CHAPTER I – LOST AND FOUND

Time passed, as time always does...

Taki, Chai Xianghua, Cassandra Alexandra, Kilik, Talim, Seung Mina, and Yoshimitsu all kept their vows. They each took one or more of the fallen warriors to their respective homes and placed them where they knew they would want to be. Cervantes was returned to the Spanish Main, Voldo to the Money Pit, Maxi to the shores of Japan to be followed by his dear friends when they passed, and to each his own. Only the corpse of Siegfried was left, untouched forever by the warriors. He lingered in Ostrheinsburg for many a year.

In time, all mortals die. All the mortal heroes who sought Soul Edge did in time, as a century passed, and soon none remained living. They were barely remembered, except by those who knew them well, but their deeds lived on in a few meager stories and tales passed on by their brethren's children and onward...

But darkness and light in Soul Edge's tale lingered to. The warrior souls might all be dead and gone, but none of their stories were over yet...not by far...

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Deep in the earth, buried under years of crumbling rubble, soot, and an accumulated ocean of dust, something stirred slightly. A iced over form, surrounded on all sides be incurring darkness suddenly jolted once and went rigid again as a thunderous clap slapped at it from above. It stirred within, a sudden lance of life beginning to course over it like refreshing spring water as another clap from above came down, rattling the form. Then came a second jolt, as a mild light poked through the dust and out between gray particles, sending bare sliver of white out into the pair of rustic green eyes that stared down at the dust pile.

Erwin Arvechtelen, the owner of those clouded eyes, was no more than a sweat-soaked engineer on a day much hotter than rural Germany was used to. Almost the entire area around these patches of stone ruins had been industrialized, but the statuesque remains of the chapel he stood in had been left intact. Now, the small company that Erwin belonged to had finally procured a commission to dig around here for something worthwhile. They were to do that within a week and demolish the modern obstacle if they found nothing on the dig site. Erwin didn't muddle his small brain with these contemplations as he wiped a pesky bead of sweat off the bridge of his nose.

"Hey boss, there's somethin' under here." roared the gruff bass voice of the engineer over the shrieking whir of metallic instruments on the excavation.

Beneath the single dusty pile wedged between two fallen slabs of wall was a single metal spike poking out through the dreary gray, an armor-plated toe of gleaming azure. A faint glow twinkled in the ruin and that glint was echoed in Erwin's curious expression as he began clawing at the desired object.

It had taken this long for the worming fragments inside that form to stir some life and energy into his empty, hollowed out veins. They had been working through the process each minute of the centuries that passed, trying to jog a sense and countenance into the body. Now, as the world around them was at last stirred, they could draw the sapling seeds of life from other beings, feeding the dead embers inside their long deceased host. It was finally time, when his energy could be slowly but surely replenished on a new world.

"What is it, Erwin? It'd better be important! There's a lot here that must be seen to."

More stirring, more voices, more energy drawn from the unsuspecting beings. The noon sunlight bore down unhappily on Erwin and his find, but the twitching, wrenching form in the debris pile did not mind. The light itself seared through his armor and restored the long lost color to his snow-white pallor. A diseased brown began mingling with the calm tan of his arm and chest.

"I think you'll find this....interesting." said Erwin softly, his breath slowing and his voice volume decreasing as he waded into the smoky dust and leaned down, his light eyes blinking repeatedly as he reached his rough- skinned, scraggly fingers down and toyed with the armored toe. He shook some dust off if it slowly, clearing soot off another plate of metal and scratching encrusted dirt of the beginnings of a leg with jagged fingernails. He began clearing some of the greater layers off and shoving gathered rocks aside onto the wreckage. As a form took shape in the dust, Erwin leaned down over it for a closer look.

The thing wrenched again, feeling the closeness of this life force. It was time...

Erwin Arvechtelen didn't even have time to scream as the gnarled fingers crushed every bone in his body. The last sound that roared in his ears was that irritating whirring and the sickly crunch as his ribs snapped in perfect rhythm. The figure rose from the dust swiftly, uncoiling his armored legs beneath him and opening his deformed palm. The twisted corpse of the hapless German engineer clattered to the excavated chapel floor, spilling a pool's volume of blood around the feet of his murderer.

Nightmare flexed the pulsing ventricles on his resurrected claw and swung it around, testing the unfelt weight. He then took a breath, his first in ages, and only felt the stinging air of decay and engineering that flooded ancient atmosphere into his demonic lungs. He knelt on one knee, the blood caressing his armor, and buried his human hand in the dust. His eyes glowing with a caustic menace, he drew out the long, broad blade that had been at his side for so long. It was not Soul Edge, since most of the original blade's fragments had been dispersed, but Nightmare's dead husk had retained enough shards to forge a new zweihander over time, not as powerful as the last but still formidable.

