Prologue
The heavy fog cracked apart and a tall figured clad in black tunic and russet trousers pushed through the parting curtains raising his blazing torch in the shadowy twilight that hung over the forest. The koroks and fairies scattered in a panic around the base of the Great Deku Tree as the new Hylian entered the grove, approaching the pedestal of the goddess's sword. The Hylian that strode into the grove so casually, unaffected by the maze-like barrier that was meant to rebuff all unwanted visitors and protect the Master Sword as it mended, was not one of the people they expected to return. He snuffed out his torch on the ground before he stepped up to the pedestal, giving the sacred sword a look of admiration.
Before he could try anything, the Great Deku Tree called out to the intruder, "Who dares disturb the resting place of the Master Sword?" the rumbled.
The intruder did not even flinch in reaction to his sudden address, he merely smiled back at the tree and responded, "My name is Phillip of Holodrum. My family fled Hyrule during the calamity one hundred years ago, but I have returned to reclaim honour for my family and become the true Light of Hyrule to destroy Calamity Ganon once and for all. Hyrule's future is at stake, I need this sword to correct the mistakes of those before me and protect the people of my fatherland."
The Great Deku Tree looked upon the bold Hylian with disbelief, the fact that he reached the grove on his own was incredible, but someone other than the current chosen hero being audacious enough to try and wield the Master Sword for only a selfless purpose gave him a new view on the Hylians as a people. "Regardless of your altruistic ambitions, you are not worthy of such a consecrated power nor are you the hero destined to seal Calamity Ganon away to the realm of darkness. Begone, brave Hylian, this is not your destiny, the Chosen Hero has yet to re-emerge from his long slumber and any attempt to draw the sword would only deplete you of your valuable life force."
Phillip smirked, "The Chosen Hero, eh?" he scoffed. "I saw your hero, he's nowhere near ready to face Ganon. Zelda can't hold him back much longer, she told me so herself, and gave me the Sheikah Slate to follow," he pointed to the odd tablet hanging next to a katana on his belt.
"Impossible…." The Great Deku Tree rumbled lowly.
"Not my destiny you say though?" he asked rhetorically. "Screw destiny, only those that work hard are worthy of achieving greatness and I write my own future," the Hylian retrained his focus on the Master Sword, "I choose to sacrifice my life to be the hero that the people need." With his right hand, he grasped the hilt of the Master Sword but immediately staggered in pain as a Triforce emblem burned itself onto the back of his hand holding the sword in a death grip. "And I refuse to give up after all that I have done to get here because of some silly destiny barrier." Using his other hand as well, he began to pull the restored blade from the earthy dais slowly, releasing light throughout the grove from its base.
The koroks and fairies paused in their panic to watch the strange swordsman pour all his strength into extricating the blade from the pedestal. The Great Deku Tree could only look on in disbelief as blinding light flooded all corners of the grove when the Sealing Blade broke free of the stone grasp that had held it for the last century, proving the impossible to be possible and setting a new course for history. At first, the new hero staggered back with exhaustion letting the sword-point to dip towards the ground, then he stood up straight raising the sword above his head easily for the onlookers to observe in awe.
A new era has begun for Hyrule, thought the Great Deku Tree, one that I have high hopes for a bright future.
Chapter 1
Phillip Gerhard hated the desert. More importantly, he hated the heat, and the sand. He also loathed himself for deciding to try and directly cross the Gerudo Desert to get to Central Hyrule. Sure, he was hopping from one oasis to another, but the few days spent travelling between each one with heat of the day and cold of the night was nothing short of hell. Going North to the mountains of the Highlands after crossing the border seems like a better route now rather than trying to take a short cut through the desert.
The city walls of the sprawling Gerudo city could be seen not too far off in the distance and it came closer at a painstakingly slow pace that made the heat seem worse than it really was. A night or two in a town filled with the beautiful Gerudo women would be a refreshing and pleasing experience after such a harsh two weeks of drudging along in the desert. A brief break in my quest to save Hyrule, he thought to himself as he brushed his sweat-soaked red hair out of his eyes.
