Percy couldn't help but just stare at the enormous skeletal beast. It was easily one of the largest creatures he had ever seen, and the fact that it could somehow breathe fiery gas only made the whole thing that much more intimidating. He and the other counselors were forced to leap away as the monster's rancid breath crashed into the Big House, setting the whole place on fire.
"Okay, I'll bite!" Percy shouted frantically as he uncapped Riptide. "What the hell is that thing!?"
"I have no idea!" Chiron exclaimed in response. "I've seen living skeletons and giants before, but never anything like that behemoth!"
Percy cursed in Ancient Greek. If Chiron didn't know what they were dealing with, then that thing could only have been from that "other world" that the centaur had told them about. Perfect. His mind began racing, trying to find some way to at least slow the beast down so that the others could strike harder, but he was nowhere near any viable water sources.
That's about when he saw that guy from before, the dude who had blacked out in the middle of camp, shirtless and running into the battlefield, completely unarmed. Was that guy insane? "Hey!" Percy called to him, but he clearly didn't hear him over the sound of one of the cabins being turned into a bonfire. It looked like it might've been the Artemis cabin. Thalia and the other Hunters of Artemis weren't going to be too happy about that.
Shaking his head, and repeatedly telling himself that this was likely the dumbest thing he was going to do all day, he sprinted after the pointy-eared guy. The dude had stopped when he was about a hundred feet from the thing that had called itself "Stallord," looking as though he had just realized that he most likely didn't have any sort of plan whatsoever. When Percy got to him, he grabbed the guy by his arm and spun him around to face him.
"Are you out of your gods-damned mind!?" Percy asked loudly, mostly so that he could be heard over the sounds of other demigods trying to fight the skeleton. "You're not even wearing a shirt! What the hell are you doing out here!?"
"I…" Elf-boy trailed off, with no obvious clue what his answer should've been. "I… I don't know. I just know that I need to be here. I can help. I don't know how, but I can."
"Dude, you're half naked and unarmed," Percy reasoned. "You have to go and get somewhere safe. We can handle this." The guy remained silent as Percy turned to face the giant. Just as the son of Poseidon was about to charge in to aid his fellow half-bloods, however, a fist crashed into the back of his head, and Riptide was yanked out of his loosened grip. When he stopped stumbling, he saw the elf guy rushing towards the skeleton. "Dammit!" He rushed after the guy, who stopped very briefly to pick up a shield, which he quickly held ready on his right arm, with Percy's Celestial Bronze sword in his left hand.
The boy stopped when he was right in front of the skeleton, and shouted out, "Hey! Down here!"
Stallord stopped spitting out his toxic fumes and glared down at the boy with those burning eyes of his. Percy had the feeling that the giant probably would've grinned if he had a properly designed face. "There you are, boy," the Fossil King bellowed out. "I have been looking for you. My master seeks your destruction, along with the power that you hold."
"What power?" the elf kid replied. "Who is your master? What do you know about me?"
"Do not be coy with me, Link," the monster roared, apparently not very happy with the elf's response. "You bear the blood of the Ancient Heroes of Hyrule! You wield the blade that has trapped my lord so many times over! But now, he has returned once again, and he will not be defeated this time! All power shall go to the Great King!" With that, the giant moved to spew out flames once again. Just before he could, however, a single arrow flew right into his left eye socket, making him twitch as if caught off guard. He turned and glared at the person who had shot at him.
Alice Monroe stared back at the beast, her bow having fallen out of her hand. That probably wasn't the best idea ever. She had thought that maybe its eyes were weak points or something. Clearly, she was mistaken. "Um… sorry?"
Stallord wailed out in fury more than annoyance, and began to drag himself across the ground towards the daughter of Apollo, who didn't move at all. Her eyes were glued to Stallord's. She felt something raging throughout her entire body, locking her legs in position. She couldn't move. She learned quickly what was holding her in place: fear. Stallord's burning, hate-filled eyes had flooded her mind with nothing less than worst case scenarios. She saw herself being crushed beneath massive bony fists, incinerated by searing hot smog, devoured by decaying, rotted teeth. She was terrified. She didn't truly know why. She just was.
As Stallord was about to throw down his enormous hand to flatten the girl, however, he stopped, unleashing an ear-piercing screech that was clearly an indicator of pain. The pointy-eared stranger whom Stallord had called Link had rammed Riptide straight into a gap between two of the Fossil King's vertebrae. He quickly yanked the sword out and sprinted as fast as he could to Alice just as Stallord released a rage-fueled breath of flame. Link raised up his shield to block the inferno, knocking Alice onto the ground so that she'd be safer.
"Are you all right?" Link asked the demigoddess as she just laid there staring at him in shock. He wasn't looking directly at her, but she could tell just by the look on the left half of his face that he was genuinely concerned, but at the same time full prepared to kill something. "Are you all right!?" he asked again, louder this time. She nodded quickly in reply, and that was apparently enough for him. Stallord stopped spitting flames, but was now rearing back to do it again. "Good. I'm going to do something stupid now." Before Alice could ask, the elf boy ran off towards the skeleton.
Stallord immediately moved to flatten the boy under his bony palm, but Link moved to a point between his fingers and ran onto the skeletal arm, which was now rising up off the ground and into the air. The half-bloods at the scene watched as the boy was raised higher and higher into the air… then leaped off at the arm's peak. He tossed away his shield and took hold of one of Stallord's horns as the monster swung itself around, trying to toss the boy away.
