"What the hell is Mario kart!?" - Legend 2023

In any tournament, there are winners. 

One or a few people that stood above the rest. 

A seasonal tournament, that happened once a year, had two people that stood above the rest. 

Well, there was two tournaments, hence the two winners. 

Mario kart racing and Super smash bros. 

—

Mario kart racing is a game of cars and motorbikes. 

Fastest to pass the finish line was the winner. The part that separates this race from the rest, was the unique racecourses and the items that could be used by players. 

Blue shells, red shells, mushrooms, bananas and bombs, along with many other items. 

Super Smash Bros or Brawl is all about fighting. 

This game can take place in countless different arenas. Two players would go head-to-head trying to eliminate each other. Most things were legal in these rounds. 

Punching, kicking, hair pulling, stabbing, setting each other on fire, basically everything except from killing. 

—

Mario kart racing had a winner that stood above the rest. 

Hero of the skies, Link. 

He was the racer that beat the original racer, Mario. 

(Mario was definitely not salty about that.) 

Super smash bros, on the other hand, had a champion unlike any other. 

Hero of the Wild, Link. 

He beat out the toughest of players while keeping his injuries to a minimum. 

(All players remained friends, even after being beaten.) 

To save themselves some trouble, they started being known as Sky and Wild. 

—

 Wild and Sky have been friends for years now, good friends, even if they only see each other for a set amount of time each year. They both know what happened to each other, the struggles they went through and the evil they faced. Sky apologised repeatedly after finding out the events of Wild's quest, he blamed himself for cursing Wild. Even if Wild said it wasn't his fault. 

Everyone they know from the tournaments had these struggles, all going through their own different journey and fighting the menace to their world. But no one judged each other, everyone was friends, and everyone got along. 

The tournament took place for about a month and a half each year. Each one of them were ripped from their world and given the option to stay or go after each round, they were just brought back when the next round started. After a few times people just got used to it and stopped questioning it, no one saw it as weird as everyone thought it was normal. It happened and people were cool with it. Even to the displeasure of the people from their own world. 

—

The tournaments were fun. 

Everyone fighting or racing to see who would turn out on top. 

After the tournaments were arguably more fun. 

A group of racers and/or brawlers got together and talked about stuff that had happened in their lives, the night usually ended with half of them drunk and many funny photos never to be talked about again. 

Or a smaller group would go do something else fun. Like the time Mega Man and Sheik had a darts competition or the time Bowser and Donkey Kong had an arm-wrestling match, that was arguably more intense than the tournaments. 

Though, nothing could beat climbing the buildings and watching the sun come up. There was a slight competition with it though (which made it ten times more fun), Mario climbed with Luigi on his back, Wild had Sky and Peach had Daisy, along with many others climbing with people on their backs. 

Fun times to say the least. 

—

When the season ended everyone had to return to their own world. It was always a sad time, but everyone promised to come back next season and to have amazing stories to tell when they come back. 

When the next season rolls around, everyone has stories to tell and usually new scars to show. Wild always shows his scars like a badge of honour. He always has new ones (which was concerning, but not out of nature for the boy) and wins on the most new scars competition they have each year. 

Kid never gets a break, not that he wants it though.

—

Humming to himself as he placed his fourth trophy next to the others. He was rather proud of himself; this was the fourth year in a row that the announcer called his name to the podium. The shout of "Sky!" always got the crowd cheering and the crowd cheering always made him happy. 

After he placed the trophy, he took the time to dust off the other three that sat there. A small smile showing up on his lips as he did so. He stopped for a moment, memories of the last few tournaments flooding his mind. The smile fell when he thought about the injuries that had taken place during each round. The main one being the reason he was just putting up this trophy now. The races of this year were postponed when Toadette had a car crash and had serval broken bones. 

But once she was healed the races continued, and of course, he had won. Much to the annoyance of the others. Thinking about it, he had been gone for a while and did forget to tell anyone he had left. 

'Zeldas going to be so mad.' 

Blocking those thoughts, he walked out into the plaza. He was going to take Crimson for a ride, probably visit the Lumpy Pumpkin and fly about a bit. All that was thrown out the window at the sight of Zelda talking to two men, men that he had never seen before. He can't say he knows everyone in the whole of hyrule, but on Skyloft, he was certain he would remember seeing heavily armed men waltzing around. 

He walked up to the three, little more than a scowl on his face. 

"Link! You're back!" Zelda was now facing him, the look on her face shifting between happy and concerned. She opened her mouth to speak again but he answered her next question "Late racing". 

"Oh. You should of told me! We were all worried!" Zelda lightly batted his arm while she talked, her focused fully shifted to him, instead of the two men still standing there. 

"Sorry, I'll tell you next time." He looked at the two men "And, who are you two? Pretty sure I haven't seen you two in Skyloft before." the look turned more into a glare when the oldest put their hand on the hilt of their sword. 

The two men introduced themselves as Time and Twilight. (Totally normal sounding names.) They them claimed to be on a quest, collecting Hylia's heroes to help fight against a bigger evil than any of them had faced. (He had literally killed a god, what was more powerful than that?) 

