A.N: I DID IT! I got this chapter up in time (barely) and I'm on holiday. Wooo! There is a God.
Anyway, don't forget to review and thank you to the people who faithfully continue to be masochists by reading and reviewing.
Chapter 16
Zelda blinked a couple of times when a bright light hit her face, streaming in between the partly closed shutters that led out to the balcony. She glanced around as her vision cleared, noticing that she was lying in her and Link's bed, underneath the covers. Link didn't appear to be nearby, but it looked to be after 10 o'clock in the morning anyway, and even if he hadn't wanted to get up, Liam probably would've dragged him out of bed about 8:30.
Groaning slightly, Zelda pushed herself up, so that her back was resting against the headboard. There was a strange feeling in her stomach and it took her a second to remember what had happened the night before. However, despite the fact that yesterday she had been in pain from the needle, there was none now. Neither was there any of the headaches, or sickness or general weariness that the pregnancy had exacted upon her body. In fact, she felt great. So great in fact that she suddenly became worried incase the child had died and she was no longer pregnant, but a glance downwards discounted her worries when she saw the swell of her stomach.
Smiling, she pushed back the covers and got out of bed, walking to the bathroom to take a shower.
Wesker glanced down at the sight below him, and rolled his eyes at the scene. He was sitting on one of the high walls that encased Hyrule castle, watching a group of guards who were in the middle of a break, and were sparring in the training ground for fun. There was a group of about ten of them, who had just entered the grounds, whereas another group of ten had just left.
What he had rolled his eyes at though, was their complete idiocy at not realizing he was there and watching them like a hawk. If he had wanted to pose a threat, he could have merely leaped from his perch, and slaughtered them in an instant, crushing them like bugs beneath his feet. The thought had actually crossed the Tyrants mind. He hadn't engaged in killing someone for pure fun in a few months now. He had been so wrapped up in work, perfecting his virus, that he hadn't thought about anything but that.
His thoughts, as he watched the guard execute a few easy moves (even for them), turned to Aaron. He wondered briefly why he had even created the BOW at all, as he had proved to be nothing but a handful most of the time. If he looked at it rationally, Aaron had been created to do grunt work, and infect the people he came into contact with. Basically, to be a glorified version of his Hunters, which he had moved to another warehouse in order to avoid them being killed by Aaron.
However, if he thought about it properly, if he looked deep into the reason why, he realized that it was far more personal.
He had created him to do the work, yes…but he had also created him for well, companionship. Humans were scared of Wesker, and he couldn't blame them, even he was slightly daunted by the sight of a fully mutated Tyrant when he had first seen one, as a human. It wasn't even that Wesker wanted companionship really…it was more like he wanted to understand why people needed company. Wanted to understand why people, especially William Birkin, want or had wanted a child too. Aaron was the closest thing that Wesker would ever have to a child; he couldn't actually sire one himself, even if he wanted to. He just wanted to understand why the T-Virus running through his veins, made him further distanced from other humanoids.
Perhaps it was because the instinct for companionship was more like a herding instinct, because there was strength in numbers and it made most creatures feel safe. Wesker though, was all power, and therefore had nothing to fear and so, didn't need to be around other life forms…especially ones that were lower than him.
Wesker was pulled out of his thoughts by a shout from the training yard.
One of the guards, who had been sparring, had finally noticed him.
"You there!" he yelled up to him, and Wesker merely raised an eyebrow, which the guards couldn't see, and turned his face towards them.
"You don't have permission to be in Hyrule Castle! Return home immediately, or we will force you to!"
Wesker watched them for a moment, then threw back his head and barked out a harsh laugh at them, before rising to his feet, and jumping of the wall, to the training ground, hitting the floor with a soft thud. Standing up again from his crouching position, he smirked as the guards stared at him, awed by the fact he had survived the drop.
"Excuse me." The blonde started, putting a harsh coldness into his words "But I have permission to be in Hyrule Castle, from the King and Link. I have business here, which I haven't yet fulfilled, so I'm staying. As for you forcing me out of the castle, you couldn't even if you had permission to you."
