Chapter 7: Another Traveller
::The Second Soul Calibur Chapter::
Their journey led them across lands Garlyle had never seen before, but catching a ride on a horse-powered carriage as they neared both their destinations and night after having finally eaten their fill in a small village (Garlyle: I had been starving before then!), Garlyle was finally able to sleep again.
He was glad he finally had the opportunity, because he once again felt at peace in his dreams, the strong arms of his mysterious, white- haired guardian holding him close, as if he was a dearest son, and Garlyle felt quite nice sleeping again in his dreams, curled up against the man's strong chest, listening to the soft, sweet humming.
He didn't ask anything of the man this time, instead, chose simply not to look a gift horse in the mouth...
And almost as if on cue with that, the carriage drew to a stop, throwing Garlyle out of the hay and onto the ground behind them, as Kilik made a more graceful dismounting beside him.
Groggily, with a headache from impact, Garlyle stood up. "Couldn't have warned me we were going to stop?" Garlyle demanded.
"We're here..." Kilik responded.
"Where's here?" Garlyle looked around. It looked like nothing but an old battlefield, the ruins of a temple near them.
"This... used to be the temple where I trained... until the evil of the Soul Edge possessed those in the temple, myself included, and the place was cursed with the blood of all those who were slaughtered by those stronger..." Kilik looked down at the ground.
"Why did we come here?" Garlyle asked.
"It is near here," Kilik pointed towards a different direction, "where me, Maxi, and Xianghua call our 'home', or what we have of one..."
As they walked towards a small patch of forest, Garlyle inquired as to who they were, interested.
"They are my friends and long travelling companions... Maxi left shortly ago, to pay his respects to his slaughtered comrades, but he should return any day now... Xianghua is still there, taking care of Soul Calibur..."
"Soul Calibur?"
"The polar opposite of Soul Edge, it is the only blade capable of truly destroying the evil within it..." Kilik tried to explain. "It's..."
"...not like back home, I'll say that much" Garlyle commented, half smiling. He thought a lot about it, as they reached the small house that was built in the woods, calmly, peacefully.
"Xianghua!" Kilik called inside.
Almost instantly, a fine young woman, probably just over twenty, greeted them happily. She was wearing a blue one-piece outfit that went from her shoulders down past her knees, and there was a sword with a beautiful feather-like hilt hanging in a sheath at her side.
She smiled with her brilliant eyes and black hair. "Welcome back, Kilik... Who's this with you? An orphan boy?"
"Show her, Garlyle" Kilik instructed.
Garlyle dug into her pocket, and produced the fragment of the Soul Edge.
Xianghua jumped back and gasped, instantly drawing her blade and pointing it at the weapon. The blade was unusual without a doubt, split in two right down the middle, but it was a fine piece of work, and Garlyle could feel the great spiritual energy it had.
"The Soul Edge? But how...?" Xianghua protested. "I destroyed it..."
"I know" Kilik muttered, apparently not understanding himself. "But can you destroy this fragment?"
"Of course..." Xianghua smiled. "Please, boy, give me the fragment..."
Garlyle looked down at it, and pulled it backwards a bit. "No... Not yet..."
This earned him a harsh glare from both of the older warriors. "I... I mean, of course, but... I... You'll just send me away, afterwards..."
"Not after what you've told me, I won't," Kilik promised.
"What did he tell you?" Xianghua inquired.
"Let's step inside, Xianghua," Kilik smiled. "I have a lot to tell y..."
"Hey! Kilik! Xianghua!"
All three turned to see a strong man in a white vest and pants, with two nunchucks and spiky black hair approaching, smiling and waving. Somehow, to Garlyle, he looked familiar, but...
"Ta... Taka?" Garlyle blinked, as he looked at the approaching man. He swore, for a moment, that he could see a tint of purple in the man's hair, but maybe it was just a trick of the sunlight.
"Maxi! Glad to see you're back!" Xianghua ran over to him, sheathing the Soul Calibur, and hugging him, despite Maxi's protests (And Garlyle could sense Kilik's, as well, though he wasn't totally sure why).
