//------------------------------// // Surviving the Night // Story: Legend of Zelda: Hero of Equestria // by Klearsky52 //------------------------------// (Canterlot Castle) The council room was bustling with small talk as a few nobles made their leave from their personal meetings. Princess Celestia was sitting at the head of the table, looking tired. Princess Luna herself even decided to attend the meeting, much to the surprise of everypony else. She looked equally out of energy as her sister. It had been a long day for both of them. It seemed that the ponies’ problems suddenly spiked up. The sudden hostility of the monsters didn't help them either. Currently across from Celestia was one of her trusted generals. He too was even suffering from the situation they were in now. A group of other guards sat around them, all wearing their stoic and serious expressions. Celestia looked across at her sister. Luna nodded and cleared her throat to speak. “We are here to hear thy reports about the problems the other settlements are having,” Luna announced regally, reverting to her old English speech. Celestia coughed into her hoof, though it suspiciously sounded something like “Proper language”. Luna blushed embarrassingly and cleared her throat once more. “What we...Er...What I mean to say is I would like to hear the reports the other settlements gave us,” Luna said in a much quieter voice. The general nodded and got out a scroll from his bag. “We did receive some reports,” the general confirmed, shuffling through his scrolls. Celestia yawned tiredly. “Hopefully some good news?” Celestia offered. She was tired of hearing the complaints the nobles had about their problems. Those greedy ponies only ever come to her so that they can become more rich themselves. She did love her little ponies as if they were her own children, but she wished they would learn that there were more pressing matters to attend to than their petty squabbles. Unfortunately, the guard shook his head no. “I'm afraid not,” he answered. He pulled out one particular scroll and started to read. “The attacks by the unknown creatures has been steadily increasing over time. We can't even study them as they just explode into flames or black smoke everywhere when we kill them.” “Is there any particular target?” Celestia asked. “It seems like Appleloosa is the one that got hit the hardest,” he answered, squinting at the scroll even more. “It says here that they get attacked every other day. All the other settlements only got attacked a few times, though it wasn't enough to spread awareness to the citizens. The guards seem to be in control there.” “Is there anything else?” Luna asked. The general nodded. “There has also been a big scaled invasion,” the general said. “It's at a place called Sunset Village. I personally never heard of the place, but a guard from that group apparently gave me a report about it.” “Was it monsters?” Luna asked, alarmed. If these monsters were smart enough to initiate an attack, then they would have to plan accordingly. But the general shook his head once more. “Not monsters, but bandits. They were able to repel the attack successfully,” the general said, much to Celestia’s relief. But the general peered at the bottom of the scroll and widened his eyes. “But the strange part is when they found the bandit camp in the next few days, there was no sign of them inhabiting the camp in the first place.” “What!?” Luna asked incredulously. She slammed her hoof down on the table, making a few guards jump. “That is impossible! You must be lying.” “I'm afraid that this is no lie,” the general said shakily, adjusting a few parts of his armor that got undone when he jumped. “They’ve also experienced the same guard problems that we do now.” “The one where the guards would randomly attack citizens?” Celestia asked. The general nodded. “They also said that their guards did the same. Afterwards, they also said that they claimed memory loss; exactly same as here.” “The strange thing of it all is that I feel no magic interference here,” Celestia said, putting a hoof to her chin. “And I know for a fact that the guards won't turn on us for no apparent reason. What is going on?” “I wish I had a clue,” the general said with a shrug. “But these Sunset guards believe that they have a few details on what a irrational guard might be.” The general pointed towards one guard. The guard nodded his head and walked over across from the princesses. The guard’s helmet visor was down, covering most of his face. “There have been a few details about this situation,” the guard said monotonously. “But unfortunately are not credible.” “What!?” The general asked in disbelief. “Why not!?” “The information came from an unreliable source,” the guard continued in his same, dull tone. “More specifically, a green colt and a slightly irate mare. They claimed to see a difference with the guard’s appearance, but we ruled it out since they were attacked at night. We believed it may have been the moonlight messing with their vision.” Luna glared at the guard at the moonlight comment and was about speak before the general beat her to it. “So you have nothing!?” The general shouted, furious. He walked up to the guard and poked him in the chest threateningly. “You have the gall to say the most useless speech ever and think it's alright!? Every moment is a moment where somepony could be in danger and you have the guts to waste our time!?” “Stand down now!” Celestia ordered before the situation could be escalated even further. