A.N: Alright, one more chapter after this and then an epilogue. And then, dare I say it, the end. Once again, a big thank you to Rosie for checking this for me and to Jen for getting my amount of reviews higher than Rosie's.
Chapter 14: Tyrant
Link wasn't aware how long he sat with Zelda cradled in his arms, but he guessed it was a while because the others had started to get restless.
Eventually, he felt a hand on his shoulder and felt Sheik kneeling down beside him.
"Link," he whispered "We have to get out of here and stop the armies. We have to get Zelda back to the castle."
Sniffing and trying to regain his composure, Link stood up and nodded at Sheik, agreeing with him. Looking over everyone in the room, seeing them so wounded and tired, he knew it was his responsibility to get them safely back to the castle to be treated, now that their jobs were done.
"Sheik, I want you to bring Nabooru back to the castle with us. Do you think you can carry her out?"
Sheik nodded and walked over to Nabooru, picking her up and standing by the doors with her in his arms.
"Yunsung, since you seem to be ok now, apart from that wound in your shoulder, so you think you can help Maxi, and Raphael, you take Siegfried?"
The men nodded and swapped around, lifting the other injured men up and resting their weight on their own bodies.
Nodding and smiling slightly over the fact that they were finally going home, Link gathered up his sword, shield and Zelda, walking to the door. He was about to push it open when something interrupted.
A deep, low incredibly loud roar echoed up from where Ganondorf had come through. The warriors turned staring at the dark passage, then turning back to look at each other.
"I heard that before," Raphael commented "It was how I knew where to come to find you."
"Yeah, well, judging from that growl, I think it would be a wise idea to get away from whatever caused it, right now."
"I think that would be best," Nabooru spoke up
"Do you know what it is Nabooru?" Yunsung asked, shifting Maxi slightly.
"Yes…and no. All I know is that it's some sort of really mutated monster thing that was originally human. Ganondorf kept it down there and tortured it, making it even angrier than it was when it arrived. Which is a bad thing to do."
"Why?"
"Because it's a conscienceless killing machine and irritating it further only increased its desire to kill."
"Well, I for one want to get out of here even more, if it's all the same to you. Because if we don't, I have the feeling that we're going to be torn limb from limb," Maxi's voice came out weak and hoarse.
"I agree," Raphael commented
"Let's go then," Link said taking charge once more.
Moving Zelda to rest on his left arm, he pulled the door open when a loud screech of metal being ripped in half echoed up from downstairs.
"Siegfried, d'you think you're ok to stand on your own?" Link inquired. At the German's nod he walked to Yunsung.
"Can you hold her for me?"
"Uh…ok…but what are you going to do?"
Passing Zelda over to Yunsung, Link replied
"Go and see what's down there. You lot go ahead and start without me, I'll be as quick as possible."
Sheik nodded to Link and turned away, walking out the door and down the previous corridor, back to the rest of the fortress.
Link took a hold of one of the torches in the corridor once the rest of the group had gone past, and stepping gingerly over Ganon's body, walked down the stairs.
The growl had gotten louder this time and Leon was starting to realize what it was that was down there. He just hoped none of the group were, otherwise they would be dead in seconds. Unfortunately, judging from the large purple body and footsteps in its blood, they were.
He walked out of the training room, following the bloody footsteps to a dark, twisting flight of stairs. He could see two torches at the base and could hear footsteps echoing from the corridor. Waiting for a few minutes he was greeted by the sight of Sheik walking up the stairs, carrying a beaten Gerudo woman in his arms.
"You lot Ok?" he asked as soon as Sheik was at the top of the stairs.
"No…a few of us, Maxi especially, have got extensive injuries. Zelda was posing as me and has been knocked unconscious, as for Link, he went to check out what was making those growls."
At the last piece of information, Leon's head jerked up from watching the others meander up the steps.
"Oh, God. Please tell me you're joking."
Sheik shook his head "No. Link even gave Zelda to Yunsung, he said he'd catch us up in a minute."
"IDIOT! He's gonna be killed if that thing notices him."
With that said, Leon dashed down the stairs past Siegfried, Maxi and Raphael who had just reached the mid-point. Looking at his retreating figure they glanced at the weapon on his back, and then each other.
"Does he need something that big?" Raphael asked, not really directing it at anyone
"Does Siegfried need a sword that big?" Maxi answered
"It was a rhetorical question."