And suddenly, seeing them, it all made sense.
"What's going on...?" Garlyle blinked. "How...? But I thought I could only travel through space, not..."
"Not through time? It doesn't seem that far of a stretch, sir Garlyle..."
Garlyle shook somewhat. He understood, of course.
When he had come to this new universe, he had gone a few years into the future... Here, he had grown up, and that meant that it was totally understandable who Maxi and Xianghua were like, in his homeland. Maxi was more than likely Garlyle's long-best friend, Taka, who he had, in his homeland, taken on as his apprentice in return for the lives that he owed the boy who was only older by a day. And Xianghua, was Kiana...
Kiana was the one person who could separate Taka and Garlyle, and make them fight. Not with any trick of the mind, but simply because both boys treasured her and wanted her to be theirs. She was the daughter of Jael, the man who had taken care of them back home, which could make things tricky at times, but in the end it all seemed to be working out.
Separating from their hug, Maxi walked over and shook Kilik's hand, smiling at him, Kilik returning the same smile.
"Who's this?" Maxi looked down at Garlyle, then at Garlyle's hand, where the fragment of the Soul Edge still remained. With one hand, he whipped his nunchucks around, but prepared for it, Garlyle withdrew his hand and sprung backwards, re-pocketing the fragment.
"His name is Garlyle... I have a lot to explain..." Kilik responded.
"Well, whoever he is, he's fast..." Maxi smiled.
"Listen, I'm sure all of us have stories to share... let's get inside..."
*****
Inside, Garlyle listened to the stories. Apparently 'Maxi' had returned to where the graves were for his slain comrades, who were destroyed by a mad axe-wielding monstrosity known as Astaroth, and Maxi had paid them their respects finally.
And Kilik had simply been journeying for no apparent reason, but he had felt the urge to leave, and then let Garlyle tell his bit of the story, which he told in all honesty, even explaining about Kilik's true history and about the dimensions, but not speaking anything about Taka and Kiana, or about his own world...
"Now, there's only one question" Kilik muttered. "Where'd you get that fragment of the Soul Edge?"
"Well..." Garlyle looked at it again. "I wish I could remember, but..."
And then he remembered the hay cart, his memories of his dreams...
"A dream..." Garlyle muttered under his breath. "I had this dream that somebody... or something... gave it to me..." he tried to get it straight, but then realised that his memory was becoming fuzzy again, so got it out quickly before it faded again. "And he put it in my pocket, and when I woke up... I had it..."
"Unusual" Xianghua muttered. "But will you let us destroy it now...?"
"I..." Garlyle thought about it. Why couldn't he allow Xianghua to shatter the fragment?
"Not yet, Garlyle!" Ceres muttered, inside his head. "Just a couple more minutes."
"Until what?" Garlyle thought to himself.
"Until... I don't know... but something will happen..."
"I can't let you destroy it..." Garlyle put it back in his pocket, but before the glares could even fully formed, he finished with "...yet."
He looked down at the ground, as all three asked him why.
"I can't... I don't know, but..."
"Maybe the power of the Soul Edge is getting to him" Maxi muttered, holding his Nunchucks at ready.
"No! It's just, I have this sense, that something's about to..." Garlyle looked around.
There was a thud from outside, and the ground seemed to shake with the impact. Quickly, everybody ran outside.
There, unconscious, was a young man, though probably only just over 13 or 14, with messy purple hair, a black vest, and baggy jeans, with a sack carried on his back, held on a belt that looped around his shoulder. Another belt that crossed his waist had a strange, blue, metal device attached to it, with a plastic screen somewhat like the ones Garlyle had seen back in that weird laboratory with Joanna. He looked quite rugged, but his body was in fair shape, even if he did look maybe only a bit older than Garlyle.
"Who is he...?" Garlyle muttered, leaning down at him. Then he felt something familiar...
There was that 'out of this worldly' feel about him... The same thing he had felt when he had first seen Syiolen... Was this him?
"Oh, the poor child..." Xianghua moved over to him and lifted him up with ease that nearly made Garlyle gasp. "Let's get him inside."
