The Triforce of Power Part:1 - A King is Born

by Rudy Ska

Ocarina of Time is one of the best games ever. But where is the backstory? Who were Ganondorf's parents? What happened during those seven years with no hero? This story explores both known and unknown parts of the story, but from the perspective of the Gerudo King, Ganondorf. Part1 is his childhood and his rise to power. Continued in Part 2!

6. Chapter 6

Part I – A King is Born

Chapter VI – The Third Trial

When Ganondorf stepped away from the labyrinth door, steel bars quickly slid down from the frame. Not knowing what would happen next, he slowly turned around expecting a trap or ambush of some kind. Instead, Ganondorf stood before a large archway that lead out to what seemed like a huge arena. When he stepped out onto the stone floor he was bombarded by the explosive heat of the sun that floated directly overhead. The arena was about 50 feet long and wide with wooden walls backed by stone that stood over ten feet high. The arena was then filled with the sound of over a hundred women yelling, whistling, screaming, and clapping all at once. When his eyes adjusted Ganondorf was amazed that so many Gerudo had crowded themselves atop the arena walls just to watch his final trial. He walked to the center to take in the whole view. He looked around and finally spotted chief instructor Raan standing atop the north wall directly above a large menacing gate in the center. Raan stood to the right of the Allmother and his own mother stood to her left. Rila tried her best to resist the urge to wave at her child but did a terrible job of concealing a wide proud grin. Raan held a hand in the air and slowly the women around the arena stopped cheering to let the chief instructor speak.

"Ganondorf, son of Rila and heir to the Gerudo throne, you have traversed our desert home, navigated a confusing labyrinth, and stolen a precious treasure using only rocks as your tool. Only one more obstacle stands between you and your destiny."

Although Ganondorf kept a respectful stance, his mind was on the strange scuffling sound that emanated from the gate ahead. It sounded like a hundred tiny feet were shuffling in a rhythmic pattern on the stone.

Raan continued, "Your opponent is a savage beast. A monster from beneath the sands. Defeating this burrowing killer will employ all your skill and cunning. Are you prepared to commence your final trial?"

Ganondorf, still confused as to what he was about to face, took the sword from his back, unsheathed it, and tossed the golden scabbard to the side. He swung the sword once, making the pads that were still skewered on it fly to the other side, and took a defensive stance with both hands on the hilt.

Raan nodded and yelled, "Open the gate. Let the final trial commence!"

The massive gate before Ganondorf receded into the ground and the shuffling sound grew louder. Ganondorf's muscles tensed while his mind continued to flounder around trying with all its might to remember the name of the creature that Raan was referring to.

Then it came to him, "Leever."

As soon as the name popped into his head, a purple monstrosity slowly shuffled along the floor out of its prison continually spinning clockwise. The leever was cone shaped and at the top where the point should've been, three large teeth curved in toward the middle, moving back and forth every so often. The surface of the creature was a hexagonal pattern of what seemed to be skin that bulged at the center of each with a couple of short painful looking spines sticking out of them. The bottom was rippling, seemingly keeping the clockwise rotation going, and a band of small black beads around the top looked like the creatures eyes. Ganondorf was lead to believe that leevers were green and no taller than a person's leg, yet this one was purple and was much bigger, coming up to his chest in height. The leever rotated in place for a while, sizing the tall Gerudo boy up. Then they circled around each other, Ganondorf slowly creeping right and the leever shuffling left. Getting a new vantage point and looking at the ground now, he noticed a few small blue pots scattered around the arena all possible of hiding something useful. He set himself in front of one and backed away from the leever slowly. Seeing an opportunity, it surged forward emitting a pulsating gurgling sound that chilled Ganondorf to the bones. He faded left and sliced with his sword. Ganondorf expected his blade to bite flesh and for the beast to scream in agony, but instead his sword emitted a shower of sparks as if he had struck metal and the leever careened without hesitation into the pots that that he had stood in front of. The leever was so uninhibited by Ganondorf's parry that it rallied around to set itself up for another attack. The boy frantically searched the shattered remains of the pots and just before the leever got into position, he found a single deku nut among the shards of clay. Ganondorf sweared under his breath and turned his attention back to the mutation behind him who had gotten into position and was now spinning at full speed towards him. Ganondorf ran towards the monstrosity and when he was just shy of it he threw the nut in front of the leever and dodged out of the way, covering his eyes. When he heard the loud snap, he opened his eyes again just in time to see the leever make a sharp turn and make another charge straight for him. Ganondorf, horrified that the flashbang had not even slowed the creature, jumped to the side a little too late and the leever collided with his foot sending pain through his leg.

