The Legend of Zelda: TriSpirit, Episode 1: The Prologue

Chapter 2
The One-Armed Legend

"Did you have a nice trip, wimp?" taunts an all-too-familiar voice as the other trainees laugh on.

Link looks up from the ground to see Volker, an elite trainee and the son of the trainer, towering arrogantly above him.

With contempt and arrogance filling his green eyes, Volker looks down on the smaller trainee. Long locks of auburn hair hang beyond his shoulders. A wrathful smirk is displayed on his face. Link's torment is Volker's delight.

Link says nothing. He only attempts to get back to his feet.

Volker allows it not. He pins Link to the ground with his foot. "What's the matter?" he taunts. "Too weak to even get up?"

A number of comeback-lines run through Link's head, but he uses them not. There is no point in provoking Volker. "Will you please let me get up..?" is all he says.

"Ha ha! What a wimp!" Volker laughs. "Even after I trashed your cart full of eggs last week, you still haven't learned to fight back! Some warrior you are!" He kicks Link with a painful scrape of his boot before finally releasing him from the ground. "Face it, wimp! If you can't man up, you shouldn't even be here! My pops started this swordsmen-course to train men into knights... Real men. But if you're gonna be such a wimp, you should just quit! You're an insult to my dad's duty and honor!"

"Whatever, Volker..." the young farmboy retorts, unwilling to grant Volker the senseless fight the latter so desires. "I'm not looking for any trouble, okay..?"

"'Not looking for any trouble'?! Ha!" scoffs Volker. "I sure wouldn't have guessed that after all the trouble you got me into last year! I got reprimanded in front of the princess because of you! You're so lame you made me look bad for being so good!"

"That wasn't my fault..." Link reminds him. "Besides, I ended up with a broken hand and had to miss out on swordsman-training for the rest of the year because of you... Don't you think your problem seems trivial compared to mine..?"

Volker grows offended. "What, are you saying it's all MY fault then?!"

Link is hesitant to answer.

The honest answer to that would obviously be 'yes', but Link knows better than to say anything that would get Volker mad.

Especially if it is true.

Fortunately the moment is interrupted;

"Enough!" commands the trainer and Volker's father: the legendary Sir Agias Pent. "Any fighting done in this courtyard is to be done with swords, not noisy bickering!"

All trainees stand in respect as Sir Pent approaches. None dare to stand out of line in his presence.

He is widely known and respected for his former days as a legendary dragon-slayer. He stands at a height of 6'2" and always walks with authority in his every stride. He consistently bears a stern and serious countenance and rarely, if ever, displays much emotion.

In his right hand, he carries his magical blade ornamented with a mystical sapphire; the same blade he once used to fight his numerous battles in the past.

In his left hand is... Well, nothing...

There is no left hand.

His entire shield-arm had been bitten off by a dragon during his final battle which ended his career as a slayer. It was because of this disfigurement that he had to retire from his dragon-slaying days. He can no longer fight such battles and now requires much assistance in his daily activities. But he has still remained a well-respected knight of honor in Hyrule's royal guard nonetheless.

Making the most of his retirement, he has been training swordsmen of every age, social status, and level of experience, into knights at Hyrule Castle's courtyard ever since. Even with only one arm, his swordsmanship has remained very formidable.

He had learned countless spells and hidden skills during his past travels, and is one of few swordsmen ever to have mastered the legendary Hurricane Spin attack. He is known for being a tough teacher, but his students learn a lot under him, and he has plenty to teach even to the most skilled and accomplished of warriors. Link had joined this training course specifically to be mentored by him.

Little did the young trainee know that Sir Pent's own son was going to be such a vexatious headache constantly trying to make training difficult for rookies such as himself at every turn...

"Just lecturing Link here about showing better respect, Pops," Volker says arrogantly. "You know how much I can't stand seeing some unappreciative punk making trouble in your swordsman-class."

Link remains silent. He only looks to Volker with an annoyed glare.

Sir Pent seems unconcerned of the situation. "Well, put it aside for now. I have news for everyone here."

All trainees listen attentively. Any words from the great Agias Pent are never to be ignored.

"As I'm sure you are all aware," he begins; "Princess Zelda will be celebrating her 18th birthday next week, and she has decided to open Hyrule Castle to the public that day so that even commoners may attend her coming-of-age ceremony. King Roark, of course, is concerned about having so many unknown guests arriving freely at the castle, especially when most of our honored knights will be off-duty that day to participate in the celebration, and so he has asked that the remaining Royal Guard be temporarily doubled for that day. He has ordered that I recruit every able-bodied swordsman to serve as lesser-guards to assist in supervising the celebration. I will shorten your usual training for today and have all of you who can make it register after training for the temporary Royal Guard. We will spend some time throughout this following week preparing you for your civic duties that will take place on that upcoming day."

Volker is pleased by the news. "So, we're going to be guarding the princess, eh?" he says with a proud flick of his long locks of hair. "Nothing I can't handle."

"Not likely," Sir Pent says bluntly. "I am sure that such greater duties will be entrusted only to our established, more experienced soldiers who have already been serving the Royal Guard for some time. Recruits such as yourselves will merely be given lesser tasks, such as watching the gates or giving directions to the lower guests."

