Title:Soul Calibur: Slayer
Author:Joshua
Disclaimer:Namco owns the Soul Calibur series, and all related characters of course, meanwhile Joss Whedon and Mutant/Enemy Productions created the characters Xander, Buffy, and Faith, and other related such characters. A lot of the relationships between all characters is different from what might be "said" to happen in the games, mostly due that these characters are the "descendants" of those characters, living in modern times, yet still weapons masters of the same martial art forms and weapons and all, of course, are looking for Soul Edge and/or Soul Calibur.
Summary:Soul Edge, after centuries of imprisonment, has finally escaped its Seal under Soul Calibur, coinciding with the activation of the Slayer Line. Reading the signs, the Watcher's send a team out to recover both blades, meanwhile other warriors across the globe begin their own search for the mystic weapons.
Author's Notes:Post Angel Season 5, the Scooby Gang, with notable exceptions of Giles, Dawn and Willow, took vacations, with the others reforging the New Watcher's Council, going to school in Cleveland, and mastering Magick, which was more fun except in Dawn's case. Buffy, after living it up in Italy for a year, finally got over herself and returned to her happy normal self and was no longer depressed, or attracted to 'evil guys', just the bad boys. Faith received counseling and dated Wood for all of a month before moving on and returning, in part, to her previous lifestyle of action, sex, and one-night stands, and finally made peace with Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies, just because. Xander, took a looong vacation away from demons, and then under the advice of Giles and Willow, began studying martial arts, partly to teach them to Slayers, partly to use for himself. After his sojourn to Africa and setting up the Slayer Camp there, he took another vacation before returning to England just in time for this latest assignment. He hasn't seen Buffy, Faith, or Willow in more than a year, yet has maintained correspondence. Dawn got over her Xander-crush, has dated in High School, is now attending Oxford in England, is NOT a part of the story, WILL NOT be a part of the story, and because she was made out of Buffy's Blood, became a Slayer after she turned 18 and Willow took the last of the Key out of her. Willow is still working on learning more about magic, but is argued to be the most powerful magic-user in North America as well as across all of Europe. She's also the one that detected Soul Edge's Awakening.
Story:
Battle 3:Buffy vs. Seong Mi-na
Xander got Japan.
Faith got India.
Buffy?
Buffy got Italy.
To be more specific, Buffy got Rome.
Again.
It was more embarrassing really, the whole reason why American-Valley-Girl Buffy Summers was bored and not exactly enthusiastic about being back in the City of History, Fashion, and European Hot Spot. Summed up in one succinct title of a now long dead demon.
The Immortal.
Which was really kind of a misnomer as first of all, Buffy and her back-up force of twenty other Slayers plus Faith, Willow, Giles, Xander and "Xander's Girls" finally managed to introduce death of the permanent kind to the creature called the Immortal. And secondly, the Immortal was a teen from the pre-Roman Empire days that had botched some evil demon's "Ascension" ceremony and wound up with the invulnerable immortality, but without actually turning into a full demon. So, the mages just "helped" along and completed the Immortal's Ascension and then killed his "ultimate demon form".
It was the fact that Buffy dated him for the months leading up to the slayage that made the entire mission so embarrassing for the oldest Slayer alive. Originally, she'd only gotten that close so she could spy on him and figure out what demon he was supposed to be, (or actually supposed to be turning into), so they could figure out how to finally kill him.
The others were still making fun of her over the whole fiasco. It's also why she was reluctant to return to Rome so soon after said fiasco.
But, Willow had detected a fragment of Soul Edge in the city, and that was enough reason for her to be there. It wasn't until she'd tried switching with Faith and Xander and the brainiacs reminded her that she was, of those given the mission to track down Soul Edge, the only one with enough in-depth experience of the area, that she finally agreed with it.
She was going to get even with Giles and Willow for this.
. . . She didn't know how yet, but she would! And then they would rue the day!
Meanwhile, Buffy had a tiny little shard of demonic-infested metal to find in a major metropolitan city of multiple millions of people made of stone, steel, and overly helpful but not-too-bright people, given that over half of them were all tourists. Simple, right?
Despite common perceptions amongst those that knew her best, Buffy was not exactly stupid, nor was she at all unintelligent. Therefore, in her separate briefing with Willow, just before she'd left (First Class, Yay!) for her mission, she'd learned that Soul Edge's energy resonated primarily amongst warriors and fighters. Although a certain class or a powerful enough magician or practitioner would detect those same energies, the shards of Soul Edge themselves would seek out to be bonded with powerful warriors and enhance the darker aspects of said warriors.