When Ganondorf recovered he looked down at his foot and was angered to find three spines sticking out of his flesh just below the ankle. He viciously yanked them out, tossed them to the side, and began to devise a strategy for defeating this untouchable beast. As the leever pulled away to line itself for yet another attack, Ganondorf reviewed quickly the two weak areas of the typical leever, the top and the bottom. The heart of the beast was situated directly in the middle of the body and the top was the most easily accessible as it was the monsters leading straight down to the heart as the stomach was off to the side. One strike expertly placed in the middle of the mouth would sever the heart and kill the beast. The bottom was told to be nearly impossible to get at being that leevers are burrowers but because the arena had a stone floor as opposed to sand, this second option was feasible. The same principle applied to that method of attack but it included flipping the leever over to stab at its soft underside. When the monster came charging again, Ganondorf jumped high into the air, spinning upside down, and stabbed his sword down for the kill. Ganondorf's aim was impeccable, but as his sword tip approached its target the sword made an all too familiar clang and danced off the leever's side amid a shower of sparks. Ganondorf landed and was baffled at what he thought he just saw. To get a better look he set up the leever for the same maneuver but gave it half the space in order to more closely observe the leever's movements. The creature charged again and when Ganondorf jumped into the air he observed, as he thrust for the kill a second time, the leever shift unnaturally quickly to the side just in time for the tip of the blade to jump off the monster's seemingly impenetrable hide. Familiar embers exploded off the leever's side and Ganondorf landed with more questions than answers. The leever seemed to move in that brief moment with a completely unnatural speed, almost as if it was being moved by something else alltogether. In either case, Ganondorf needed to devise a plan of attack. In the meantime, he simply dodged the leever's onslaught of attacks.

….

"Raan, what is happening?" Rila seethed at her former chief instructor. Fighting a queen leever was commonplace for all trainees as their final test and their first kill, but something was seriously wrong with the one her son was facing right now. He sidestepped, a perfect flawless dodge, followed by a crippling parry that only emitted more sparks and did nothing but ebb Ganondorf's energy reserves further.

"Raan!"

"I don't know Rila!" Raan hissed from across the Allmother, "I've never seen anything like this before. I'm… I'm not sure what to do."

"End the fight dammit! Recapture the beast and rotate in a new one! It is obviously impossible to defeat this one."

"Rila, I may not understand what has happened to that leever but given what it can do now, I'm not so sure we can recapture it."

"Then I'm going down there and stopping this myself!" Rila turned to leave but a cane swiftly came up to her knees and blocked her path mid-stride.

"No," the Allmother spoke, "You will do no such thing."

"Allmother please, you of all people must see that this leever is-"

"Taken by dark magic." she cut Rila off, "This is a test of his fate. He faces the darkness now."

Rila was taken by fear and pushed the old lady's cane out of the way, "All the more reason to stop this right now!"

"No Rila!" the Allmother's cane jabbed at the side of the boy's mother and, although it didn't hurt much, she spun around with fury in her eyes. "If you stop this fight, you will be aiding the very forces you wish to destroy. Intervene and Ganondorf will believe himself to be too weak to defeat even the most simplest of foes. He will seek out other forms of strength and I fear that the only route your son will take is towards the same dark magic that challenges him in that arena now. He has the power to defeat it; I can see it in him. But interrupting this match will do much more harm than good Rila!"

The child's mother huffed in frustration as the Allmother's true words sunk in. Rila returned to the old woman's side and waited increasingly impatiently for her son's victory.

….

The battle was now going on for five hours and most of the trainees were finished with their final test and now were on the walls cheering Ganondorf on. Nabooru stood like Rila, with her hands nervously fiddling in front of her and her foot tapping on the floorin uncertainty. The sun had sunken in the sky to be just above the western wall and the shadow of the stone boundary covered half the arenas floor. Although the respite from the sun's onslaught was very welcome, the leever Ganondorf continued to fight picked up that added strain by increasing the frequency and speed of its attacks. Ganondorf had little time to breathe and was quickly losing what little energy he had left in reserve. He dodged frantically from side to side but whenever he came out of his evasion the creature was already rushing toward him again at the same exact speed. His fleeting counterattacks and parries had the same effect each time, emitting glowing embers and draining the young prince's energy. Even hiding in the shadow of the wall did nothing to slow the leever as if it could see even in the dark. Ganondorf's movements became lethargic as his energy reserves ran low and the leever was able to make a few lucky passes at him, decorating his arms and legs with cut, bruises, and blood. The leever even waited from time to time for Ganondorf to stand and catch a little breather, openly mocking him, before attacking in a new volley of rushes and charges. However Ganondorf was gathering something. He was gathering frustration. Each pass, each failed parry, and each jolt of pain fueled a fire that began to build in Ganondorf's chst. Finally, the boy had had enough of the constant mockery the leever was making out of the fight and, when the onslaught was interrupted again, he stood and threw his sword onto the ground making sure the blade faced toward the leever in front of him. The monster, seemingly perplexed both by the sword's sound off the stone and the boys new strange behavior, simply rotated in place awaiting the boy to make a move. The arena grew deadly silent and Rila's muscles tensed as her child hung in the balance. Nabooru covered her mouth to stifle a gasp of disbelief.

