Legend!

The Forgotten Hero and the Eternal Swordsman

By I.K.A. Valian

The Dark Wizard Agahnim terrorized the humans of ancient Aselia. What resistance existed was led by a strange group of warriors who stood out from the native human population because of their pointed ears. That was one thing the strange group shared with the Dark Wizard, their origin.

They chased the mad man across the cosmos. After much hardship, they arrived on Aselia, but it was too late to stop Agahnim's initial assault on the planet. With innocents caught up in the struggle against the Dark Wizard, the desperate warriors made their last effort to put an end to their former companion.

Prologue: Those That Went Before

"Your reign of terror ends here, Agahnim."

The Dark Wizard looked up from the leafy dry pages of the Book of Niflheim. Before his skeletal throne stood a mixture of warriors and mages, eight in total. A sneer crossed the old wizard's face as unpleasant memories came to him unbidden.

"I see you again found me. A wasted effort, Neppolo," he growled. He felt darker and deeper parts of his soul writhing in anguish. When they'd set out on this journey, he let those emotions control him, but he grew far beyond their scope and power now.

He stood up, his back muscles tense, spine straight, and his shoulders set stiffly. With his left hand he closed the book and clutched it against his chest as a deep purple aura flowed from the leather bound pages. "I've discovered the truth of the world, Neppolo. I've discovered the path to true, unstoppable power. The likes of which only the Goddesses know. Something even the all powerful Triforce is forced to obey. Once I've acquired this power, I shall return to Hyrule and rule it in my rightful place as GOD!"

"He speaks nonsense," a green-haired woman on Neppolo's left said, "there is no such power." Agahnim snarled inwardly as he turned his burning gaze upon that damned woman. The scar on his chest pulsed with ache as he did. That damned Zephyr and her damn wind magic.

"And besides," said the young man next to her, "we wouldn't let you find that power anyway." He tapped his tall battle staff on the stone floor for emphasis.

"Enough of this," Agahnim said. With a quick swipe of his hand, he sent a pulse of dark energy racing toward the eight. He expected them to be knocked back, but the energy bounced off of a white energy field being projected around the group.

"Enough indeed," said Neppolo. He held up his hand. In his palm sat an object. It had three ebony colored triangles with silver half moons sprouting from each outside face of the triangles. The object sat upright, seemingly untouched by gravity.

"I never thought I'd see the day when the great and glorious leader Neppolo ran out of ideas," said Agahnim. "You know that my power has grown beyond that little trinket's ability. So why exactly did you bring it here?" Agahnim felt the edges of his lips curl upward from the excitement coursing through him. It truly would be the last time that he'd have to deal with these fools. He didn't need to be careful anymore so he let that beastly part of his soul free and relished the taste of his moment of victory.

But his loathing for these people halted him from lashing out immediately. This confrontation was different from the previous ones they've had. No one was even looking at him; they were all staring at the useless bauble that Neppolo was holding. He needed to know what it was that Neppolo had up his sleeve this time. What were they doing with the Proto-Triforce?

"I would have thought all of you would try to jump me," he said, trying to lure the tall man to give up some information. "I guess you learned your lesson. Why are you here if this is not a futile attempt to kill me?"

"Everyone," Neppolo said, his voice ringing, completely ignoring the Dark Wizard in front of him. "It's time. The Proto-Triforce has finished charging."

Agahnim tilted his head to the side again. Even he wanted to see what they were going to try. He let his curiosity get the better of him. He could kill them any time he wanted at his current level of power. Heck, he could destroy all of Aselia if he really wanted to. But that fireworks show he wanted to save for last.

Neppolo held up the Proto-Triforce just as everyone fell into a V formation behind him. The Proto-Triforce glowed brightly and launched a beam of light at Agahnim. He didn't the need to deflect or protect himself from the light. He could sense easily enough that it was just plain photonic light.

The Dark Wizard started with a light chuckle. "That's it?!" Agahnim asked through his laughter. His mirth quickly escalated into great, deep, bellows of laughter. The disturbing sound echoed throughout the chamber for several long minutes. The Dark Wizard only fell silent when he caught on to what was happening to him; when he heard the book in his arms drop to the floor with a loud thud.