One of the guards, an obvious leader, stepped forwards, growling at Wesker.
"How dare you insult guards of the Royal Family! We have been chosen by Captain Dalher himself, brother to Link. No-one has ever got past us, and every civilian has obeyed our orders." The guard looked smug for a moment.
"Well, I apologize for being about to burst your bubble, but I've been sitting on that wall, watching you since you came in. You do realize that in the ten minutes you've been out here, I could have got into the castle, murdered your King and got out again, without you ever realizing? I am no civilian, Hylian or American, Elf or Human."
"We shall see about that. Draw a weapon and fight me, then we'll see who the civilian is. What's your name, felon?"
Wesker grinned slightly before he answered, looking down as he pulled a combat knife out from underneath the full length black leather coat he was wearing, and muttered; "My name is Commander Wesker."
"Well then Commander," The guard hissed sarcastically "Let us fight."
The guard started to pace around Wesker in a circle, twirling the sword in his hand, trying to show off to him, trying to entice him into attacking.
"It won't work you know." He commented
"What?"
"That." The Tyrant stated, gesturing to the soldiers hand.
The man glanced down at his hand, and as he did, Wesker took advantage of his distraction and attacked, hitting the guard in the midriff, with the handle of the small knife, knocking the man to the floor.
The guard gasped at the attack, and struggled on the floor for a moment trying to get up as Wesker, slowly walked towards him.
He just managed to as Wesker moved to slam his fist into the guard's stomach. He missed, and his hand plunged into the ground, enough force behind his punch to push through the layers of sand that made up the floor. The guard turned around and watched as his enemy pulled his gloved fist out of the ground, noticing that his knuckles were smeared with mud that was hidden five inches under the sand.
"What in the name of…." He whispered
Wesker turned back to him and grinned at the look of uncertainty on the man's face, which had replaced the smug smile.
The guard backed off a little, then attacked Wesker, taking the offensive route and trying to knock his enemy to the floor, to pin him there and wrestle him into submission. However, Wesker just stood there, hands behind his back as the guard rushed towards him, balling his hand into a fist, and throwing the punch into Wesker's stomach.
Instead of his hand sinking into the soft flesh of his opponent's stomach though, it met with a solid wall of muscle, and his arm bent at the elbow, crumpling from blow into the steel-like stomach.
Taking advantage (again) of the guard's distraction, Wesker grabbed him by the wrist, holding it firmly in his left hand, then grabbed the other holding the now struggling soldier in a vice like grip. The man panicked slightly when he felt Wesker's grip tighten further and he began to rub his forefinger and thumb against the bones in his wrist.
Wesker smirked slightly as beads of sweat began to build on the soldiers' forehead as he sank to his knees, Wesker still grinding the fragile bones together. Deciding to end the 'fight', fun as it was, Wesker turned his hips slightly and kicked the man in the chest, hard enough that had he not been restrained, he would have been slammed into the wall behind him, where Wesker had formerly been perched. However, Wesker still had hold of the man's wrists, held him in place as his body shunted backwards from the force of the kick, his arms still out, straight, ripped from their shoulder sockets.
Dropping the limp arms, Wesker turned and looked back at the guard's comrades.
"Anyone else want a go?"
The guards looked to the man lying on the floor, whimpering, and shook their heads, backing away from Wesker.
"Good. As for his injuries, I think you'll find that he may have a few broken ribs, and both of his shoulders are dislocated. Oh…and that might be a good thing for you to learn if you ever have an enemy in your grasp and you don't want to kill them."
The guards simply stared at him, and so he moved to stand by the door, watching as the guards scurried over to the fallen man and gathered him up in their arms, to carry him down to the medical wing.
It was as Wesker was reaching for the door to the changing rooms, to go back into the castle, that the door flew open anyway. The person came through the door quickly and looked down at the soldier in the others' arms. He turned around and glared at Wesker, still propped up against the wall.
It was Link.
