Chapter Text
Midgard/Earth, Europe, HYDRA Headquarters.
Three months after the Howling Commandos joined the war.
Johann Schmidt was not a man who worked on faith. Myths and Legends were not things to blindly believe, but were theories to either be debunked or proven.
One of the many tales that he had long thought as one to dismiss was that of Yggdrasil- the World Tree. After all, artifacts of great power were far more likely to be real than other worlds...
"Coordinates have been overshot, reduce power surge rate by 0.2%."
...Or so he thought.
Now, the Tesseract was sitting within a specially-designed machine, made to channel all the power of the cube directly into a small channel- not to weaponize, but to create.
"The channel's frame is bending-!"
"-temperatures over melting-"
"-power leaking-"
Schmidt sighed, and jerked his head towards the panicking scientists. "Zola?"
"E-erm, yes, Herr Schmidt!" Arnim Zola rushed forward (though it more resembled waddling) to push aside the worthless fools and begin adjusting the many dials and levers himself. Immediately, the red glow of the overheating metal began to fade as the cannon-like portal device's hums turned from shuddering clanks to a slow, steady charging noise.
Schmidt smirked. This was why he worked with Zola- the man was a perfect example of a competent individual... Something that was unfortunately rare, nowadays.
He turned his attention towards the wide, circular arc that had been built in the middle of Zola's lab. If all were to go well, then the portal would form there- but if not... Well, the window would be shattered, and the cold air of the mountains would rush in, which, while an annoyance, was manageable, and more than worth the risk.
After all, if this experiment succeeded... Then HYDRA could potentially summon a champion to rival the might of Captain America.
"The coordinates are locked, herr Schmidt... Should I activate it?"
Schmidt nodded. "Fire the Portal."
Zola opened a plastic lid covering a keyhole, pulled out a key, and- after taking a deep breath- inserted it, and twisted.
The world rumbled as the portal gun fired-
A flash of light-
The world went blue.
Alfheim, Hyrule, Tabantha Region.
Eight months before the Great Calamity.
"And stop following me!"
The shout was high-pitched, ear-piercing, grating, and caused Link to immediately shrink back with a wince. Princess Zelda briefly looked ashamed, but quickly schooled herself and turned around to harumph away, Sheikah Slate still bouncing at her hip.
Link sighed, and tried his hardest not to take it to heart. The Princess was going through a tough time, he knew that, but considering his whole job was to make sure she didn't die, he'd at least appreciate it if she stopped making it so darn hard to do that. She probably should've counted herself lucky- he doubted anyone else in Hyrule, or even their whole world, Alfheim, would've been able to deal with her.
So, as the Princess made her way to her snow-white horse (she still hadn't named him), Link instead moved to head back towards and remount Epona. There was absolutely no way he was just going to let her wander off and-
"What in the Goddess' name is that!?"
-Link turned around and saw Zelda darting past him in the direction she had just come from and directly towards a weird blue glow behind the pillars near the shrine, because he couldn't take his eyes off of her for two seconds-
"Be right back, girl," Link muttered to Epona. Epona let out an annoyed whinny, which Link ignored in favor of chasing Zelda down like he had to every time she decided to do exactly this.
(Before running off, he grabbed his shield off of Epona's saddlebags. He had the feeling he was going to need it.)
He sprinted after the Princess, around the shrine, and between some pillars... And came to a stop right next to Zelda, staring at the swirling, thundering, somehow vertical circle of blue clouds that surrounded a glowing blue tunnel to nowhere.
"What... Is that?" The Princess gasped. Link's hand slowly went up to the Master Sword, gripping the handle but not drawing it.
The Princess stepped forward, and Link's free arm darted in front of her. He turned to give her a severe look. "Don't approach yet."
She raised a brow. "'Yet'?" She echoed, excitement in her voice, but Link had already moved closer. Surprisingly, she didn't follow- She must have been mullified by his 'yet.' As he approached the portal-looking thing, Link slowly reached out with his free hand, but didn't touch it.
He could feel a light breeze coming out of it- warm air that felt strangely artificial in a way he couldn't explain- mixing with the pleasant chill of the breeze of the ruins stop the small mountain. From what he could tell, it wouldn't suddenly start dragging them in, so...
"...You can come over," he hesitantly acquiesced, followed by the Princess letting out a high-pitched squeal of excitement as she practically teleported to his side.
