Hey all, Megun-chan here again with the second chapter of Soul Calibur 2003!! Okay, I know everybody's reviewed expecting to see reincarnations or descendents of the original fighters, and for awhile I smiled and nodded. But then I thought: Am I REALLY going to go along with the stereotypes of the world today? HELL NAW!! I've thought of a new, possibly innovative idea, and if you don't like it, you don't have to read this fic anymore. It's perfectly optional, y'know?

Anyways, enjoy!


Chapter Two:

Come Together

~~~

The bus became the sight of mayhem as the force flipped it over and sent it rolling off the street. Sabrina screamed and thrust her hands against the back of the seat in front of her and her own seat. Warren pitched over into the girls' seat, and he and Jezebel were tossed into the aisle along with Chelsey and her friends. The bus flipped over about five times and lay on its side like a broken toy.

One of the teachers pulled himself out of a tangle of students and shouted:

"Nobody panic! Is everyone all right?!"

Sabrina's back was going to have some major bruises, and one of Jezebel's wristbands was cut open by broken glass ("Damn it, and those things were expensive, too!"), but mostly everyone was all right. The bus driver mopped some blood from his forehead and opened the emergency exits. Warren helped Jezebel and Sabrina up, and the discombobulated students climbed out of the bus onto a grassy area near the Dealy Plaza in the downtown area. Already, cars were pulling over to give assistance, and somebody had taken out their cell phone.

"Woah," Jezebel gripped Sabrina's arm and pointed at the street. There was a large, crater-shaped hole that took up the entire width of the road, preventing any cars from getting around it. Suddenly, there was the wailing of sirens, and the passengers on the bus were being ushered into ambulances. The police had arrived, too, and were questioning witnesses as well as the students.

"What caused the explosion?!"

"Some kind of terrorist attack?"

"Thank heavens no one was hurt-!"

"Did you see anything suspicious on the roadway?!"

Sabrina replied as best she could, but in all honesty, she didn't have any idea why this happened. One minute, she was talking to Warren and Jezebel, and the next-

"Give it back…"

A chill swept through the crowd and this time, the voice was heard by all. Suddenly, Chelsey screamed, and pointed to the overturned bus. Standing on top of it was someone clothed in black armor. Sabrina felt her blood run cold, and Warren and Jezebel paled. Everyone in the plaza shrunk back in an unconscious terror as the knight screamed "Give it back!!" once more, and vanished with a blast of cold wind.

~~~

The rest of the afternoon was a blur to Sabrina. Medics hurried the students and teachers away from the plaza and into the nearest hospital, where they were treated for whatever wounds they had and released when their parents arrived. Warren's mother was the last to come, and Jezebel and Sabrina went back to the suburbs with them.

"We should sue them," Michelle Kelley grumbled as they pulled away from the hospital. "That driver should have been watching for things in the middle of the road. It's just stupid mistakes like that-"

"The driver didn't have any control over the situation, Mrs. Kelley," Jezebel intervened.

"But what about that person you said you saw after the accident?" Michelle asked. "I don't care what the news says- they're never right anyways- I think there's a psychopath on the loose."

"No psychopath, Mom," Warren replied. "Nightmare."

"Who?" Michelle looked at the three in the back of the car. "Nightmare? From that game… Soul Calibur II?" When they nodded, she shook her head. "Nonsense! You kids play too many video games."

"It wasn't just us," Sabrina glanced out the window. "Chelsey Mason saw it, too, and she hates video games."

Michelle sighed. "Whatever you say. Jezebel, your parents told me they would be out of town this weekend. Do you need a place to stay?"

"Not really." Jezebel shook her head. "Sabrina said she would stay the night."

"And then you can come to my house," Sabrina added. "So you can drop us off at either of our houses, Mrs. Kelley."

Michelle nodded and steered the car onto the street the three teenagers lived on. "Well, the situation could be a lot worse, I expect."

"Yeah, at least we won't get hounded by the media." Sabrina and Jezebel jumped out of the car. "Thanks for the ride, Mrs. Kelley."

