Chapter Text
Warriors saw fire. He saw flames trickling up and down in the once blue sky, trees falling down with a single snap before they crashed to the ground. He watched as ashes pilled up around him, smoke annihilating the air. He couldn't breathe, ash and smoke and bile blocking the air from getting to his lungs. He watched helplessly as the flames kept him separated from Wild and Twilight, one already collapsed onto the ground and bleeding out. The remaining four Lizalfos surrounded Warriors, but that doesn't mean he kept his gaze focused entirely on them. Instead, he split it between the two problems at hand: the ambush and one of his comrades bleeding out on the forest floor.
There was somebody crying from the other side of the flames, anguished screams being the only thing louder than the thunder that ripped through the sky. Warriors couldn't distinguish if it was Wild or Twilight, but the way another voice begged for Twilight to wake up was the only indication he needed as to who it was. Warriors only sent another glance their way before putting full attention at his current… predicament.
He tightened his grip on his sword and told himself to ignore the sudden heat of the forest. The fire arrows had certainly done their job, causing every inch of fauna to erupt into flames. Digging his heel into the ground and staring down another monster with a wicked glare, Warriors launched forward and spun in a circle, his sword colliding with the scales of two Lizalfos. They flew back and hit each other, sprawling against the ground as the last two came forward to attack. They sliced and tried to hit Warriors with their bow, but he easily ducked under and stepped to the side. He struck again, and again. They screamed, an ugly purple, blood-type liquid falling from their wounds. Warriors parried a strike and then ducked under another. Stepping to the side one last time, he let out a yell and cut the final Lizalfos straight in the middle of its body.
As it crumpled to the floor, disappearing in a heap of pink and black malice, Warriors turned to Wild. He squinted through the flames, holding back a cough. They were climbing higher and higher as minutes went on. There wasn't any air clear enough to see where Wild and Twilight were but, guessing from the strangled sobs and the flickers of arrows hitting the final few Lizalfos from the ambush, Warriors guessed they were still in the spot they had been when he first turned away.
Another echo of thunder, five bolts of lightning crashing to the ground. They were furious, untamed, striking in a series of messy patterns. He only hoped his friends hadn't been on the receiving end of one of them.
"Wild?" He called out. There was no answer back, only the sound of fire kissing his skin and everything around it. Warriors shook his head and, with another cough, took a few steps back. It's now or never, he thought, running forward and jumping through the flames.
With more force than he originally thought, Warriors hit the ground and rolled forward, his head colliding sharply with the ground. Standing up and hiding a wince, he quickly looked around for his two comrades. It wasn't hard to find them. In fact, they both lay right in front of where Warriors had landed. Twilight was sprawled out against the ground in a center of grass that had yet to be touched by the wildfire. It was hard to distinguish between the blood on his body and the orange light from the flames. In front of him knelt Wild, holding him close as he whispered things Warriors couldn't quite hear.
He wasn't sure Twilight could hear Wild, either.
As much as it pained him, as much as it made the ice stabbing his guts grow colder and colder, Warriors didn't know if they could make it out of the fire with Twilight. They were already slow, the exhaustion from the fight nipping at their bones and the smoke clogging up their lungs. The extra weight of a… fallen friend wouldn't do them any help.
He knew what this pain felt like. Warriors knew it all too well, from his days back in the war.
The gut-wrenching terror never left, on these days. Not when you have to leave a friend behind.
Warriors took a cautious step forward, circling around to kneel in front of Wild. The way loss painted across every single one of his features was something knew, something he wished he never had to see. It made Wild look older than he really was. The way his nose scrunched up with every sob and his eyes crinkled at the edges like an older man, it… wasn't right. It wasn't right.
"Wild… we have to go." Warriors said gently, unable to hear the crack against his words but knew all too well it was there anyway. Wild only held Twilight closer. "We can't stay here."
Despite the heat of the wildfire, the raging seconds that passed by all too quickly, Warriors felt frozen in time. He felt cold, freezing guilt stabbing his skin and ice cold defeat spreading through his bones. His throat felt like it was closing in on him, the way he couldn't breathe not helping at all.