All present and conscious nodded, before following her back inside.
*****
A couple hours later, the young adolescent awoke to find himself in strange surroundings. As he stood up, he reached for his belts, calming quickly to discover they were still there. Slowly, he sat up groggily, shaking his head.
"Where... where am I? What kind of primitive dwelling is this?" the boy muttered.
A slightly mechanical, only half-way emotional voice came from the metal device at his side. "I am unsure, Kozo-dono. It appears to be an old style peasant home, the kind used during the feudal periods of Japan and China..."
"So I can see, but..." Kozo looked around. "Why are we here, anyway, Falcon?"
"I do not know" Falcon, the strange mechanical device, replied. On the screen, it showed a man in light blue armour, whose face, with its spike-back red hair and sharp features, did indeed seem to resemble a bird of prey. "I believe though that we have gone to a time... long before our own."
"How is that possible?" Kozo demanded. "How even remotely could we have gone back in ti..."
"Oh, are you awake?"
Kozo turned to face one of the doorways, where Garlyle was standing. "Who are you?" Kozo moved, switching into a fighting position.
Garlyle laughed. "Don't worry, boy, I mean you no harm. Who are you?"
"My name is Kozo Grausherra. Who are you?" Kozo demanded.
"Grausherra? That's funny..." Garlyle thought to himself. "Wasn't Taka's last name Yobuu-Grausherra...?"
Then Garlyle gave a proper response, after shaking that strange thought out of his head. "My name is Garlyle Wilds."
"Garlyle Wilds, huh?" Kozo smiled. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too. Where do you come from?" Garlyle asked.
"He may be simplistic, Kozo, try to explain it nicely. Children from this era in time were rarely well educated..." Falcon muttered, from beside Garlyle.
"I'm from way after the day after tomorrow" Kozo tried to explain.
"So you're from the far future? Interesting indeed" Garlyle smiled. "And what's that at your side?" he pointed.
"That is my... err... how can I explain this? My friend... he's kinda not real, but..." Kozo stuttered out, trying to find the right way to explain it.
"Well, what's his name?" Garlyle demanded.
"It's Falcon" the man in the device introduced himself.
"Mechanical, right?" Garlyle asked. Kozo blinked, then nodded his head. "No need to play stupid around me, after all, I've got been through a lot."
"So, then, this isn't the past? You seem about as intelligent as a person of my time..."
"Depends" Garlyle shrugged. "Actually, I come from... another time and place... as well as I believe you do..."
"Re... Really?" Kozo asked, perking up.
Garlyle nodded his head. "Listen, tell me your story... how you got here, what it's like in your time and world..."
"Wait just a moment..." Kozo smiled. "You tell me yours first..." he smirked. "Falcon will record every word of it, right?"
"As you wish, Kozo-dono" he responded.
Garlyle wondered what the title was for, but he decided not to ask about it. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"
And so, with the other three standing in a room near them, listening, Garlyle went through his story, ever since having met with Syiolen that first time...
And Falcon recorded it down, digitally storing it away.
"This will make one hell of a story, back home!" Kozo smiled. "If I ever get back home, anyway... People won't ever believe it's true, but..."
"Well, let's hear your story" Garlyle smiled.
"If you insist..." Kozo leaned back a bit, and began his story.
::The Second Soul Calibur Chapter::
Their journey led them across lands Garlyle had never seen before, but catching a ride on a horse-powered carriage as they neared both their destinations and night after having finally eaten their fill in a small village (Garlyle: I had been starving before then!), Garlyle was finally able to sleep again.
He was glad he finally had the opportunity, because he once again felt at peace in his dreams, the strong arms of his mysterious, white- haired guardian holding him close, as if he was a dearest son, and Garlyle felt quite nice sleeping again in his dreams, curled up against the man's strong chest, listening to the soft, sweet humming.
He didn't ask anything of the man this time, instead, chose simply not to look a gift horse in the mouth...
