Sacharja - Thank you, once again for your review. Please, don't take this the wrong way, because I value your suggestions and opinions (especially since you're the only person who bothers to review anymore) but I am trying my hardest to fit all your suggestions in to make my writing better, but quite frankly, I'm having difficulty with it. As for having too many characters, I am aware of it, but I have tried to cut down. I am in the middle of writing chapter 11 at the moment so it is a bit late but I will try. No offence but sometimes your suggestions, though true, are a little bit too much for me to deal with at the moment.

Chapter 8

The King of Hyrule stared distantly at his land that lay before him, the brilliant green of Hyrule field spread out in front if him. His thoughts, however, where definitely not focused on the countryside that he had seen so many times. Instead his mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the people, the virus and most of all, his daughter.

Link had left some time ago, three hours maybe, and it was now half past three in the afternoon, in Hyrule at least. About an hour after Link had left, he had done as his son-in-law had requested, and told Zelda about the baby. To his surprise, she had merely nodded at him, and in a whispery tone, informed him that she already knew. This hadn't stopped her from being upset about it, and the young woman had broken down crying and all the King had been able to do for his daughter was to hold her and try and offer words of comfort. It had worked to some extent and he had left her to be by herself after a while, she had only come out of her room an hour later and now, she was back in their, lying on her bed, Impa by her side, sobbing for her child, wishing Link would come back to her.

The King shook his head. Link would offer prayers for her in that world, and he would be back as soon as he could, probably bearing the news that this 'Wesker' person was dead and the people could be cured along with the baby. It was wishful thinking….but it was all that was left now.

The water supply had been cut off from Zora's domain, and the Zoras themselves had been forced out of their home in the fear it had been contaminated. Now, they were living in the small pools in the Lost Woods, close to Zoras domain, the only place where the water was not infected, because it didn't come from Lake Hylia.

Not that this was the only problem, far from it. The Hylians were being forced to ration the water they had because a fresh supply wasn't coming. On top of that a heat wave was supposed to be arriving soon. It was only late April, but it had already been too hot for most of the living things in Hyrule. The farmers crops were starting to wilt already, and any produces from animals, such as milk, were spoiling quickly.

In short, the Kingdom was in a mess.

'And people will look to me to do something about it…along with the mutations' The King thought to himself, and sighed heavily. There wasn't anything he could to about it really, just try and advise people how to help themselves and survive through the tough times. The only other option was to import food and water from neighbouring countries, and while the King was sure that Hyrule's brother and sister countries, Calatia and Galatia would help them out, they couldn't provide enough food for the whole of Hyrule and themselves.

He had appealed to the God's, but, somehow he felt that they weren't going to do much. Hyrule would see this through, he was sure, but many would die on the journey.

Sighing again, the king looked down at the now empty ditch that had been the moat. He noted, with some amusement, that someone, probably one of the maids, had removed the fish that had been swimming in it.

He turned suddenly around to look indoors at the servant who had called him.

"What is it?" he asked, somewhat irritated and he noticed that the servant bowed lower than usual and kept his head down

"The Sages are asking that you meet them in the conference hall, sire. They say that it is urgent and they would like you to come immediately"

"Very well"

With that the King hurried away past the servant, who closed the balcony doors. He practically sprinted to the room that the meetings were held in, his long robes flapping behind him. If the Sages were urgent to see him, it probably concerned the Triforce and with the current condition of the country and its dilemma…well, it wasn't likely to be good news. He quickened his pace as the last stairwell to the main floor came into sight and continued to the room at the same pace.

After a further, anxious, five minutes of almost frantically rushing through the corridors, he came to the heavy wooden doors. This was the same room that had been used two years ago, when Ganondorf had come for 'discussions' for the last time before he launched his attack.

Taking a deep breath, the King pulled the door open and stepped into the room. He walked to his seat at the head of the dark table and sat down, looking to the faces of the Sages. His eyes stopped on Zelda and she smiled humourlessly at him, her face mirroring the same grim expression that everyone else in the room now wore.

He smiled back and then looked to the rest.

"What've you got to tell me?"

The Sages eyes flicked to the Princess, who was staring at him.

"Zelda?"

"The Triforce is infected" she stated bluntly "The Sages and I have felt a growing evil emanating from the Sacred Realm, where the Triforce of Power now rests in its own."

"What about you and Link?"