"Oh, right..."

"But as an established knight myself, I do have special duties to ask of you, my son. We shall go over them later when the others are dismissed." Pent pauses briefly and gives his son a stern and serious look. His glare rivaling that of the many dragons' he used to hunt. "Just make sure you don't take your task lightly..." he warns strictly.

"No problem!" Volker replies with confidence. "How hard can it be?"

Sir Pent turns his attention back to the rest of his students and continues; "Now, we have not overlooked the fact that there will also be a sparring tournament held in the courtyard at 3:00 on that day. And so if any of you have plans to participate, you will have to inform me upfront when registering for the recruitment to avoid overlapping schedules. And if there is anything else that might detain you at certain hours, you must make note of that too if you hope to be granted leave from guard-duty at that specific time. There will be no excuses accepted for taking leave after your work hours have already been assigned. Now if anyone has any further questions, we can go over them later, but for now we shall get back to swordsman-training. If we shall be cutting training short today, then we had best start it sooner rather than later."

With this, everyone salutes, picks out their training-swords, and proceeds to their training warm-ups.

There are a total of twelve trainees in this class. They are as follow;

Link is the most looked down upon of the group. Standing only 5'2", he is easily the shortest student, as well as the only left-handed one, and is constantly bullied by his fellow trainees for his supposed inferiority among them.

Bruce stands 6'0", and has black hair with long bangs that nearly cover his eyes. He is physically strong but also slow on his feet and horribly dimwitted.

Chuck stands 5'10", has light-brown hair, and tends to be more relaxed than most of the others of the group. He can be quite egotistical, however, and is not above mocking others, despite how much he hates to be mocked himself.

Sven stands 5'9", has blond hair and a little bit of a mustache. He often complains about trivial things but does not take action to solve them, and tends to pout like a big baby when upset about something.

Olaf and Otis are brothers, both standing 5'5" and are fairly overweight (especially Olaf). They have black hair and similar hairstyles (the main difference being that Otis' sideburns are longer), and both tend to be quite lazy and gluttonous.

Bart stands 5'7", has brown hair and a small beard. He is very defiant and constantly makes fun of Link's timidity, often referring to him as a 'chicken'. However, it is worth noting that no one has ever seen Bart display any bravery of his own, although he claims to have a lot of it.

Cliff is a much more competent student, stands 5'11", has long, dark-brown hair, thick eyebrows, and tends to be very rough. He does not speak much, but one glare from him is enough to make most others cower before him without him needing to say a single word.

Drew and Davis are another set of brothers, standing 5'8" and 5'9" respectively, and both have dusty-blond hair (Davis' being slightly darker than Drew's). They are both skilled students and tend to be competitive, especially towards each other, and are not ones to mind the rules.

Torn stands 5'10" and has red hair, including more facial-hair than most of the others. He is a fierce fighter with a hot temper and is not shy about demonstrating either of these traits.

And of course, there is Volker Pent; standing 6'1", has long locks of auburn hair that he tends to like to swing around with a turn of his head whenever he is showing off his attitude (which is often), a small but thick patch of hair on his pointed chin, and a muscular physique to accompany his height.

Being the top-student and Sir Pent's own son has gained Volker a lot of popularity, and combining this with his domineering personality, his fellow trainees tend to look up to him as sort a of leader to the group. And so whenever Volker approves of anyone or anything, then so do they, and whenever he chooses to exclude or mistreat someone, then they do likewise.

Which makes things quite unfortunate for those on his personal blacklist like Link...

As Link heads to his place in the training grounds, he is tripped again by Volker.

*Thud!*

"Looks like you and the ground are just inseparable, ain't ya?" the latter cruelly taunts. "Since you're so attached to it, why don't you marry it! After all, you and the dirt have so much in common, it's obvious you're meant for each other!"

The other trainees laugh and add similar insults;

"Yeah, Link! It's not like a wimp like you could ever get a girl anyway!"

"Hey Link! Mind if I walk on your bride?!"

"Are you guys sure Link marrying the dirt is even legit? After all...they might be related! I do see a resemblance!"

Link lets out a sigh and quietly gets back to his feet. It appears that the main thing he will need to be on guard against on the day of working under the Royal Guard will be the tricks of his fellow recruits...


Thanks for reading! So for those who had read the previous version of this story, you may notice that one of Sir Pent's students has been renamed from "Damian" to "Cliff". The reason for this name change was just to avoid confusion with two of the other students, Drew and Davis, whose names also start with a D, as I wanted to make sure he wouldn't be mistaken for one of the bothers.

Aside from that, the only other noteworthy change to this chapter is that there is now a brief mentioning of an upcoming swordsmen-tournament to be held on the day of Zelda's ceremony. The next chapter, however, is going to be new, so stay tuned!

Now, for those who are reading this for the first time; here's some trivia regarding Sir Pent: as some of you may have noticed; his name is a pun of the word "serpent", referring to the fact that he used to be a dragon-slayer (and perhaps also as a little bit of a cruel joke about how he is lacking one of his arms... Because, you know; serpents don't have arms). But as for those other students of his whom Link trains with; their names were all just selected at random. I was too lazy to bother coming up with meaningful names for any of them. Ha ha