Wide gap between the two front teeth. Bald head. No, he had a full head of hair the last time they had met, but there was no doubt about the scar on his neck combined with the gap between his two front teeth. Though the bodyguard looked very different from how Link had remembered him, his set of teeth and scar never changed. With every heartbeat, Link could feel his heart pump extra blood through the scar given to him by the very man standing in front.

Surrounding Link were seventeen of Praetenmore's bannermen in total, five pikemen, eight swordsmen, two axemen, and two macemen, not including the flamboyant, leftenant knight wearing his Goron made armor like a turtle hiding behind a polished shell. Even though the golden maned, golden bearded second-in-command had mail that could protect him from any blade smaller than a battle axe, his smooth and scarless face looked about as green at battle as an army page was. It was as Link's new scouts told him before he had arrived. To any grown man, jumping into a fight against seventeen men-at-arms and two knights was definite suicide. To Link, he was feeling lucky.

Over the past many years since Link had received his first scar from the Protector, the triangular shape would burn the spirit of her memory into the back of his hand only on several occasions, each of which when he was on the verge of death as far as he could remember. This time, the Protector was blessing him with a soft heat on his hand. All he had to do at this point was hold true to his promise to her.

"Sir Valoo! Now I remember you name!" cried out Link, breaking the tension suddenly, "Wow that was bugging me brain."

The bald man let out a chuckle, "It's Sir Rhychester, and I remember you. I thought I killed you six years ago. Looks like you haven't aged one bit, you son of a witch."

Link tightened the grip of his blade, "Aww, you didn't have to say that out loud. Now everyone here has to die." Every person within hearing distance of Sir Rhychester was exposed to a secret that put Link's life in jeopardy. Bad enough as it was that mobs of laymen liked to hang loborn criminals and immigrant Others for fun, the way they burned natural abominations such as witches, their children, and Queers at the stake was a public celebration to them. Link had enough people on his heels, he didn't need the whole city hunting for him too.

"Not if you die first! Kill him!" Sir Rhychester ordered his men, who met his command with vicious battlecries.

The first soldier to approach Link wielded a longsword in one hand and a wooden shield in the other. Thinking the boy was going to be easy prey, he swung downward carelessly, allowing Link plenty of time to foresee the sloppy attack. Fighting against his natural instinct to flinch and block the attack, Link held still and timed his pivot out of the incoming blade's trajectory just right so he could transfer his momentum to his counter attack. Thanks to his prior usage of the heavy longsword, Link had a basic understanding of the strength necessary to launch the blade quickly enough to handle seasoned fighters, estimate the blade's reach, and time the point of impact. With another backstep, he wound his hips up for a perfect upward slice into the exposed armpit. The man gasped in shock before he fell onto his knees and began to bleed into the streets, alarming his comrades, and just by dropping his sword down, all it took was the guidance of Link's arms to sever the head.

Link swiveled his head back quickly to check if anybody behind him decided to join the battle. One of the spearmen was approaching fast. "YAAAAH!" a maceman's war cry announced his charge into combat, turning Link's attention forward. Two men were incoming at one time, but the length of their weapons meant one would reach the center before the other. Link turned his head back one more time and saw that the tip of the incoming spear was a full heartbeat away from impaling him.

It was more than enough time for Link to backstep, windup, and then unleash all his might as explosively as possible to parry the spear out of the way. The momentum of the swing brought Link's sword above his head ready to swing downward, but the reach of the attack wouldn't reach him from where Link was standing, so he took two steps forward before leaping into the air with his weapon cocked back and unleashed a powerful swing downward. The spearman, utilizing superior distance against his enemies, had to jump backward out of the way; however, it took him a split heartbeat to regain solid footing, which was a golden opportunity for Link to follow up with another attack.