Which, of course, meant that Buffy was going to exactly one place, and it was first on her list.
The Gladiator Pit.
Basically think Ancient Roman Colosseum meets Modern Street Fight meets Hell's Angels Bar venue.
It was the kind of place a Slayer went to, to have fun, get information, and fight. Mostly to fight and have fun while fighting. If Faith knew that Buffy was going here, she'd be so jealous.
The Pit was primarily for human fighters only, although the occasional demon or vampire had managed to slip into the ranks, any deaths that occurred while not unprecedented, were strictly taboo and more often than not a fighter got kicked out or killed himself if the death was anything but accidental. Therefore, Buffy knew that if she happened to come across any, shall we say "exceptional" fighters there, meaning they could hold their own against her, she had a damn good clue as to where to start finding those shards of Soul Edge.
After all, when it came to physical power and fighting strength, the Slayer was the top of the food chain. Anything tougher, and you're talking cheating on a major level, either a high-level demon or high-level magics, or worse, inhuman experimentation.
As she made her way into the Pit itself, the screams of the crowd became overwhelming. Still, thanks to Slayer-enhanced senses, she could make out the sounds of what was happening in the arena itself just fine. Moving through the crowd, shoving those that wouldn't move with more than a bit of Slayer strength, she quickly came to a spot where she could see what was happening as well.
A young woman, no older than 24, no younger than 15 or 16, dressed up in a belly shirt and high-cut skirt that had slits on both sides showing enough leg that it might as well just be called an elaborate loincloth. She had brown hair done up in a pony tail and was using a sort of shortened glaive-like weapon called a Zanbatō. And she was fighting what looked to be a cross between an crocodile and a Polgara demon that had some kind of magical energy weapon that could reform itself into whatever the demon wanted it to be.
As Buffy looked on, the young girl danced in around the demon's guard, ducking and rolling to the side when it attacked, and attacking with horizontal and vertical slashes from her zanbatō to the demon's backside. The attacks did not seem to be all that effective, but Buffy noticed that as the fight continued and wore on, the demon's attacks came half a beat slower and it was just a bit unbalanced afterwards. Nothing that anyone could clearly identify, unless they knew what to look for.
Hey, being the Slayer, if anything, gives you experience in finding the weaknesses of demons when they pop up. As well as how to exploit them.
But she wasn't here to fight the demon.
She was here for the girl.
Buffy watched as the girl solidly owned the demon. Swinging her pig-sticker around, jumping, twisting, the green scaly brute just couldn't keep up with her, and when he succeeded in blocking, all she did was jump up and use centrifugal force to add to the power of her attacks, added with the fact that she had a foot-long curved blade attached to the end of her weapon, it did some serious damage in a short amount of time, and even a really tough demon with unknown powers and some kind of energy melee weapon is KO before too long.
"WINNER!" the Judge/Announcer/Referee shouted, "SEONG MI-NA!"
Smirking to herself, Buffy walked over to the sign-up desk and put it down as a personal challenge.
Two hours later, she found herself in the Pit, on the other side of the ring from the Korean femme fighter Seong Mi-Na. Buffy herself was in a standard, 'planning-on-a-REALLY-tough-fight' outfit for a Slayer. Translate as, skin hugging tank top with small tight straps, tight black lycra pants, heavy combat boots, her favorite leather jacket, and the Slayer Scythe, with her shoulder length blond hair up in a secure ponytail.
Her opponent, Seong Mi-Na, or "Mina" to her close friends, was dressed as minimally as any experienced fighter would be. Her own hair was tied back, but with a headband rather than a scrunchy. She wore a high-cut brown leather halter top, and her brown leather loincloth skirt left both her legs free to move in any direction, still 'covering' everything even on high kicks. She also wore knee-high leather wrapped combat boots of her own, and while it was a foot or so longer, her zanbatō was easily matched by the Slayer Scythe.
Also, Buffy knew the girl was no Slayer, no matter how easily she'd trashed the demon from before.
The crowd was restless, especially after the last fight where Seong Mi-Na clearly dominated. Plus, everybody loves a good catfight. Finally, seemingly for the first time, Mina turned her attention away from the screaming, and very loud audience to take in her opponent, only to stop short and stare with wide eyes.
