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jinxedruby · 3 months

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Febuwhump Day Eight: "Why won't it stop?"

Featuring Warriors and Sky

AO3

First part | <- Previous part | Next part -> (it's day ten, that's not a mistake, don't worry lol)

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A horn blared, sending birds scattering into the air from trees.

“Again?” Legend cried, hauling himself to his feet and hefting his sword that he hadn’t even finished wiping the blood off of. Warriors held out a hand to help Sky up, Sky quickly downing yet another stamina potion.

“These attacks must be coordinated,” Time said as he turned to face the hill the horn had sounded from. He spread his stance once again, but Warriors could see the lines of tension etched into his face, the way the tip of his sword wavered as he raised it.

Monsters surged across the hill before anyone could respond to Time’s statement. The horde consisted primarily of bokoblins and lizalfos, a few moblin scattered throughout them. Wild and Twilight began launching arrows into the fray, just as they’d done with every other attack. They picked off several monsters, occasionally using bomb arrows to clear out some of the mass. Warriors stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sky, spreading his stance and taking a steadying breath to calm his nerves. The others stood in their pairs as well, except for Time, Wind, and Four who remained grouped together. They’d all tried to remain in one group at first, but that strategy had quickly unraveled when the second wave of monsters came equipped with bombs and nearly took all the heroes out in one fell swoop.

“Captain!”

Warriors turned at Sky’s yell to see him facing in the opposite direction the monsters charged from. He spun around to see another group of monsters emerging from the woods behind them and his blood ran cold.

“Pincer!” he roared. He didn’t check to see if the others heard. “Sky, we have to head them off!”

“Got it!”

With a shout, he charged at the flanking monsters, Sky running alongside him. The two of them were at the rear of the group and the closest to the horde. It was smaller than the one attacking over the hill, but would be devastating all the same if they penned in the heroes. He and Sky had to deal with it. Even if every slam of his boot against the dirt sent jarring shocks up to his hips. Even if Sky’s breaths had barely recovered and Warriors could hear every ragged gasp that dragged through the chosen hero’s throat. They had to.

Warriors met the first bokoblin with his sword, running it through the monster’s throat and wrenching it away to dispatch the next in one movement. Sky twirled beside him, Master Sword a flashing blur of silver as he spun from one monster to the next. Warriors ducked under a moblin’s spear, slashing at its knees. A lizalfos lunged from his right before he could deliver the killing blow, forcing him to block with his shield. The moblin swung again and he dove into a roll. He sprang up and drove his sword through the unfortunate bokoblin he landed next to. Sky yelped but he couldn’t turn to look, he couldn’t, too much to focus on, too much of his attention already split. He parried and riposted a lizalfos’s blade, lunged back to avoid a bokoblin’s club, ripped his blade through the lizalfos. Something jabbed his back and he grunted, spinning to dispatch the offending monster. He yanked his shield up to catch the moblin’s spear, gasping as the jolt of the impact zipped all the way to his chest.

Somewhere amidst the monster screeches, Sky gave a hacking cough. Warriors’ heart squeezed but he couldn’t risk a glance. Sky making noise meant he was alive, at the very least. Warriors clung to that thought as he darted around behind the burly moblin, plunging his sword into its back. He yanked his weapon free just as quickly, not wishing to make the same mistake as with the one in Time’s era and get another black eye. He jumped back as the monster spun around, briefly turning to behead a lizalfos as he did. He took a breath, gave his surroundings a cursory glance. The horde was thinning, he realized with a spark of triumph. He squashed the feeling as quickly as it came, ducking beneath the moblin’s spear. Not over, he reminded himself, slashing the moblin’s arm. He skipped to the side, dodging around a bokoblin, keeping an eye on the moblin for an opening.

A blade split the back of his knee open. He yelped, twisting to cut down the lizalfos that had snuck up behind him. He turned back just in time to see the moblin’s spear hurtling toward his chest. He barely managed to dodge in time, the spearhead scraping past his arm. Ignoring the burning of overexertion in his legs, he crouched low and leapt forward. The moblin hefted the spear to attack but Warriors reached it first, driving his sword under the monster’s ribs, angling it to reach beneath the chest plate. The moblin bellowed, stumbling back as he yanked his sword out. It crashed to the ground, falling still. He let out a huff, taking a moment to roll his cramping shoulders. He turned just in time to see a lizalfos whip Sky in the chest with its tail and send him flying.