With a step and a leap forward, Link ran his blade forward and felt almost no resistance when steel met flesh. Link twisted the sword and then pulled the blade from the man's chest so to spend the last moments of his life bleeding out. Without a looking behind him to check how close the other combatant was, Link blindly swung the sword behind him with a wide, horizontal arc. The attack came a tad bit to early, but the tip of his sword came close enough to the fighter's face that he overreacted and raised his wooden shield to defend his face for another high attack, blocking his vision and leaving his legs wide open.

Following the momentum of the sword, Link then aimed a low horizontal cut, but he failed to anticipate his opponent punching his shield forth and striking Link on his face. He felt a massive pain and landed on his rear but rolled backward onto his hands and pushed off, flipping onto his feet, just in time to dodge his opponent's killing blow; however, Link had to leave his sword on the ground to execute the evasion, and the man-at-arms followed his first whiff with a second swing. The nimble child jumped back to avoid the backhanded swing and then dove past the shield to avoid the third strike.

Grabbing the longsword resting on the ground as he finished his rolled onto his feet, Link took advantage of his position behind the combatant and prepared himself for a cut through his foe's legs. By the time the man-at-arms turned around to follow Link, the longsword was already on its way across. Crippling the left leg gave Link the perfect chance to land a finishing blow on the man's exposed head. With a crunch of splitting metal, the blade cut cleanly through the thick helmet, ending his life without any further disagreement.

Link's newest victim slid off of his blade when his dying muscles could no longer support the body's weight. The knight's men trembled as they held their weapons, knowing their lives were on the line. Their hesitation gave Link ample time to reach behind into his back bag and slip his hand through the slit in the fabric, feeling for his ropeshot.

Once his fingers were firmly wrapped around the weapon's trigger, a fully plated man-at-arm wielding a massive, two handed battle axe charged in with his weapon raised high into the air. Not wanting to fight toe-to-toe with such a terrifying giant, Link pulled the ropeshot of the bag and fired at his head with little time to aim.

Clink!

The giant ran foolishly into ropeshot's trajectory. With a sickening crunch, the shothead punctured through the metal visor, flesh, and bone in that order. After another loud click, the ropeshot contraption reversed the trajectory and reeled the bloody tip out of the dead man's face. The big man-at-arms, who probably expected a fair fight, fell forward, leaving behind this Hylian world his heavy, but now soiled, set of armor.

Not a single soul was willing to challenge Link. With just one glare, Link forced a whimpering lad with long hair wearing a studded brigandine to wet his pants. His armor was most susceptible to piercing, and he was too scared to fight back. Sorry, nothing personal.

Clink!

Link fired the ropeshot straight for the man-at-arms' chest, striking him cleanly. However, the hooked shape of the shothead had caught onto maybe a bone or a hard organ and began pulling the dead man back toward Link as the ropeshot reeled its head. All he had to do to finish the job was point his bloody sword forward and wait for the body to slide through steel. He threw his foot in front of him to stop the momentum of the incoming body and then kicked the body to pull both weapons out.

Growling at his men's ineptitude, Sir Rhychester exploded at them, "Stop attacking him one at a time! If you're so incompetent that you can't even best a child in single combat, then attack him all at once!"

His harsh command rallied his remaining men together, while Link's mind scrambled to find a new tactic to counter theirs. There were a dozen men left, four wielding pikes, the others wielding a shield. If they all rushed in to attack Link, he was done for. The four pikes would reach him first undoubtedly, and even if he managed to avoid getting hit by the four spear points, there were eight others ready to clean up. Link's only hope of survival was to keep the number of active combatants to a minimum, and Sir Rhychester had just mucked that all up.

Link blinked, and in that one split heartbeat of darkness, time had seemed to stop when he heard the familiar voice of the Protector whisper into his mind, "Squeeze." And when she commanded so, Link's left hand pulsed with a soothing warmth that encouraged him to submit to her guidance. When he finished blinking, he saw every man giving his best battle cry with his weapon either raised or pointed forward. It was no more than a scare tactic; Link needed to focus on getting out.