"What?!"

"This is how it ends," said Neppolo. His cheeks were like rock, his brow set in stone, but his eyes were filled with remorse, "and how it begins. Goodbye Agahnim. May the Goddesses purify your soul in your eternal sleep." Agahnim fell to his knees, his body losing control of anything below his waist. His teeth were grit in an ugly grimace of failing resistance.

"Curse you Neppolo!" Agahnim shouted, spittle flying from his blood swollen face. "Curse you all. I swear I'll come back…" he shouted as the beam sucked the soul from his body. His head, being the first point hit by the light, was the last part of his soul to go. Thus it was that Agahnim fell onto his back and his words became slurred. "…and when I do, I'll hunt every one of you down and kill you. Do you hear me! I'll kill you all! You are all dead!" And he was gone.

Chapter One The Hero, The Princess, And The Pig King

The Ancient Evil: The Pig King

The halls of the Golden Pyramid, central location of the Dark World, were long and dark. They smelled bad as well, the air stale with the millennia old scent of blood and death. Not that it bothered him; he liked it. He was the King of Evil after all.

"M-master, where are we going?"

He grunted and ignored the imp following him. Why did he keep a sniveling little cretin like that around anyway? All he did was complain. He did make for good target practice though. Deciding that it had been long enough since he'd heard himself speak, he deigned the diminutive creature following on his heels with an answer.

"We are traveling down this hallway," he said in his deep gravely and booming voice. He smirked at the witty comment. He had so few opportunities in the last hundred or so years to let himself just be a jerk. It felt good to finally be powerful enough to let himself go like this. The Dark World wars took a large chunk of his time up for the past few hundred years. But now, having finally solidified his control over the Dark World denizens, he could finally concentrate on beating that damn Hero and Princess in the Light World.

"But w-what is at the end of this hallway, M-master?"

He could feel his blood boiling as he remembered every time a Hylian boy defeated him with that… that blasted blade. And the way that princess, every time, looked down at him with… with pity. It was enough to make his vision turn red.

By now he was so worked up he thought nothing of grabbing the imp following him by the neck and squeezing until he felt several satisfying popping and crunching noises. When he realized what he'd done, he casually tossed the dead minion into the wall and snapped his fingers. The Triforce of Power in his meaty right fist grew hot as the powers of the universe did his bidding and reversed the damage he'd done.

Satisfied that his favorite target was back, he turned and started walking down the hallway again. He was down here for a single reason, a simple one at that. Curiosity.

One of his minions reported that a cave-in further into the pyramid had revealed a new hallway that was not known to have existed. Since he acquired this pyramid from a particularly powerful guardian, he felt compelled to explore this new sector himself. Whatever was hidden inside had to be something big to get a giant golden pyramid all to itself. There wasn't anything else in the whole place that really merited such extravagance. Except himself.

He let his mind go blank as he meandered down the baron golden hall. The stench of death became more prominent the further he went, leaving the smell of blood behind. Personally, he wished the steps leading to his throne room in the pyramid did as good a job as this hallway did. He might just have to move his throne room to whatever room was at the end of this hallway.

When he came to the end of the hallway he was confronted with a coffin. Now, he'd raided several crypts for raw undead minion material many times in his extended lifetime. It would be quite fair to say he'd seen his share of coffins. But this one set the bar a level higher than any of the most extravagant coffins he'd ever seen before.

For one thing, it was as tall as he was, just over twelve feet. The name plaque mounted on the side of it was formed of three different shades of gold, set on top of gold siding, built into golden frames, and mounted on a golden platform. Considering that the entire pyramid was made of solid gold, the construction of the coffin wasn't surprising.

It wasn't the grandeur that set this coffin apart from its brethren. It wasn't the difficulty of finding the tomb either. It boiled down to two things. The name on the plaque and the holographic image of a shining Triforce hovering above the coffin.

