Welcome to my Soul Calibur fic. This story is a bit of a meld of II and III. It explains some of the happenings in II, but borrows heavily from III as well. For example, Tira will feature in fairly prominently. I tried to pull both plotlines together and make sense of them.
This story will follow Talim as she tries to rid the world of the Evil Seed, Tira as she struggles to find her place in life, and Nightmare as he attempts to drown all creation in darkness.
Chapter 2 should be along next week, hopefully. R&R please. Oh, and here comes the disclaimer: I don't own Soul Calibur, any of the characters, Namco, any likeness, trademarks, copy writes, or really big swords with eyeballs in them. So don't sue me. Like it would do any good anyways. I am a poor white boy, and you can't get blood from a turnip, as they say.
Swords And Souls
The young priestess stood on the hillside, taking in the sight of the gently swaying green grass, and feeling the warm sun caress her skin. The wind blew gently against her face, giving her strength. Talim smiled, and read the wind with great enthusiasm.
With no warning, a pillar of light appeared far to the west. The light was bright and harsh, and something about it was menacing. An evil aura engulfed the wind, screaming out from the light like a frenzied wraith. The aura washed over Talim, stealing away her breath. The priestess collapsed to the ground, overwhelmed by what she was feeling.
Tears welled in Talim's eyes, and she felt incomparable pain wrack her body.
"What is this?" Talim whispered before passing out.
It took many months for the priestess to recover from her exposure to the evil aura. With time, and the gentle healing touch of the wind, Talim returned to her full strength. She resumed her training as the last wind priestess, but never forgot the evil aura she had felt that fateful day.
One day a traveling merchant arrived, hocking his wares to the small Asian village. He offered the normal array of merchandise, but one item caught Talim's attention. The man claimed it was a vitality charm, but Talim knew better. The fragment radiated the same evil aura that she had felt reading the wind that day.
"Where did you get this?" Talim queried.
"That my dear, is a one of the kind Egyptian vitality charm! It was blessed by the High priest of Ra himself! And it can be yours for a mere penance!"
Talim knew better, but decided not to argue with the man. She paid the man's steep price and wandered off with her new prize to study it.
The fragment was truly evil, and was something not of this earth. She was not sure where it came from, but it obviously was not made by human hands. As she turned the piece over in her hand, the wind blew strong against her face. She stopped and took note of the wind. The aura once again blew on the wind, but not as hard as the first day. Talim knew the wind was speaking to her. She knew that she had to find the rest of the fragments and destroy them.
It took a great deal of arguing and convincing for Talim to convince the elders of her tribe to allow her to go, but eventually they relented. Talim was not afraid, for she knew she would always be safe as long as she had the wind with her. She gathered up some supplies and started down the long road that would forever change her destiny.
She traveled into the west, following the evil aura on the wind. With every step she took, the evil became stronger, until she came across a group of bandits, with one of them wearing a metal shard around his neck similar to the one that now rested in her pocket.
"Hey boss, look what we got here!" one of the bandits said, smiling.
"Well hello little girl" the boss said, leering.
"Please, I don't want any trouble, allow me to pass" Talim pleaded.
"Oh, surely" the boss said mockingly "I wouldn't dare think of stopping you. That is, if you leave your money here."
Talim had no intention of complying, and instead drew out her trusted tonfas Syi Sarika and Loka Luha. She held them up at the ready.
"Hey boss! She's gonna fight us!" one of the bandits said, laughing.
"Well I guess we'll just have to teach her a lesson then" the boss replied.
"We'll take her money and her innocence too!" the other bandit said, leering at Talim.
"Prepare yourself!" Talim responded.
The three bandits closed in around Talim, moving to trap her between them. Talim was not fazed in the slightest and moved to avoid their trap. She quickly swung her tonfa up, connecting with the boss' chin, knocking him back. The strike elicited the response she expected, and the other two jumped at her. She deftly side stepped away, and through the hole left by the reeling boss.