"What have you done?" he kept his voice calm as he saw the guards walk through the door, through the corner of his eye.
"I merely taught one of your guards a lesson in humility."
"Did you have to teach it to him so well? We already need every guard we've got to check on the people, be on watch and be ready to fight a mutant off at anytime. Hyrule can't afford to loose a soldier because you thought you'd have some fun!"
"He's not dead though. He has some broken or cracked ribs, and dislocated shoulders, he should be back to being able to serve by tomorrow morning."
"Doesn't make it any better!"
"Why are you here, anyway?"
"Do I not have the right to walk around my own home?" Link spat.
Wesker shrugged "Fair point…what were you coming here for though?"
Link sighed "I was coming to train. I haven't really had a chance yet."
"May I watch?"
"Depends if you're going to comment on me and distract me all the way through the session."
"If I don't, may I?"
"I suppose."
Link walked into the middle of the training area, unbuckling is belt and baldric, pulling his tunic and shirt off, but leaving his gauntlets on. He pulled the Master sword and Mirror shield from the pile of clothes, then pushed them out of the square with his foot.
Wesker studied Link as he settled into position, his eyes running over the younger man's torso, with a detached eye, like a doctor examining a patient. He continued his studying throughout Link's session, watching every graceful movement, trying to see strengths and weaknesses as he flowed from one attack to the other, kicking out with his foot, then executing a back flip before putting both hands on the hilt of the sword and swinging it downwards in a move that could split a person in half.
Link crouched on the floor for a moment, aware that Wesker was watching him intently, with his hand flung out behind him, gripping the handle of the Master Sword so tightly, that his knuckles were turning white. Holding the position for a few seconds more, Link jumped straight up into the air, a burst of blue and red flame sprouting from the blade, as he spun round in the air, once, twice, three times, before he dropped back to earth, landing in a crouch just in front of Wesker.
Wesker stood completely still and stared at the boy who was crouched in front of him, breathing deeply to recover, and let his gaze drift down to the sword in his hand. He had never, in the 45 years of his life seen anything like that, even in the 27 years he had worked for Umbrella and HCF.
Link straightened up and looked over at the stunned German derived man, and flashed a smirk to him quickly.
"Impressed?" he asked, placing the blade on the floor to allow it to cool. As he went back over to his tunic, picking up a towel to wipe the sweat off himself with, he saw Wesker walk over to the blade and letting his now ungloved hand hover over it, feeling the heat that emanated from the bluish metal.
"A little, I will admit." He finally answered.
"Mmm hmm, well, I have things to do and…that includes checking on Zelda," he pulled his clothes back on again, fastening the belt and baldric over his clothes. "I assume that you will need to check on her too."
"I will, though I doubt that it is necessary."
Link nodded and walked back into the castle, Wesker catching up to him in a few long strides.
Liam lounged in a chair in the 'recreational' room, watching Maxi and Yunsung arguing over who won a game of mahjongg that they'd been playing. Maxi, as the Japanese player, insisted he'd won because he had been playing the game since he was five. Yunsung was currently giving up on the 'I win everything' stance and had been degraded to;
"Well, it's a stupid game anyway." He stuck his nose into the air, arms crossed over his chest. Maxi mirrored the pose for a moment, before bending down and flicking one of the ivory tiles towards the Korean. It hit him in the face.
Liam turned his head away and grinned as Yunsung tackled Maxi pinning him to the floor, and struggling with the pirate. Everyone else in the room, save for those two, were utterly bored out of their minds.
Siegfried and Kilik had been watching Yunsung and Maxi with half interest, but were now throwing each other glances that consisted mainly of eye rolling. Raphael was sitting in a chair at the other side of the room, checking his nails.
Leon, Billy and Chris were sitting in a circle and staring at the space between them, whilst the girls, Claire and Jill, lay on their stomachs, Jill filing her nails, Claire messing around with the band that had been in her hair.
"So…when are we going to this other world?" Chris asked Liam, having finally given up with trying to make a bald patch in the carpet by staring at it.