"If you need anything over the weekend, come on over. We're not going anywhere." Warren waved as the girls hurried inside Sabrina's house. There was a moment of silence, and then Warren and his mother sighed. "So, Mom," Warren began, "How was your day?"

~~~

Chelsey Mason paced the floor of her room as she talked to Julie, Courtney, and Amanda on her three-way phone. "It was a complete disaster. I think the accident was the most exciting part of the whole trip. Not to mention Mother and Daddy are thinking about suing the school."

"I know what you mean," Amanda Giles responded impatiently on the other end of the phone. "There's a heapload of dirt on my brand-new blouse thanks to that explosion."

"Well, on the bright side," Julie Monroe commented, "nobody was killed."

"Not that it wouldn't be a bad thing," Chelsey rolled her eyes and bent down to pick her stuffed bear. "Did you see that creepy guy in armor? I swear, I think I've seen him somewhere-"

When she stood up she was facing the mirror. Her face turned the color of a whitewash wall, her eyes grew as large as dinner plates, and she screamed. Reflected in the mirror was a man dressed in a pirate outfit with a pale- almost blue- face, ominous red eyes, and ratty white hair. His pupiless eyes met Chelsey's, and he laughed loudly. Chelsey continued screaming and turned around, but nobody was behind her. The laughing stopped, and when Chelsey returned her glance to the mirror, the man was gone.

"Chelsey?!" Courtney Monroe (Julie's twin sister) shouted over the phone, "Chelsey, are you there?! What's wrong?!"

The door burst open, and Mr. and Mrs. Mason rushed into the bedroom. "Chelsey, what's wrong?!" Mr. Mason grabbed his daughter's shoulders and sat her firmly down on her bed. "What were you screaming about?!"

"There was a man in here!!" Chelsey shrieked, "A man- but he looked like a ghost-!!"

"A man?!" Mrs. Mason hurried to the open window and looked out onto the street. "I don't see anybody, sweetheart. Were you just imagining it?"

"No!" Chelsey yelled. "There was someone there, I swear it!!"

Suddenly, her face filled with its usual color, and she straightened up. Dusting herself off, she said in a haughty tone, "You're probably right. There wasn't anything there. Now will you please get out of my room so I can continue my conversation with my friends?"

Mr. Mason stroked his goatee, and he and his wife nodded and walked out of the room. Chelsey waited a few moments, and picked up the phone again.

'It was nothing,' She thought, 'Nothing. I was imagining things…"

In her mind she heard the laughter again. Her hair stood on end, and she jumped onto the bed and closed the bright pink curtains around it shut.

~~~

"What do you want to do tonight?" Jezebel pulled a spare mattress out of the closet and laid it beside the couch in the den.

"Why don't we watch a movie?" Sabrina threw her duffel on the floor and jumped onto the bed. "You got The Ring?"

Jezebel wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, but I don't want to watch that. Let's watch Bond."

"Bond? Are you kidding? I want to watch a scary movie," Sabrina leaned against the couch and pulled a loose DVD from the coffee table. "Interview With the Vampire, huh? Cool."

"Brad Pitt…" Jezebel smiled mockingly.

"Oh, yeah, baby." Sabrina laughed and held it out to Jezebel, who sighed.

"I was kind of joking, but hey? Why not?"

The movie started, and Jezebel sat down on the couch next to Sabrina. For the most part, they watched the movie in silence. But once Brad Pitt's vampiric character had bitten Kirsten Dunst, Jezebel got off the couch.

"I'm going to make some popcorn." She commented as she stretched. "I'm hungry."

"All right. If you don't mind, bring some soda up, too," Sabrina nodded and reached over to the remote to pause the movie.

"Okay." Jezebel walked to the head of the stairs, and stood stock still.

"Jezebel?" Sabrina slowly got up and walked over. "Jez, are you okay?"

"There's someone downstairs-" Jezebel whispered through gritted teeth. "In the computer room."