"Here lies the King of Old, thy Hyruler. Murdered through treachery by Lowruler. He forever lives in the power of the Royal Triforce."

As his minion read the rest of the laundry list every royal tomb contained, he reached up to his thick, broad chin and scratched it slowly, thoughts and explanations for this tomb's existence filtering through his mind.

This dead king could possibly predate the existence of Hyrule as it is now. The way the list of accomplishments read, this king ruled the Light world, the Dark world, the Twilight Realm… he literally ruled the entire world! And he did it for thousands of years. This was exactly what he wanted to do. And now that he knew it was possible…

"…and by decree of the Royal Family, all records of events and knowledge are secured with the Great Father for all time."

His eye twitched and his heart began racing. The knowledge was in this coffin. The tools he needed to finally conquer all worlds were stored under his feet for the last five hundred years. This news was so fantastic he backhanded his favorite target into the wall, satisfied with the loud splat and fountain of innards that resulted. In a rush to get what he desired, he gripped the edge of the coffin's lid and heaved.

Though it had been sealed for many, many years, the golden coffin lid glided open as easily as if it had been made the day before. The holographic image of the three golden triangles however disappeared the moment he touched it. He didn't really care though, he just needed into the coffin.

His nerves were electrified; uncontained exuberance caused him to immediately reach in and rip the dead body, still perfectly preserved, from its resting place and fling it next to the dead minion.

After searching for several minutes through the frilly ruffles of gold thread spun lining, he felt hope give way to desperation, desperation to aggravation, aggravation to outrage, and outrage to seething anger. With a great heave and show of power, he lifted the entire golden coffin above his head, looking very much like a midget lifting a two story house, and threw it into the wall.

"WHERE IS IT!" he bellowed, his rage echoing out of the room, down the hall, and out into the rest of the Dark World. Ever one of his minions immediately knew to avoid him at all costs, lest they wish to suffer an early, and most likely, violent death.

He needed to kill something. Where was his favorite target? Ah yes, that stain on the wall. He snapped his fingers in his minion's general direction and felt the Triforce of Power do its work once more. However, instead of his minion reforming and reanimating, the body of the dead king came to life.

Well, he thought, maybe the dead guy can tell me what I want to know. If not, he's my next target!

The dead king stood up. His form was enshrouded in an unearthly white glow. His eyes projected a soft bluish white light. All these signs of relatively obvious and dated necromancing magic.

"You who posses the Triforce of Power, bow before your King." The reanimated corps lifted its arm and pointed in his direction. When he did nothing but watch him, the walking corpse sneered and whipped his hand at him.

Almost immediately, he fell to his knees. The dead bastard was trying to posses him. He wasn't going to stand here and let some dead freak take him. The only ones who he would even acknowledge as capable of that were that boy and that princess.

Forcing his fist into the floor a good inch, he drew deeply from the power of the Triforce and grabbed the essence invading his mind. With pure force of will and grit borne from three thousand, three hundred, and eighty five years of fighting, he sucked up the soul of the dead king, consuming the old man in his entirety.

For a moment, the world slowed to a crawl as his spirit absorbed and fused with the deca-millennial old king. He saw stars, images, things he never thought would or could have happened in another time and age. An entire civilization's rise and fall in the blink of an eye passed before him. When it was all done, he sat on the ground, unable to form a single cognitive process.

The king himself was the record of the ancient past that he sought. Now he had it, all of it, every secret of ever magic spell he knew and those he didn't were laid before him like the master score before a Sympnonia's maestro. He knew where the tribes came from, both in the Dark World and the Light. He knew the secrets of the Twili, the purpose behind the Twilight mirror's construction. He even knew the origin of the Sheikah. Everything, all of it, was his now. And now that he knew, nothing was ever going to be the same.

A plan immediately formed in his head. He knew exactly how to beat that boy now. With this plan his lips parted. It started as a low growl and quickly escalated into a deep, gut busting barking. That slowly crawled higher into a maniacal evil laughter that shook the very pyramid he sat in. The sound could be heard throughout the Dark World. All his minions, earlier disturbed by his shouts of rage, now rejoiced with glee. A reckoning was coming to their master's enemies.