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “There is no point in this argument.” “My apologies, princess,” the general said, bowing low. “I won't blow up like that again.” The other guard bowed down too, but didn't say anything. Celestia sighed and put a hoof through her sparkling mane. They were going through some troubling events. Now is not the time to be fighting each other. “Send a relief squadron to Appleloosa,” Luna ordered for her sister. “Report back to us if any other places need our help.” “Of course,” the general said before looking at the pony next to him. The guard looked back at him, his visor hiding whatever emotion he could be feeling right now. “You will be part of that squadron. Consider it your chance to actually do something useful for once.” The guard only nodded, still not saying anything. The general nodded to himself, satisfied. He turned back to the royal sisters. “We will not fail you.” With that, the guards immediately piled out of the room, bowing on their way to the doors. The sisters only watched until the last guard was out of earshot. Luna turned towards her Celestia, worry etched on every feature of her face. “Could this all be what thou has sensed a while ago,” Luna asked quietly, reverting back to her old speech. Celestia said nothing for a moment, before finally answering. “I believe so,” Celestia said tiredly. She looked at her sister to see a shocked expression settle on her face. “But I don’t know what it is, yet. It could be an evil we faced before or an entirely new one.” She shuddered, remembering the feeling she had when she felt the malicious intent in the throne room. “Whatever it was, It is a lot stronger than the things we fought before.” “Could the elements handle it?” Luna asked. Celestia looked down at the floor. “I honestly don’t know,” she confessed, making Luna’s eyes widen. “All those other times, I knew that they could’ve handled it. But this enemy’s different. He’s actually planning something, unlike the others. And for the first time, I’m afraid of what his goals might be.” While the sisters were talking, the guards were walking down, talking and whispering about what they were going to do before they were relocated. Everyone but that one guard with his helmet visor over his face. He was quickly confronted by the general. “I don't know why, but I don't like you,” the general said bluntly, glaring hard at the pony in front of him. The guard said nothing, standing stoically in place. “I expect you to not be a liability in this mission. Understand?” “Yes,” the guard answered robotically. The general nodded and pushed past him. The guard said nothing and looked around to see if anypony else was there. When the coast was clear, he activated his horn. “Did you get all that?” He asked, his voice much more quieter than before. He heard some mad cackling in his head. “Yes I did,” a mysterious, male voice answered within the guard’s head. “And this will be useful to us. While we may not be assigned to the right place, I believe that I can still turn this situation to my benefit anyway. Continue on with your own mission.” “Of course,” the guard said. He removed his helmet visor. He had a normal face like the other guards. But the most distinguishing feature was his eyes...and the deep black color that inhabited them. (Link’s POV) It was now the dead of night and Link was tired. He was literally running on fumes and the constant warnings his danger sense flashed at him didn't help at all. He felt like he was being watched from all angles. But if there were any enemies watching him, why didn’t they attack yet? It didn’t help ease Link’s sleepy mind at all. It was a miracle that he didn’t even collapse on the road right now. “I can’t go on like this anymore,” Link finally said, rubbing his eyes. He could see the exit of the forest, but he didn’t have the stamina to go on further. He probably should have rested earlier and not have ran all the way. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and looked around for some decent resting places. He found a tree which seemed to have a sturdy branch low enough for him to reach. He climbed it using his sword as a holding place and laid on the branch, his eyes already closing. Clack Clack A moment later, Link opened his eye irritatingly and closed it again. But the sound grew louder and louder, causing him to stuff his ears in his hat. “Why can’t you just leave me alone!?” He shouted when he got up and looked down at whatever was making the noise. Needless to say, he wished he hadn’t. When he looked down the tree, he didn’t see anypony there in the first place. He saw what appeared to be animated pony skeletons banging themselves against the tree. Their red eyes bore into his own as they repeatedly continued slamming themselves against the tree, almost making Link lose his balance. “What the heck am I looking at?!” he thought as he looked down at the skeletal ponies. But he received no response from the voice. He tried asking again to no avail. Looks like he was going to have to find out on his own. The skeletons banged themselves against the tree once more. The tree shook as a few leaves fell from their branches. Link heard a swift crack and looked to see his branch about to snap off. “Oh my-?!” Link started to say in panic before the branch gave way. He immediately unsheathed his sword and slashed in mid air, making one of the skeletons fall into a pile of bones. Before the other ones could react, he spun his sword around in a quick spin attack, slashing at the others around him. They too joined the bone pile. Link sheathed his sword and looked at the pile of bones. “These must be the