The Legend of Zelda: Forgotten Goddess

view. His shabby, thatched clothing appears to have been handmade, but before the king of thieves can get a good look, he vanishes. Marching into the whimsical village, the warlock has but one goal in mind. Find the leader.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Fado claims, sitting atop the hollow tree trunk the Gerudo just emerged from. Donning a green hood in an effort to simulate Rift’s signature look, she scowls through the downpour of water to offer a warning. “Everyone who enters the forest will be lost. Everyone becomes a Stalfos. Even you.” Ignoring the ominous blonde, Ganondorf continues forward, his monstrous visage scaring the majority of the inhabitants back into their homes. Finally reaching a narrow path guarded by a red-headed boy, the Gerudo smiles at the prospect of smashing him into the ground.

  “W-who are you?” Mido meekly asks, terrified, but still bound by his duty.

  “Bring me the sage,” he commands, his voice amplified and grotesquely evil under Din’s influence.

  “Th-the sage?” The boy responds, genuinely unaware what the beast of a man is after. Blindly lifting an idle hand to his right, Ganondorf charges a small orb of dark energy and fires the projectile at a nearby house. The structure explodes, sending massive chunks of wood flying as well as a shower of splintered belongings. Not bothering to even glance at the destruction he has caused, the warlock lets the debris settle beneath the consistent rain before lifting his left arm in the same fashion. “Wait!” Mido shrieks, but to no avail. A much larger structure is obliterated at the base, the tall apartment-like tree tipping over and crashing to the ground with its inhabitants in tow.

  “The sage!” Ganondorf bellows, his body quivering with delight from the slaughter. “Now!” His eyes wide with fear, Mido sprints through the passage toward the Forest Temple’s entrance as quickly as his legs will carry him. Sensing a new presence behind him, the Gerudo turns to find four Kokiri boys standing in a half circle, each of them wielding a short sword and a wooden shield. His ego filled to the brim, Ganondorf laughs a wicked laugh at their expense, crushing whatever misplaced sense of valor had summoned them to such a cause. Turning his back to the comical Kokiri defense force, he sees that the sage’s vessel has arrived. A young girl with an unbreakable spirit in her eyes stands before the Gerudo with a fearless expression. Her short, green hair is held back by a headband, and her outfit is identical to the other Kokiri girls except for her signature dark green turtleneck beneath the standard tunic. Standing with her hands on her hips, her unimpressed expression seems to ask what the intruder could possibly want. “You know why I have come,” he growls, having no patience for any pathetic form of resistance.

  “And you know why he has come,” Saria retorts, her eyes briefly glancing behind the warlock before returning to his augmented face. Picturing the pint-sized warriors he ignored moments ago, Ganondorf turns to find the hero of time himself standing in their place. Though the rain bears down on him relentlessly, his golden gauntlets still seem to glimmer in the sparse light. Din’s yearning to complete the merger of their souls amplifies dramatically, but with a great deal of effort, the king of thieves shakes himself free of her calling. Immediately beginning to circle each other in the small clearing, neither of the combatants offer a single word as a thunderclap sounds overhead. This battle has been inevitable since the very moment the Gerudo was resurrected. He has always known this. Eyeing the Hylian as they continue to pace the battlefield, he sees his victory on the horizon due to the absence of the Master Sword. Without the blade of evil’s bane, the confident hero will certainly fall to the overwhelming power of Din’s essence. Tired of waiting to see who will make the first move, Link suddenly dashes forward, drawing his hookshot like a gunslinger in a duel. The chain screams past the warlock’s torso as he easily dodges the projectile. Connecting with the tree directly behind his target, Link soars the remaining distance forward, scooping Ganondorf off the ground with a punch to the stomach. Impressive as the power of his gauntlets may be, the Gerudo continues to revel in the simple fact that the blow failed to damage him in any perceptible way. Link stamps a boot on the warlock’s chest while hanging onto his hookshot as they smash into a thick tree trunk. His enemy pinned against the tree, the Hylian unleashes a rush of left crosses to Ganondorf’s face, bashing his morphing visage over and over again. After landing one final blow, Link grinds his knuckles into his nemesis’s face, attempting to crush his head with the gauntlet’s power.