"As soon as Link has checked on Zelda, and is sure she's OK, he won't leave if she's ill."
"If she hasn't woken up yet, it could be ages," Chris murmured "Wesker may not even have cured her…just pretended to." His eyes narrowed slightly
"It's a possibility but….it's not like we had a choice anyway." Liam answered, sitting upright in his chair to face Chris directly.
Chris shrugged a shoulder, not having anything else to reply with.
The group fell back into their sullen, board silence, even Maxi and Yunsung having given up their fight…but that was more because they had both gotten into positions that made it impossible to move. Liam raised an eyebrow at them and, having nothing better to do, started to stand up to go and untangle them from each other. As he stood up, the door opened, and Zelda stepped through.
"Good Morning," she greeted, actually smiling.
"Barely," Liam replied
"Well don't you all look like bundles of joy." She commented sarcastically, looking around at the bored faces in the room, before settling it on Maxi and Yunsung. "You know what; I'm not even going to ask."
She walked over to one of the empty chairs in the room, and sat down in it, curling her legs underneath her.
"You're in a good mood today." Leon observed, looking over at her.
"Why shouldn't I be? My headache and backache are gone, I don't feel sick and…I think that the baby is actually cured…I can't feel any evil presence nearby anymore…" she trailed off and frowned
"What?" Liam asked, his hand on Maxi's ankle which he was trying to pull out from underneath Yunsung's back. "What's wrong?"
"Well...that's not true. I can feel an evil presence, just not a very strong one…but it's definitely in the castle."
Liam looked over to Chris, who nodded slightly. "Uh, there's good reason for that." Liam answered, grunting as he finally freed Maxi's leg.
"Oh? What is it?"
"Wesker's in the castle." Chris told her, looking disgruntled as he did so.
"What! Why?"
"Because," Liam panted as he grabbed Yunsung's arm "Wesker…is the one who cured the baby."
"…I don't suppose Wesker is tall, blonde, very pale and handsome, is he? And dresses all in black."
"That's him." Billy muttered, standing up to help out Liam
"That's why Link didn't tell me who he was." She mused.
A few seconds later, the door opened again to reveal Link. A few stands of hair were stuck to his forehead with what was probably sweat.
"You're up. I wasn't expecting it so soon, but…I'm glad for it anyway." He smiled gently at her.
She smiled back then asked "Uhh…where's Wesker?"
"So they told you, huh?...He's outside the door, said something about not wanting to create a tense atmosphere for us."
"How considerate of him." Chris growled
There was an 'oomph' sound following that sentence as Liam and Billy finally got the two oriental men untangled from each other.
Link turned to Chris "We need to go to the Soul Warrior world to see if Wesker can cure the virus…we leave in two hours."
It was 12:30pm when the group was setting out to leave Hyrule castle, having eaten a quick lunch and saddled up the horses.
They made their way out of the town and across the field at a fast pace, the horses performing a quick canter, Wesker jogging alongside to keep up with them.
As slowed as they reached the portal to the Soul world, and stopped momentarily to glance around to see if anyone was watching. When the coast was declared clear, they slipped into the portal quickly. Link, Maxi, and Siegfried in front, followed by Yunsung, Kilik and Liam. Wesker brought up the rear at the back of all Chris's group.
As soon as they were all through, Link moved on again, not letting them spend anytime looking around, and he pushed Epona into a gallop, partly wanting to get to Ostreheinsburg and partly wanting to see just how fast Wesker could go. He kept up with them however, having to sprint a little, but still managing it, and with that pace kept constant, they reached the village within an hour.
Siegfried pulled on Nightmare's reins slightly as they approached the gate, slowing him down, the rest of the group following suit.
"What is it?" Link asked quietly, looking across at him
"I just want to see if there are any of those creatures nearby…but I can't hear any."
"There are some here," Wesker murmured, feeling the presence of something else infected with a virus nearby "There are about three, maybe four, over there," he gestured to the far side of the village "and maybe one at the base of that hill…but no others."