"Buffy?" she blurted out, clearly surprised.
"Hey Mina, long time," Buffy grinned, twirling the Slayer Scythe from her back into a guard position, holding it by the hilt with her right hand and the stake with her left hand. "Let's have some fun, OK?" she gave Mina her typical greeting whenever fighting a human.
Mina grinned back and spun her zanbatō around a few time and getting into her own ready position, saying, "This should be," she grinned broadly swinging her weapon around again, "a good warm up match."
Then she called over to Buffy as they both stepped up to their marks and waited for the Announcer to give the OK to begin the fight. "Listen up," she said, still grinning, "this fights mine."
Buffy just grinned back and casually tossed the scythe up in a twisting arch, catching it with her other hand and replied, "That's what you said the last time I beat you."
"You certainly talk big, don't you? You're such and idiot," Mina insulted her, "What's with that outfit?"
Buffy's hazel eyes flared with fury. "Excuse me?! And what's wrong with my outfit?"
Just then the Announcer shouted over the bell, "FIGHT! BEGIN!"
Mina immediately went on the offensive, striking with her weapon in an overhead arc that would hurt a lot, and at the very least send the eldest Slayer flying back. That is, if it had hit. Buffy, having seen it coming a mile away, merely side-stepped the attack and went in at an angle and grabbed the brunette in a grapple. One that she quickly overpowered the weaker girl with and quickly threw her down. After kneeing her in the gut, groin, sternum and nose, once each, and then flipping the girl onto her back, painfully, after that.
The girl lay there for a moment, somewhat stunned, but she recovered quickly and rolled herself back to her feet, striking out with her legs in a sweeping kick, which managed to connect and sent Buffy crashing to the floor shortly after. Both quickly kipped back up to their stances and moved in to continue the battle.
Mina swung a horizontal attack at Buffy, who held up the Scythe to effectively block it, and then struck out with a rising side kick to knock her opponent back. Taking advantage of the opening it presented, she moved into a series of high, mid, and low kicks, every alternate kick varying in force. By the end of the combo, Mina was thrown back all the way to the wall of the cage, and did not have the strength to catch herself before falling to the floor with a heavy thud.
Unfortunately, that was not the end of it. Although Buffy hadn't expected it to be, seeing as how much she had held back on each of her blows. Besides, she was having fun and didn't want this to end so soon!
They went back and forth, trading kicks and alternating strikes with their weapons. Because they each held back, not enough to make it obvious, but enough so that the fight would be prolonged, they very rarely landed a blow, more often than not blocking each other's attacks and countering, just to have those blocked as well. Unfortunately, this was not any fight on the street that had it's own purpose, but a battle in the middle of a street fighter tournament, therefore it was a timed match and if this went on too long, the crowd would become rather... restless.
Finally, Round one was called with a draw, but it was still new enough that the crowd didn't care and were screaming with the excitement of seeing two hot babes with bladed weapons fight a cage match. Taking a few moments to catch her breath, Buffy looked across the platform at her opponent and thought back to her mission. In particular, the last minute powwow she'd had with Willow and Giles before coming to Rome.
/New Watchers Council HQ/
/London, England/
/Two Days Ago/
"Y'know, I still can't believe you guys are sending me back to Rome! Do you know the stress I went through the last time I was there?" Buffy whined as she finished packing a few more clothes into her suitcase.
"Oh, yes, I am so terribly sorry for forcing you to return to the city where you spent over ten thousand dollars of the Council's petty cash on designer clothes, spent every night partying at all of the nightclubs and staying in a five star international hotel and going to a luxury spa at least once a week. I truly apologize for making you go through this," Giles sarcastically replied.
Buffy, duly chastised and blushing did not respond, instead finishing putting a few last articles away.
"The reason we're sending you to Rome, Buffy," Willow picked up the conversation as she sat down on the Slayer's bed across from her, "is because out of all the cities in the world, it's one of the very few that are in the same place they were the last time Soul Edge was active. And, it also has as high a demon count as Sunnydale every did. Not to mention..."
"The Colosseum, the Gladiator Pit, the Arena, and other such places that tend to draw in street fighters, the common thug, and your modern day warrior that just likes to fight," she finished for the witch. "Yeah, I know. I visited all of them, almost as much and as often as the nightclubs." She sent a mild glare in Giles' direction at that remark.