"COME ON!" Ganondorf yelled as loud as he could and beat his chest with a fist. The leever, seeing and obvious display of challenge, backed up an inch and then surged forward at full speed toward the disarmed boy. Nabooru's breath got caught in her throat and Rila felt dread scratch at her spine. When the leever was close to the sword Ganondorf had thrown down, he ran up to it, grabbed it by the hilt, and thrust it under the leevers rippling underside. The monster screeched in response and the crowd cheered at the boy's cleverness. Nabooru squealed in excitement, though calmed down when seeing the others around her cheer, and Rila let loose a faintly audible "yes" under her breath. Ganondorf then began to lift the leever up on one side, using the sword as leverage and was halfway up when his progress was halted. The leever should've been easy to topple, especially for someone of Ganondorf's strength. But try as he might, with all the strength he possessed, Ganondorf just could not lift the animal over to its side. He could feel the monster's weight and he could feel that it was light enough to flip over with ease. But something was holding the leever down, pushing the animal down into the side of Ganondorf's sword making it scream out in agony and distress. The creature continued to spin in place, emitting sparks out of one side of the sword. The crowd became silent in anticipation again, sensing that the plan the boy had set in motion was not playing out like he had expected. Ganondorf poured all his energy into lifting the sword, his immense strength pulling against some immoveable force. Then he heard a loud snap. He unclenched his eyes and what he was looking at was the hilt of his sword with a glowing end where the rest of the blade should've been. The leever hit the floor and used the downward momentum to jump back up and slam into Ganondorf's right shoulder. The monster's spines ripped through his clothes and tore through the flesh on his entire right side. The impact sent Ganondorf backwards to the end of the arena, skidding to a halt just before the wall.

Nabooru and Rila both shouted in unison, "Ganondorf!"

Ganondorf no longer felt desperation, pain, exhaustion, or hopelessness. He felt only two things. Anger and hate. Anger at himself for being unable to defeat the grotesque monstrosity that now danced at the opposite end mocking him. How was he supposed to protect his family if he couldn't even defeat the most simplest of enemies? Anger at the adults and their inability to realize the absurd impossibility of the creature's abilities. Were they not looking? He felt hate for the creature that was denying him his right. Hate for the creature's kind and all it may have spawned. A hate that bred the desire to destroy every leever in existence. He felt a hate and anger that abounded even his most hated things in the world. He hated this particular leever more than he hated the desert sun. He hated this animal more than he hated the curse placed on him by things nobody could explain. He hated this wretched beast more than he hated the constant worry that plagued his mother every day of his life. He hated this disgusting abomination more than he hated having to constantly conceal his true love for Nabooru. Ganondorf looked up and his vision was clouded in blood red. All his frustration, all his anger, all his hate, all his rage fueled each of his movements with a limitless supply of energy. He balled his hands into fists and when the leever charged again, bored with watching the boy seethe with anger, he let loose a blood curdling scream, channeling all his rage into a forward charge of his own. The crowd watched in amazement as the boy seemed to draw an immeasurable amount of strength from nowhere. Nabooru almost couldn't watch and Rila's jaw locked in anticipation. Ganondorf was going to make this animal bleed. He was going to make this animal suffer. He didn't know how, he didn't know where, but he did know that this animal was going to pay for every single second that it stood between him and his prize. Nearing each other, Ganondorf pulled back his fist in preparation of a final desperate fury-filled punch. Suddenly his fist, held at the ready behind him, was enveloped in a dark flame that, instead of emitting light, engulfed it giving his fist the appearance of a shadow or a ball of complete darkness. Ganondorf was so fueled with fury and rage that he didn't even notice. When within arms distance, Ganondorf threw his fist around his body towards the leever, the flames arching back along his arm to lick the tattered remains of his black thief garb. His fist collided with the air first, shattering a paper thin layer of protection around the leever like glass and then rammed into the leever's hard bumpy body.

A tremendous explosion rocked the arena and Ganondorf was thrown headlong into the wall he had just run from. He hit the wall so hard that the wood splintered and the impact split the mortar holding the bricks behind it together. Once Ganondorf had landed on the floor he could see only dark smoke and hear a few screams before the world went silent and black.