There was no other plan Link could come up with to escape his circumstance, so he took a deep breath and trusted his old friend once again. When his left hand began to squeeze the grip of his sword, he suddenly felt a powerful energy gathering in his scar. The harder and longer he squeezed, the more difficult it became to contain the potential energy building in his hand. If he were to relax his grip, he would submit to the explosive power built up in his hand. At this point, it was a matter of timing the release perfectly and building up his energy until then.

Once Link felt like his hand could no longer squeeze shut to contain the energy, he felt the power slowly transfer off of his hand, up the blade, and towards the tip. His arms began to shake too as he tried to contain the energy building up in his blade. Sir Rhychester's men howled together to coordinate their attack and then charged in all at once. Before the enemy's first weapon made contact with Link, he knew he had to dodge the four pikes first, then unleash.

Two were incoming from the front, one from the side, and another from behind. Good thing they were all aiming high at his torso, for a single well timed squat negated their coordinated attack and retained Link's good footing for the immediate counterattack. Just as Link had foresaw, the other men-at-arms had their arms raised, ready to attack and cleanup the spearmen's mess, and as a bonus, the other four had overcommitted to their attack and were in perfect striking range for Link.

Release! As soon as he relaxed the grip on his left hand, the sword unleashed the built up power so wildly that it began to take a life of its own. Link's own body weight served as an anchor to his vivacious weapon, but only as a consequence of him holding on for dear life. The sword swirled around Link and twirled the boy around in a violent vortex. He was spinning too fast too see what was going on around him, but he did feel the cold splash of blood on his skin.

Once the energy within the sword had died, all that was left was a dizzying in Link's head. He had nearly expended all his own stamina just maintaining a grip on his sword. Once the chaos had settled and all Link could feel was his bottom sitting on the ground and his lungs clamoring for air, only then did he see the destruction his sword had caused. A dozen bodies with a massive cut across their torsos were laid out supine like rings around a rosie painted in blood.

The only people left standing were Woaphie and her mother, the big knight commander, and his second-in-command. Sir Rhychester looked over to his only subordinate left and beckoned him to follow the example of their deceased men. The second-in-charge, evidenced only by a full set of armor similar to Sir Rhychester's, trembled as he decided between facing the wrath of his direct superior or the cold efficiency of . The grown man, who was at least in his thirties and armed to the teeth, approached an exhausted Link with the heart of a timid mouse. Link gave his red bearded foe a death glare to catch his breath, a delaying tactic that was successful enough to draw a whimper from the adult.

When Link raised his ropeshot to fire, the man instantly covered his face with his kite shield, but he blocked his own vision as well and did not see that Link redirected his aim at his legs.

Clink!

The head shot straight for the lieutenant knight's knee, puncturing through the armor, and crushed the joint connecting the two halves of the man's left leg. "AAAHH! NOOO!" And just when Sir Rhychester's right hand man thought the pain was the worst part, the ropeshot began to reel the head back in, dragging the knight with it by the broken knee. "NOOO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" protested the man as the ropeshot pulled him towards his fate, "Please! I have a boy and a girl! I have beautiful wi-"

Link cut him short by stabbing his blade into the gap in his armor between his helmet and his breastplate. Defying his death unto his last breath, the man continued gazing into Link's eyes like a farm animal begging for mercy, until Link cut his begging short by plunging his sword even further and twisting for good measure.

Looking around at the armored carcasses littered all over the ground, even Link could not believe that he, having entered a near death situation for which he had no exit strategy, was still alive. With no one to stop him from escaping, he had a ropeshot that could whisk him to safety if he wished, but he was dead set on killing Sir Rhychester, who could expose the people of Hyrule to Link's little secret.

"You're lucky you're wanted alive. You get to enjoy a couple more days of life. But don't worry, we're gonna make sure you get flogged and put on trial before we painfully burn you in front of all the city."

Link scoffed at the threat, "Please, I already got a good excuse to kill you. Don't gimme another."

"Bold words for a kid."

Link spit on the ground, "At least put up a good fight."

