A.N: Ok, same as usual. Thank you to all peebles who are reviewing.

As a note, some of you probably won't like this chapter...please don't hurt me.

Chapter 13

Link, Siegfried and Kilik stared at the strange green amphibious looking creatures that were crouched before them, tapping overly long claws on the floor. They were like nothing the trio had ever seen before and it gave them an idea of how powerful Wesker was to have these things under his control, and how hard Umbrella must have been to bring down.

Link glanced to his left where Chris was standing, and noted the look on his face, a mixture of terror, hatred and concentration. The expression changed rapidly though when one of the hunters threw back its head and screeched, the noise coming out somewhere between nails being scraped down a blackboard and metal being wrenched apart.

"Run," Chris breathed and took a few steps back whilst Link followed his orders and turned and ran, sprinting up the thin corridors, behind Billy, who was leading the way with his torch.

For a few minutes the only sounds that Link could hear were the now labouring breaths of his companions, the steady pounding of their feet hitting the floor, and the occasional screech from a hunter, the long claws clicking over the floor.

"Hurry it up!" Chris yelled, almost breathlessly, from behind the group "They're closing in on us and the corridors are too thin for us to fight them in here."

Billy upped his speed as much as he could, but they were running up a gradual slope, and above the pounding of his heart and feet, he could hear that Leon and the others weren't too far ahead. But he could see the light of the office ahead and he called to Leon to stop and help them fight, flinging himself towards the door and remembering, with a strange sense of nostalgia, just why they were called Hunters.

Link followed Billy out the door and was greeted with the sight of the other six people, all panting, and all with their weapons drawn.

Chris was the last out of the corridor, and he quickly made his way to the front of the group, taking up his place between Claire and Jill, the Soul warriors and Hyrulians acting as back up in case one of the gunmen faltered, and the creatures broke through the frontlines.

Chris hissed back to Maxi "Make sure the door is closed and keep an eye out for anyone coming this way…if they do we'll have to abandon the fight and leg it."

Maxi rolled his eyes at not being used as back up, but slid up to the door and pressed his ear against it, listening for any noise.

Chris glanced back at the pirate, then turned his attention to the Hunter that was emerging from the dark passage way, followed by its kin, its lithe sinuous body slinking stealthily towards him, then stopping to let the others gather.

He raised the gun slowly, taking aim at one of those golden reptilian eyes that were so much like their masters.

The others were doing the same, Billy raising his shotgun to one of the ones that looked like it was about to leap.

Chris looked back at the Hunter and watched it carefully, waiting for it to move. The Hunter did the same, watching the human training its weapon on it, and then paced backwards and forwards a little, before leaping at the lead human in the front, its kin following suit, all aiming for the same human.

Chris fired as the Hunter leapt at him, four or five shots from the magnum, smashing into the creatures face, turning it into a bloody mass of tissue, the eyes no longer resembling what they were supposed to.

The body landed behind Chris, carried by momentum, and then the others were landing on top of it missing Chris as he side stepped the attack and then turned on them, firing once more into the back of the head of the nearest one and then backing up to reload.

The others continued to fire on the four remaining Hunters that were now on their feet in front of them, Billy making the most impact with the shotgun.

What the gunmen didn't notice however, was the new load of Hunters that had come up through the passageway.

Yunsung did though, and he called to the people firing on the creatures, whilst slipping round the side of them to take on the new comers, Link, Siegfried and Liam following him.

Maxi winced as he saw Siegfried's heavy sword land in the middle of the body of the final Hunter. Chris was walking around with Kilik, having him roll the corpses over with Kali Yuga.

When he came to Link and Liam's, which were now decapitated, he strode past without a second look, and stopped at the one Siegfried had been fighting.

His attack hadn't killed it, merely paralyzed it, snapping the creatures spinal cord. The result was that the creature was lying on the floor, in a pool of its own blood, and making a noise somewhat akin to mewling in what they assumed was pain. The injury meant that it couldn't move, but it could feel everything, and it could turn it's head slightly, looking up at Chris.

Chris stared at the creature for a moment, then crouched down next to it, understanding that it couldn't hurt him. He checked the ammo for his magnum, and sat on his haunches for a moment, studying the dying creature as it wailed in pain. His face softened slightly as he looked down at it.

Whilst Chris didn't like the Hunters, for obvious reasons, he couldn't really blame them for attacking. They were following orders and instinct, doing what they were created to do. Basically, they were dumb animals that had been turned into soldiers, and despite the fact he held a deep resentment for them, he couldn't help pitying them, especially this one.

Raising the Magnum, Chris leaned forward, placing his left hand on the scaly head, to hold it fully still as he pressed the barrel of the gun to the creatures head and pulled the trigger.