Warriors gave a gasp with Sky’s name on his lips, too winded to yell. He charged forward, catching the lizalfos off guard as he stabbed it through the back. More monsters screeched from behind him but he ignored them in favor of running to Sky’s prone form. Other monsters noticed Sky’s predicament and zeroed in on him. Warriors put energy he didn’t realize he still had into sprinting even faster, desperately trying to reach Sky first.

A lizalfos beat him there.

It stood over Sky and raised its blade as the hero stirred weakly, trying and failing to lift his shield. The lizalfos swung and Warriors screamed. The monster’s head whipped around at the unearthly sound. Warriors reeled back and hurled his sword like a javelin. Against all odds, his throw struck true, the blade stabbing the lizalfos clean through the head. It crumpled to the ground just as Warriors reached it and Sky. He gripped the hilt of his sword with cramping fingers, ripping it from the monster and sparing a glance at Sky just to make sure he was alive. Blood trailed from Sky’s nose, the bright red stark against his pale white face, eyes half-lidded. He looked horrible, but alive.

Warriors stood a few paces ahead of him just as a bokoblin reached them. He absorbed an attack with his shield, running the monster through just in time to block a lizalfos. A slow whine built in his ears but he ignored it, he had to ignore it. He dodged the lizalfos’s tail, caught a flash of red in his peripheral and took a wide step to the side to intercept a bokoblin trying to sneak past him. He killed it, repositioned in front of Sky, blocked the lizalfos. He stumbled back under the blow, breath running ragged in his throat, He dodged again, squinting as the sun suddenly seemed too bright, too hot, sweat clutching at his collar. Ignore it, had to ignore it. He parried the lizalfos’s blade and struck it through the middle, overextending. Thankfully, his attack killed the monster and he had just enough time to recover his footing before two more bokoblins reached him. With a roar that sounded stronger than he felt, he spun around, slashing both monsters at once and sending them flying with twin screeches. His sword shook in his hand as his eyes darted about, searching for the next attack. When he didn’t see any monsters close enough to launch an assault in the next thirty seconds, he turned toward Sky.

“Sky,” he rasped, reaching down to shake the chosen hero’s shoulder. Sky groaned, throat whistling. His eyelids fluttered, unfocused gaze landing somewhere near Warriors’ face. His eyes slid shut and Warriors shook him again, harder. “Come on, we have to move!”

“Just…” Sky wheezed, voice crackly and hushed. “Just need… a minute…”

Warriors shook him even harder. “We don’t have a minute!”

Sky didn’t respond, going still under Warriors’ hand.

“Link!” Warriors cried, air burning in his throat. Sky didn’t even twitch. Warriors let out a gasping curse, glancing up. A few straggling monsters milled about, having miraculously not noticed the two heroes yet. He looked toward where the rest of the group fought the main horde, too far away and too preoccupied to help. Warriors let out a cry of frustration before hastily sheathing his sword and setting his shield on his back. He ran around Sky, ignoring the way his legs shook, the way his sweat seeped into the gash on the back of his knee, making it burn. He grabbed Sky under the armpits and dragged him backwards into the trees, boots slipping on the grass and threatening to make him fall. Sky groaned softly, though it came out as more of a whine, an unhealthy-sounding whistle accompanying it. Warriors dragged him until they were deep enough in the trees that they couldn’t be easily spotted. He released Sky and stumbled back with the leftover momentum, just barely keeping himself from toppling over. He staggered toward Sky, realized the chosen hero didn’t have his sword or shield, realized they both lay in the open where he had initially fallen. Warriors gnashed another cry of frustration between his teeth, hobbling toward the equipment as fast as he could. He grabbed them both, immediately lost his grip, and tried again. As he stood back up, hand securely wrapped around the sword’s hilt, a familiar surge of power thrummed through him. His steps faltered as he looked down at the weapon, belatedly realizing exactly what it was that he held. The Master Sword seemed to hum in his hand and for a long, long moment, he stared at it. He remembered how powerful he felt with her during the war, how she sung with each attack.

He remembered how he nearly lost himself to her power.