Link held on and pulled himself up onto the monster's fleshless scalp. There, he could see a small point in between the two centermost horns. It was a glowing red gem. He could practically feel power radiating off of it. Without hesitation, he grabbed one horn to steady himself, and swung Riptide as hard as he could straight into the gem, cracking it. Stallord released another shriek of agony, and more as Link continued striking the stone embedded into the skull. Eventually, the gem shattered completely, and Stallord's cries stopped.
The behemoth collapsed, falling backward into the ground… his skull crashing right into the still-burning Big House. The demigods all gathered around the blaze, staring wide-eyed at the fallen giant as its bones slowly began to darken.
"Is that elf dude dead?" one camper asked as Percy managed to push his way to the front of the crowd, where he found Annabeth and the other camp counselors, along with Chiron and the somehow-dumbfounded Mr. D. Even Alice had managed to get to the front.
"Did that actually happen just now?" the sea god's son asked, very few words in his mind be qualified to describe the events of not even ten seconds ago.
"That boy likely just gave his life for complete strangers," Chiron replied. He didn't seem one hundred percent convinced about that though. "Percy, check your pocket. Is Riptide there now?" The demigod did as asked, and shook his head when he found nothing in any of his pockets. "Then that must mean that…"
Suddenly, a blade pierced through what remained of the front wall of the Big House, pulled back in, then hacked the wall again. Soon enough, elf-boy broke out of the burning building, walking out almost nonchalantly, as if he was used to crashing into buildings with giant monsters' heads.
He gave a small smirk and pointed back at the Big House with his thumb. "I think somebody needs a new house," he said with obvious dry humor in his tone. Nobody laughed. He eyed the crowd ahead of him, then looked down at himself. "What? Are you all quiet because I'm shirtless right now? Because I think the burning building behind me is more important at the moment."
Percy raised a hand, pointing at something behind the pointy-eared kid, who turned around in response. His eyes widened as he saw a smoky form rising out of where Stallord's skull should've been. The entire body had vanished into a cloud of smoke. It wasn't normal smoke either. It was forming a vaguely human body, which touched down onto the ground silently.
"You foolish Hylian," the smoke creature said in Stallord's voice, only much raspier, far colder. "You have only felled one of my master's generals. There are others, plus the Great King himself. They will end your life, Link of Hyrule. And my lord will claim the power that you hold. The power that is rightfully his."
"What are you talking about?" the boy apparently named Link asked. He obviously had no clue what was going on. "What power? What 'Great King?' What do you want from me?"
"Death awaits you," the entity replied as its form began to dissipate. "Death awaits all those who seek to oppose my lord. You will all either die with swords in hand, or kneel with shackles on your wrists. The Great King will rule all." At that, the form finally faded completely.
Link stood there, completely baffled by what he had just heard. His mind raced. What power was Stallord talking about? Who the hell is the "Great King?" Why was his mind such a jumbled mess right now? His musings were interrupted by the sound of clopping hooves and someone clearing their throat. He turned to see a man riding… himself. He was normal from the waist up, but from the waist down… "A horse-man…" he muttered quietly. "I'll be damned. You're a horse-man."
"First of all, the term is 'centaur'," the horse-man replied. "And my name is Chiron. Now that you're awake, do you think you can tell us, exactly, who you are, why you're here, and why that monster was after you?"
The boy shook his head. "I… don't really know, honestly. That thing called me Link, but I'm not totally sure if that's my name. If it is, then there you go, but I have no idea how or why I came here. The last thing I remember before blacking out in this… camp, I guess, was running out of those… woods… over…" The guy suddenly collapsed again, his wounds reopened and bleeding out. Alice Monroe was the first person after Chiron to reach him.
"We need to get him back to the clinic, fast!" she shouted as she tried desperately to stop the blood from spilling out of the tears in the boy's skin.
As the rest of the Apollo cabin hurried to get "Link" back to get medical treatment, Chiron was approached by Percy, who picked up Riptide off the ground and capped it again, stowing the pen back into his pocket. "Chiron, I think you know more than you've been letting on," Percy said.
Chiron sighed in exasperation. "I'm not totally certain about that, Perseus," the centaur responded. "I'll have to consult Mr. D and the other Olympians about this. They know more about this other world – this so-called 'Hyrule' – than I do." That said, he trotted off, leaving Percy standing with a suspicious look that he hadn't worn for years.
-o-
Ganondorf sat upon his new throne, tapping his foot impatiently. Stallord should have returned by now, but the oversized bag of bones was nowhere to be seen. He stopped tapping his foot when the doors to the throne room opened, and a man twice his size wearing golden armor walked, his footsteps like thunder as he approached. The giant man knelt down with a crashing sound and said, "Milord, it would appear that Stallord… has been defeated."
The Evil King sneered angrily at the news, but he didn't stay angry for long. "I suppose I should not be surprised," he said with a tone that not disappointment, nor pleasure. "The boy's ancestors have proven more than troublesome in the past." He was silent for several moments. "Onox, inform… him to keep tabs on Link for now. He can watch the boy more accurately than anyone."
Onox cringed slightly. "Him, milord?" he inquired. "Are you certain? He is most… unpredictable. He may just kill the boy and claim the Ancient Power for himself."
"It is of no concern. Even if that does come to pass, I will end that one's life myself and take what is mine. Now go." Onox nodded and rose to leave the room. Ganondorf grinned maliciously, dark intent flashing through his golden eyes. All in due time…