As the pair of bandits crashed into each other, Talim swung her tonfas in a large arcing circle across her body and slammed them into the bandit closest to her. The bladed edges of the tonfas sliced deep slashes into the man's skin. His dirty brown clothes shredded and became instantly stained with blood. The man crumbled to his knees, but quickly regained his composure and jumped away from the priestess.
The boss had recovered his senses, and moved towards Talim's back, intending to catch her in a sneak attack. He was sadly mistaken, however, for Talim was fully aware of his position. She allowed him to move into the perfect range, and then threw herself forward. She landed on her hands, then drew her knees to her stomach, and immediately kicked outwards as hard as she could. Her feet caught the boss right on the chin, and launched the man high into the air. He fell with a thud, and did not move.
The second bandit had been nearly knocked over by his retreating comrade. He scrambled out of the way and attacked Talim. His sword swooshed through the air, aimed for Talim's head. As Talim completed the somersault from kicking the boss, she rose quickly and brought her tonfas up in a defensive position. She pushed hard against the bandit's sword, causing a shower of sparks to erupt from the colliding weapons.
The guard left the bandit stunned and disoriented. Talim took advantage of the opportunity, and grabbed the man's leg. She pulled him forward by his leg, forcing him to hop on one foot. She then quickly grabbed the man's shoulders and forced him down in front of her. She swung both her tonfas hard, striking each side of the man's face with the blunt end of both weapons. The strike removed several of the man's teeth, and blood spurted out of his mouth. Talim then spun around, using her momentum to propel one tonfa as hard as she could. The bladed side of the weapon slammed into the man's face, slicing through his skin and biting at bone. With the force of the impact, the man flew around and away from the priestess, landing in a bleeding heap on the ground.
"You're full of nothing!" Talim said to the boss bandit before taking his metal shard and walking away, leaving the small band to tend to their wounds. She had not seriously injured any of them. It was not her way to harm another, except only enough needed for self defense. She did not wish to fight these men, but she had no choice. She would not let anyone stop her from her quest to find and destroy the evil which she felt in the air.
She had not gone far from the fray when she heard a gentle rustling in a tree beside the road. It was not the sound of the wind, that much Talim was sure.
"Do you know what those fragments are?" a mysterious voice called out from high in the tree.
"Show yourself!" Talim answered, bracing for another battle.
With the deftness of a cat, a young man with flaming hair dropped down from the tree, landing softly and quietly in front of Talim. The man was wearing a white and orange uniform. Talim did not recognize the symbols on his clothes, but could discern he was a member of some military unit. The man's sword was a pure white, but somehow the surface seemed to shift and dance in the light, almost like it was alive.
"Are you friend or foe?" Talim asked, raising her tonfas instinctually.
"Friend, if that's what you want. My name is Yunsung." The warrior offered.
"I do not wish any enemies at all. My name is Talim." The priestess said, holding her hand out in greeting.
Yunsung and Talim acquainted themselves as they walked down the road, moving towards a small village. Talim felt at ease around Yunsung, and the wind from the young warrior spoke of his character. Whoever he was, he was trustable.
"Those metal shards are part of Soul Edge, the sword of salvation." Yunsung explained.
"How can they be part of the sword of salvation? The shards are deeply evil." Talim questioned.
"That is just the taint of those who have held the sword. Power corrupts men's souls. The sword itself is neither good nor evil." Yunsung explained.
Talim did not think this was the whole truth, but she would not call Yunsung a liar either. She sensed no deception in him, and decided that he might be right. She could not shake her misgivings, however.
Yunsung sought Soul Edge to help protect his country from invasion. Talim sought it to find the evil she felt and destroy it. The priestess decided she would travel with the warrior for now, hoping the two of them could track down the sword quicker than either could alone.
The pair came across a village and decided to rest there, and seek out any information about Soul Edge they could find. The true nature of the sword would soon become apparent to Talim as she investigated the rumors circling the region.