They stared each other down and circled each other, studying every single subtle detail about their stance, movement, and surroundings. Link's longsword was only slightly longer than Sir Rhychester's broadsword, which was slightly broader than Link's weapon, but the boy needed to two hands to wield his heavy sword as proficiently as his opponent did with only one hand.

In actuality, the big, scary sword was the last thing that was on Link's mind. More importantly, how was Link going to penetrate the knight's thick armor? The dark, crimson mail had so many parts that each movement caused metal to grind against each other, but that did little to slow his speed down. It seemed unfair that the young boy devoid of any protection, carrying a weapon that slowed him down, had to duel to the death against a full grown man wearing armor that did not impede him one bit. He was going to be as fast and as skilled with the sword as they came.

Of course Link had already come up with a way to kill the man, but that meant ditching his heavy weapon in favor of more intimate tactics. But Sir Rhychester could not know that yet, so Link made the first move. He ran full speed ahead with his weapon wound up ready to swing across. It was better for Link to initiate the timing of the strike than to anticipate the knight's many possible quick attacks, especially since the weight of the blade required an extra half heartbeat of reaction time. Even before Link initiated his powerful, momentous opening attack, he assumed that the knight was going to parry and riposte with lightning speed…

So when Link followed through on his attack, he ducked and pivoted backward preemptively to prepare himself should Sir Rhychester counterattack. However, his foe opted to simply backstep out of danger's reach without so much of a response. He's cautious, analyzed the boy.

Suddenly without warning, Sir Rhychester stabbed his blade forth, forcing Link to jump back from the unforeseen strike. Link's eyes followed the tip of the knight's sword and saw a perfect opening for him to close the distance. Afterall, Sir Rhychester was no faster than the Ganford Twins, and as the blade came up and around the boy, he took a step towards the incoming blade and then launched into a forward roll, landing him right inside the big man's ineffective range.

Link launched upward and swung his sword at his foe's retreating arms with every intention of cutting off the hand on the way. However, the glossy armor deflected the cut safely as the big man jumped back into the effectual range of his weapon and responded with wide slice across, to which Link responded by rolling away from the tip's reach. The momentum of his initial attack carried his sword above his head, where it was ready for Link to launch his next attack.

Sir Rhychester, however, followed up his wide slice with another cut across, knowing that Link had no room to slip such an attack. Link leaped back to avoid the attack again, but this time his feet were unable to keep up with his backward movementum, so he backflipped into the air over Sir Rhychester's third attempt to cut Link's belly open. Using his sword as a counterweight, Link landed one foot on the ground to establish his balance, then landed his second foot across his first so that he could wind up for his counterattack.

Link transferred his weight from his back foot to his front foot, then transferred that force into the rotation of his hips, adding greater torque behind the strength of his arms, so that all his hands had to do was guide the blade forward as he chucked the longsword forward. If his sword was going to be useless, Link was then going to use it as cover for Link's alternate strategy.

The unconventional attack caught the knight off guard, but he reacted in time and parried the spinning projectile safely away from his face. But by the time he could recover into his stance, Link was already in a dead sprint running through his effectual range. This time, he dove toward the left side of his opponent and, using his right hand to lead, wrapped his arms around the waist. His hips, which were lifted in the air, then came crashing down, giving Link's heels the appropriate power to kick into the back of Sir Rhyechester's knees.

No longer able to suspend his own weight, the big knight fell to his collapsed knees, but he grabbed Link's left arm and then ripped the boy from his body, tearing Link off his back. However, Link's hands fastened around Sir Rhychester's wrists as the man straightened his arm, and then the boy fastened his feet around the shoulder pauldron to finally trap the arm. Pressing his right leg down against the knight's wide neck, Link hugged the squirming forearm tightly against his chest pressed his hip upward against the back of the elbow, bending it past its capability.

Screaming in pain, Sir Rhychester immense strength prevented the boy from ripping the forearm out of its socket, and he was able to stand back up. Though he was not able to bend his elbow, he was able to move his stiff arm about, so he pointed his sword at Link and was about to thrust it forth, but Link had recognized the big man's intentions.