ones I sensed earlier,” Link thought, inspecting the bones. “They were literally driving me crazy.” Suddenly, the ground started to rumble. Skeletal hooves stuck out from the ground, trying to pull themselves up. The pile of bones behind him started to float up, restructuring themselves into the ponies he had thought he defeated before. He readied his sword once more, preparing himself for the onslaught. “Just what are these things?!” He asked himself as he dodged one swipe from the skeleton. He rolled around and slashed from behind, cutting through the bones easily. “And why are their bones so easy to cut? I thought they were harder than diamonds!” He slashed another horde of skeletons down, but they just kept on reanimating themselves. Some of them did it in different shapes too. One skeleton had five legs while another had three heads. Some of them were harder to deal with while some were easier. Soon, Link was forced to levitate his shield and go on the offensive. He blocked another strike and parried a slash with his sword. He did a spin attack to get rid of the skeletons trying to surround him temporarily and got out of the circle. He did a quick count of how many enemies were there. “There’s no way I can take them all,” Link thought, trying to keep himself steady as the ground shook again and even more hooves blasted through the dirt surface. He could climb some trees, but he would get surrounded quickly. Plus, it would only benefit him if he had a long range weapon he could use when he was on higher ground, which he didn’t. He grit his teeth in frustration, seeing no options. “Is this where it ends for me? I can’t die now!” Link readied his sword and shield, waiting as the skeletons advanced towards him. If he were to go down now he would prefer it fighting and screaming till his last breath. He prepared himself for the attack. ZAP! Suddenly, a green beam exploded from the sky, making all the skeletons fly. Some of them even bursted into green fire, much to Link’s surprise. His confidence quickly rose. “They can be killed! But what exactly killed them?” A small pony jumped down into the fight, answering Link’s questions. The pony’s horn immediately lit up and blasted a small green beam into the other skeletons. All of them turned into a pile of bones. Once the remaining skeletons either burst into green flames or were a pile of bones, Link was able to take a good look at the pony who saved his life. Link was able to tell it was a female from the shoulder length, purple mane she had. Her robes were black as well as her pointy hat. When she turned around, he saw that she had a black fur color and was really young. She was probably older than him by a few months or years even. “You okay there, greenie?” She asked, making Link snap out of his thoughts. He couldn’t see her facial expression because of the dark. “What were you thinking taking on a horde of animated skeletons like that!? Did you purposefully try to look for them?” Link shook his head immediately. “No, they just attacked me randomly. I was just taking a nap when they just appeared.” “So you encountered them too,” the slightly bigger filly said. “I don’t know how you survived for so long, but you wouldn't've had any more time if I hadn’t came along.” “Thanks for that,” Link said gratefully. The filly waved off his apology. “Whatever,” she said. “I only came because I was destined to save you.” “Destined?” Link asked. The filly nodded. “See, I had my fortune told just a bit earlier. Don’t ask why this late but it told me to take care of something green or a terrible misfortune will happen to me!” “That sounds like a load of crap,” “Hush, will you?! So when I heard green, I became furious. I ain’t tending to nopony’s garden, ya hear me! So I flew out in anger and I must’ve not been paying attention since I flew so far. I was about to turn back when I heard your loudmouth making a lot of noise and decided to help out.” “But I didn’t shout at all,” Link thought before he remembered a key detail from the story. “Wait, you flew? You don’t even have wings!” “But I have this,” she said smugly. She reached her hoof to the sky and immediately a broom appeared. Link’s jaw dropped at the sight when the broom started to float upwards, dancing around in the night sky. “I’m a witch, you see.” “A witch?!” Link said in alarm. He fumbled for his sword and held it out in front of her threateningly. The filly stared at the blade impassively. “I thought they were extinct!” “They were,” she confirmed. She slowly pushed the blade away from her face. Link held it close to him. He continued to stare at her suspiciously. “But I’m one of the last of them. And I’m not evil. If I wanted you dead, then I would’ve left you to die to those zombie skeletons.” Link sheepishly sheathed his sword. “I’m sorry. When I was at school, they taught us that witches were bad ponies.” “I only live with my grandma,” she said. “I’m not a full witch yet. Just a junior. My grandma’s the one that’s teaching me how to handle the ropes.” “There’s another one?!” Link asked in disbelief. “Is she good like you?” “She ain’t evil also,” she said, glaring at him lightly. “Though, she says everything as if it's a riddle. It's annoying really.” Before Link could respond, the ground shook again. His moment of peace and quiet was ruined as more skeletal hooves reemerged again. He unsheathed his sword and shield and levitated it in front of him defensively. The filly ignited her horn and stood by his backside. “My name’s Irene by the way,” she said, glaring at the monsters behind Link. Link nodded his head, staring