He tore his gaze from the blade, returning to Sky’s side. He set the shield down and grabbed Sky’s hand, closing his fingers around the hilt of the sword.

“Fi…” Sky mumbled, eyes flickering open for a moment as his grip tightened.

“What do you need, Sky?” Warriors said, ignoring how his words slurred together. He started to kneel beside Sky but stopped halfway, forcing himself to straighten again. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get back up. “Health potion? Stamina potion?”

“Sleep,” Sky whispered, throat whistling with each breath. He coughed weakly, stringy phlegm sticking to his chapped lips and mixing with the blood from his nose.

“Not an option,” Warriors snapped. He was too exhausted to berate himself for his tone. “We’re only safe for a few minutes at most and I can’t defend you forever. So, tell me what you need.”

For a long moment, Sky didn’t answer. Warriors prepared to shake him when Sky finally wheezed, “Both.”

Warriors plunged a stiff hand into his pouch, fishing out a red potion. It slipped from his fingers, thudding to the grass. He stooped to pick it up, nearly fell over as he did. He uncorked it and lifted Sky’s head, pressing the rim to the Skyloftian’s lips. The whine in his ears grew in volume and he forcibly shoved it to the back of his mind along with the cramped muscles and injured leg and black spots in his vision and numbness in his fingers. He had to ignore it. Sky drank the potion slowly, spluttering a few times as he choked it down, but he eventually drained it. Warriors released his head, Sky letting it fall back against the grass with a weary sigh. Warriors knew he didn’t have any stamina potions so he reached over Sky to search through his pouch. The whining in his ears grew in pitch, humming incessantly no matter how much he tried to ignore it. He blinked hard, squinting as he struggled to convince his eyes to remain focused, the contents of Sky’s pouch becoming a mess of colors and textures. A muffled voice that sounded like Sky called to him but it suddenly took all his strength just to remain upright. He swayed in place for a moment, hands pausing in their search as he crouched over Sky. Ignore it.

His knees gave out and he collapsed.

He opened his eyes after what felt like only a moment but Sky definitely hadn’t been shouting like that when he went down. Hands pushed against his shoulder, shaking him back and forth. He groaned to show he was awake and the shaking stopped, but the hands remained on him.

“Captain-“ Sky broke off into a cough that sounded better than from before he’d taken the potion, but still not great. “Are you okay?”

As Sky spoke, something vibrated against Warriors’ shoulder and he realized that he had fallen directly onto Sky, chest pressing down against Sky’s midsection and no doubt making it even harder for the hero to breathe.

“M’fine,” he slurred, trying to push himself up off of Sky. His arms shook violently, shoulders aching as if he was trying to do pushups with three moblins sitting on top of him. He let out a gasp, crumpling back onto Sky once more. Sky coughed, Warriors knocking the wind out of him as he landed directly onto Sky’s diaphragm.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, the incessant whine building in his ears again.

“Captain!” Sky yelled and Warriors pried his eyelids apart.

“What?” He didn’t remember closing his eyes.

He could tell Sky was speaking with the way Sky’s midsection rose and fell beneath his chest, but he couldn’t really understand what the words were. He mumbled a noncommittal response, vision dimming.

“Captain Link, you will take a potion now, that’s an order!”

Warriors jerked at the tone, eyes widening. Right. Right, they were in the middle of a battle, he had to focus. With a deep breath, he braced his hands against the ground and shoved, pushing himself off of Sky. He managed to get to his knees before lightheadedness hit him like a club and he tipped over backwards, flopping onto his back. He heard Sky suck in a breath that turned into a cough, but at least the cough had more strength to it.

“The potion, Captain,” Sky grunted. He entered Warriors’ vision as he sat up and hauled himself over to sit beside Warriors.

“Sorry, sir,” Warriors responded without thinking.

