Chapter Twelve
Kakariko Crisis

"Bulgfagesh." A stalfos reported to the Stal-King. The king rolled his red eyes and began gazing into the obsidian sphere. The Kakariko graveyard appeared and he could see that the remaining survivors were in celebration. Zelda had propped Link against a gravestone and was nursing him back to health with a red potion. The king smirked.

"Kala na salfeth ne aso na eck! Lofa soliman hasefel nor nathe mor eckos!" The stalfos watched their king in fascination, as the ancient language seemed to take form and surround the king as a blood red fog. "Holfas solath thesa nopath aka solan feros eck na galthad! Holomendrakion!"

With the last word, the red mist swirled into a funnel and disappeared into the sphere.

Zelda watched the celebrating townsfolk with a smile. Link, his wounds healed, got up off the ground and they gave each other a long kiss.

"Being carefree today princess?" Impa said in a serious tone, however, a twinkle in her eyes betrayed the optimism behind the mask.

"Yeah, why not?" Zelda replied and gave Link another kiss. Impa shook her head amused and looked up at the sky—and froze. A red fog came raining down on the celebrating townsfolk. Cries of joy soon turned to cries of pain as the red raindrops burned whatever they came into contact with.

"Aaaahhhh!" A townsman screamed as a single drop burned straight through his arm. Reacting quickly, Link used his shield as a metal umbrella and shielded Zelda from the lethal drops. Saria, still slightly dazed, screamed as a drop hit her hand. Link pulled out his hookshot and pulled the green haired girl to the safety of the "umbrella."

"Kolsa falkath!" The Stal-king's voice rang out and the deadly shower became a downpour. Impa, under a shield herself, tried to rescue as many of her neighbors as she could but was forced to watch the unlucky ones literally disintegrate painfully under the lethal rainstorm.

"My cuccos!" Anju the Cucco girl screamed as the chickens began to melt. Impa managed to hold her under the large shield, as she attempted to make the suicide run to help her doomed chickens.

"No! What are you crazy?" Impa yelled at her.

The Shiekah warrior had been able to rescue five of the townsfolk. The rest perished horribly under the torrent. The Stal-king watched the gruesome scene with an uncontainable glee.

"Haha! That will teach them to celebrate early! The stalfos don't just give up!" The king crowed.

"Sire, what about the survivors?" One of the skeleton observers asked cautiously.

"Heh heh, watch, here comes my favorite part!"

Zelda held Link tighter as she saw the disintegrated corpses move. The new stalfos, about 15 of them, advanced on the survivors. Somehow, each of the corpses managed to get a blood red sword of their own.

"Oh crap… What's with all the dead coming alive nowadays?" Link complained. Zelda did a mental calculation in her head. She, Link, Saria, and Impa were the only ones who could fight, and from the looks of Saria's hand, she was out of the fight. The red rain was still pouring down so none of them could leave the safety of the shields.

"Link, I'll use my bow and take out as many as I can, keep me covered." Link nodded and held the shield steady. Zelda took aim with her bow and charged it up with light. Fffttt! A stalfos was incinerated.

"What about that de-stalfication spell?"

"Won't work, these people literally had their flesh burned off of them." She fired another arrow into the wall of advancing stalfos. "Ok, lets start backing up…" The two survivor groups slowly retreated into the tunnel back to the town, forcing the stalfos into a bottleneck. Fffttt! Fffttt! Two more stalfos disintegrated. Fffttt!

"Uh-oh…" Link's eyes widened as he saw the red cloud beginning to sink.

"Uh-oh what?" Fffttt! Zelda looked upward. "Oh…"

"RUN!" Out from underneath the cloud, the survivors broke into a run. The Stalfos gave pursuit, hampered only by Link and Zelda both firing light arrows into their midst. The red cloud blew forward with a gust of wind.

"Whoa!" Link pulled Zelda to the ground and raised his shield in defense. Zelda buried her face in his chest as the lethal wind howled past.

Impa picked Saria up and tossed her up to the ledge in front of her house. After jumping up herself, she turned to help the others up just in time to see them disintegrate within the red wind. Turning away from the gruesome sight, she quickly picked up Saria and carried her into the safety of the house. She quickly looked over at a hole in the corner of the room and was relieved that she had gotten that repaired a long time ago.