Chris stood up abruptly and wiped the blood off himself, turning to the rest of the group.

"There's nothing else here to do, no notes or anything that I can see to take, seeing as Wesker probably has all his details on a computer downstairs," he sighed a bit "Let's go home, and don't touch the bodies."

He holstered the gun under his armpit and opened the door, stepping out and jogging back to the window where they'd entered, the rest of the group in tow.

Down in the labs, Wesker slumped against the wall outside the lab where he'd just confronted Chris and his friends. He could still smell the musky scent of human flesh that lingered in the corridor, able to tell who had been there from the scents.

Aaron had been one of them, and he had hung around here for a moment, before making his way out of the underground almost labyrinth.

Wesker growled to himself, rubbing at a bruise on his shoulder that had formed from his fight with Aaron. The creature had finally snapped, and the two had got into a fight which Aaron had a won, and then ran from as the 'victor'.

Wesker however had needed a few minutes to collect himself, and had lingered in the lab before coming out into the hall. He could smell blood though, among the heavier musky smell of male humans, the lighter scent that was slightly flowered of the females and the sanitizers in the rooms, there was definitely blood and he didn't think that it was the humans.

Wesker pushed himself away from the wall and walked slowly up the corridors, limping as he did so, his hip aching from where it had slammed into the corner of the control console in the room. The wound hadn't healed yet, it would take a while, for his body was trying to heal the larger more serious wounds, and therefore, he could feel a slight trail of blood sliding down his thigh.

When he finally got into his office however, the small wound was the least of his concerns.

The bodies of ten of his Hunters were lying on the floor in various places, gunshot wounds sprinkled over them, a couple missing their heads, which at a guess, was the work of Link and co. The bullet wounds were obviously Chris and the others, but that in itself wasn't what had actually shocked and outraged Wesker.

Aaron had been in the room too, and he had completely ruined the once perfect bodies of the reptiles.

The various limbs had been ripped off and thrown around the room, the bodies torn in half or eviscerated, blood trickling out of the torn bodies.

One of the bodies had been propped up in the chair behind the desk, its detached head sitting on the place mat, staring back at the torso.

Wesker snarled slightly at the mutilated remains of what had literally been his pets. Though he had never had a liking for animals that much, he had found the Hunters intriguing and consequently had kept a group downstairs in a large compound that was like a playpen for the creatures. It had meant he could still study their behaviour and have a pet with a practical use, such as chasing down and tearing apart intruders.

He turned slightly and looked at the wall to his right, and read the 'message' on the wall that was written in the hunters' blood.

'Better luck next time, glorified human'.

Turning on his heel, Wesker stormed back down to the basement, not stopping until he reached the pen, where the remaining five hunters lay.

Sitting on the floor and watching them, Wesker knew that he would have to get rid of Aaron before he destroyed his research.

Leon slumped down onto the sofa in the living room, Claire at his side and everyone else finding a suitable place on the floor to slump. He glanced at his watch briefly, noticing that it was five minutes until midnight…they had been out for only two hours, give or take.

"Well," Chris started "That didn't go as planned…but…at least we found out something. We're going to have to make a return trip to there sometime in the near future though."

"Why?" Sheik asked

"We didn't get the anti virus, and without that, we can't cure the mutations."

"I would like to return to Hyrule before we venture out again to see how the situation there is."

"That's a fair enough request," Jill commented, and Chris nodded in agreement "We'll go tomorrow, and yes, we're coming with you."

The Hylians nodded slightly.

Chris turned to look at the door. "Jill and I are gonna head home…we'll be over at about eight."

"If you can get out of bed in time," Jill muttered and walked towards the door "Goodnight everyone" she called, Chris following suit, closing the door behind him.

"I'm going too…I'll be over about the same time as Chris and Jill so I'll see you tomorrow." Billy stated, walking out the door.

"Alright everyone," Claire started, "You know where you're sleeping so Leon and I are going to bed, we'll wake you up if you're not up by the time we are."

Link watched as Leon and Claire made their way up the small hall to their bedroom, then turned to look at Maxi and Yunsung, who were squabbling over who was going to sleep on the sofa.

"You two," Link scolded "In case you hadn't noticed, it goes round a corner, there's enough room for both of you."

Maxi looked to Link, then grinned sheepishly, crawling to the other part and stretching out on it, grabbing one the blankets that were hidden behind the cushions, and throwing them to the other men in the room.

Liam was curling up on one of the armchairs, and Link made his way over to the other one.

Kilik settled himself in front of the sofa, wrapping a couple of blankets around himself for padding.