During the calamity one hundred years that saw the champions of Hyrule slain by Calamity Ganon and most of the kingdom devastated, his great grandmother fled with his young grandfather to the neighbouring kingdom of Holodrum while his great grandfather died fighting alongside the Hero Link. When Phillip was old enough to hold a training sword his grandfather had a master swordsman from a far-off island nation teach him how to use the Gerhard treasured katana. By the time he was twenty-five, he could defeat his teacher and most knights in the kingdom; he had also decided on what to do for his life journey. He had heard stories growing up of how the five champions of Princess Zelda failed to uphold their only duty of protecting the realm from Ganon and were defeated. He didn't want to believe that the best warriors of Hyrule, including the chosen knight, Link, would lose so easily without a hard fight. Whether or not they did, it did not matter to him anymore and Hyrule needed saving, so he set it as his life journey as a master swordsman to surpass the tasks that have been left undone by the champions and completely destroy Calamity Ganon once and for all.
As Phillip approached the Northern main gate to the massive, walled town, he could clearly see two guards posted that were scantily dressed in local garb, leaving little to his eager imagination, but armed with pikes and equally sharp scowls. This race of warrior women definitely took their security seriously, he could glimpse several armed ballistae on the sandstone palisade that most likely had their teams close at hand.
"Hello, ladies," he said smoothly as he tried to pass between the guards only to be barred by crossed pikes.
"You there, Halt!" growled one of the sentries, who was much older.
"No voe allowed in Gerudo Town!" chimed in the younger one.
"No what?" he stared questioningly at the one that spouted the foreign phrase.
"'Voe,' it means 'male' in our language, and voe are not permitted within the town's walls. Who knows what a single voe could do if we let you into a city filled with only vai," the first guard glared at him with dull gold eyes. Phillip didn't need an explanation for what the second foreign term meant, so her ire was not without reason but it was absurd to completely ban men from the town.
"A bit ridiculous don't you think?" he asked raising his hands in surrender and backing away from the gate. The first guard did not like his response as she proceeded to thrust the butt of her pike into his stomach, knee him in the chest as he doubled forward, and physically threw him into the sand writhing in pain. The blows did not seem to damage anything thanks to the chainmail under his black tunic but it still hurt like hell and wounded his confidence.
The second guard was shocked by the first's sudden outburst and immediately rushed to the subdued Phillip to help him up, "Are you alright? I apologise for how impetuous and rude my colleague is, please forgive us," she asked eagerly.
Phillip gratefully accepted her helping hand to stand up and catch his breath while she went on to dust off the sand from his cloak and readjust the two sheathed blades on his belt. "Thank you miss-"
"Victoria," finished the kind Gerudo.
"Thank you, Miss Victoria, you are truly a blessed flower in this dreadful desert," he smiled when he saw a blush form through her sun kissed complexion. "Well I should have expected a rough greeting from world renown warrior women, but I sincerely apologise for any offence I have made and my ignorance of Gerudo Law," he courteously expressed with a bow which received a smile from Victoria and a sneer from the other guard. "I merely request that my supplies be refreshed before I continue on my way to Hyrule," he appealed kindly to both of them.
"Shove off, you damned Hylian. Your kind are not welcomed too warmly in this region," answered the rude one. "Come on, Victoria, back to our post."
The rude one moved back to the city gate but Victoria shrugged off the order, "If you follow the road here, you will reach Kara Kara Bazaar by nightfall in a few hours, I will meet you there tomorrow on my day off if you wish to get further directions." Her spontaneous compassion was startling and it confused him at first, but then he noticed her iridescent gold eyes that oddly seemed to put his concerns to rest.
"Thank you again, I will most certainly wait for your arrival," he dipped his head in a bow. "Farwell for now, Miss Victoria."
"Farwell, Sir-"
"Phillip, and I am just a vagabond swordsman on his quest for adventure, no knight," he replied.
