One day, several students and noble scions disappeared from Fódlan's Garreg Mach officer academy. Two weeks later, they reappeared, having spent three years in the far-off land of Hyrule. This is their story.
The not-very-creatively-named The Heroes of Legend is a crossover fic between The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Fire Emblem: Three Houses written by Critica7
. The story centers on Link and the Three Houses students (plus Cyril and Kronya), with the students having been mysteriously transported to Hyrule after the Great Calamity. The fic is inspired by the now-Dead Fic The Birth of New Legends.
The fic is intended to be a trilogy, with a story centering on each individual year the students spent in Hyrule. Year One can be found on Fanfiction here, on Archive Of Our Own here, and on Spacebattles here.
On February 29, 2024, Year One was completed. Year Two can be found on Fanfiction here and Archive Of Our Own here
This fic has examples of:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: After stealing Hubert's soul, Wizzro uses a few to try to win Ashe, Cyril, Linhardt, Dedue, Lysithea, Kronya, Flayn, and Kass's souls. He gives up when Farosh bets her soul against his continued existence, though he would have lost anyway because Kass was cheating.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Flayn is The Pollyanna in canon. In this fic, she's a Stepford Smiler, at least at first.
- Adaptational Badass:
- The Sheikah Slate only needs to interface with one Sheikah tower in order to get the full map of Hyrule in this fic.
- Marianne, Caspar, Cyril, and Ingrid become the recipients of Mipha's Grace, Daruk's Protection, Revali's Gale, and Urbosa's Fury respectively, after the Champions are freed. Caspar also takes up Daruk's signature weapon, while Marianne takes up one of Sidon's tridents after Mipha gives her trident to Sidon, Cyril takes up Teba's bow after Revali gives his to Teba, and Ingrid is given the Thunder Helm and specially made weapons by Riju.
- Adaptational Explanation: When Lysithea demands to know how Beedle gets around Hyrule faster than them, Kass convinces the merchant to show them his airship, though it's more of a small hot-air balloon augmented with Ancient Tech.
- Adaptational Wimp:
- However, the Slate does not have an inventory function in this fic. Link and the students use Korok Pouches to store their items instead.
- Downplayed; Link doesn't become the recipient of his fellow Champions' skills after freeing them.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Discussed. The students question various aspects of Hyrule at first. They quickly figure out that Hyrule isn't like Fódlan, and the best course of action is just to accept things that seem strange.
- Asshole Victim:
- Solon is tortured to death by Hubert and Monica, some time after he had experimented on her.
- Kronya kills Thales in Chapter 137, and his human accomplices Duke Aegir and Marquis Vestra are executed for their involvement in the deaths of Edelgard’s siblings the next day.
- Bad Future: One that's averted by the time it's addressed, but according to one of the Shrine Monks, things in the Golden Wildfire timeline would have gone very, very wrong after Rhea's death, had that been the timeline to predominate. Claude would have lived to witness every bit of the change he tried to bring to Fódlan fall through before both he and Shez would have died and gone to hell. While the Mirror of Truth showed The Legions of Hell attacking Fódlan, this could have been a metaphorical representation of the continent's fate, but either way the results would not have been pretty.
- Black-and-White Morality: Edelgard has some thoughts on this in Chapter 34, where she muses that in Hyrule, Good is Good, Evil is Evil, and it actually is that simple, compared to the complicated Grey-and-Gray Morality issues in Fódlan, where that thinking would be a childish fantasy. But in Hyrule, she has the opportunity to perform simple, unambiguous good, and the chance to hold on to this fantasy as long as she can unnerves her.
- Boom, Headshot!: Cyril manages to snipe Windblight Ganon with an Ancient Arrow, just when it has Link dead to rights.
- The Cavalry:
- The battle with Malice-infected Naydra looks to be a fraught one, but Dinraal and Kronya come in to even the odds.
- While the Company's strike team was winning against the Blood Moon-empowered Thunderblight Ganon, they were in a position where some of them would have died in the attempt. Fortunately, Mercedes and Hubert arrive to help just in time.
- The Cameo: Tingle makes a brief cameo at Lurelin Village, where he tries to sell things to Link and company. Unfortunately, they don’t need anything he has, and as they leave, he exclaims that he's been replaced.
- Canon Welding: The Divine Dragons of Breath of the Wild are manaketes in this fic, daughters of the three goddesses Din, Farore and Nayru.
- Common Tongue:
According to the author, the reason the peoples of Hyrule and Fódlan speak the same language is because Sothis and the Hyrulean pantheon spoke the same language. - Cover-Blowing Superpower: The Company is beset by the Raven, a Master of Illusion. Kronya uses a Sheikah technique that dispels all illusions to find the real Raven, but the technique also dispels her Monica illusion as well, and Flayn sees her true identity as an Agarthan, causing Kronya to flee.
- Cowardly Lion: Chapter 61 has Yunobo and Bernadetta bond over being terrified but still choose to fight anyway.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Some of the Rising Sun Company are attacked by Wizzro and a small army of monsters. They do well against the monsters, but Wizzro beats them senseless, and they have to be rescued by Linkle.