"What should I even be looking for? As we all know, those places, and all the ones just like them drew in as many vamps and human form demons as it did really strong guys or really weak mages with a few spells on them. How the heck am I supposed to tell if somebody is being affected by a shard of Soul Edge?"
"That's part of what we wished to discuss with you before you departed," Giles answered.
"For starters, it will be pretty obvious when someone is being controlled by Soul Edge. More aggression, a lot more strength, speed, and enough endurance that it would make most seem downright invulnerable. There's also the life-draining aspect. Hopefully it won't come up, but more than likely you'll sense an air of dread or darkness and a whole lot of evil around the person. That's the first stage of when there are either enough shards together or one powerful enough that instead of draining the life of the host, it begins to drain the life from all things, and people around it and the warrior carrying the shard."
"Sounds fun," Buffy deadpanned.
"It gets worse," Willow winced a bit.
"We most certainly did not want to scare any of you with this information, but since you'll be taking the Scythe with you, not that you shouldn't as I feel you might need it," Giles said. "Since the Slayer Scythe is in fact a magical weapon of who truly knows how ancient it is, there exists the possibility that if even one shard of Soul Edge comes into contact with it, it could infect the Scythe."
Buffy frowned. "And... what does that mean?"
"Buffy... since, well since it was necessary, but since I had to use the Scythe to activate all of the Slayers in the world... well, it's more a theory, but..." Willow babbled.
"Guys!" the blond Slayer shouted. "Speak!"
"There's a chance that Soul Edge might infect the Slayer Scythe with it's evil and thereby transfer all of it's power and demonic energy and evil influence to all of the Slayers in the world thereby making every Slayer on the planet an extension of Soul Edge's will... just like Siegfried became the Azure Knight Nightmare when he was corrupted by Soul Edge," Willow said all in one breath.
Buffy just stood there, blinked a couple of times and let out a sigh she didn't know she'd been holding. "So don't let the shards touch the Scythe. Got it."
"That was more the general warning and, well to not put too fine a point on it, the good news, Buffy," Giles continued.
"I really hate it when you start sentences like that, Giles," Buffy scowled at her former Watcher.
"At the same time that we'll be trying to prevent Soul Edge from returning in any form, the shards themselves present a more pressing concern," he began, "as even with but a fraction of Soul Edge's power that lay dormant within each shard, some power hungry demon or misguided mage or, heavens forbid, some human criminal dabbling in things beyond his or her understanding may very well try to start their own versions of the apocalypse before Soul Edge even appears. As bad as the weapon itself is, what it can be used for is so much worse."
"So... instead of just a worldwide scavenger hunt, we have a bunch of potential apocalypses on our plate too? Oh joy. Let me guess, even if me, Faith, or Xander come across a lead that would lead us to finding the real Soul Edge and getting it before it falls into worse hands, but at the same time come across an immediate threat of somebody using the shards for a current apocalypse, we stop the apocalypse and go back to the lead later, is that what I'm hearing here?"
Shrugging, Willow nodded and said, "Pretty much."
"I'll be expecting full back up from both of you on this," the Queen Slayer ordered. "And open up those negotiations with Riley's people again. As much as the Initiative is part of Capitalist America, I'm pretty sure they don't want just anyone having a piece of one of the few so-called 'Ultimate Weapons' in existence."
"They may even regard that it does not belong in our hands either," Giles pointed out.
"Speak directly to their superiors. If they can provide adequate proof than their means of containing, and please emphasize that I said /contain/ not /study/, the shards are superior to ours, we'll let them keep any that they find first. If they refuse to show us or insist on studying them in any way, tell them that we'll pull their asses out of the fire like we did the last time they messed with something I told them not to," she snapped.
"I'll take care of it," he assured her.
"Good. Now, I've got a plane to catch and then some ugly pieces of metal to find. Wish me luck," she grinned and grabbed her suitcase and weapon's bag.
"Good luck," Willow said, as she hugged her shorter friend closely. "Oh, and don't worry, I'll be checking in with each of you, keep you apprised to the sitch and all."
"You let her watch Kim Possible again, didn't you?" Buffy glared accusingly at Giles.
"I did no such thing," he huffed, then deflated. "She stole the remote right out of my hands and let the Slayers change it to that horrid, horrid program. Just because they can all do the same things a cartoon character can pull off is no reason to idolize over a bit of paint and ink!"