"Link…..he may be fine as long as he doesn't get infected, his Triforce piece will stay pure….for a time. But with Power already infected, as it probably has been for a few days, the virus is spreading through the bonds that the Triforce still has, and with my child infected, the Triforce of Wisdom is becoming infected through that"

"…..How is this going to affect you?"

"I may mutate….I may not, I believe that Wesker only wanted the baby infected but that is irrelevant now. The infection isn't very strong at the moment, but it is growing….in perhaps a few days, the virus will start to cause some sickness to me. In a week, it could be contagious"

"Goddesses….is there nothing to stop this?"

"Short of destroying the Triforce….no. Therefore I'm quarantining myself to save you getting infected….it may give you some more time"

She stood and walked out of the room, leaving the stunned Sages and King behind. The King rose to go after her and then turned to the Sages.

"How has this infected the Triforce?"

"The essence of the Gods left inside…bio-material. It's a part of the Goddesses, who despite being immortal, presumably have some similarities to humans" Rauru answered.

The King nodded, hurrying away to find Zelda.

It was 7 o'clock in the world of the Soul Calibur warriors and the group of warriors that saw Kilik, Maxi, Siegfried and Yunsung off that morning were still gathered in the dilapidated chapel. They had agreed to stay behind and keep an eye on Soul Edge. The majority of the group were in the chapel, settling down for the evening, eating and talking in murmuring in low voices to each other. Only one member of the group was missing, and remaining people glanced out of the shattered windows occasionally in an attempt to see where he was.

Raphael strolled leisurely through the dark woods, sighing heavily to himself, occasional specks of slowly dimming light peeking in through the canopy of the trees, bathing him with an almost holy aura as he continued to walk. He was heading back to the village, but as slowly as possible thinking of his daughter, sitting in the small cottage they lived in, completely alone. He hadn't wanted to leave her…but if he could stop her from becoming a victim again, then it wasn't in vain at least.

An increasingly bright light from his far right alerted him to the fact that he was almost out of the forest. He would have to cut through the centre of town to head to the chapel, but he was perfectly willing to take his time about it.

He meandered slowly down the hill to the flat of the village, when a boy about ten years old ran in his direction, crying. Stopping Raphael watched the boy and knelt down to talk to him when he looked over. The boy was fairly well dressed, for someone from this village, but his clothes and hair were out of order making him look like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. The boys eyes were large, scared, wet with tears and panicked like that of a trapped wild animal.

"What's happened?" Raphael asked, using the most placating voice he could muster. Usually, he would have just forced the boy into telling him, but in his condition, upsetting the boy further wasn't going to help him find out what had happened.

The boy looked up and sniffed heavily, before choking out "They're all dead. Everyone in the village, they were killed by the monsters"

"The mutants are here?"

The boy nodded

"Where did they come from?"

"They were people from here" the boy sniffed again, his voice quiet and scared "But they turned into monsters….they're killing everyone"

Raphael nodded "Head out that way and hide in the woods, until me or one of my group comes to get you" he pointed in the direction of the woods, then ran for the village, his breath coming in pants as he neared the outer buildings.

By the time Raphael had reached the centre of town, he was barely able to breathe….and seeing the sight around him stole those few gasps away from him.

The walls of the town were covered with blood, coating the walls with a slick gloss of twisted paint. On one of the walls the blood had merely spattered against it, creating the image of a canvas, the off white stucco coloured with patches of blood, like poppies blossoming.

On the cobble stoned floor of the village centre, were the bodies of those few people that had been lucky enough to have been killed out right, that had escaped becoming on of those creatures.

Raphael stepped carefully past the fallen corpses, watching them in case on decided to come back to life. He vaguely wondered if the monsters suffered in their new forms, if they had any human consciousness left at all….then decided it didn't matter, they weren't coming back to life anyway. He snorted at a memory that came back to him, or more specifically a song that he had heard when he had been back in Hyrule, a song that Leon had played on some device.

"Bring me to Life" Raphael muttered, and chuckled darkly at the irony that the song was playing in his head now. He also remembered that Leon had looked particularly pained when playing it, saying that it reminded him of Raccoon City.

Well, this was definitely a Raccoon City like situation, from what Leon had described it was like.

A shout caught his attention suddenly and Raphael broke into a sprint for the noise, slowing only when he reached its point of origin. Standing in the middle of a circle of warriors was one of the mutants.

"Thank God that you're finally here" Ivy shrieked at him, valentine hanging down by her thigh, covered in a tar-like substance

"Why haven't you killed it yet?"

"Well it's not like we're not trying"

"So why?"

"It's too strong. Every time we get close it lashes out at us"

"Why don't some of you attack it while others distract it?"

