Chain Minus Warriors Deaging fic
AN: I have so many projects going right now, but this isn’t letting up on its chokehold on me, so here we go! A hopefully short story about this picture that @lemonheadart did! Hope you like it!
Chapter 1: Separated!
The trek through Wild’s Hyrule was always a chore. Yes, Warriors knew that Wild couldn’t help it—and wouldn’t, even if he could—and he knew that Wild loved his Hyrule. It did have a tremendous beauty to it, but the operative word there was tremendous. His Hyrule was enormous! However true that may be, Warriors digressed.
Wild’s era was a pain to traverse.
Apparently, Wild had been able to teleport around his Hyrule, which made it much easier to get around quickly, but he couldn’t do it with more than just himself, which was rather inconvenient. This fact led to their current situation—walking through Gerudo Canyon Pass to try to find and retrieve some lost travelers.
“Uuuuggghhhh, how much longer?” Wind groaned, “My feet are killing me.”
“We’ll find them eventually, Sailor. As soon as we find them and get them back to the stable, we can rest and relax as much as we want,” Wild promised, perhaps unwisely. After all, for all Wild knew, something could have happened at the stable that would require them to go looking for someone else or gather ingredients for something before resting.
~
“Oh, thank goodness, someone found us!”
“We can make our own way to the stable, but we kind of need directions.”
Wild proceeded to give the travelers their directions and even tried to make sure they wouldn’t get lost again by insisting on accompanying them, but the travelers wouldn’t hear of it. They gave Wild some rupees and ran off.
“Well, at least we don’t have to deal with awkward questions about ‘ooh, what’s your name?’ ‘Ooh, why are children so heavily armed?’ and all that other stuff adults who aren’t heroes have asked,” Wind scoffed.
“Oh, come on, Wind, you know they don’t know any better,” Warriors chided with a grin. “Give them a little grace.”
“I am giving them ‘a little grace’. Last time we escorted someone, back in your era, the lady asked me why I wasn’t in school! If I didn’t give her grace, I would’ve bitten her head off and probably would’ve stolen at least half the jewelry she was wearing,” Wind grumbled.
“Mm, yeah, she was a pain, wasn’t she? Well, thankfully for us, she barely ever leaves home, so we probably won’t have to deal with her again,” Warriors laughed.
They all continued walking along, the afternoon sun shining down on them, and Warriors was eventually the only rearguard, which was fine. It was nice to get a little quiet time every once in a while, especially when quiet time was at such a premium, being around eight other people and all.
That was when it hit.
The rockslide came out of nowhere, but Warriors saw it in time only to save himself. His only hope now was that the others had escaped relatively unscathed on the other side of the rockfall.
~
It took him longer than he had ever wanted to get to the other side of the rockfall, but he managed it.
“Time! Legend! Twilight! Wind! Sky! Four! Hyrule! Wild! Anyone!” he called frantically. It was full-dark now, and who knew what kinds of monsters would be prowling around this area.
“Please be alright,” he whispered, though none of his brothers could hear him. That was when he heard crying kids. Even though he didn’t remember there being any children around when the rockslide happened, he ran to where he thought the voices were coming from—he didn’t think he could live with himself if he left innocent children to die.
“Hey! Uh, kids?” Warriors called, cringing at his awkwardness. He loved children, but he had no clue how to handle them. “I’m trying to find you so I can help you. Are any of you hurt or stuck?”
He strained his ears for any hint of a kid telling him the situation, but all he heard was a bunch of panicked shushing. Well, calling for them again probably wouldn’t hurt, right? So, he called for them again, and this time he heard a voice.
“We’re over here!”
Bingo! There was a small, blonde boy waving urgently at him! Warriors immediately ran over, picking his way through the rubble.
“Hey, kid, are you okay? There are others with you, right? Do you know where they are?” he asked quickly, though he also tried to be gentle about it.
The kid rolled his eyes and looked very put-upon. “Wars, it’s me! Wild!”
What.
“Sky got a bump on his head, but Twi took care of him while we fought that big, awful, yucky Wizzrobe,” Wild continued.
What.
“And we managed to get it dead, but it was hard, ‘specially ’cause it was black-blooded and we were three guys down, but we’re pretty sure it hit us with some kinda spell or somethin’, ‘cause we all kinda forgot how we killed it.”
WHAT.
“Wild, I need you to take me to the others. We’ll talk more about your fight with the Wizzrobe later, alright?” Warriors said incredibly calmly. Wild nodded happily and trotted off, leading Warriors to a small cave a short distance from the rubble of the rockslide.
“HEY GUYS! I WAS RIGHT! THE GUY SHOUTING WAS WARS!” Wild hollered at the entrance. A pebble was launched out in Wild’s direction.
“Shush, Wild! You’re gonna wake Wind and Sky up!” another boy’s indignant voice rang out. Sounds of a small scuffle started after that, accompanied by a lot more shushing. Wild started making his way into the cave, then turned to look at Warriors, who hadn’t started following him yet.