She returned a bow as he turned to follow the sandy road to the bazaar in the sweltering heat. He could overhear the unnamed sentry scoff at the affectionate exchange between the two young warriors, but he didn't bother in wasting time to answer in a far less pleasant retort. He would have to return one day so he could find a way to break into the anti-male bastion of a city.
It was half an hour down the road when Phillip noticed that he was being stalked by several desert creatures, Lizalfos by the few glimpses he caught over the ridges. During a water break, he made sure to unsling his bow from his shoulder and retrieve two arrows from his quiver. It irked him that he traversed most of the desert without mishap only to be ambushed so close to Hyrule, though he should have expected as much.
By the time the sun started to set, he had counted over two dozen of the giant lizard marauders and he could sense their impatience by their frequent movements on the crests of the ridges. They probably would ruin their own ambush with their overexcitement and lose more of their comrades than they anticipated.
The oasis bazaar came into view no too far away, and a warband of Lizalfos exploded out from behind the sand dunes on all sides. The first two each fell to arrows catching them in the faces in rapid succession and collapsed in bloody messes.
Dropping his bow, Phillip drew his katana in time to knock aside a javelin thrust from his left side and returned a downward stroke, cleaving the unarmoured chest open with a sickening spray of blood. The remaining Lizalfos charged in, snarling out of frustration and wildly swung their assorted weapons in hope of striking true. He winced in pain as he deflected a sword blow with his left vambrace and narrowly dodged a spear thrust. The fight turned into a wild brawl as the bandits mobbed Phillip in attempt to strike him down. Dodging and parrying dozens of blows he looked desperately for openings that he could swiftly strike deadly hits. The fight drifted all across the road between the two ridges in a manner that resembled a chaotic dance of life and death. He began to gain confidence in his luck as he slayed two monsters in a brief pause of the onslaught. As the shifting assault progressed for more than half an hour, several of the attackers fell to strikes under their overstretched guards and swift retaliations to parried blows.
The Lizalfos backed away warily after seeing so many of their allies slain while Phillip was only afflicted with minor cuts and heavy breathing, it seemed to demoralise the bandits and he could see the fear in their inhuman eyes. Seeing as the odds were most definitely in his favour, he drew his wakizashi so he could finish the fight quickly; raising the wakizashi and guarding with the katana against the circling predators, he eyed each opponent trying to guess who would strike first. "Come on, you bastards, lets finish this!" he shouted, his blood pumping for action. An axeman (axe-lizard?) charged first followed by one with a claymore, he subdued them in a drawn-out duel of dodging and stabbing. He stepped over them to attack a cluster of three others that cowered in fear that didn't last long as the three fear-paralysed creatures joined their comrades in the gory mess soiling the sand. Four of the nine survivors fled at the sight of the wild swordsman spattered in their comrades' blood. The last five brave aggressors flanked around Phillip for their final assault.
The leader of the group gestured and vocalised something to the others who complied by rushing their target mercilessly. The first three fell swiftly, but the fourth managed to deflect all of Phillip's attacks and stood just out of reach. Then the realization hit him just as he noticed the sneak attack from the leader that entered his peripheral vision; fear clouded his mind as he mostly dodged the downward stroke but his leg was still caught in a gap of his greaves. He fell to one knee, holding back a cry of pain and swelling tears, and thrusted the shorter sword into the neck of his assailant. Seeing his leader collapse like the others, the last Lizalfos fled rather than meet the same certain fate as his captain.
Despite his eagerness earlier, Phillip was grateful for the rationality of the last one to abandon hope for victory. He sat on a dune and surveyed the battlefield as the sun sunk below the horizon, the world entering a moonless twilight that enveloped the bloody sand dunes in shadows. "Damn, I left too many openings," he thought aloud as he cleaned the crimson stained blades. If this is the best I can do then I'll never save Hyrule from its demise, he thought as he limped down to the combat zone to loot the monsters for spoils of war and continue down the road to the bazaar.
When he limped through the entrance to the oasis bazaar, his wounded appearance caught the attention of several merchants that were closing up shop. The last thing that Phillip remembered before he collapsed from blood loss and heat exhaustion was a Hylian and Gerudo rushing towards him.