Link stepped onto the floor from the last rung of the ladder and looked around, squinting into the darkness, raising the torch over his head. A low rumbling growl sounded throughout the dungeon and Link honed in on it, his body tensing as he stepped forwards. Reaching the cell where the thing was contained, he stepped back, intimidated by merely the size of the creature.
The creature looked up at the sound of Link's footsteps and rose from the corner where it was curled up and growled at him. Link looked at the creature just enough to see the light of the torch reflecting of its bare teeth, before he turned and ran.
The creature sensing Link's sudden panic charged at the metal bars, roaring and growling as it did, its massive body making the metal buckle. Link was about to climb the ladder when someone jumped down and landed behind him.
"Leon?"
"Get out of here, man, I hope those bars will hold for a couple of minutes longer."
Link turned and started up the ladder the creature's roars getting louder, mixing with the sound of screeching metal. As he was just reaching the top a sharp loud 'ping' alerted him to the fact that the bars had broken and Leon was scurrying up behind him.
"Keep going Link!"
Running for the ebony doors as he was instructed he burst through them and stopped just long enough to see Leon clamber up behind the ladder and run for him.
"Go!" he shouted, giving Link a rough shove towards the stairs at the end of the corridor
"What is that thing?" he panted as Leon ran along beside him
"Tyrant."
A sudden sound of stone being broken told them that the 'tyrant' was chasing them
"Won't Ganon's body distract it?"
"No…Tyrants are more interested in killing live prey and then eating it rather than scavenging. Judging from its roars, it just wants to kill right now…full stop." Leon finished as they dashed up the stairs to meet the startled faces of the other warriors
"Follow me, and run," Link ordered, dashing through the empty corridors, Leon staying to take up the rear. Following Link, the group ran full speed through the fortress, the sound of the creature's heavy footsteps spurring them on
"Why are we running?" Yunsung shouted
"Because we're going to die if we don't."
"And how are we going to die?"
"If you don't shut up you'll see."
Link skidded around a corner, crunching bugs underfoot and weaving around crates before turning another corner.
Passing the balcony on which Necrid and Raphael had fought on, the group kept sprinting, past Cervantes's body and the trail of black blood, past the room with Charade's remains they eventually dashed into the open air, slowing and breathing sighs of relief, collapsing onto the floor in exhaustion. The only person left standing was Leon, who was glancing warily at the door, breathing heavily.
"Sheik, Link, get everyone on a horse, we have to leave, now!"
"Give us a minute, Leon," Yunsung managed to gasp out in between breaths.
Turning an icy glare on Yunsung for a moment, he looked at the Hyrulian men who were staring at him like he'd lost his mind.
"Now," he repeated, glaring at the men.
"Why are you so desperate?"
"That Tyrant is still following us, it won't stop until one of us kills it."
"Tyrant…what's a tyrant?"
Yunsung was not answered immediately by Leon, or any of the group, but by the sudden explosion of black stone that originated from the fortress. Following the explosion, a roar erupted from the creature as it stepped through the dust and rubble, towards the downed group.
"That," Leon answered
The group turned to stare at the monstrosity as it stomped its way over the rubble.
The Tyrant was massive, easily eight foot or more, its grey and white body rippling with enhanced unnatural muscle. Its left hand was normal, if not slightly large while the entire right arm was disproportionately long and bulky; its hand ending in foot long curved metal claws. White lines, surgical scars, zigzagged seemingly randomly across its pale naked body. It had presumably been human once, whether male or female, the group couldn't tell, its sexual organs cut away, along with its lips, so it constantly bared its teeth in a mocking perpetual grin. Its heart was a bloody tumour on the outside of its chest.
Before the group could even begin to react, there was a small explosion of red next to its heart, and they turned to see Leon standing a distance away, a small gun clutched in his right hand, his left supporting his wrist.
"Leon?" Link asked carefully "Are you s…" Link didn't finish his sentence, because the Tyrant rushed at him, screaming in bloodlust as it did, its right arm shooting out swiping at Link. Link ducked, but the attack hit Sheik, who had been sitting next to him, and sent him flying into the walls of the fortress, a fountain of blood following him, from its claws slicing into his side. The rest of the group stood shakily, looking at the crumpled figure of Sheik, lying next to the complex blood flowing from his ripped side.