“C’mon, what’re you waitin’ for, ‘n engraved inv’tation? They know it’s us,” he cajoled. Warriors needed some leave time. He needed to be out of this strange reality in which his formerly primarily young adult companions had become children who acted a concerning amount like they did when they were older.
Unfortunately, this was something like an active campaign. No leave for him.
Warriors followed Young Wild, crouching down in order to fit into a cave that fit eight children comfortably. He doubted any one of them needed to duck to get in.
“Wars! There you are!” came a high-pitched voice that Warriors hadn’t heard since the War of Eras. Mask—no, that was Time—came barreling into him for a hug.
“Whoa-ho, hey, kiddo. Did you lead everyone here?” he asked, returning Young Time’s bear hug.
“Uh-huh, I hadta let Wild show us the way, ‘cause it’s his era, but I told everyone where we needed to go,” Young Time answered, puffing his little chest out. Warriors’ heart just about melted.
“Good job, buddy. Now, I was hearing someone crying. Are any of you hurt? I know Sky got a bump on his head; can I take a look at it?”
Time rolled his eyes. “Duh. He’s over with Twilight and Wind,” he said, nodding his head in their direction. “Everyone else just got bumps ‘n bruises and stuff like that.”
Warriors relaxed a fraction when he heard that. At least he didn’t have injuries to treat on top of… whatever this was. Wild had mentioned a black-blooded Wizzrobe, but could any kind of Wizzrobe change an adult into a child, much less eight?
Then he went back through that thought. Wind wasn’t an adult—he was barely even a teenager.
Then he saw Twilight with Sky resting his head on one of Twilight’s crossed legs and an almost impossibly small Wind seated on the other. Thankfully, he seemed old enough to hold his head up on his own and maybe toddle around, but he was still so small.
“Hey, guys,” he murmured as he approached. Sky’s eyes fluttered open and crinkled into a smile.
“Hey, Wars,” Sky mumbled.
“Hey, buddy. I’m gonna take a look at your noggin, make sure you’re alright. Sound good?” Sky nodded his assent. “Alright, let’s get you sitting up,” Warriors said as he gently helped Sky up. Once that was done, he poked and prodded the spot that Twilight pointed out to him, but there didn’t seem to be any lasting damage, thankfully.
He had been about to ask Sky what he wanted to do now that he had been checked over when he got an armful of Wind.
“Holjumee,” the little sailor babbled as he wrapped his little arms around Warriors’ neck.
“Sorry, Wind, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he replied, trying to not upset Wind. A small, pink-haired boy who couldn’t be anyone but Legend huffed.
“Do you ever? He wants you to hold him. Even if he didn’t say it right, ’s obvious—he’s got his arms ‘round your neck and he’s bas’cally tryna be as close t’you as he can get,” he translated.
Oh.
“Alright, come here,” he said as he pulled Wind fully into his lap and held him. Sky smiled and went back to sleeping on Twilight’s leg. Well, at least no one was crying anymore.
Wait.
Someone had been crying earlier. Multiple someones, in fact.
“Alright, sound off. I remember hearing crying and I haven’t heard anyone speaking up about it,” he said, looking around at his pint-sized companions. There was some shuffling around as various boys tried to look anywhere but at Warriors, and he looked at them specifically.
“Wind was cryin’ earlier ‘cause he wanted you but we were sep’rated so he had to make do with me,” Twilight supplied. Warriors looked down at his little limpet and, sure enough, his face was still a bit red from crying and—oh, lovely—his nose was still dripping right onto Warriors’ scarf. He fought to keep a grimace off his face. He could deal with that later. His focus needed to be on his brothers right now, not on his scarf, especially now that they were his little brothers. Oh, Warriors was in trouble.
“Alright, thank you, Twilight. Anyone want to tell me themselves, or am I going to need to ask each and every one of you?” he asked, still managing to be remarkably calm and collected. Four sniffled and raised his hand.
“I was crying. I,” he paused to scrub at his eyes, “I was worried about you and didn’t want you to be dead!” he finished with a wail, flinging himself into Warriors’ side. He glanced around and saw that, ‘oh, it was more than just Four and Wind crying,’ as Legend’s lips quivered and Hyrule blinked furiously to combat his own tears.
“Alright, guys, bring it in,” he called with a small sigh. Within moments, he had not two, not four, but eight small children vying for space in his arms, and three—no, four, they got Wind started—of those kids were crying.
Oh, Warriors was in so much trouble.
A while later, all eight children were asleep, tucked safely into their bedrolls, and Warriors was on watch. He figured he could go the rest of the night without sleep. He’d be fine; he’d done it before just fine!
Oh, who was he kidding? He was stuck with eight children of varying ages and none of them remembered that they were once much older.
What am I going to do? he wondered. And then, even though there was not a single person around who could answer—not himself, not any of his brothers, and certainly not anyone in the world outside their cave—he asked it aloud.
“What am I going to do?”