Only Sheik and Siegfried remained awake, Sheik sitting on a cushion and seeming to be praying. Siegfried stood in front of the window, casting his gaze across sleeping Washington DC, a few lights dotted around in the distance.

Sighing to himself he turned and lay on the carpeting in the centre of the room, closing his eyes as he started to doze.

Kilik stretched slightly as he woke up, a little later than usual it seemed, for everyone else was up and getting ready. Leon and Claire were in the kitchen, he noted, hearing the voices coming from there. Liam and Link were talking to Sheik, conversing about something, Hyrule no doubt.

Maxi was the only one who wasn't out of bed, but he looked fully awake and was listening to the conversation between Billy and Yunsung, who seemed to be having an argument that was gradually heating up, and by the looks of the hand motions, Yunsung was losing.

The sailor turned his attention to Kilik as he caught the movement of him stretching in the corner of his eye.

"Good morning," he greeted, grinning as usual "It's about time you woke up, it's ten to eight."

Kilik grunted in response, running a hand through his hair to try and get it in something that resembled a style, rather than a nest that had been built on his head. He padded off to the bathroom a moment later, straightening out his clothing.

Maxi's smile widened at Kilik's behaviour, not used to seeing the priest so like this.

"He's tired huh?" Leon asked, sitting on the sofa next to Maxi's feet.

"Yeah, someone finally did it…..any idea when Chris and J…" he was cut off by the sound of the front door opening.

"Morning everyone," Jill chirped as she walked into the room, Chris in tow, not looking quiet as good as his wife, and definitely not in a cheerful mood.

A response was murmured by everyone in the room, and Claire waved as she came out of the kitchen, and replied to Jill before diving for the phone as it started ringing.

Unsurprisingly, it was Sora, calling from Barry's house. She chatted quietly with her daughter, asking what she had been up to and such, before realizing that they had only said goodbye to her at eight o clock last night.

"Where's Kilik?" Chris asked, sitting on the arm of the sofa.

Maxi waved his hand towards the general direction of the bathroom.

Leon stood up "He'll be out in a sec, and then we can go." He took the phone that was handed to him by his wife, and talked quietly to his daughter before saying goodbye as Kilik came out of the bathroom, and grabbed a piece of fruit off the table for his breakfast.

"Alright, let's go."

It was ten minutes later that the group was moving into Hyrule, strolling across the fields in the direction of the castle.

"Wow," Claire breathed, "I forgot what it was like coming here."

Link smiled back at her, striding across the green plains leisurely, glad to be home. There was also no sign of infection around here, although the usually fast flowing river was now just a muddy trickle and a rapidly drying out bed of soil.

To their right Sheik was whistling loudly, presumably calling his horse over. The black and grey stallion soon made his way over to his master, having been grazing on the plain.

Sheik patted the horse lightly and then slipped onto his back. From his new vantage point, he could see a figure on the hill way off to their left.

"Link," Sheik called "There's someone on the hill."

Link and Liam turned to look at the figure. "Stay here," Link muttered to the others and then ran up the hill, drawing his sword, Liam following close behind.

Claire watched the two men dash off up the hill, then turned her gaze back to Sheik when he announced that he would be continuing onto the castle.

"I'm guessing that's not an enemy," Chris commented, seeing the two young Hylians greeting the person.

Billy snorted and rolled his eyes, looking around at the countryside, having never been here before.

The trio that had been on the hill jogged down to the waiting group.

"Raphael!"

The shout came from Siegfried, Maxi and Kilik. Yunsung had been watching Sheik go and merely answered with "Huh?"

The blonde Frenchman trotted towards the group, raising his hand in a greeting to the assembly.

"What are you doing here?" Maxi asked, cocking his head slightly, recalling that Raphael had previously despised the idea of coming back to Hyrule.

Raphael raised an eyebrow "And how are you Maxi, I hope you're well after your excursion to the modern world" he answered sarcastically.

"We can discuss this on the way back to the castle," Link said shortly "It's best to keep moving lest we attract….unwanted attention"

They moved off again, walking quickly towards the castle.

"So why are you here?" Liam asked

"We have a few problems in our world" Raphael answered

"We saw," Siegfried muttered

"What do you mean, we saw?"

"Wesker provided us with a nice little clip of you fighting that monster" Maxi replied

"Wesker?" Raphael asked

"We'll explain on the way"

As the group of twelve made their way to the castle, they discussed the events that had transpired in the worlds, trading information until they reached the drawbridge.

"Let's stop talking about this for now….people tend to freak out or start rumours" Link murmured, calling to the guards, who peeked over the top of the battlements to look down at the people below. A few minutes later the bridge lowered and they trotted over it quickly before anything came along.