The Weakest Link: The Hero

He glanced over his shoulder and felt a trill of panic shoot up his spine, bounce off of his brain, and end up back in his gut. Lanieu was literally just inches away from him. Inches away from pounding him to a pulp.

"Where do you think you're running, Wimpy Linky?" taunted his vile enemy. "I don't think the Hero is supposed to run away?"

He dodged one of the kids running at him and rolled between another kid's legs. Desperately, his terror fueled brain searched for a way out of the square he'd just run into. He spotted an side alley and dashed for it before another kid and his nemesis got him. Lanieu nearly grabbed onto his dirty, ratty shirt.

"Come on, Wimpy Linky!" shouted Lanieu tauntingly. "Don't run! Fight back!"

"Go away!" he shouted through tears over his shoulder.

Unfortunately, taking his eyes from where he was going was a mistake. He missed the baker carefully navigating the alley. The baker carried a tray piled high with steaming fresh bread. The resulting impact between terrified boy and Baker caused an explosion of bread. The adult stood up and scowled as he looked for the culprit.

First the angry looked at the crowd of kids. They were laughing and pointing. The Baker followed their fingers and found him still on the ground. The baker's scowl darkened.

"You again!" the Baker shouted. "This is the seventh tray of bread you've ruined!" The Baker took a step forward and raised his fist. The man's face went several shades of red before it turned purple. "You insufferable ingrate," the man bellowed, "I'm gonna take this outta your hide!"

He didn't want to wait for the Baker to make good on his claims and scrambled to get away. Unfortunately, his foot slipped on the bread scattered about the ground and he flew head first into the brick wall of the Bakery.

When he came around, the mid-day sun was replaced by a crimson and orange sky sprinkled with the first few stars of the night. When he tried to move his head, a chrysanthemum of pain blossomed at the base of his skull. Reflexively, he scrunched up into a small ball as the pain washed over him. After several minutes of the torture, he was finally able to withstand the nerve firings in his head to move onto his hands and knees.

The Baker, apparently, closed for the day. No doubt to head home to feed his family. The kids as well were gone, a fact which made him feel a whole lot better.

It took him what seemed like hours to limp home. When he reached the door to his back-end slums of Castle Town home, he nearly fell onto its dingy wooden surface in relief. The entire trip, every step sent waves of knife twisting pain up his spine into his head. Each wave made him dizzy and the world seemed to wobble as he walked.

As he reached out to grab the handle, the door groaned open and was replaced with his father. His father was still dressed in the robes all administrative staff at the castle wore. First a scowl passed over his father's face. Then a deeper scowl passed over his father's face.

"So you finally managed to drag your carcass back here, eh?" His father looked him over with a critical eye. Meanwhile, he tried really hard not to fall back down while looking back up at his father. The world began to spin and wobble faster as his father snorted loudly, turned around, and left the door open behind him. "He's fine," his father said on his way back into the house. "Don't bother with his dinner. He doesn't deserve it after pulling this stunt again."

He was about to protest when his mother appeared in the doorway. She hesitated before she brushed the ratty brown hair away from his dirt stained forehead wound. He tried to tell her that it was Lanieu's fault, that the other kids chased him all around town and wouldn't leave him alone no matter what. But she wouldn't have any of it.

"You need to learn how to get along with others," she said as she quickly pulled him into the house and slammed the door shut. She snatched up the last red potion as she passed the medicine cabinet in the hall. When they got to his bedroom, she pushed him onto his bed and tossed the red potion onto his pillow.

For a moment she looked at him sadly. He noticed it before. It always disappeared quickly, and did so this time as well, replaced with the hardened eyes she usually gazed at him with. She quickly disappeared when she pulled the door firmly shut. He heard the lock click.

Today was not out of the ordinary for him. In the beginning, he asked to be the Hero. He wanted to be included, to feel wanted. No one used to play with him at all. Usually they responded to his request with a forceful no. They wanted nothing to do with him and made it inexplicably clear.