Sabrina scanned the foyer, until she saw a faint light coming from the entrance to the computer room, which was also Mr. Burnside's study.

"Are your parents back already?" Sabrina whispered.

"No. We'd know even if they came home early. It's intruders." Jezebel marched across the den and picked up the leg of a broken couch. Sabrina followed her lead and got a pot holding a small cactus.

They slowly crept down the stairs, and as they reached the bottom, they heard voices and froze.

"'Today, around 2:30 PM, a school bus carrying a load of high school students home from a field trip was overturned in Dealy Plaza due to an explosion underneath the bus…'" A female voice whispered.

"That's the place one of the American presidents was shot, wasn't it?" A male voice asked.

"Yes. 'Fred apparently thought it would be symbolic or ironic or something."

"Talking of me, I'm mentioned." A third voice. Also male, with an odd quality to it.

"Where?" A higher-pitched female voice.

"'Eyewitnesses also report a strange man in black armor who appeared momentarily on top of the overturned bus before vanishing mysteriously. Police believe this person to be a terrorist and the cause of the explosion, and are offering a reward to anyone who has news about this man.'"

"Lucky you." A third male. There were more than five people in that room.

"Hey, congrats, 'Fred. First of us to actually be reported in the modern news."

"Bet they won't catch you, though."

"As they say nowadays, duh." Footsteps. Jezebel and Sabrina ducked into the shadows of the stairwell as the steps grew louder, and then softer again.

"Do those voices sound… familiar… to you?" Jezebel whispered quietly. Sabrina nodded.

"Hold on." A deeper female voice murmured. "I heard something."

The two girls froze completely.

"Give it a rest." The first male voice said a little loudly, with sudden whispers coming from the others. "The people in this house are upstairs watching a movie about vampires."

"I peeked in on them, but they didn't notice me," the high-pitched female added. "It seemed like an interesting movie. The male vampires were hot."

"Xianghua!!"

"Just kidding!" The female voice giggled. Wide-eyed, Sabrina and Jezebel exchanged glances.

"Why are we here anyways?" The voice belonging to the man named Fred asked.

"It was your idea," The third male voice replied. "'Cause those girls have that connection between you and Taki."

"And they're the only ones who's parents aren't at home," the deep female voice replied.

A third glance was traded between the girls. "Taki… Xianghua… Jezebel, it's them!!" Sabrina whispered.

"What do we do?" Jezebel cast her eyes briefly over to the door.

"There it was again…" Something moved inside the room. "I think there's someone out there. I'll go look."

"Don't, Taki!" A fourth male voice, this one much deeper, exclaimed. "What if they come down and see us?"

"Oh, shut up. I can take care of it." The deep female voice shot back, and the shadow moved again. A woman with black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a tight red bodysuit stepped out of the computer room and cast a glance around the foyer.

Jezebel gasped quietly, and Sabrina jabbed her hard in the ribs. The woman's head jerked over in their direction, and she gave a battle cry before throwing two daggers directly between the girls' heads. Shouting, they jumped up and brandished their weapons.

"Distracted, huh?!" Taki shouted back into the room. "They're right here, and they've got 'weapons'!!"

"Oh, cry me a river." Sabrina and Jezebel did a double take as a teenage boy with spiked red hair and a white shirt and pants came out of the wall and stood next to Taki. "They're smarter than we thought, I guess."

"Y-Y-You're…" Sabrina stammered as she looked back and forth between Taki and the boy.

"Much smarter," Taki smiled, "since they know who we are, it appears."

"What are you doing here?!" Jezebel shouted and held the wooden stick as if it were a dagger. "You have no right to be here! You're trespassing!"

Taki rolled her eyes. "Is that all? Come on. If you're to be my successor, you've got to have more bite than bark."

Sabrina and Jezebel blinked. "'Successor'?"

"Of course." The girls jumped as a girl with light brown hair and a light blue dress came out of the wall and stood by the boy. "We're ghosts, you see? And you're-"

"Wait a second wait a second wait a second!!" Jezebel held up her hands. "Before we go over that, let me get some things straight."