"Well well…" Impa's head snapped up toward the upper level of her home, where the Stal-King was standing. "I sure hope Link and Zelda make it through this storm… I need them alive to get their Triforce pieces!" He grinned. Saria nearly gagged at the sight of the rotten sinews pulling the almost transparent dead muscle across his skull. "You two on the other hand…" He raised his fist, the Triforce mark glowing bright, and unleashed a beam of raw energy.

Link looked over his shield after the wind had died down. The red mist had dissipated and the sun shone brightly on the now dead town. Slowly getting up, Link and Zelda pulled out of their embrace and looked around.

"Oh man…" Link said, after seeing some more stalfos get up. With a gasp, Zelda threw her arms around him. Link held her close; ready to defend her to the last. There were now ten stalfos total, slowly advancing on the terrified couple.

"What are we going to do?" Zelda whimpered as she hugged Link tighter. Link didn't respond, he just glared at his foes.

"Halt!" A snarling voice yelled out above them. An elite stalfos jumped off the rooftop and landed within three feet of the couple. After the sinister skeleton straightened himself up, he glared at Link. "If you wish to live, you will come with us to the Stalfos Tower!"

"And if we don't? Your master wants us alive!" Link shot back. The elite glared at him, pieces of dead skin tightening into a sneer.

"Of course. What I mean is, my master will let you live through the extraction process if you come voluntarily. If not, we will force you to the tower and there you will die!"

"You'll have to kill us first!" The hero shouted at him in defiance.

"No we won't." The elite snapped his fingers and an archer on the roof shot a blunt arrow at Link's head, rendering him unconscious. "You'll come along peacefully won't you princess?"

"Never." Zelda said defiantly. With a disgusted sigh the elite snapped his fingers again. This time the archer didn't respond. He was staring at the gate to Death Mountain. Balls of rock came rolling into the village, quickly approaching the stalfos.

"Gorons!"

Saria screamed as energy bolt after energy bolt hit. Impa took the pain a bit better as she kept chanting a counter spell. Several impacts against the house distracted the King for a second and several of his own bolts hit him.

"Argh!" He froze the two sages and blasted an immense hole in the wall to see what was going on. Gorons were slamming stalfos into the wall, smashing them to bits. The Elite jumped and dodged the rolling creatures but was ultimately annihilated by a rolling ball with large spikes. The Spiked Goron leaped up into the house and uncurled himself. Darunia smashed a foolish stalfos that jumped up with him and glared at the Stalfos King.

"Release them!"

"You wish!" The stal-king snarled back before he ran over to Saria's frozen form and picked her up by the neck. "One more step and I'll crush her neck! Without her all of you are worthless!" Darunia glowered at the skeleton but stayed still.

"You coward. A Goron would never take a hostage!"

"I suppose you're right, only a coward would hide behind a hostage!" The Stal-King replied in a musing tone. At the moment, Saria woke up and found the stalfos's hand around her throat.

"Aah!" The Stal-king jerked his hand violently, snapping the girl's neck.

"There, hostage-less! Happy? Of course, now I'm invincible!" The stalfos blasted the large goron with a Power blast. Darunia braced and took the shattering blow. Enraged, the Goron rolled up and smashed into the Stal-King before he could react. Bones flew everywhere. Free of the freezing spell, Impa ran to Saria's side and carefully felt her neck. It was broken. Moving quickly, she pulled out a bottled fairy. Whap! A bone hand flew out of nowhere and knocked the bottle out of Impa's hand. The bottle shattered and the fairy flew free. It hovered for a second and flew into the wall, never to be seen again. The bones reassembled themselves and the Stal-King was whole.

"Your pathetic friend isn't coming back to life this time!" The sound of a fairy healing someone reached the king's ears. "What the…" He turned to find Zelda holding an open bottle over Saria's body. A second later, the Kokiri stood up, mad as hell.

"Dalen Falselat!" She practically screeched at him.

"Argh!" A green energy bolt hit the King. Vines sprang out of the stalfos's ribcage and tied him up until he looked like a skeleton garden. Saria walked up to the immobile stal-king with a sneer on her face.

"You think I'm the weakest sage? You thought wrong!" She picked up a rock from the destroyed wall and smashed his face so hard his jaw went flying. He glared at her with blood red eyes. The jaw flew back and reattached itself.

"When I get the full Triforce, I'll enjoy ramming those words down your throat!"

"You'll never get the full Triforce!" Zelda screamed at him.

"Indeed princess… We'll see about that!" With a yell, the Triforce of Power incinerated the vines and the Stal-King disappeared to the safety of his tower.