"Link," Leon called, quietly "You can't fight this thing, leave it to me, get over to Sheik and stop him from bleeding to death. Run, I'll cover you."
Link hesitated, looking at the creature, his courage seeming to fail for once. Glancing at Sheik he regained his nerve and nodded, dashing across the sand to the collapsed figure.
The Tyrant roared and ran for him immediately, and Leon began shooting it, trying to distract it with the tiny shots from the handgun, he daren't use something bigger like the shotgun or rocket launcher with Link so close to it. The tactic worked and the creature turned towards Leon.
"Raphael! Grab Maxi and run to Link and Sheik," Leon shouted, taking aim at the Tyrant hoping it didn't notice the humans that had started to get up behind it. Swapping to the Desert Eagle while Raphael and Maxi ran, he hoped that his actions would keep it distracted. It did and Leon took aim with the more powerful weapon, targeting its eye in an attempt to blind it. The Tyrant took the shot directly into the right eye, partially blinding it. Spinning round in pain, the creature dropped roaring while Leon desperately motioned for Siegfried and Yunsung to grab Zelda and Nabooru and run to the others.
The men grabbed the two women and ran, but the Tyrant was recovering, and it had noticed the humans running for the others. Growling it leapt to its feet and charged for them, while Leon started firing at it in attempt to refocus its attention again. It wasn't working, the monster continued running for them, ignoring the bullets that were being buried into its back.
Noticing that the Tyrant was running towards them, Siegfried all but threw Nabooru towards Link, who caught her and laid her on the floor next to Sheik. Withdrawing his sword, Siegfried held it above his head and started to spin it over his head, powering it around with momentum.
Leon stared at Siegfried as he fumbled to find more ammo for the DE, hoping that he wasn't dumb enough to try and take it on. Siegfried was tough, but he wasn't as tough as a Tyrant. Giving up on the Magnum, Leon dropped it grabbing the shotgun and taking aim.
Siegfried watched as Leon fumbled with his weapon, while the Tyrant continued to advance upon him.
"Damnit! Why isn't he shooting it?"
In desperation to keep the creature away from himself and the others, Siegfried used all of his strength to throw the spinning weapon at it, before running for the others. The sword slammed into the Tyrant knocking it backwards as the sword embedded itself in the monsters shoulder.
The creature threw back its head and screamed as the sword slid easily into its toughened flesh, dropping onto all the fours the creature dislodged itstanding to its feet again, blood pouring from the wound; it turned to see Siegfried kneel down next to the others.
Leon shot at the Tyrant as it trudged heavily towards Link and the rest of the group, the shot going wide and chipping the black stone. The monstrosity that was the Tyrant broke into a run at the sound of the shot being taken and dashed for the human's hiding place. Smashing through the crates that surrounded them, it raised a claw and swiped at Link.
Raising his shield as fast as he could, Link tried to block the creatures attack, his breath coming in sharp, painful gasps. He cried out when its claws struck the shield, shearing through it like paper, the sheer force of the attack sending the shield crashing into his chest, sharp talons scoring marks and trails into his skin, going deep enough to engrave into the bone of Link's ribs.
An explosion behind the Tyrant distracted it and Link looked up to see Leon holding something small and green in his hand. Glaring at the Tyrant, the American pulled the pin, weakly throwing the grenade so it didn't get too close to the humans. The Tyrant turned and sprinted for Leon, who was holding another grenade. He stood completely still until the creature was almost on him, before pulling the pin and dropping the small explosive and throwing himself into a forward roll, before righting himself and turning to see the Tyrant become enveloped in a black and orange cloud.
"WAHOO!"
Leon turned to see Yunsung staring at the thick black smoke, a look of total awe on his face, his jaw almost completely slack, but his mouth turned into a wide grin. He looked to Leon before stating;
"You have GOT to let me have a go with one of those," Leon rolled his eyes, unloading the rocket launcher from his back and hoisting it over his shoulder.
"Don't go towards it yet, the Tyrants are strong, it easily could have survived that."
"And what about that thing on your shoulder, will it survive a blast from that?" he heard Maxi croak, his condition seeming to have improved slightly
Leon chuckled "Maxi, there is no way in hell that a living creature could survive a blast from a rocket launcher. The GODS themselves couldn't survive a blast from this baby," he smiled lightly at the pirate, before turning his attention back to where the Tyrant was. It was lying on the floor at the opposite end of the fortress grounds. And it was getting up.