He wondered if his eyes stung because of tears or because of the smoke. Maybe the tears that fell were simply because of the wildfire and not because he knew exactly what he had to say, be it not what he wished he did.
"We have to leave him behind." Warriors said, resting a hand on Wild's.
Wild jerked away quickly, holding Twilight even closer than he had before.
The fire seemed to lean in on them. It was like a box they were trapped in, without a single way to escape.
Warriors wanted nothing more than for this to be a dream. The crushing heartache weighing in his chest kept him awake, kept him alert, a single sign that he wasn't dreaming, that he couldn't be.
"No!" Wild yelled back, helpless eyes staring back at Warriors. "We can't. We can't leave him."
The unspoken I can't leave him gave more meaning than spoken words could have possibly ever given him.
Warriors began to argue despite himself, closing his mouth and turning sharply as six more Lizalfos, red this time, stalked up behind them. A stick snapped underneath their feet, and suddenly they had all eyes on them. There was a scream from one of them, slowly stalking forward through the flames.
They must be fire resistant, Warriors thought, standing up as he watched them step forward through the flames.
He began to unsheathe his sword for the second time that night before there was a gust of sharp wind and a silence that echoed through the entire forest.
The fire seemed to turn blue.
There was an echo of thunder, and all eyes turned to Wild.
Warriors didn't think he had ever seen somebody look so scared. His eyes were unmoving, gaze directed at Twilight in pure terror. The monsters, frozen at the sound of thunder, weren't even noticed. Wild's grip on Twilight only grew tighter, and, for a moment, Warriors thought he saw a spark of blue light up Twilight's skin, but it was gone quicker than it had came.
From behind them, two Lizalfos fell where they once stood, lightning striking up and down their skin, even as they lay dead. Two more wild bolts, hitting the ground at random. One was only feet away from where Warriors stood, the static still making his hair stand on edge and his clothes stick to his skin. The blue lightning only seemed to disappear as soon as it came, not a trace behind as to whether or not it struck the earth at all.
Maybe it was just him, but there was no longer a heat radiating off of the fire. The forest glowed an eerie blue, ghostly in the light of the night. If he listened close enough all was silent except for the quiet whispers of voices that he had never heard before. They were all tightly knit together, mumbling echoes from everywhere he turned. In retrospect, he should have known what these voices were. He heard them every time Wild fell in battle, every time he flew into the air or summoned lightning from his fingertips, every time there was an invisible wall keeping him from attacking enemies. He heard the voices often, saw the flames and the blue and felt the cold frequently.
If he squinted hard enough, he could see the outline of four different people behind Wild, their figures blurred and transparent to the point where he couldn't make out their features.
Warriors had seen these things before, he had seen the ghosts, felt the pride and the grace and the protectiveness and the fury sweeping through the wind.
But this was different. It was wild, fierce. It was immensely different than he had ever seen. Warriors was strong, he had his own strengths. He's seen a lot, especially since meeting the others, but this was… new, to say the least.
"Twi," Wild said, the panic in his voice more than evident. "He stopped- He stopped-"
-breathing.
The subtle rise of his chest with every breath disappeared in a split second, Twilight's lifeless form finally resting in Wild's arms. His panic seemed to swell, a few stray tears falling from Wild's now tightly closed eyes. Warriors tried to take a step towards Wild, but there was a barrier keeping him from doing so. The last time this happened… the last time this happened, with Twilight beating against the wall to stop Wild from hurting himself any further, Warriors saw somebody die. He didn’t need to see another death that night.
So he only gently put his hand against the barrier and spoke as softly as he could. "Wild, you need to calm down. We… we have to go."
There was only the smallest of motions from inside the barrier, the rapid shaking of Wild's head and the pull of Twilight closer into his chest. His head lolled to the side and onto Wild's shoulder, eyes half-lidded and emptier than Warriors had ever seen them. Something tugged at his heart and told him to stop, to think, to even for a moment consider Wild's or even his own feelings, but everything else yelled to ignore it for now. The ice in his heart would keep him sane for just a few minutes longer, just enough for them to get out of this.