He was about to deny them, tell them to get off Skyloft (He wasn't normally like this, he just doesn't like people using Hylia's name to get their own way.) but Zelda stopped him. She confirmed their story was true, that he probably wouldn't have much choice on if he was to go or not. Putting on the nicest smile he could muster, he agreed to go. 

Time and Twilight apparently already had a place to stay. That was the moment he realized; he had been gone for about three days. ' Groose was going to kill him.' 

He made sure to pack the essentials, also personal stuff he wanted to take. His bag was packed, now all he had to do was wait. 

They were in his hyrule for about a week before they were whisked away to the next hyrule. That hyrule being Legends. (Legend was not thrilled to find out about another quest, but after his grumbles, he agreed.) 

—

One thing Sky did wonder about, was if Wild was going to join them. 

They had collected four more heroes after Legend, Wild being none of them. 

He was kind of glad about that though. The kid had been through hell already, memory loss and all. And he was sure that the evil they were going to face would be quivering in their boots at the sign of eight legendary heroes coming together. 

—

It's been two months since they collected their last member, Wind. Seeing Wind really broke his heart, the kid was fourteen and had a family that loved him. The kid was more than eager to join them but still it hurt them to see a kid so young being forced to come with them. 

They had a while to recover before their next big heart break. 

That break being meeting Wild. 

—

They dropped through the portal onto a high wall that seemed to look out across a new hyrule. 

Everyone reacted differently to portals. Time felt a bit dizzy, Four puked half his guts out, Wind had little to no effect and Sky also had little to no effect except a slight bit of sickness, the portals felt very similar to the ones that took them to the tournaments, just stronger. 

Sky recovering quickly took note of his surroundings, mainly the ruins. Ruins covered the land, even the castle looked beat up. The odd part though was that the ruins seemed old, all were covered in moss and dirt, sitting wasting away as time ticked on. 

The second thing he noticed was the glowing blue structures that were dotted around, some being small hut type things and others being massive blue towers. 

They also noticed an old cabin not far from them. Some injuries were taken in their last battle, so if they could rest up, it would definitely help. 

They made their way over to the cabin, it looked mostly abandoned. Well, the cabin was abandoned but the cooking pot outside seemed recently used, very recently. 

They had just sat down, the younger three were inside, while the older five started to talk around the cooking pot. 

All noise came to a holt when an arrow shot past Warriors head, just narrowly missing it. They all had weapons out, looking for the archer. 

"Never thought the Yiga would be so bold." A man came into view, now perched upon a boulder, the archer looked each one of them up and down, his bow lowered when his eyes landed on Sky. 

The archer may have dropped their weapon but the rest of them didn't, except from Sky. 

Sky's eyes lit up with recognition, he knew that voice, it was one he knew very well. 

Sheathing his weapon, he took a cautious step forward, making sure the man wouldn't fire. When the man didn't, he took that as his cue. 

"Wild!" Sky all but shouted, he was already rushing towards the man. 

The man answered his call with the quick shout of "Sky!" as he rushed forwards, his bow seeming to disappear as he did so. 

They crashed into each other with a laugh. 

"I've been waiting to be dropped into you're hyrule!" 

"You have? How long you been waiting?" 

"Too long, way too long." 

The conversation went on, the two forgetting about the people that now stood mere feet away from them. 

After a moment a voice broke the two out of their talking. 

"What's going on here?" Warriors voice got the attention of the two of them almost immediately. 

Sky laughed before he stood up, dragging the new person with him. "Right, I should probably introduce you guys." The smile on his face never dropping. 

"Ya, don't think." Legend forever sarcastic, answered back, still holding some sort of flame rod. 

"I'd like you guys to meet the hero of this hyrule, hero of the Wild, Link, or well, Wild." Sky gestured to Wild as he talked, Wild now stood slightly behind Sky, a new weapon in his hands when he noticed that none of them had sheathed their weapons. 

Looking at the hero they noticed the amount of scars that could be seen. Yes, they could only see his face, but if they followed the scars that lead under Wild's shirt, they were sure to be horrified. 

"This has to be the quickest we've ever found a hero." Twilight filled the silence that now hung in the air. He got a chuckle from Warriors but nothing more. 

"Come on, you have to meet Wind and Hyrule. You guys are going to get along great!" Sky said before he started pulling Wild to the cabin. Leaving the older heroes very confused. 

That was how they met Wild. Apart from that weird meeting, they got along great. Wild seemed to fit perfectly into the little family they made. Sky and Wild never talked about how they knew each other, nor would answer questions about it, but as Legend pointed out, "everyone was entitled to their own secrets", so no one pressed them for answers. 

That's sort of a lie though, they did get an answer to one question. 

"Where did you to meet?" Wind asked, out the blue. 

"Mario kart." There was no thought behind the answer Wild had given. 

"What the hell is Mario Kart!?" Asked a voice, from behind the two. Apparently, Legend had joined the conversation.