also noticed the blue sky and green grass, or the blood and dirt caking that sword of yours?” He couldn’t help but make a jab at the master sword, raised threateningly at him as its wielder scowled.

“You can be as uncooperative as you want,” the hero of Time knelt to his eye level, voice low and vicious. Dark certainly couldn’t forget that face, two eyes or not; after all, it was the one he wore day by day. “We have other ways to make you talk.”

Before Dark could retort back something that would probably result in harm to his person, a loud gasp sounded from somewhere to his right. From the looks of it, the fallen hero had finally woken up. The men surrounding him all turned as a brown haired boy exclaimed, “Wind! Are you alright? How’s your head?”

And suddenly, Dark became about as interesting to the heroes as the muddy swamp they were sloshing through. With no small amount of grumbling, he scooted to a position where he could see the source of those raucous shouts as they beat against his migraine. Using shadow magic was, generally, quite easy for Dark, but moving an entire legion across time and space was no small task. That, and the raging howls of Demise from the previous battle had left him dizzy.

The sound of eight heroes shouting over each other pulsed unpleasantly at Dark’s headache as they rushed to fawn over the boy.

“Wind! Are you ok?”

“Hylia above, that’s a lot of blood.”

“Does anywhere else hurt? Do you need a potion?”

“Give him some space, guys! And try not to shout, he’s probably concussed.” Though Dark couldn’t tell most of the Links apart from where he sat, the last statement, which quieted the group, seemed to have come from the younger hero he’d seen healing the hurt one earlier.

Obligingly, the heroes of courage stepped back to give the boy—was it Wind they called him? They must be using hero titles—some space.

With fewer bodies blocking his view, Dark could tell now that the hero his monsters had taken down earlier was in fact the hero of Wind, one he had fought in some dungeon a while back. If his nickname hadn’t been an indicator, his boyish appearance would have told Dark quickly who he was looking at. Although Dark was opposed to heroes of courage on principle, the hero of Wind was one he hated less than the others. Something about his young optimism and teenage snark just appealed to Dark; perhaps because it was so starkly different from the hero of Time’s steadfast stoicism. It also didn’t hurt that naive hope was so exhilarating to crush.

The brown haired one holding two glowing palms against Wind’s bleeding head was another of those Dark recognized. The hero of Hyrule had changed very little since Dark last saw him, however he’d finally ditched that awful green cap so many Links were prone to donning.

The hero of Wind, now sitting up with a grimace and a hand to his forehead, mumbled dazedly, “Wha… what happened?”

“You were hit with a moblin club to the head. We had to use a fairy to… you know,” the brown haired hero said gently, careful to keep his voice quiet. Perhaps Dark’s monsters weren’t as incompetent as he’d thought, if they could inflict that kind of damage. He would, however, have to remind his armies to check for fairies next time to ensure their enemies stayed down.

Dark tuned out the quiet conversation between Wind and the other heroes as he tested the binds of his ropes. Normally, such human methods of entrapping would be a breeze to escape from. However, Dark was feeling increasingly debilitated as the throbbing pulse in his head flared. He was actually getting concerned about just how weak he felt. Shadow traveling never weakened him this badly, hundreds of monsters or no; the claws of Demise’s rage must have dug much deeper than he’d thought.

Regardless, he could still escape while the heroes were distracted. Careful to keep his movements silent in the sloshy, rain-soaked grass, Dark crept slowly away from the crowd of heroes.

He managed to slither a good thirty feet away before a furry-pelted hero noticed and used a hookshot to knock the wind out of him from a distance. Dark really needed to get his hands on one of those, considering how useful they were to his blessed counterparts.

“Hey!” The warrior hero dashed for Dark and grabbed him by the ropes as the shadow being gasped for breath on the ground. Damn, since when did being nailed with a giant hunk of metal hurt so badly?

Warriors dragged him back to their scowling group and dumped him roughly in the mud. “Don’t even try it. After what you did to Wind, each and every one of us would hunt you down and destroy you.” The man knelt in front of Dark, yanking up the collar of his shirt so they were face to face. “If nothing else, us heroes are persistent. If it meant getting revenge for that battle, for what you did to our brother… I would personally make sure you stayed rotting in the dankest, darkest prison any era of Hyrule has to offer.”

Although hearing those words from a righteous hero was contrary to Dark’s view of the man, the threat itself didn’t quite land. Dark had been introduced to many of Hyrule’s prisons throughout its eras, and none of them could compare to the suffocating grasp of Demise. Even if he wanted to be locked away, Dark was sure the malicious god wouldn’t let him sit idle for long without giving him more dirty work to carry out.

Regardless of this, Dark gave a careless smirk and said, “First time being intimidating, hero? Do you feel big and strong now that you stood your ground against the mean, scary monster?”

Dark could see the warrior’s vision go red. Unfortunately, he didn’t take the bait, instead rising to address his teammates, “We need to discuss what to do now that we’ve caught him. For right now, I don’t think it would be a good idea to kill him. We don’t know what he's capable of, and killing him will get rid of the only source of information we have about the black blooded monsters.”

“Also,” the pink haired one—Legend, if Dark was right about them going by hero titles—piped up from behind him, “I fought a similar enemy at least three or four times on my journeys. I always assumed they were enchanted shadows or something, but with this one being sentient, it’s possible the others were, too. Hell, they could be the same person for all we know, in which case killing him would do exactly jack and shit.”

Dark refrained from commenting. It was one thing to give his enemies confirmation of his own sentience, but it was another to give them clues about his actual capabilities. Unbeknownst to them, every shadow Link they’d encountered had been the same person. Death was not a concept Dark was familiar with; despite having been slain by the heroes as well as many others, his soul persists.

The group continued their contemplation, as though the being in question was not right in front of them. “The nearest viable prison would probably be in Gerudo town, but that’s at least five days worth of travel from here,” one Link supplied, his gnarled, scarred skin stretching as he spoke. “The Rito in my Hyrule don’t really have anywhere super secure, and since Thundra Plateau is so remote, there aren’t any other towns close enough to travel to.”

“Prison?” A slurred, groggy voice sounded from where Wind was being forced to lie down by a concerned hero of Hyrule. “Why’re we goin’ to a prison?”

“We’re discussing what to do with our new captive. We can’t kill him, and apparently sticking him in a prison is out of the question, too.” This time, it was the young looking person in a multicolored tunic who spoke. They sat next to Wind, dabbing the blood from his forehead.

“Can’ we just all be friends?” Wind mumbled incoherently, clearly not fully aware of the situation.

His friends ignored him. “So, if we can’t kill him or lock him away, what can we do?” The caped one, still with the master sword in hand, stared at Dark like he was a puzzle the hero just wasn’t smart enough to solve.

There was silence for a long moment. Finally, the pelted man with curious dark sigils on his face spoke up, “We could take him with us. Just until we find a secure enough place to keep him.”