at the monsters advancing towards his front. “I’m Link,” he answered. He was still tired from sleep deprivation and found himself occasionally lowering his sword too low before picking it up back again. He sported some small cuts the skeletons had made from the previous attack, but they weren’t too serious. He would still have to be careful, even though he had Irene by his side. Irene was the one who made the first move. She started by blasting that green beam of hers directly at the skeletons. It tore through them, collapsing them into a pile bones. Link started hacking and slashing at the skeletons on his side. He too only made them turn into piles of bones. “How do you kill these things?!” Link asked as he stopped a few skeletons from reanimating. Irene continued blasting them away, but only received the same results as Link. “I don’t know!” She yelled back. Her magic signature on her horn brightened up considerably, lighting up the area around her. “Let me see if they have any weak spots!” Link only grunted as he dodged another skeleton’s swipe. He receded away and slowly approached them again in caution. The skeleton swiped at him and he jumped, preparing to flip and slash at the monster from above. Suddenly, a skeletal hoof shot up from the ground, grabbing Link’s back hoof while in mid jump, preventing him from performing the counterattack. It pulled and slammed him back into the ground. Link grunted in pain as his vision went blurry. The skeleton in front of him swiped again and cut through Link’s back. Link yelled in pain as he tried to slash at the skeleton, but quickly stopped as he felt his back hoof in pain. He saw the skeleton’s head rising from the ground, biting his back hoof hard. It prevented him from moving anywhere. The skeleton moved to make another slash, but quickly exploded as Irene’s magic beam pierced through its chest. It exploded into flames this time, instead of piling on the ground. Link quickly jabbed at the skeleton head on the ground, piercing through its eye hole. It let go of him as Link quickly scrambled away from it. He hissed in pain as he accidentally applied too much pressure to his back hoof. “I found its weak spot!” Irene said gleefully. “But it’s hard to see. You have to increase the brightness on your horn.” Link added a bit more magic to his horn, increasing the light in the aura around his sword and shield as well as his horn. The area around him became more visible as well as the skeletons. Now that the area was bright, he thought he could see something inside the skeletons’ ribcage… “See that dark orb in their chests,” Irene said. Link looked at her as she blasted another skeleton directly through the chest. It bursted into flames instead of reanimating. “That’s their weak spot!” Link nodded and got up, carefully minding his back hoof. He would be a lot slower without his back hoof, but he had to stay in front of the skeleton to stab it anyways. He then felt something warm on his back. He felt it and winced when he felt a sharp pain register in his nerves as well as something wet in his hoof. “Nasty wound huh?” Irene said, bumping her back to his. He winced when he felt the pain again. “Don’t worry about it. After we get rid of all these monsters, we’ll get you to my grandma’s. She knows how to brew some healing potions.” Link nodded his head gratefully, not wanting to waste his energy on speaking. He jumped forward and stabbed a skeleton through the chest. The skeleton burst into flames, much to his satisfaction. Soon, the tides have turned. The skeletons were the ones that were getting battered all over the place instead of the victims. Link’s back hoof still bothered him as well as his back, but he blocked it out. Soon, the skeleton numbers thinned out until there were only a few left. “Is that the only spell you know?” Link asked when he saw Irene shoot another skeleton to its death with her laser blast. He didn’t really see her use anything else while fighting. “No,” she answered back. “I know a few minor curses, but I can’t use them when the target is already cursed.” “Wait, these skeletons are cursed?!” “Yeah, I can feel them. They weren’t like this by nature,” “Who could’ve done this?” he muttered to himself. He stabbed the last skeleton, making it burst into flames. Both of them watched the flames until it petered out, leaving a burn mark on the ground. They looked around wearily, tired from the numerous amounts of skeletons attacking them. Link could barely feel the magic in his body. He had never drained it to this point of near empty before in his life. It really didn’t feel good, that’s for sure. When they thought that no more was coming, Link unceremoniously plopped to the ground, immediately dropping his sword and shield on the ground in front of him. He finally felt the full blast of pain from his back and hoof, making him almost go unconscious right then and there. He heard heavy panting right next to him, showing him the Irene was also giving into the aftereffects of the battle. “Pretty...rough battle...huh?” Irene said to Link, falling down to her knees as she tried to regain her breath. Link didn’t even react. He simply didn’t have the energy to do anything at all. Irene ruffled through her robes and pulled out a green flask. She drank half of it before offering some to Link. Link stared at the foreign object, not knowing what it was. “Drink it up,” Irene urged him, bumping the bottle on top of his head. “It’s a potion that my grandma makes me carry around in emergencies. It helps regain your magic. I can barely feel anything within you so you