"Oh there just has to be one in our path, doesn't there?" Link muttered angrily
"How do you know they're there?" Maxi asked, moving over to where Wesker was standing
"The virus in my blood. It let's me sense the presence of other creatures that are infected with any sort of genetic virus, be it T, T-Veronica, G or, in this case, the Anodyne."
"Are there a lot of these viruses then?"
"Only the one's I've just mentioned…and not a lot of them exist anymore…only the T and the Anodyne to my knowledge. The T-virus only exists through me, and the few Hunters I have. There is only one other humanoid Tyrant that I know of and I haven't seen her for a while."
The group started walking through the village, most of them dismounting, all drawing their weapons, apart from Wesker and Maxi.
"Who is she?"
"The girl? Her name is Sherry Birkin, the daughter of William Birkin who created the G-Virus. I worked with him on the T-Virus for about eight years. Didn't see him much after that though….Why this is any of your concern though, I don't see."
"Just curious," Maxi answered
The group slowly walked towards the base of the hill that the cathedral was on, largely ignoring a few conversations between Maxi and Wesker and an occasionally outburst from Claire, and instead focusing on keeping an eye out for monsters.
Billy glanced at the walls as he walked. White stucco walls sprayed with dried brown or black blood. The damage these things caused was amazing.
He stopped rather abruptly when he walked into the back of Chris's horse, which turned back to look at him, and he noticed that the group had stopped.
Wesker was standing at the head of them, his hand held up, his head tilted to the side slightly as he listened for the nearby monster.
"It's down that alley," he hissed out quietly pointing to a dark street littered with bodies "If you're quiet, you shouldn't alert it."
Chris through a disgruntled look to Link as Wesker 'took control' of the situation, to which Link replied with a stony glare that simply said 'Get on with it'.
Link slinked across the open space and up the side of the hill, Jill and Claire in tow. Siegfried, dressed in armour, took a different route, sneaking through a back alley to avoid making noise that would attract unwanted attention.
When the group had finally re-assembled on the slope of the hill, Maxi sprinted up ahead with Kilik, both eager to see Xianghua again. Siegfried heard a few surprised shouts from the dilapidated cathedral, which turned quickly into low murmurs of greeting, and he glanced behind him to the village, noting that a few of the monsters may have picked up on the noise. Currently, they had turned their heads towards the hill. Wesker had noticed too.
"Keep going; explain the situation before I get up there so this can be done as quickly as possible. I'll keep an eye on them."
"Just one thing," Yunsung asked, drawing up beside Wesker, having taken the rear, as Siegfried continued up the hill and disappeared into the cathedral.
"Mmm," Wesker turned his head to the youth "What?"
"If those mutants were shall I say, disinfected, will they turn back to humans?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"When the virus takes control of the body, it mutates every cell in the hosts' body. The anti virus destroys all those mutated cells. It can be used as a vaccine in the stages of early infection, but for someone whose completely infected it means death, after all that's all they're composed of, mutated cells."
"Oh…" Yunsung shrugged "Can't be helped." With that he turned and dashed up the hill.
Wesker stood on a rock embedded into the hill side, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head as he watched the creatures and listened to the conversation.
"So he can cure it?" Talim asked as she at sat cross legged in front of Link. He nodded down at her.
"Why is he helping though?" Mina asked "If he can create it, if he wanted to create it, why destroy it?"
"Long story, involving a bigger tyrannical freak than Wesker." Chris answered, peering down into the abyss of the pit where Soul Edge was. Siegfried had already climbed down there, which was why Kilik and Leon were slowly feeding more rope down, and Chris was shining his torch beam down there, as well as Claire and Jill. Billy had gone down too, as was a few metres down the pit, where he'd found a ledge, and was also shedding some light on what Siegfried was doing.
"Can we go over this after we've saved the world?" Yunsung asked, looking back at Mina. "I mean it'll make for a great story when I regale you and your father with it when we're back at the dojo." He grinned like a child and winked at Mina.
At the moment, he was standing on a half destroyed pillar, keeping an eye on Wesker, who was acting as though he was a statue, standing on a rock, looking down at the village.