And almost as if on cue with that, the carriage drew to a stop, throwing Garlyle out of the hay and onto the ground behind them, as Kilik made a more graceful dismounting beside him.
Groggily, with a headache from impact, Garlyle stood up. "Couldn't have warned me we were going to stop?" Garlyle demanded.
"We're here..." Kilik responded.
"Where's here?" Garlyle looked around. It looked like nothing but an old battlefield, the ruins of a temple near them.
"This... used to be the temple where I trained... until the evil of the Soul Edge possessed those in the temple, myself included, and the place was cursed with the blood of all those who were slaughtered by those stronger..." Kilik looked down at the ground.
"Why did we come here?" Garlyle asked.
"It is near here," Kilik pointed towards a different direction, "where me, Maxi, and Xianghua call our 'home', or what we have of one..."
As they walked towards a small patch of forest, Garlyle inquired as to who they were, interested.
"They are my friends and long travelling companions... Maxi left shortly ago, to pay his respects to his slaughtered comrades, but he should return any day now... Xianghua is still there, taking care of Soul Calibur..."
"Soul Calibur?"
"The polar opposite of Soul Edge, it is the only blade capable of truly destroying the evil within it..." Kilik tried to explain. "It's..."
"...not like back home, I'll say that much" Garlyle commented, half smiling. He thought a lot about it, as they reached the small house that was built in the woods, calmly, peacefully.
"Xianghua!" Kilik called inside.
Almost instantly, a fine young woman, probably just over twenty, greeted them happily. She was wearing a blue one-piece outfit that went from her shoulders down past her knees, and there was a sword with a beautiful feather-like hilt hanging in a sheath at her side.
She smiled with her brilliant eyes and black hair. "Welcome back, Kilik... Who's this with you? An orphan boy?"
"Show her, Garlyle" Kilik instructed.
Garlyle dug into her pocket, and produced the fragment of the Soul Edge.
Xianghua jumped back and gasped, instantly drawing her blade and pointing it at the weapon. The blade was unusual without a doubt, split in two right down the middle, but it was a fine piece of work, and Garlyle could feel the great spiritual energy it had.
"The Soul Edge? But how...?" Xianghua protested. "I destroyed it..."
"I know" Kilik muttered, apparently not understanding himself. "But can you destroy this fragment?"
"Of course..." Xianghua smiled. "Please, boy, give me the fragment..."
Garlyle looked down at it, and pulled it backwards a bit. "No... Not yet..."
This earned him a harsh glare from both of the older warriors. "I... I mean, of course, but... I... You'll just send me away, afterwards..."
"Not after what you've told me, I won't," Kilik promised.
"What did he tell you?" Xianghua inquired.
"Let's step inside, Xianghua," Kilik smiled. "I have a lot to tell y..."
"Hey! Kilik! Xianghua!"
All three turned to see a strong man in a white vest and pants, with two nunchucks and spiky black hair approaching, smiling and waving. Somehow, to Garlyle, he looked familiar, but...
"Ta... Taka?" Garlyle blinked, as he looked at the approaching man. He swore, for a moment, that he could see a tint of purple in the man's hair, but maybe it was just a trick of the sunlight.
"Maxi! Glad to see you're back!" Xianghua ran over to him, sheathing the Soul Calibur, and hugging him, despite Maxi's protests (And Garlyle could sense Kilik's, as well, though he wasn't totally sure why).
And suddenly, seeing them, it all made sense.
"What's going on...?" Garlyle blinked. "How...? But I thought I could only travel through space, not..."
"Not through time? It doesn't seem that far of a stretch, sir Garlyle..."
Garlyle shook somewhat. He understood, of course.
When he had come to this new universe, he had gone a few years into the future... Here, he had grown up, and that meant that it was totally understandable who Maxi and Xianghua were like, in his homeland. Maxi was more than likely Garlyle's long-best friend, Taka, who he had, in his homeland, taken on as his apprentice in return for the lives that he owed the boy who was only older by a day. And Xianghua, was Kiana...