  “I grow tired of this,” the Gerudo growls with the gauntlet mashed against his cheek, slowly turning his head despite Link’s best efforts to keep him pinned. An unexpected headbutt rocks the Hylian, sending him sprawling off the tree and stumbling back to regain his focus. Marching toward his foe with bad intentions, Ganondorf throws a heavy punch, expecting the hero to dodge. Refusing to back down to power alone, Link returns fire with a mirrored punch, the warriors fists bouncing off each other with neither having the clear advantage of force. Angered by the display of determination from what should be a weaker opponent, the Gerudo continues the onslaught, a barrage of powerful punches from varying angles flying without restraint. The hammer and anvil continue to meet between the foes, the force of each impact causing spheres of force to expand through the torrential rain. Each and every punch bounces off Link’s fist, and after carefully analyzing the recurring pattern of strikes, he sidesteps a punch, landing one all his own. The blow to the ribs knocks Ganondorf back a step, but still fails to cause any sort of lasting damage. Realizing the gauntlets alone cannot win him this fight, the Hylian decides to try something new.

  Rushing forward, the Gerudo manages to latch onto Link’s shoulder, preventing him from evading the coming uppercut. Attempting to block proves disastrous, the heavy strike to his shielded stomach picking the hero up off the ground and lining him up for the right cross. The blow lands hard upon the Hylian’s jaw, and after spiraling back to the ground, he is temporarily disoriented. Immediately diving over for the kill, Ganondorf is taken by surprise when Link’s hookshot fires strait up into the air just as he prepares to smash the grounded enemy. Missing the warlock’s head, the chain pulls the Hylian up to the branch overhead, and the hero smirks when he sees his ruse has worked. His vision finally snapping back to the ground, the Gerudo finds a bomb where his nemesis departed, the black orb rolling over and tapping against his boot. The blast throws him across the clearing, snapping through a series of thin trees at the perimeter before his momentum subsides. Angrily throwing the debris from his form, he climbs to his feet to find Link charging forward, his sword and shield finally making their debut in the fight. Ganondorf’s eyelid descends and the feeling of pelting rain fades as his body is overwhelmed with warmth. He is within Din’s reach, her arms extending around him, but still she waits, a yearning for him to embrace her himself restraining her grasp. He is out of room, and out of time. There is nothing but fire, and pain, and death everywhere but her arms. The heat is overwhelming, and now he must make his choice.

  The hero dashes past a house as he attempts to corner his enemy in the dense foliage. A ball of energy blasts from the Gerudo’s palm and the house explodes, throwing Link off course as the wreckage envelops him. Ganondorf charges forward, looking for the upper hand as his foe recovers from the blast. Suddenly, the hero inexplicably descends from above with a spirited war cry, narrowly glancing his target as his blade stabs down into the earth. Reeling from the near miss, the warlock attempts to regain his footing while Link rips his blade from the ground, flipping into a vertical spin-slash while grabbing hold of his shield. With no time to react or counter, the king of thieves awkwardly dodges and evades while backpedaling, the Hylian’s sword techniques continually missing by a negligible margin. Back in the center of the clearing, Link spins forward, launching his shield at Gaondorf’s knees in an attempt to catch him off balance. Kicking a boot forward, the Gerudo knocks the attack back at its source, unintentionally giving his foe a stepping stone into the coming attack.
His sword already over his shoulder, the hero’s mighty swing has commenced, slicing through raindrops and descending upon the off-balance warrior. In this, the most critical moment of the fight, Ganondorf’s senses betray him as a hand of impossible warmth slides up between his shoulder blades. He is now within the orb, and staring into his goddess’s gorgeous yellow eyes as her pouty lips drift closer and closer to his. Yielding to her advances, he scoops his hands around her waist, the undeniable power injecting into his veins and charging through his body like a potent drug. A puff of her breath encircles his neck like a collar of passion, and the long sought embrace has finally occurred.

  The Gerudo’s eyes open to find Link’s blade about to split his head down the middle. All this power bestowed upon him, and still, he will die in such a way. Moving in slow-motion, the emotion in the hero’s eyes is not rage or hatred. It is a look Ganondorf has despised for more years than he can remember. It is a look of necessity. An untapped well of unfathomable power contained and