Snorting in annoyance, Leon hefted the launcher into the right position, aimed and fired, being blasted backwards by the force of the weapon.
A tremendous KABOOMM! Sounded and then…silence.
He smiled to himself then at the others, seeing them climb shakily to their feet. Walking towards the few smoking remains of the creature, he felt sorry for it, especially when he saw what was branded into the side of what was left of one of the creature's claws.
A small, octagonal shape was engraved on the side of the knife like appendage. It was split into eight segments, starting from each of the corner points and meeting in the middle, and four of the segments had been scraped away slightly in alternating order. There was a slight red tint on these and the whole logo looked like…and open umbrella.
He frowned at the logo and picked up the blade, carrying it with him as he walked back to the others.
"You want a trophy for killing it?" Link asked, raising an eyebrow as he slipped onto Epona, glancing at the claw.
Leon shook his head, showing him the engraving and smiled.
"An umbrella?"
"The umbrella. The logo of the Umbrella Corporation,"
"You hate them, why is that good?"
"Because it means there might be a gate or portal between my world and yours…"
"And you would be able to get back to Claire."
Leon nodded, smiling broadly and then shuffled to his own horse while everyone else mounted their own, carrying the wounded with them.
As they filed out of the Gerudo Valley, Leon hung back to gaze at the few remaining parts of the Tyrant before moving off again, and saw Yunsung watching him.
"Something wrong?" Leon asked
"I was just wondering how people come up with weapons like yours…that and who this Umbrella lot is."
"Well…in the future, your world will have weapons like this…but you won't be around to see them, so count yourself lucky you saw that display of pure power…although, I have to admit, I myself am quite intrigued by swordplay" he flashed a smile at Yunsung, and watched Link, holding Zelda in his arms and thought of his own wife and daughter.
"And Umbrella?"
"The Umbrella Corporation is a pharmaceutical company…on the surface. That is, they create things like medicines, skin creams and general health care products, on their legal side anyway. They are the worlds leaders in that trade and nine out of ten people in America have Umbrella products in their house."
"So what's the problem?"
"That's their legal side of work, which I'm not adverse to. It's white Umbrella."
"White Umbrella?"
"A division of the company that specializes in the illegal side of Umbrella. The side that tries to play god and does genetic and viral research."
"Meaning?" this came from Siegfried, who was hanging back, with Maxi and Raphael to listen to the conversation
"They create viruses, biologically hazardous weapons or bio-weapons for short. It's this viral weaponry that affected that creature you saw back there. That's what turned it into a Tyrant."
"So these people are creating viruses and turning humans into killing machines with them?"
"Yes. And I was affected directly by this, as were a lot of my friends in my world. You see, there was a viral spill, and something called the T-Virus, leaked out. Now, the T-Virus isn't really designed for human use. And only one in about ten million people, who get infected with the virus, will turn into a Tyrant. The rest turn into walking, cannibal corpses; zombies. And this escaped into Raccoon city, turning the thousands of people who lived there, into zombies."
"And you were there? You had to fight through them all and now you're determined to bring the company down, to stop them experimenting immorally, and to get back at them for all the lives lost."
"Exactly. Me and the rest of my former group."
Leon looked up as they entered onto Hyrule field and saw Link gallop up the hill ahead, raising Epona up on her hind legs.
"C'mon, we better be there to back Link up," Leon stated, kicking Thara into a run and riding up the hill.
Link turned his head to look at the rest of the group as they drew up beside him
"Glad you could make it."
Turning to the Gerudo and Hylian armies, he announced;
"Ladies and Gentlemen. I implore you to stop fighting. Ganondorf Dragmire is dead!"
Link's statement was met with silence…and then a roar of cheering from the Hylians rushed up to greet him.
The Gerudo women gathered their weapons, turned around and walked up to Link.
"Girls, return to base without a fuss, please," Nabooru commanded.
The women looked at their queen, nodded and turned away; returning to the valley quietly and without fuss, like they didn't care Ganondorf was dead.
Smiling at the group, Link nudged Epona and she began to canter down the hill towards the Hylian men and they parted readily, letting Link and the warriors pass over the lowered drawbridge, to return to the castle and rest.
They had won the war.
If anybody has any ideas about what I should do for my next story, I would be very glad of suggestions seeing as I can't think of anything at the moment.
As always, review please!