For a while, the two simply stared at the… Thing. The blue glow of the light within… It reminded Link of something.
“The color,” Princess Zelda muttered beside him, seemingly thinking along the same lines as him. “Hold on…”
Link heard the familiar click of the Princess removing the Sheikah Slate from her belt. A moment later, she held it out in front of both of them. “Doesn't it remind you of Sheikah Technology?” She asked, before tapping the screen with her other hand, and as the Sheikah Eye appeared on the Slate’s screen, glowing cyan as well, Link felt his eyebrows raise as, indeed, the colors were nearly identical.
“This cloud… It must be Sheikah in nature!” She gasped out, and Link could tell she was barely restraining herself from running forward and… Doing whatever it was she wanted to do. “Is this the pure form of Ancient Energy? But no, we already know that is liquid in nature…”
Link blinked. “Um. What about orange?”
“Huh?” The Princess glanced towards him, surprise in her gaze.
Link briefly hesitated, before continuing. “It's orange sometimes. The Sheikah stuff,” he added, not sure if he was getting his point across.
She hummed in response, tapping a finger to her chin. “That is due to the lack of Energy flowing through the technology. The orange is actually the default color of its construction, likely chosen as such due to its contrast with cyan…”
As the Princess continued to mutter something about color theory, Link paused as he heard… Voices? He tilted his head, and listened more closely. Yes, those were voices emanating from the cloud.
…Link had a theory. But before anything else, he had to prove it.
“...But then should the colors mix and turn to brown- Link? What are you doing?”
For a significant portion of Link’s childhood, there was a lesson that had been drilled into him, not by any individual person, but rather by personal experience. It had not failed him this far, and he doubted it would fail him now:
If you don't know if something's dangerous, throw a rock at it.
Link picked up a pebble, and tossed it in and underhand throw. It vanished into the cloud, and he heard a clatter against metal, causing the voices to stop their chatter… Followed a few seconds after by a collection of cheers in a language Link couldn't understand.
Not that he needed to. He'd been around Purah and Robbie more than enough to know what a celebration at a successful experiment sounded like.
“It's a portal,” Link concluded. “Two-way, probably.”
“A two-way portal…” the Princess gasped. Link turned towards her, and she turned towards him at the same time, eyes practically shining with excitement.
“Can we?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“...Would you let me go if I ordered you?”
Link paused for a second, before deciding he'd much rather be thrown in jail for disobeying a direct order instead of being executed for letting her run into a portal to who-knows-where.
“No.”
The Princess narrowed her eyes, and… Oh no. He knew that look.
He pointed at her, and shook his head. “Do not.”
…She let out an annoyed hmph, and turned to walk away. Link blinked in surprise- she was usually a lot more stubborn than that. Maybe she recognized the potential danger?
He untensed, and prepared to follow her, and immediately regretted it as she darted past him faster than he thought she was capable of, simultaneously elbowing him in the stomach, causing him to bend over and gasp for air as she sprinted into the portal.
“Damn it-!” He hissed. Ow. A few gasps later, in order to catch his breath, and Link grit his teeth, stood, drew the Master Sword and his shield, and followed Zelda into the unknown.
Midgard/Earth, Europe.
One year since the creation of Captain America.
"And you're sure Schmidt was there?"
"Sure as can be, Captain. What's the plan?"
Steve bit his lip as he considered the scouting information Bucky had given him- then winced as the jeep-truck he and the other Commandos were on the bed of bumped off a rock in the ground, causing him to nearly fall over. Not a good look, considering the cameraman that was sitting near the back.
After a moment of thought, he began to plan. "Alright. If Schmidt's there, then we have a chance to permanently cripple HYDRA for the rest of the war, so we need to make sure he doesn't escape." As he spoke, he reached into his pouch, and pulled out his compass- the one that he'd put a picture of Peggy into, perhaps despite his better judgement- and started to analyze the map before him, carefully judging distances and coordinates. "If we can pull off a pincer maneuver, then unless Schmidt has an aerial escape method, we can funnel him to somewhere we can rig the odds of a fight in our favor..."
For a brief moment, the ground rumbled. None of them noticed, and just thought it was another case of Being In A Jeep. The strategy meeting continued on, none of them the wiser.
(It was only hours later that he realized the cameraman had probably caught a shot of his compass, and desperately hoped it wouldn't make it into whatever it was they were filming for.)