need this.” Link weakly lifted his head up, putting his lips to the rim. He let the green liquid trail down into his mouth. When it reached his taste buds, his eyes widened as he immediately felt the urge to spit it out. “Don’t spit it out!” Irene said. She closed his lips up forcefully and tilted his head backwards. Link drank the potion reluctantly. After a moment, he got an energy boost, immediately standing up again. That potion didn’t taste very good, but it had some extraordinary effects! “I never regained this much energy in such a short time before,” Link said in amazement. He looked at Irene, who confusingly enough was still kneeling on the floor. “Didn’t the potion make you get any energy too?” “My magic radiation limit was almost full by the time I got here. I flew so much that I didn’t realize I was drinking the potions to keep my broom flying,” she said, panting a lot less now. She opened her robes up to show the empty bottles inside. “You never had your magic this drained before, haven’t you?” “How did you guess?” Link asked in surprise. Irene let out a little giggle. “I have to practice a lot of spells as a witch,” she said, looking up at the sky. “I’m a really stubborn pony, so I practice my spells until I master it or I run out of magic. The first time I ran out of magic, I reacted the same way as you did. After it happened a few times, I could control my fatigue.” Link nodded, then frowned. Earlier, she said something about magic radiation. He never heard of this before. Before he could think about it any further, the ground rumbled again. A hoof shot through the ground once more, but it was twice as big as the other little ones they were facing. The skeleton pony popped out of the ground, wearing a helmet while also equipped with a sword and shield. It glared its red eyes at them menacingly. A second skeleton pony popped up right next to it, equally as armed and big as the first one. “OH COME ON!” Irene yelled in exasperation. Link didn’t mind her yelling. He was feeling the same way as well. “Haven’t we dealt with enough of these things?!” Link levitated his sword and shield as Irene painfully got up. Link still felt the blood on his back as well as his maybe-broken hoof. Link immediately ran up to one of them, ignoring the throbbing pain in his hoof, and quickly slammed his shield into its shield while locking swords. Both of them tried to overcome the other, though Link could feel his strength quickly failing him. His sword finally got knocked out of his hands as the bigger skeleton’s sword ripped through his armor and through his chest. Link didn’t bother to hold back his scream as he weakly levitated his shield up to block the second strike. He successfully blocked it, but the shield almost slammed into his face from the force of the blow and how weak he was. Irene wasn’t faring so well either. She blasted a beam at it. The skeleton lifted its shield up and bounced it back, hitting her straight in the chest with her own attack. She fell down, bolts of green electricity arcing around her body. The skeleton advanced towards her, his sword glinting evilly in the moonlight. When Link saw this, he felt another sudden energy boost go through him. He looked at his own opponent and ignited his horn. Instead of his usual green aura, his horn glowed bright gold. His left hoof glowed gold too as a certain symbol flashed on top. “FARORE’S WIND!” He shouted as a blast of wind erupted seemingly out of nowhere, blowing the skeleton away from him and pinning it to a tree. Link quickly got up and threw his sword. It traveled along with the momentum of the wind and slammed itself directly into the skeleton’s chest. It promptly burst itself into azure flames. Strangely enough, it didn’t burn the tree at all. Link wasn’t done there yet though. He immediately shot his hoof towards the other direction. The wind immediately changed direction, blowing itself in the position of where the second skeleton was. The sword flipped itself and shot past Link, missing his face by a few inches. It embedded itself in the skeleton’s back, piercing it deeply enough for it to go all the way to its chest area. It blew up into flames too, leaving a shocked Irene behind. Link fell to the ground, his sudden energy boost gone. His horn’s golden aura faded as well as his hoof. He could see the blood spilling from his chest onto the ground while his vision constantly blurred. While Link laid on the ground, Irene looked at the colt who saved her life in disbelief. She felt a huge energy signature emit from him, bigger than any other she had ever seen. She felt Twilight Sparkle’s energy signature and it was enormous. Yet, it couldn’t even compare to what she felt now. As quick as she felt it, it was gone. Her mind finally registered the fallen Link on the floor and her eyes widened. She shakily got up and ran over to him. His eyes were barely open and she saw the new wound on his chest. She quickly tore strips of her robe off and tied it around his waist and back so he wouldn't lose anymore blood. She also did it for his hoof as she saw him limping without it. She conjured her broom up and carefully placed Link on it. She hopped on it and started to fly. Hopefully she had enough magic to make it to Ponyville. She looked back at her passenger and saw him sleeping. She knew he was hiding something, but she didn’t exactly know what. She quickly shook these thoughts out of her head and concentrated on the direction to Ponyville. “Things just got a lot more interesting,” she muttered, taking another look at Link before zooming off to Ponyville.