- The Company plans to kill off a pirate crew that is demanding tribute from Lurelin Village. It is never even suggested that the pirates stand a chance; the danger of the battle is that they might realize that and flee, taking their ship with them, which the Company needs. In the end, Link, Hilda, and Raphael are able to deal with the pirates themselves.
- In her Trial by Combat with Lord Lonato, Rhea easily cuts off his hand. She chooses to spare his life, though only for Ashe's sake.
- Death by Adaptation: While the Company is off handling Vah Medoh, someone sneaks into Rito Village, murders Elder Kaneli and burns down his hut.
- Demoted to Extra: Byleth is not one of the characters transported to Hyrule, and is only present in the segments where the company is relaying their adventures in the present day.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: Kronya starts out as the "Evil" to Calamity Ganon's "Oblivion," wanting to prevent the world from being destroyed so that the Agarthans can conquer it later, but later makes a genuine Heel–Face Turn.
- Fire-Forged Friends: The time spent in Hyrule had done a lot to forge bonds between the many disparate nobles and students, enough that when they finally return, everyone knows Flayn's true identity, Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude are willing to talk things out with Rhea, and Kronya is willing to collaborate with them to depose Thales and negotiate peace with the Agarthans. The story is about how they get there.
- Framing Device: The story of the Company's exploits in Hyrule is framed as them recounting their adventures to Rhea and Seteth, and later Jeralt and Byleth.
- From Bad to Worse: A small company team including Link and Teba has just managed to beat Windblight Ganon and free Vah Medoh, but then a Malice-infected Naydra approaches and the moon goes bloody.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Caspar attempts to pull one off to defeat Fireblight Ganon by throwing both of them into Death Mountain. Thankfully, Daruk saves him at the last moment.
- Hermit Guru: Most of the Sheikah monks in the Sheikah Shrines have some sage bits of advice for the Company members that complete their shrines, often preceded by them saying their full names.
- How We Got Here: The first chapter of Year One has the Garreg Mach students returning after two weeks of disappearance, now stronger and wiser after their time in Hyrule. While some of the rest of the story is devoted to handling the issues cropped up in their absence, the majority is them describing their three-year adventure in Hyrule.
- Incompatible Orientation: Dorothea tries to confess to Ingrid in the Zora Kingdom due to the latter rescuing her before, but is rebuffed. Sylvain reassures her that it's because Ingrid doesn't feel that way towards girls.
- Internal Reveal:
- Chapter 57 has Flayn and those accompanying her meet Farosh, where Flayn reveals her true identity, the truth behind the scriptures of Seiros, and about Nemesis. This is then passes to the remainder of the Company in Chapter 67.
- Kronya reveals her true identity to Claude in Chapter 68.
- Chapter 82 has Rhea confess to Seteth, Jeralt and Byleth the truth behind Sitri.
- Mythology Gag:
- The Hylians mistake Kronya's true Agarthan appearance for a Twili.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Subverted. Claude is shunned by the other members of the Rising Sun Company for several chapters for killing a possessed man Marianne was trying to exorcise, but the Company eventually forgives him after he saves them and the people of Foothill Stable from Wizzro.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: One chapter has a few members of the Rising Sun Company get into an argument over whether a circle has no corners or infinite corners. Hilda is the one who starts the argument (by saying her constant corner-cutting is justified because life, being a circle, shouldn't have any to begin with), but Linhardt and Annette are the ones who seem to actually care about determining what the answer is. Meanwhile, Teba is thoroughly unimpressed.
- Shipper on Deck: Sylvain is this to Felix and Paya.
- Token Evil Teammate: Claude and Kronya both start as this. They both get better over time.
- Took a Level in Kindness: The time spent in Hyrule was enough to soften the three house leaders' and Kronya's feelings towards the Church of Seiros, being willing to talk things out with Rhea when they return. The story revolves around how that change happens.
- Trial by Combat: When Lonato brings an army to Garreg Mach, Rhea offers to settle their feud with a duel. For how it ends, see Curb-Stomp Battle.
- Unbreakable Weapons: Ignatz's sword is blessed by the Great Fairy Cotera. According to her, nothing less powerful than Calamity Ganon itself can so much as scratch it.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Even after encounters with the undead Stalfos and the Blood Moon, the lynel on Ploymus Mountain is the deadliest adversary the Rising Sun Company has faced up till that point. Despite assistance from Link and Sidon, the lynel faces the entire company and flattens almost all of them, incapacitating the entire front line until only Flayn and the healers are left. It eventually succumbs to a Death of a Thousand Cuts, but it was a miracle no-one died, and it prevents the majority of the company from helping Link free Vah Ruta.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Subverted. The students of Garreg Mach disappeared from Fódlan for only two weeks, but apparently spent three years in Hyrule. However, according to Lorenz, the reason is not because of this trope, but rather because whatever summoned them to Hyrule also summoned them into the past, making the phenomenon more straightforward Time Travel.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: When Link gets his memory fully back, he remembers his soul having encountered the gods while he was comatose. While most of them did not give this impression, Link instinctively felt that one of them (implied to be the One Above All, the setting's Top God) had more to his appearance that Link wasn't capable of seeing.