That was how things worked until Lanieu moved to Castle Town. He came from a town that was on the border with the Gerudo Desert. He took an immediate interest in him and started picking on him. It started out small; calling him names, sneaking in smacks, and tripping him. Eventually, he got kids to join him in his antics and soon all the children who never wanted to play with him suddenly took joy in torturing him.

He was sure it was because of Lanieu that his life had become like this. He wanted to hate the other boy, to hurt him back, to do something to make Lanieu stop. But no matter how much he did, every time he came face to face with Lanieu his knees buckled, he lost his breath, and he couldn't think of anything but getting away. The rage and anger built up while alone seemed to be sucked out of him like the air leaving a balloon. It was horrible and he went through it six times a week.

As he drank the red potion, he daydreamed of being a real hero in an attempt to take his mind off of his growling stomach and the sickening taste of the potion. He envisioned himself on that first day of playing Hero. In his daydream, he actually stood up to Lanieu instead of crying in a corner as the elder boy loomed over him and called him names. He beat up Lanieu, all the other kids liked him, and the King proclaimed him a true Hero.

And so he fell asleep with his heart hammering from the immense pain, the immense void created in him, by an unfair life. His conscious mind left him the silent wish for something or someone to please help him; a wish to be something more and better than what he was; a wish to not be weak anymore. The tears of isolation evaporated from his reddened cheeks not long after.

The Impure One: The Princess

Zelda walked into the throne room, her head held high, her back straight, and her gait graceful; just as she'd been taught. Her father sat on the throne while he spoke to one of his advisers, her uncle, the Baron Barker. After them, other than the guards lining the walls of the expansive throne room, there wasn't anyone else present.

"Father, you summoned me?" she asked with a short bow to her father, the King. The King shooed his brother off to the side and looked toward his daughter.

"I did indeed," he said in his famous baritone voice. "Princess Zelda, how fare you in your studies of the arcane?"

Zelda closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew this meeting was bound to take place sooner or later. She thought about it during her entire trip to the throne room. Her father never called for her this late in the afternoon.

With no small amount of trepidation, she tentatively said, "I have nearly mastered the three basic spells that all magi must learn. I've also learned of the Royal Seal, the Royal Arrow of Light, and I'm confident in my abilities to master the ancient frost spell, FrostMreos."

"Good!" said the King. He smiled motioned for Zelda to approach. "What about that spell?"

Zelda trembled, vividly remembering the incident at the Magic Academy. She clenched her fists to gather her courage. Zelda looked her father in the eye and shook her head.

The King nodded, astute enough to take notice of his daughter's reaction. She still hasn't gotten over it, even after seven years. But as long as she never dabbled in that again, she should be okay, or so the physician and Impa claimed.

"And what of your studies in Anthropology?" The King asked.

"I've studied the texts that you've given me, Father," she said. "Though I do not know how studying the cultures and philosophies of other nations is helpful in governing Hyrule."

"You'll see soon enough," said the King with a wink. "Well then, everything appears to be in order," the King announced. "As you are aware, you showed such a high proficiency in Magic when you were younger that it is a foregone conclusion that if you keep up your studies you'll be even more powerful than your mother." For a moment the King lost his focus. He turned his head and looked at the wall for a moment. When the moment past, he continued to study the wall. "I suppose it's time you were allowed access to those higher level spells that you've been wanting so badly," the King teased, "now that you've got the basics down."

Zelda nodded at her father and smiled hopefully. Finally. She'd been waiting to have access for those scrolls. Now if she could get out of here without having to demonstrate, then-

"But first we should see a demonstration," said the King.

Zelda kept her composure, but inside she was punching her hand bloody on a brick wall. Shaking herself of these apprehensive feelings, she took a few steps from her father as one of the guards brought a target and set it in the center of the throne room.

The King leaned forward as he watched his daughter calculate the distance, approximately forty yards. Baron Barker moved closer to the King and whispered something into his ear, the King nodded.