Sky’s expression softened. He dug through his pouch. Warriors heard glass clinking inside of it. Halfway through pulling out a potion, Sky froze, head snapping up to stare wide-eyed through the trees. Warriors rolled his head to the side but didn’t see anything. He looked back at Sky to see the chosen hero slowly lowering himself to the ground beside Warriors. He met the captain’s gaze and brought a finger to his lips before turning his attention back toward the surrounding forest. Warriors tried to look there as well, but he couldn’t quite convince his muscles to obey him. He stared through bleary eyes at the leaves overhead, the sunlight glimmering through the green and dappling the ground. His eyes began to drift shut before he remembered they were in the middle of a battle, he couldn’t rest yet. He narrowed his eyes in an attempt to keep them from falling closed, drawing deliberate breaths through his teeth. Sky remained so still beside him that Warriors thought for a moment he’d fallen asleep, but he still felt Sky twitch with a muffled cough every so often. The whine he’d managed to forget about returned in force along with further blurring of his eyesight. The whine grew so loud he almost didn’t hear the voice carry through the trees.

“Captain! Sky!”

He nearly passed out from relief right then and there.

Sky let out a laugh that sounded closer to a sob, pushing himself up to one elbow and lifting a hand. “Here! We’re here!”

Time came crashing through the trees a moment later, followed closely by the others. He let out a breath when he saw Warriors and Sky, hurrying over to them. He stumbled to his knees behind Warriors, lifting the captain’s head into his lap. The motion gave Warriors vertigo, but the comfort he received at Time’s presence made it infinitely worth it. The world pulsed around him as he nearly fainted again, but he gritted his teeth, forcing himself to hold on.

“Everyone… okay?” he rasped, blinking up at Time as the old man looked down at him. Time let out a huff, upside-down face breaking into a relieved smile.

“Everyone’s fine, Captain.” He said something else, but Warriors didn’t process it.

“Sky needs… stamina potion,” he said. He tried lifting a hand to gesture to Sky but his limb wouldn’t obey him.

“I’ve got a few elixirs left,” someone, Wild, probably, said from his right.

A few more snippets of conversation darted back and forth over Warriors. The green of the leaves above him bled into the blue of the sky, the brightness of the sun washing out to a dull intensity. Time’s legs shifted beneath his head, the old man resting a hand on his shoulder and briefly bringing him back to awareness.

“It… ‘s it o’er?” Warriors slurred.

“It’s over,” Time said from above him. “I need you to take a stamina potion now, okay?”

Warriors’ brow furrowed. “Sky… Sky needs a potion.”

“He already took one, Captain, it’s your turn.”

“Oh.” Warriors blinked, gaze fixed on Time’s blond bangs that hung on either side of the man’s face, red and blue markings blurring into the rest of his skin. “Is it o’er?”

Time’s face twisted. “Yes. I need you to drink this before you can rest, okay?” All at once, he held a potion in his hand, dangling it over Warriors before tugging the cork out with a pop. Warriors stared at it uncomprehendingly.

“Take the potion, Captain.” Cool glass pressed to his lips.

The whine grew louder in his ears. His eyelids dragged closed as a thin stream of Wild’s stamina elixir trickled onto his tongue. The thin stream turned to a steady flow and he swallowed mostly out of shock, eyes fluttering open again. The effect of the elixir hit him near instantaneously. As energy seeped back into his muscles, he drank faster, the bitter elixir swirling down his throat. By the time the last of the elixir dripped into his mouth, the whine in his ears faded into background noise, colors separating out properly in his vision once again. He blinked, dragging in a breath, gaze focusing onto Time’s stricken face.

“Don’t give me that look as if I almost died,” Warriors said, voice hoarse.

Time huffed a laugh, expression molding into a much softer one. “Forgive me for being concerned.”

Warriors slowly sat up with Time’s assistance, abdominal muscles cramping with the movement. The stamina elixir may have kept him from passing out, but he didn’t feel fully rejuvenated by any means. He glanced around as Time guided him to lean back against his shoulder, taking a mental headcount.

“Sky,” he said as his gaze landed on the chosen hero. Blood still coated Sky’s upper lip, but his face no longer held the same pallor as when he went down. “You okay?”

“Thanks to you,” Sky replied in a raspy voice with a smile.

Warriors nodded, head falling back against Time’s shoulder. He glanced around once more, just to reassure himself that everyone was accounted for. “Everyone’s alright? It’s over?”

“Yes, Captain,” Time replied, squeezing Warriors’ shoulder. “It’s over.”

#linked universe #linked universe fic #linked universe fanfic #ruby writes #i'm so tired dude #lu warriors #lu sky #it's only day eight and i'm s t r u g g l i n g #against all odds i am having fun though #febuwhump #febuwhump2024

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