"Why don't you distract it for us?"

Raphael sighed, and then slipped into the circle next to Seung Mina, tightening his hold on the hilt of Flambert. It was pathetic how they couldn't manage to beat…

As that thought was forming, it abruptly stopped. He realised why they couldn't beat it easily now that he saw it properly.

The creature was similar to all the others, it still had sickly green skin and those strange, spidering veins….but it was larger than the others, and the skin on what had been its face was peeled away to reveal throbbing purple muscle tissue and glistening yellow bone. A large deep yellow eye, the colour of an egg yolk, had former on its chest, practically taking up most of the space of where the pectoral muscles should have been. The pupil was centred directly over where the heart was, in the middle of the chest and as Raphael stared into the blackness of the wide, slitted vertical pupil, he realised he could see it, could see the red organ, pulsing in the back of the eye and the whole eye, the whole yellow orb, was pulsing with it. Throbbing with each drum beat of the heart, expanding every time the heart did, giving bursts of sludgy black blood to the body, pushing it through the thin pencil width veins.

The others followed his gaze, staring in fascination at the mass, the size of a bowling ball.

"I think we know where to target, don't you?" Raphael asked, to no-one in particular

The group nodded and Ivy, Talim, Xianghua and Mitsurugi stepped forward and then rushed to the sides of the creature, attacking it in an attempt to distract it.

The creature in turn screeched at its attackers, flailing its muscled arms, slamming them down in an attempt to squash its attackers that were stabbing it with their pointy metal sticks. It hit one, a female, young and limber and she let out a ear piercing screech as it hit her, a sound akin to the yelp an injured terrier would give.

"Mina, get that thing while it's distracted by Xianghua!" Mitsurugi called, looking first to the Korean, then to the Chinese girl, lying splayed out on the floor.

Mina nodded and charged forward, plunging her weapon into the pits of the bulging yellow eye twisting it as she did so, making sure the heart was destroyed.

The group backed away, as Mina pulled Scarlet Thunder out and stepped away. Mitsurugi crept over to Xianghua to make sure she was still breathing, knelt down beside her, and on confirming that she was alive, turned to watch as the creatures fell to the floor, its body thrashing as it spasmed, its arms beating the floor in a tattoo a rasping noise gurgling from the throat.

The assembly watched in shock, as, after five minutes, the creature finally stopped flailing, its body weakened and finally giving up. When they could be sure it was dead, they stepped forward, examining it.

Raphael knelt down, his eyes studying its body and as he did, his eyebrows furrowed, a frown settling onto his features.

Ivy watched closely as a frown appeared on Raphaels face. "What's wrong?"

The rest of the group turned to look at her as she called to Raphael. The Frenchman stood up and backed away from the body, but still stared down at the corpse.

"Don't you think it took a long time to die?...Especially seen as it was stabbed in the heart"

Ivy shrugged "So what?"

"It's heart was destroyed, and it survived five minutes…it bled to death"

"How?"

"I don't know, but from the amount of blood, that's the only explanation."

Mitsurugi walked up to the mutant "Excuse me for this, but I don't want it coming back"

He raised his Katana above his head, and with the whistling sound of a sword cutting air, he decapitated it.

"Is there anything else you found out while I wasn't here?" Raphael asked, tactfully ignoring the whimpers coming from Xianghua's unconscious form.

Talim answered him "Several other villages in this area have started to be attacked by hordes of monsters and we might have a lead on who is causing this"

"How did you find that out?"

"Some of the mutating villagers were gasping out one name as they were mutating"

"And that was?"

"….Aaron"

Raphael looked at her for a moment "That's it?"

"Yeah"

"That's….wonderful. We don't even know who is causing this"

Mitsurugi was the only person who replied to this "Perhaps you should go to Hyrule, and tell your friend, Link. If they're suffering the same problem, they may need to know about this and if you can get any information back to us then we'll be in a better position to defend people"

"No. I don't want to go back there"

"Why?"

"I don't want to leave Amy"

"You already have, what's one more visit to Hyrule going to do?"

"But if the seal closes…"

"Then we'll take care of her until we re-open the seal" Ivy answered "Besides….she sort of knows us and you've got no one else to trust"

"Fine. I'll leave in the morning. But first, there's a little boy up in the forest who survived the attack, and I told him to wait up there until it was safe. I'll have to go get him"

With the explanation, Raphael strode away from the group, cursing the fates for making him leave Amy behind again.

You know the drill