Zelda took a deep breath. Having estimated the distance, all she needed to do was get the amount of power required right. That was more of an intuitive judgment than a definite calculation. She centered the energies in her own body, stretched her right arm toward the target and her left arm behind her. Flames licked along her finger tips as she took up the stance that she'd taken hundreds of times in practice.

With a short step forward, she whipped her body around in a full circle. Her arms curved slightly as she went, whipping back into their original position and launching a ball of fire from her palm toward the target.

The ball of magical flames screamed through the air and impacted upon the wooden target with the force of a Goron Bomb Flower. When the smoke cleared, Zelda allowed herself a small smile of victory, having blown the top half of the dummy clear off. It lay fifty feet behind the dummy stand and was still smoking.

Zelda turned toward her father and bowed just as a loud and obnoxious clapping filled the room. Zelda frowned, removed the unladylike expression, and looked up at her father. Her father and uncle were both staring at her. No, not at her, behind her. She turned around and saw a tall man in ebony armor picking up the burned remains of the target dummy.

His face was hidden by the smoke but his red hair was unmistakably that of a Gerudo. Now Zelda did frown. The Gerudo were all women and this one was clearly a man.

"Excellent work, Princess," the man sneered as he casually tossed the smoking target behind him. Revealed was a pair of stone cold eyes set in a face formed from solid steel. His nostrils flared as he grinned wildly, wickedly. "I dare say you are perhaps the most powerful Princess to ever grace the Hylian Royal Family."

There stood the scourge of Hyrule. Her insides froze and she found herself unable to move. She wanted to run, to turn to her father for comfort, to do something. But her feet stayed where they were, unbridled terror becoming the glue that held her in place.

"Princess Zelda," Barker shouted as he ran forward. His great bulk seemed to swallow her up as he stood in front of her, his sword clenched in his gloved hands. "You'll not win the day this time Ganondorf!"

The King rose from his throne and moved quickly toward Zelda. Just as he reached her, Ganondorf ducked under Barker's first swing and punched him. The blow seemed to go through the armor and knocked the large man out cold. The King shook Zelda out of her trance.

"Run Zelda! Sound the alarm!" Zelda did as her father said and ran just as Ganondorf stepped up to the King and got into his face. In the back of her mind she wondered why the guards in the throne room weren't moving and how that man managed to get into the castle in the first place without raising any alarms.

As Zelda left the room, Baron Barker chuckled as he stood up. He motioned to the guards standing about the room and watched them leave. Then he turned back to his brother.

"So, it was you," the King said. "I didn't think you would be able to stoop this low, brother."

"Then you would be wrong," he chuckled. "I've got other priorities and a master to please. That tends to prioritize things a different way." He bent over and picked up his sword, the scraping of steel against stone echoing throughout the throne room.

"So this is how it ends?" asked the King. He snorted and straightened his back. Like the nobleman that he was, the king that he was, he would not die without his honor. "So be it."

"Why don't you fight back, eh?" asked Ganondorf. "I know you want to. I can sense it. You're like a cornered lion ready to strike. How… interesting that you choose not to do anything?" The King looked at Ganondorf and didn't answer. He merely sat back down on the throne and remained silent.

"Do you think me foolish enough to try and out power one who wields the Triforce? I may not have proficiency in magic but I'm not stupid. I will not run from dea-"

Barker screamed out his rage as he stabbed the King in the chest with his sword. He drove the blade through the King and into the throne, the impact creating a loud screech as metal grated on metal. Ganondorf smirked and walked pasted the throne, following the path that Zelda took. Barker leaned forward, grinning like an idiot, a victorious idiot.

"I should have been made King all those years ago," Barker whispered. "Now I'll have my revenge upon these lands for rejecting me."

"Brother, you fool," the King rasped. Blood dribbled down his chin and neck. A red blossom was quickly spreading across his robes around the stab wound. "You were not chosen to rule because you were reckless and power hungry. You would have dragged this country back into another war, driven our people to the depth of the Dark World in your search for power and glory."