"And on that note, I'm off!" Buffy gave Willow one last hug and even conned one out of Giles. She was on the plane to Italy within the hour.
/The Gladiator's Pit/
/Rome, Italy/
/Round 2/
"Round Two! FIGHT!" the voice echoed through the caged arena.
The two women warriors slowly approached each other, weapons on guard. Suddenly Mina dashed forward and slammed the heavy weighted end of her zanbatō against the shorter blond's head, knocking her back and to the ground from the force of it. Buffy immediately swung around and was back on her feet. Oh, the blow had hurt alright, it was just that it was no different than Spike's punches all those years ago in High School by comparison.
Mina then made a few thrusting stabs with the bladed side, forcing Buffy to defend once more. With a smirk on her face, she decided to show off a little bit and made it so when Mina's blade hit, it was always against the business end of the blade on the Slayer Scythe. Given the limited space of movement and the rapid change within that space, it was a very impressive feat.
Once the brunette finished her combo, Buffy darted in and did your basic leg sweep, knocking Mina off her feet and to the floor. She then darted back, waiting for her opponent to get back to her feet, but once she had, she ran in at full speed, right before dropping to a slide where she then performed a picture-perfect scissor kick to send the Southeastern Asian back to the ground with devastating impact.
When she got back to her feet again, the Slayer, quite simply, rand in again and did a sliding reverse kick, followed by an immediate rising dragon kick that actually lifted the poor girl into the air a few feet before she landed with a dull thump. Mina got back to her feet faster than Buffy expected, and tried to get away from the super-powered girl with a mystical weapon backing her up, but the Slayer was just too damn quick.
Buffy dashed in and maneuvered to get the girl into a hold. Normally, in the spirit of friendly competition, she would at least allow her opponent to show off a little bit before ending it with a tie. The fact that she started things off with a tie instead should have been all the signal Mina needed. Buffy intended to end this as quickly as she possibly could.
Using the blade of the Scythe to knock the other girl's weapon out of the way, Buffy caught Mina in a running clothesline, using enough force than instead of going to the ground, the girl's body was actually mid-air for several moments. During those moments, Buffy instantly stopped her momentum, turned her body completely around and grabbed Mina's head with her other arm and ran full Slayer speed for three steps in the other way, flipping the girl completely around, so much so that she /still/ landed on her back. Buffy smirked and then did a jumping back flip, keeping her legs and feet straight, and managed to land with her feet coming down first onto Mina's torso, knocking the wind out of the girl. Before the rest of her landed on the ground from the 'spent-way-too-much-time-proving-Pro-Wrestling-Techniques-are-real-for-Baby-Slayers' move, Buffy managed to get her arms underneath her and caught herself on her finger tips, like she was doing push-ups.
Still showing off, and still supported mostly by her fingertips, Buffy went into a handstand, or would it be fingertip-stand?, and flipped back to her feet, allowing Mina the opportunity to get up again, if she so desired. Apparently she did, as the girl tiredly did just that.
Raising an eyebrow, Buffy just stood there as Mina gathered her energy and charged in for one last assault. At the very last moment, Buffy side-stepped out of the way and did a drop-heel kick to the back of the girl's neck, knocking her out of this fight.
"K.O!" the voice announced and the crowd went wild.
Unfortunately, Buffy knew because she had let it go to a tie in the first round, there was still Round Three. If, that is of course, Mina was still capable of continuing.
She was, but not for long. Round Three started as the others did, Mina, in a bit of desperation, tried the same knock back maneuver that had worked on her last round. Buffy side-stepped it and taking a moment to gather her strength and judge the amount of power needed, she clenched her fist, the one not holding the Slayer Scythe, and slammed a full Slayer strength punch into the girl's gut. Almost puking, Mina went wide-eyed and tried to cough, or do anything with her breath, but Buffy wasn't having any of that. She completed the punch and with the rest of her energy, threw the girl to the other end of the arena, where she crashed into the cage wall and fell bonelessly to the floor. Instant KO with not a single hit on her, it was a Perfect Win. The crowd, of course, went wild, loving every second of it.
Afterwards, when Mina regained consciousness, she asked the blond Slayer, "So, any reason you humiliated me out there like that? I was on a wining streak, I'll have you know!"
"Well, it's like this..." Buffy began to explain.
END Battle 3
