Standard opening chapter. Promise you'll be back.
Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Calibur, its characters or anything else that may appear in this story.
Living Conditions
Ch. 1 – "Room 9"
Kilik stared at the doors to the mansion…or what he suspected had been called a mansion in a past life. He looked down at the piece of parchment with the directions written on it with disbelief. This couldn't be right. He must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. After checking the address and building description multiple times and not finding an error to his disappointment, he pushed open the double doors with care and entered. He walked across the hall and made his way into the main room.
"I'LL DESTROY YOU!" Zasalamel roared as he swung his scythe at his target.
Tira blocked the blow with her ring. "I'd like to see you try, you bald freak!" she hissed back. Kilik stood dumbfounded and looked around the dilapidated 'mansion' while trying to ignore the battle suddenly and inexplicably taking place a few meters before him. He quickly scanned his surroundings. He noticed a red haired boy with a young girl lounging on a couch observing the battle. They looked almost…bored. In another corner near the stairs, he noticed the Alexandra sisters whom he had met a while ago on his journey across the continent. Raphael Sorel too, was also here, leaning on the railing looking vain as usual. That slimy bastard, Kilik thought.
"ENOUGH!" Everything stopped. All was quiet and still as the people inside the main room looked around to locate the source of the voice that had seemingly come from nowhere. From above the stairs, Olcadan revealed himself and jumped over the railing, doing three full somersaults in the air before landing on his feet in an Olympic style pose. Tira burst into applause and cheered, her previous fierce skirmish with Zasalamel forgotten.
Olcadan cleared his throat and began to speak. "Well, the nine of you will take up all the rooms I have."
Kilik did a quick mental count of the people in the room. Not counting Olcadan, he only counted eight. Who was the ninth?
A hissing sound was heard as Lizardman came crashing into the room through the wall. It happened so suddenly that several people let out high pitched squeals, most notably Cassandra and Raphael. Kilik felt his jaw drop and couldn't help but stare at the half-lizard, half-man. Lizardman noticed all the screams and stares he was getting and promptly ran out the room sobbing, creating another hole in the wall.
"I'm a monster!" the group heard from another room.
Olcadan resumed speaking. "Anyways, let me explain the situation. As you all know, I recently came into possession of the sword known as Soul Edge," he said, making air quotes when he said the words 'Soul Edge.'
"This Soul Edge (again, air quotes) was apparently worth more than I had initially thought. I have recently obtained new information that has made it obvious that with Soul Edge comes great power. However, not having known that back then, I sold it. In fact, that's probably why I got so much money for it," he mused to himself.
"You sold it?" eight incredulous voices and one far-off unintelligible growl asked him.
"Yes," Olcadan said with no shame at how stupid his decision now seemed. "I knew that damn shopkeeper was hiding something from me!"
"So why the HELL did you make us come here then?" Cassandra spoke up.
"LANGUAGE!" thundered Olcadan, causing several people to wince at his volume. He cleared his throat before speaking again.
"Anyways, as you all know, the eight-" The group heard a loud wail from another room.
"Er…nine," Olcadan continued. "The nine of you were the first sensible looking people I could find and I decided to invite you all to my mansion to assist me in my quest of reclaiming Soul Edge. Or you can just sit around this house I guess and wait for me to get it."
"I don't think this owl man understand the seriousness of this situation," Kilik thought to himself. He took a look around at the other people in the room. He noticed looks of hunger in their faces. He prepared himself mentally. These people would stop at nothing to get that evil sword, he knew that much.
Olcadan interrupted Kilik's thoughts. "I have one room sanctioned off as the guest room, so as long as it's one person at a time, or people are willing to share rooms, I'm fine with any guests staying here. And I really do mean any guests. Please tell your friends to stop by," he said with a hopeful look on his face.
"Any questions?"
"Yeah, I got a question," Yunsung started without getting up. "Why of all the places you could have bought with the money you got for Soul Edge, did you choose to buy this dump?"
The other guests murmured their agreement.
"Uh…" Olcadan stuttered. "Quick! Everybody pick their rooms!" The topic at hand was forgotten as people rushed to find empty rooms.
Kilik suddenly found himself the only one left and without a room. He ventured to find the closest empty one.
The first two doors he came across already had chains and locks over the handle preventing entry. "Somebody must have wanted these rooms really bad," Kilik said to himself.
He opened the door to Room 3 and found himself staring at Raphael in a revealing red dress, admiring himself in the mirror. Kilik blinked. And blinked once more, trying to process in his mind what he was seeing. Raphael didn't let him. Upon noticing Kilik, he grabbed his rapier and charged with the blade directed toward his heart. "GET OUT CHINA MAN!" he yelled.
"I'm not Chinese," Kilik muttered while rushing out of the room, narrowly avoiding the blow. Trying to forget what just happened, he peaked inside Room 4 where the door was already open. Tira was inside, laughing and clapping incessantly at something written on the wall. He moved on.
The door to Room 5 was shut. As was the door to Room 6, except that the door to Room 6 was sliced in half, granting Kilik a view inside anyways. Everything inside was cut in half, from the bed to the drawer. These living conditions are getting a little ridiculous, he thought. He looked back at Room 5 and noticed a hand-made sign over it saying "KEEP OUT" with a heart accompanying the words.
Kilik moved on, growing weary of both the search for an empty room and the tendencies of his new housemates. As he walked past Room 7, he heard some moaning. Sounds like trouble, he thought. He shoved open the door, armed with his rod to find Sophitia naked on top of her bed. Their eyes met and Sophitia smiled at him. "Hello, do you want to come in?" Kilik quickly shut the door, face red from embarrassment and shock. The moaning inside resumed and Kilik tried his best to ignore it and continued on.
He moved past Room 8 only to hear sobbing from the inside. He rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth in frustration. This was trying his patience. "I guess that leaves me with Room 9," he said out loud.
Not too far from the door to Room 8, he finally noticed "Room 9."
"This has got to be some kind of joke…" he said to nobody in particular. "Room 9" was not even a room. He could clearly see that it was about closet size and adjacently linked to Room 8. Somebody had scribbled "Room 9" on a piece of parchment and hastily attached it to the door. Kilik dejectedly sighed and entered his closet. He immediately noticed that Lizardman's crying was clearly audible no matter where he went inside his 'room.' The small bed by itself took up more than 3/4ths of all the space. He cursed his luck wondered for the fifth time that evening if he really was the only normal one in the house.
He placed his trusty rod Kali-Yuga down and laid down on the mattress. Uncomfortably looking up at the ceiling and listening to Lizardman cry, he let out another sigh. "Hopefully, this will all be over soon," he said.
His statement was met by Lizardman crying even louder, several streams of profanity from the other guests, and a crash in the distance. It was going to be an interesting stay.
Meanwhile…
Olcadan stroked his chin and began talking to himself. "These fools have no idea that this is all actually a part of my secret plot to end my loneliness and finally gain some friends." He let out an evil laugh before abruptly falling asleep.
A/N: Olcadan just wants friends!