Barker grinned as he watched the last light of life fade from his brother's eyes. "Heh, I guess that's going to happen anyway." Barker stood up and walked off, leaving the King's body pinned to the throne.

Zelda quickly traversed the halls of the castle. Her dress hiked up in her hands to allow her to run faster than would otherwise be possible. She could hear the feet of soldiers behind her and slowed. Relief nearly drained the adrenalin from her when she realized that these were the same soldiers from the throne room. They had to be under some kind of hypnotic spell.

Turning to run again, she slammed into a brick wall of a man. When let her eyes flow up from the man's chest, she found herself face to face with Ganondorf. He grinned down at her sternly, as if to say she should watch where she's going in the future.

"It looks like we just keep running into each other, eh Princess Zelda?" the tall Gerudo asked.

Zelda shook her head and back pedaled. Before she realized it, the guards from the throne room were all around her. Two of them helped her up and then two more held her arms and shoulders so she couldn't escape.

"Hold out your wrist," the evil man ordered. Zelda stubbornly refused to follow his wishes. Ganondorf nodded to the man holding her arm. The soldier grabbed her arm by the elbow and used his full body weight to force her arm up. Considering that he was a big, burly soldier and she a delicate princess, the battle of wills was over quickly.

Ganondorf approached her extended arm slowly, like a cat stalking its prey. His huge hand, huge enough to encompass her entire arm around the elbow, reached forth and grabbed her wrist. She could feel the rough texture of his palm rubbing raggedly against her softer and more delicate skin as he squeezed tightly.

For a split second, it felt as if her arm would snap right off. The light from the back of Ganondorf's hand, where the might of the Triforce of Power shone through, was blinding. She could smell the acrid scent of burning flesh, her flesh, though she didn't feel the amount of pain that she thought she ought to have.

When the light faded, Ganondorf let her wrist go and took a step back. Like the brand work of the Lon Lon Ranch, Zelda now sported a black and white emblem of some kind that pulsed with a soft, dull blue glow every time her heart beat. Right now it was beating regularly and quickly, reflecting the quickness of her racing heart. What did he do to her?

"It seems that the binding spell worked," the evil ruler said, turning disinterestedly away from the princess and the group of soldiers around her. "My work here is done for now. Throw her in the dungeon."

"What did you do to me?!" she demanded. She could already feel an icy coolness spreading from the brand mark. "What have you done to my father?! I demand answers!"

Ganondorf chuckled as the throne room guards dragged their princess away. Her indignant shouts for answers and release went unanswered and soon faded into silence. The Desert Bandit did not move from where he stood until the sounds of Barker's footsteps echoed in the hallway.

"What are the master's orders?" asked Barker as he strode up to Ganondorf. The tall desert man turned and started walking away without answering the shorter fat man. "Does that mean that the binding spell worked?"

Ganondorf stopped. Without turning he said, "I'm going to dispose of her and the Hero when he shows up. Make sure that he gets to the dungeon unimpeded by any soldiers or monsters."

"Yes, of course," said Barker, bowing.

"And another thing," said Ganondorf, "the master is pleased. He wishes for you to retrieve the Triforce of Wisdom for his arrival if possible. Otherwise proceed as planned."

"I will do as I can, Lord Ganondorf." Barker bowed deeply. Ganondorf snorted derisively and continued on his way.

Seeing as this is the first chapter, I don't have any shout outs to give. I would like to thank everyone who supported the original. This rewrite was for you guys. Also, I'm not sure what the update schedule will be like, so I can't give a definitive answer as to when the next chapter will be out. I have it written, but I must still revise it. I humbly ask for your patience.

I.K.A. Valian

Namco Bandai owns the Tales of series. Nintendo owns the Legend of Zelda series. I own the plot and any original characters you may happen upon in this original work.

Update 12/2/08: Changed some of the formatting, but not much else.

Update 12/15/08: Not changing anything, just letting all who read this know that TOS is Alternate Universe. Characters will be OOC.

Update 1/18/09: Redid Link's introduction so that it was less cumbersome. It should read faster and easier now.

Update 1/19/09: More revisions.