Sliding his body towards the back of the rerebrace, Link brought his right foot up and over Sir Rhychester's left armpit while simultaneously torquing the forearm past the shoulder's bending capabilities, barely fitting the limb underneath Link's right knee and over his left thigh. He only needed to push the armpit down and pull the forearm over the head to throw the massive knight forward. The boy may have had thin legs, but it required little strength to maintain the big knight in this awkward position, giving him the leverage to overpower the knight's unusually strong resistance.

The blade of the broadsword came swinging wildly at Link. Link moved his head out of the way in time, allowing the sharp edge, nicking Link in the bicep, to slice shallowly into the unprotected side of Sir Rhychester's neck. Blood splattered onto Link's face as Sir Rhychester retracted his sword and roared in pain. He attempted another blind and desperate attack with his sword, which landed on his armored collar this time.

To prevent another attempt, Link chopped his right leg downward into the armpit, flipping the man over onto his back. Link hopped on top and pressed all his weight down onto Sir Rhychester's belly. From the mount, the boy quickly punched the man in the face to disrupt his resistance, buying enough time to slide his knees forward into the man's armpits. Though the knight had absolutely no leverage whatsoever to swing his sword, that did not stop him from trying anyway. Link's left hand grabbed the wrist while his right hand grabbed the elbow, and with an explosive effort, Link twisted the arm right out his socket.

While Sir Rhychester unleashed a bloodcurdling cry of pain, Link painted a mental target on the forehead as he reached back into his bag for a knife. Once his fingers felt the familiar handle, Link smiled as he pulled the woodsman's knife he had stolen from Mister Praetenmore's tenant. Once his eyes flashed to the blade in Link's hand, Sir Rhychester began squirming with his life on the line to no avail. No matter how hard he struggled, Link's legs would not let him escape. Slowly, he raised the knife above his head.

Suddenly, Sir Rhychester conceded his defeat. The knight stopped his resistance and spoke by looking Link deep in the eyes: the only mercy he wished for was a quick death. Link's smirk was his response: gladly. Fulfilling the man's wish, Link drove the blade through the thick skull and settled the score once and for all.

Since Sir Rhychester was no longer getting back up, Link dusted himself off and wiped some of the blood dripping from his lip. All that was left was Woaphie, her mother, and Miro Miro's friend the watchman that knew he was a "son of a witch".

Link knew how to easily rectify the situation with Woaphie and her mother. He picked up the longsword and placed it back into the scabbard before approaching them with the sword, but Woaphie's mother distrustfully shielded her daughter from him. Extending the sword toward Woaphie, Link apologized, "Sorry about borrowing it."

The girl gleefully retrieved the sword into her own hands, "It's okay! I knew Father would always return to us!"

"Huh?"

"My late husband always promised us he would return before he went to fight in the coliseum," the woman took the sword from Woaphie and clutched it in her arms. "Thank you for keeping his promise, even when he could not."

"Er, sure," was Link's only response to her reference to her sword as her father, for he had a far more important concern, "You two, uh, won't say nothing about a son of a witch, right? You have my word I won't ever bother a hair on ya if you don't say anything."

Woaphie's mother nodded eagerly in agreeance, "No one'll ever hear a peep from us!"

Link had to be sure, "If anyone asks who did all this…?"

"We'll-we'll say it was…" but the mother was unsure of a plausible story that Link would be agreeable to, so Link had to tell her.

Link pointed back at the watchman who was struggling to stand up, "It was the watchman over there who saved you."

He turned his attention to the watchman, who was struggling to get up on his feet. "Stay back!" he demanded and lifted his sword to fend off Link, who grabbed his wrist and sheathed the sword for him. The young man was in no shape to walk, so Link decided to shoulder his weight. "Stop, what are you doing?"

"Shut up, already," said Link as he aimed the ropeshot at the roof of a building.

Clink!