The demonic azure knight reborn let his eyes, unused to the light of day, flit around the site of the once-chapel. His contented expression, hidden behind a dusty visor, turned to incendiary fury as he glowered at the hulking monsters of machinery. There were cranes and truck in blazing yellow with stripes of outstanding black along their beaten sides. They sat, defiling the ground where Nightmare had been slain, making a mockery of him as they moved stiffly like falling statues twisting about.

"What foul knavery is this!?" the gargantuan voice, a mangled chord boomed over all the whirring. Though the scratchy sounds of metal continued, all of the workers and engineers spun in horror to see the voice's owner. Growling under his fiery breath, Nightmare hefted his zweihander onto his back expertly.

Who the hell is this bum?" mumbled one of the burly engineers to another, the two of them working away at a mostly intact wall that had slammed down on the floor. It was too easy for Nightmare to hear their vulgar slurring of the fine German language. Now grinning beneath his dark visor, a few beams of darkness beginning to pour through his pauldrons and helmet, Nightmare turned to the two workers.

"You want to know who I am?" he said coolly, his horrible voice suddenly jogging sense into them. The two workers pretended to look firm, utterly confused by the sudden presence of an obvious psychotic, but their legs were quivering visibly. Nightmare's eyes focused into miniscule pupils of sable that fixed on the men. "I am death, mortal fools, I am doom and pain and power and destruction. I am darkness and fire, storm and quake, lightning and thunder. But, most importantly, I am the last thing you will ever see."

The zweihander, having not tasted blood in too long a time, sliced easily through the two engineers and cleaved them both in two. The writhing upper halves of each rolled backward as the legs slumped in a heap. The excavation site was instantly roused as they realized that one of their own was dead and two others had joined them. They had machinery and could've used that to their advantage, but they were too terrified by the darkness- oozing knight to move from their places.

Nightmare ambled towards them; a sound that was reminiscent of a weary yawn escaped the slit of his helmet as he threw the zweihander onto his shoulder and overlooked the gaping maw of machines. His gaze wrestled momentarily with the view of each of those primitive-looking workers as he neared them.

"What....W-What the hell are you?" stammered one, dropping the drill he'd been using. It was the primary cause of that whirring and the annoyance only increased as it clattered down, still vibrating, and jumped along the floor tiles without end. Of course, the sound was promptly halted when Nightmare brought his foot crashing down on the drill and his sword crashing down on the man. He swung the zweihander out of this new corpse, which also fell quickly, and slashed the blade into that outrageously yellow truck beside him. Not only was the vehicle almost sliced in half by the giant sword, but the sheer force of the weapon's mighty punch sent the truck up. The driver inside tried to escape, but only ended up caught behind a horizontal door as the truck sat, teetering at a diagonal before swiftly hitting the ground with a loud thud.

The bewildered driver finally shoved the door open and scrambled up, but only found his head split open by a waiting sword grasped firmly in Nightmare's claw.

The azure knight noted mentally, nodding to himself as he turned, that there had been twelve workers to begin with. Now, seven had been easily dispatched and only five remained. There was one in the seat of that monstrosity of a mechanical serpent still shifting like stone, the crane, one in a smaller car with a number of unfamiliar logos on it, and the last two just stood with their tools, gawking like slack-jawed yokels. A laugh rumbled like thunder in the demon's throat as he sprinted forward, pulling the zweihander over his head.

Another fell, his arm falling not far off. He heaved an agonized groan as Nightmare's foot easily smashed in his skull. The next shot back as the flat of Nightmare's blade collided with his neck and jaw. This one slammed into the crane behind him, denting the dulled color of the side before he slid off. The next, sitting, jaw hanging, in the crane's front seat only watched as the zweihander's head, like a merciless dragon, punched through the metal door and impaled him with the door still attached.

Nightmare extracted the blade with a sweeping, fluid motion and spun, watching oozing blood dance along the side of the gigantic sword. His ears caught the rasping sound of a motor starting as the last man in his compact car sped into motion and swiveled around awkwardly, trying to escape the havoc wrought by this insane creature. The azure knight only grinned beneath his helmet and headed forward. He ran up the front of the empty crane, onto its roof, his great weight blasting craters into its length, and propelled himself off the back at the car.

He landed in front of the speeding automobile and whipped the zweihander sideways nimbly. The blade caught the fender of the car and cut cleanly through it, oil and rusted parts of the vehicle spilled out over the ground as the driver's seat was flung towards the waiting sword and split, as was the driver. The sundered wreck soared momentarily through the air before crashing and ricocheting on the floor before it came to rest, smoldering and smoking.

Nightmare, now Nightmare again, looked out over the ruins of the chapel and the damage he'd done. The place was now covered in the stink of age, the debris of emotionless time. A shroud of neat mist had descended despite blinding sunlight above, but the deep red eyes could still see static structures marking the plain in the distance. Technology, machines, a new era had come while Nightmare slept...

He intended to make this era his...

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Next: Dark Revelations – The twist in time that will allow the story of Soul Edge to continue is revealed and the first of the souls reawaken.