When they reached the town centre Link and Liam frowned at the state of the area.

There were about five stalls out all together, compared to the usual twenty or thirty that were crammed along the sides of the streets. Only a few people wandered around the area, glumly wandering over to a stall or a shop to see if there was anything worth buying, as if spending money would cheer them up.

About ten guards were posted around the square, two on the way to the castle, two on the path to the temple of time, and more on the routes that led to the houses and back alleys.

"Christ" Chris muttered, scanning the area "Guess people are already freaked out."

"Not really sir, we ask that people don't come out of their houses too much. Though we don't force them to stay in if they don't want to. They seem to prefer staying indoors lately." The guard behind them informed, who was walking back to the castle, presumably for the change of shift.

"How's the water supply?" Link asked as he came up besides him

"Not too good, and the recent heat wave has wiped out a lot of the crops….what the King plans to do if we don't have enough food, I don't know."

Link nodded as the guard trotted up to the castle to fetch the new guard.

"C'mon….I think we should get inside quickly"

They hurried up to the castle and were let inside without hesitation. The guards were normally sarcastic or mocking of the people that came with Link back to the castle, but today they just seemed to want to get everyone inside and keep them safe. There were no snide remarks, or even friendly jokes made to him or Liam, just a 'welcome back, sirs. Gaiden will escort you to the castle'

They were led to the drawbridge to the castle, and the guard waited with them until the drawbridge had opened and then closed after they were inside.

Billy looked around the small flowered area that was in front of the main entrance to the castle, then down the path that lead away.

The flowers were wilting, and there was no sound of running water from fountains, a stream, or even the moat.

A large image of the Triforce with its guardian phoenix encircling it with its wings was above the double doors, and Billy took a moment to wonder just how much real gold was inlaid into the massive image.

"It's all real gold," Liam commented, seeing him stare up at it "If you see something in the castle that looks gold, it probably is, especially if it's of the Triforce."

He followed Link up the shallow steps to the double doors and slipped inside, holding the doors open for the rest of the group.

Billy again looked around the immediate area, and felt his jaw drop open slightly at the inside of the building.

He had seen pictures of all the old castles in his world, all the artwork and remaining artifacts and tapestries, but he had never been able to grasp or believe just how grand they had been. It had just seemed like a child's fairytale, and then again, so did this. But this was real.

The walls of the long echoing hall were at least thirty feet high, made out of grey stone that was probably granite, that had been smoothed down and the stoned slotted together so well that the gaps could barely be seen. And that was where the walls were bare.

The hall was probably as long as it was tall, and only a few patches of polished grey peeked out between the multitude of massive, colourful tapestries that depicted Hyrule's past. Each one had to be six foot high and three foot wide, made of deep purple, royal blue or dark red silk, interwoven with gold and sliver thread, a Triforce adorning the top of each one.

The one that really amazed him, and the rest of the newcomers though, was the one suspended above the seven foot high mahogany doors that lead to the throne room.

Its size was immeasurable.

"Silk," Link commented, gesturing to it "The back ground is one massive sheet of silk, the patterns are woven silk or satin threads save for the gold and silver, which are real."

The tapestry's background was pitch black, with a picture of the earth, or what symbolised the earth in the centre of it. The three goddesses were gathered around it, in ruby, sapphire and emerald flames surrounding the golden figures of the female deities. Above each of their heads was a small triangle, gold and somehow tinged with their own colour. Beneath them was a phoenix, red and gold save for its tail feathers which were blue and green. Its wings were outstretched, it's talons wrapped around the purple hilt of a silver-blue sword, one which Billy recognised.

"Your sword is in the tapestry?"

"Yes…it was created to protect the Triforce….makes sense really."

"I suppose." Billy shrugged slightly.

"Now," Link started "You've shown us your hospitality over the past two days, so let us show you ours."

He called for a maid and instructed her to show them to the lounge where they could relax.

"Enjoy it while you have the chance, I imagine we won't have much luxury in a little while" he shouted after them.

Liam turned to his brother. "And now?" he raised an eyebrow

"We go see the King and Zelda….and then relax for the rest of the day…hopefully"

"Let's hope we get to relax." Liam commented as he and Link made for the throne room door

"Let's hope that we can save Hyrule."

As I said, some of you probably didn't like that. I apologise if you thought we were coming to the end. I have a plan. Again I apologise for the sudden change and please don't hesitate tolet me know what you think.

To Sacharja (who probably really hates me now): I have a plan, and it'll, hopefully, mean more suspense in the next chapter, when I've finished typing it.

Anyway, please review or e-mail or anything.

Toodles waves