If he could have moved closer, he would have, but the barrier was keeping him at least two feet away. Warriors saw how small Wild looked and it reminded him too much of a child. Never in a million years would it have hit him how young his companions were, not in a moment like this.
There was a snap, and a yell, and another flurry of fire. The barrier in front of him seemed to turn red and crack under pressure, breaking into a thousand tiny pieces before it came back again. Warriors whipped around to see the remaining monsters aim bows their way, shooting and barely missing as they collided with the ground and Wild's barrier. With a glance back at Wild to see him still in shock, Warriors grabbed his sword and ran forward.
He didn’t notice how the fire seemed to part for him.
Another arrow whizzed past him, only inches away from hitting the side of his face. Warriors had more experience than to call it luck, but it was the only word he could really deem it as in his current situation. He skittered to a stop and ducked underneath a swing of one of the Lizalfos' bows, striking back with the tip of his sword. Blood spurted from its chest as it fell to the floor, the remaining five others coming at him in full force. Warriors was left to duck and parry with five monsters aiming for him, their weapons constantly only inches away from contact.
If he could focus, he could do it. If he would just calm down, he could do it. If he would simply just block everything else around him and let everything fade into a numb pain then he could do it. Warriors wasn't used to being so… defenseless in an enemy battle. He had gone up against hoards before, he had been in a war. He was known as the Hero of Warriors, going up against ambush upon ambush, monster camp upon camp. He had fought single-handedly against dozens of these stupid monsters before, so why couldn't he now?
The only thing that answered in response was the tickle of cold that sent shivers down his spine.
Despite himself, Warriors yelled out for help. "Wild! Could use your help over here!"
Another dodge, a missed swing. He could faintly hear the sound of footsteps behind him after a few moments of unrested parries and dodges. Another swing, hit one's shoulder, but it hadn't been enough.
If blood stains my scarf, Warriors thought, I swear to Hylia somebody is in for it.
He ducked again, nearly having his head chopped off before rolling to the side. He stood on one side of two Lizalfos, Wild skittering to a stop on the other side, bow in hand.
Bow.
"Hey! I have an idea!" Warriors yelled, waving Wild down. "Shield!"
There was a spark in his eyes for the first time that night.
Wild rushed forward at the sound of his name and jumped onto Warriors' shield, using it as a spring and spinning as gusts of wind pushed him up forward. Light seemed to dance around his skin and, for a moment, Warriors thought he saw somebody flying with him.
It all faded, however, when the colors did. He wasn't sure if anyone else could see it, or if he was truly experiencing it at all. The entire world dipped into a sight of only black and white, any previous colors dying down into empty shades of grey. The only color that could be seen for miles was the strange cold fire that began to die down behind him and the luminescent golden glow of Wild's eyes.
Warriors watched as time slowed down, nearly to a stop. The wind halted, his breathing seemed to slow to a point he didn't even know was possible. The final three Lizalfos froze as well, their bodies frozen in time. The only thing that moved at a seemingly normal pace was Wild, but then his hand knocked back an arrow faster than Warriors could have ever perceived and time sped up once more.
When he looked back, there were three arrows in each of the monster's chest, and they collapsed to the ashen forest floor, dead. Warriors looked up in awe as Wild put his bow back around his back and wiped the blood off his chin. At Warriors expression, Wild waved it off and simply said in return, "Tell you later."
There was a gasp behind them, with Twilight's figure snapping into a sitting position, but Warriors still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that Wild can stop time.
"Better fucking tell me later, this damn things more than I can handle." He said with a huff, spinning on his heel and turning back to the two. There better be a damn later, he repeated.
Sometimes… Warriors didn't quite know what to think about the other heroes. This wasn't one of those times, because all he could really think about how he wished he could summon ghosts, too.
Guess having a multi-dimensional time wizard try to take over the world to have an affair with him is what he could say was his equivalent of summoning ghosts.