He only moved when one of the creatures started to come a little to close to the hill, and then it was only him pulling out a gun. The creature had turned back though and was heading back into the centre of the village, probably to feast on some corpse.
"…Because you're doing a lot to help." Raphael scoffed, leaning back against another pillar as he sharpened his rapier, and watched Amy playing with the little boy that he'd told to hide when the village had been attacked by monsters.
Yunsung scowled and was about to shout a suitably scathing remark at Raphael, when Billy shouted from the pit.
"Hey, he's got it, pull him up!"
Leon and Kilik started pulling Siegfried back up, and Mitsurugi joined them. With the added weight of Soul Edge it was quite a weight to be pulling up. Maxi had moved to where Billy was coming up, and he grabbed the ex-lieutenants hand, helping him out of the hole.
"Thanks."
Maxi nodded at him
"What's it like down there?" Yunsung asked "Are there bodies?"
"No. But it's cold, wet and dark. I could think of a million places better to be."
"It does work as a discouraging tactic to thieves." Siegfried panted out as he threw Soul Edge out of the hole and clambered up himself.
"Yes. Because people, who have traveled half way across the world to get to this sword, are really going to put off by a dark pit." Wesker commented, having moved from his post.
Siegfried scowled at him "You'd be surprised how many people are scared of the dark."
"Enough, you two." Link scolded
"So you're Wesker," Ivy stated looking over at him "They didn't tell me you'd be good looking…German origin?" she purred, looking over at Siegfried, who merely glanced away and looked down at the huge sword that was lying on the floor.
The normally blood red flesh and membranes that covered the flat of the blade, had turned a sort of sickly green and black, and the eye itself in the centre of the sword, seemed to have filmed over, like a zombies eyes do. It was almost as if the sword itself was suffering from the effect of the virus.
Wesker walked over to the blade in front of him, and looked it over, his golden eyes currently uncovered.
"That's….weird." Xianghua commented, noticing his eyes.
Wesker rolled them slightly and knelt down next to the object, pulling out a small injecting gun from inside his suit's coat. He loaded a vial of the antivirus, which was a sort of gold colour that matched Wesker's eyes, instead of the silver of the actual virus. Pulling back on the plunger, which then lodged into the tube, he pulled off a glove and ran his hand over the surface of the flesh, his fingers sliding over slimy, pulpy green skin, and he frowned slightly, not liking the texture of it.
Not able to find a vein to inject it into he pushed the needle into the tear duct of the eye. It twitched slightly as he did so, and he felt the ball push against the thin metal of the needle. Placing a hand over the eye, he injected the anti-virus into the eye. As he drew the needle back out, a thin sliver of gold ran out the hollow, but the rest of it, he could just see spreading underneath the surface of the white-green flesh. Within a minute or so, the entire surface had a gold sheet underneath it.
Wesker stood up. "It would be better for me to able to stay here and keep an eye on if the anti gen works, but I know I don't have that opportunity." He turned and looked over the faces of the people gathered in the stone cathedral.
"How many of you have an understanding of the human body, at least?"
"Raphael's the only one really."
"Well that works out well for you, doesn't it Monsieur Sorrel, considering you want to stay here. I take it that this isn't the swords usual appearence, so I'll ask you to keep an eye on it. It should return to it's former state by tommorow, and any creatures should just die. Anyone who is infected but hasn't started mutating should be returned to normal. If this doesn't happen, then I may have to administer another dose."
"That's it?" Sophitia asked, and Wesker nodded "All these weeks of fear, and that thing is the answer."
"Sucks doesn't it?"
With that Wesker turned and walked out of the cathedral.
"We better go after him. You know how to contact us if anything goes wrong. Hopefully, we'll see you in a few days, when the virus is wiped out." Link stated and smiled slightly "See you then, c'mon you lot, let's go."
"Wait!" Mina called "What're you going to do now?"
"We're going to show Aaron, what happens when Wesker gets angry."
You know what to do to make me happy :)