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“Guys… Wake up, you idiots.”
Rulie wakes to the sound of Legend, who was on third watch last night, rousing the camp.
“What is it?” asks Wind, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“There’s a portal. We need to go. Now.” Legend replies, trying (and failing) to shake Sky awake.
That wakes most people up fully, with only Sky still asleep. Until Legend drags his sailcloth off of him, that is.
“What is it, Ledge? And what time is it anyway?” he says, jerking awake.
“It’s 7:16.”
“You know, at some point you’re going to have to tell us how you know exactly what time it is all the time, Old Man.” Wild says, checking the time on his slate.
“And to answer your first question, there’s a portal just outside camp.” Legend says after handing Sky the sailcloth back.
Barely 20 minutes later, and the chain has packed up camp, found Wars’ right glove (Wind stole it and hid it in a tree) and were ready to enter the portal. They went in pairs: Hyrule and Four, Sky and Wind, Wild, Legend and Time, and Wars and Twi.
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One disorienting portal later, and Hyrule is dumped in a place he’s never been in Wild’s era. They’re under a stone roof, with pillars ahead and Something behind them. Four is next to him, conscious at least, but seemingly with one of their worse post-portal migraines.
Just then, a loud ROAR sounds and Hyrule’s heart skips a beat. He knows exactly what kind of creature makes that sound and now, why Wild’s stopped them from entering here every time they travel near it.
A lynel. There’s a fucking lynel here.
“Four,” he whisper-shouts, trying to keep himself unheard and shaking them quickly, “Four, you have to get up. Please.”
“What?” Four asks, rubbing their forehead.
“Shhh. You can’t be too loud. There’s a lynel here. You have those?”
“A what? No, I don’t.”
“Great, just great.” Rulie says, “All you need to know right now is that it’s a really dangerous kind of monster and there’s one on the other side of that pillar. Knowing our luck, it’s probably black-blooded too.”
“Amazing.” Four sighs, “Do we know where we are, at least?”
“We’re in Wild’s era. The Coliseum he keeps telling us not to go into. I can see why now.”
“So what do we do? We can’t just stay here forever.” Four’s eyes are rapidly changing colours as they speak, and they’re looking a bit more aware at least, which is good. “We’re going to have to fight it, aren’t we?” They sound resigned as they say it.
“I think so.”
Even as he says it, Hyrule sees an obvious problem with that plan. Four can hardly stand, let alone fight. But they equally can’t just stay there either. And Hyrule can’t leave them to deal with the lynel on his own - it’s too much of a risk.
“Four…” he starts.
“I know.” Four says, mind obviously on the same track as Rulie’s. “I have a solution, but you need to promise not to freak out over it.” Four’s eyes are a clear red now.
“Of course.”
Four stands and draws their sword, raising it skywards.
There’s a sudden flash of Light.
As Rulie blinks the Light out of his eyes, the first thing he notices - not that it’s hard to miss- is that there is suddenly four Fours where one stood previously, each wearing a tunic of one of the colours on Four’s original one.
“Quick! That monster” - “Lynel” - “Whatever, will definitely have noticed that!” the one in blue shouts.
The now five of them rush into the center of the Coliseum. There’s a lynel, silver by the looks of it, in the middle, looking ready to kill then instantly. It ROARS, drawing a sword that looks like one of Wild’s flameblades and a massive shield. Rulie and the Fours rush in, swords ready.
The Four in red gets the first hit, scoring a thin line on the lynel’s side. A line that immediately starts bleeding black blood.
“Shit.” curses the green Four.
After that the fight becomes more of a blur. Hyrule manages to get a few good hits in, especially once he realises that his boomerang can stun it for a few moments if he’s able to hit it in the head. Violet Four pulls a bow out of somewhere and starts firing arrows at the lynel’s head after that, which helps distract and stun the monster, providing opportunities for the other Fours to keep attacking it. He uses his Jump Spell a couple times to get some solid hits to its back and they’re slowly chipping away at the lynel.
The biggest problem is the enclosed space they’re fighting in. It’s a lot harder to dodge a charging lynel in a coliseum than on the open plains that Rulie was used to fighting them in. This also means that it’s WAY easier to hit your allies with wide-ranged attacks, so the Fire Spell is off the table at least for now.
Despite that, the fight goes well for the most part. Hyrule has to use the Reflect Spell a few times to defend against the lynel’s arrows, but no one gets badly hurt.
Until they do.
Rulie’s standing off to one side, aiming his boomerang at the lynel to create an opening when it hits the green Four, knocking them down. For a moment, Rulie can’t move, can’t think, can’t act.
“Green!!” Red Four’s voice startles Hyrule out of his panic, and he rushes over, mentally scanning his magic reserves. He has to have enough for the Life Spell, right? Right?
When he reaches Green, violet Four is already there, eyes filled with tears. Hyrule can see the wound clearly now - they’ve been hit in the side of the stomach. He collapses to his knees and frantically sorts through his bag for a potion.
“Put pressure on it!” Hyrule tells the violet Four, who immediately does so.
In the background, he’s dimly aware of red Four creating a burst of flame that incinerates the lynel. As he sorts through his bag, he feels himself slip into the edge of panic. This is his fault. If he hadn’t wasted his magic on the stupid Jump Spell earlier, they wouldn’t be in this situation. He could have just healed Green.
“‘Rule. Hyrule. Hyrule.”
Hyrule’s jerked back to the present moment by blue Four. Just at the bottom of his bag, a bottle! He draws it out, and it’s about half full. Hopefully enough to staunch the bleeding.
“Here,” he says, passing the potion to red Four, “give Green this.”
After a bit more searching, he’s able to find some bandages, which combined with the potion, are able to stop Green from bleeding out.