"We're who you think we are." The teenage boy replied. "Taki, Yungsung, and Xianghua. In the room is Mitsurugi, Seung Mina, Kilik, and 'Fred."

"Fred?" Sabrina raised an eyebrow.

"Stop calling me 'Fred', dammit." A man with long blonde hair and black armor came out of the door this time to stand by Taki.

"OH!!" Sabrina slapped her knee as if it was a funny joke. "I get it!! Your name is Siegfred really, instead of Nightmare, but everyone calls you 'Fred' for short!!" She laughed hysterically for about five seconds, realized what she had said, looked up at Nightmare, and fainted again.

"Sabrina!" Jezebel caught her friend and the ghosts rushed towards them. Jezebel glared up at Nightmare. "You were the one at Dealy Plaza this afternoon, weren't you?!"

"Yes." Nightmare nodded.

"You blew up the ground around the bus, didn't you?!"

"Yes." He nodded again.

"Care to tell us why?!"

"No. Not right now." Nightmare rolled his eyes. "When Miss Mayfair wakes up. I hate repeating myself."

"Let's get her back upstairs," Xianghua said as Jezebel lifted Sabrina up with one arm. "We can finish the movie while we wait for her to recover."

~~~

Warren didn't sleep well that night. He woke up every two hours, and it took about one hour for him to get back to sleep, and he spent the said hour tossing and turning fitfully. He woke up from one of his two-hour bouts shouting something incomprehensive, and lay motionless with his eyes closed. When he finally opened them, though, he found staring back at him two red pupiless eyes and two odd-length swords pointed at his head. Warren yelled and rolled off his bed as the swords came down into his pillow.

The white-haired pirate who had attacked him with the swords grunted and pulled the swords out of the pillow before turning towards Warren. The teenage boy had made it over to his desk, across the room, and proceeded to pick up his desk chair and throw it at the pirate. The chair went through him, but it had the desired effect, and the pirate vanished through the wall and out onto the street.

Warren found himself breathing heavily and sweating, but all together he felt good, considering he had just defeated the dread pirate Cervantes by throwing a chair at him…

Wait…

Cervantes?!

Warren ran towards the window and opened it, leaning out over the garden. "Cervantes?!" He called, and looked across the street at Jezebel's house. There was a light on in one of the upper rooms. Jezebel and Sabrina were still up, then. Should he call them and tell them what happened? Would they believe him? It was worth a shot. He picked up the black phone on his desk and began dialing Jezebel's number. When Jezebel answered, she sounded short of breath and excited.

"Warren? It's twelve o'clock. Why are you calling us?"

"What's wrong? You sound flustered…" Warren trailed off.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Jezebel responded.

'Well, that rules out that possibility,' Warren thought, and blushed furiously.

"What's wrong, yourself?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Warren copied.

"Try me."

"If you say so." Warren began. "I-"

There was some commotion from Jezebel's end of the line. "Jezebel, she's coming around!"

"I'll call you back, Warren." Jezebel said impatiently. "Or, better yet, why don't you come over?"

"What?! My parents are home, though." Warren stammered.

"Sneak out, like you always do."

"Do you want Cervantes to attack me while I'm crossing the street?!"

"…………What?"

"I knew you wouldn't believe me! Cervantes was in my room and he tried to kill me!"

There was silence on the other end of the line. "How are you still alive? I mean, he-"

"I threw a chair at him. I guess he didn't expect that, 'cause he ran through the wall and onto the street."

"………………Through the wall? But wait, since they…"

There was more commotion on the other end of the phone, and an unfamiliar voice spoke to Warren next. It was a female voice, slightly high-pitched. "Warren Kelley?"

"Yes?"

"Forget whatever's bothering you and get over here. We need to talk."


Hah hah! How d'ya like dem apples! I SWEAR this is going somewhere, but I need some time to work on it! Expect the next chapter up as soon as possible, but I'm swamped with exams, even though school ends at 1:15 next week. Oh well. See ya!

~ M