Kiana was the one person who could separate Taka and Garlyle, and make them fight. Not with any trick of the mind, but simply because both boys treasured her and wanted her to be theirs. She was the daughter of Jael, the man who had taken care of them back home, which could make things tricky at times, but in the end it all seemed to be working out.
Separating from their hug, Maxi walked over and shook Kilik's hand, smiling at him, Kilik returning the same smile.
"Who's this?" Maxi looked down at Garlyle, then at Garlyle's hand, where the fragment of the Soul Edge still remained. With one hand, he whipped his nunchucks around, but prepared for it, Garlyle withdrew his hand and sprung backwards, re-pocketing the fragment.
"His name is Garlyle... I have a lot to explain..." Kilik responded.
"Well, whoever he is, he's fast..." Maxi smiled.
"Listen, I'm sure all of us have stories to share... let's get inside..."
*****
Inside, Garlyle listened to the stories. Apparently 'Maxi' had returned to where the graves were for his slain comrades, who were destroyed by a mad axe-wielding monstrosity known as Astaroth, and Maxi had paid them their respects finally.
And Kilik had simply been journeying for no apparent reason, but he had felt the urge to leave, and then let Garlyle tell his bit of the story, which he told in all honesty, even explaining about Kilik's true history and about the dimensions, but not speaking anything about Taka and Kiana, or about his own world...
"Now, there's only one question" Kilik muttered. "Where'd you get that fragment of the Soul Edge?"
"Well..." Garlyle looked at it again. "I wish I could remember, but..."
And then he remembered the hay cart, his memories of his dreams...
"A dream..." Garlyle muttered under his breath. "I had this dream that somebody... or something... gave it to me..." he tried to get it straight, but then realised that his memory was becoming fuzzy again, so got it out quickly before it faded again. "And he put it in my pocket, and when I woke up... I had it..."
"Unusual" Xianghua muttered. "But will you let us destroy it now...?"
"I..." Garlyle thought about it. Why couldn't he allow Xianghua to shatter the fragment?
"Not yet, Garlyle!" Ceres muttered, inside his head. "Just a couple more minutes."
"Until what?" Garlyle thought to himself.
"Until... I don't know... but something will happen..."
"I can't let you destroy it..." Garlyle put it back in his pocket, but before the glares could even fully formed, he finished with "...yet."
He looked down at the ground, as all three asked him why.
"I can't... I don't know, but..."
"Maybe the power of the Soul Edge is getting to him" Maxi muttered, holding his Nunchucks at ready.
"No! It's just, I have this sense, that something's about to..." Garlyle looked around.
There was a thud from outside, and the ground seemed to shake with the impact. Quickly, everybody ran outside.
There, unconscious, was a young man, though probably only just over 13 or 14, with messy purple hair, a black vest, and baggy jeans, with a sack carried on his back, held on a belt that looped around his shoulder. Another belt that crossed his waist had a strange, blue, metal device attached to it, with a plastic screen somewhat like the ones Garlyle had seen back in that weird laboratory with Joanna. He looked quite rugged, but his body was in fair shape, even if he did look maybe only a bit older than Garlyle.
"Who is he...?" Garlyle muttered, leaning down at him. Then he felt something familiar...
There was that 'out of this worldly' feel about him... The same thing he had felt when he had first seen Syiolen... Was this him?
"Oh, the poor child..." Xianghua moved over to him and lifted him up with ease that nearly made Garlyle gasp. "Let's get him inside."
All present and conscious nodded, before following her back inside.
*****
A couple hours later, the young adolescent awoke to find himself in strange surroundings. As he stood up, he reached for his belts, calming quickly to discover they were still there. Slowly, he sat up groggily, shaking his head.
"Where... where am I? What kind of primitive dwelling is this?" the boy muttered.
A slightly mechanical, only half-way emotional voice came from the metal device at his side. "I am unsure, Kozo-dono. It appears to be an old style peasant home, the kind used during the feudal periods of Japan and China..."
"So I can see, but..." Kozo looked around. "Why are we here, anyway, Falcon?"
"I do not know" Falcon, the strange mechanical device, replied. On the screen, it showed a man in light blue armour, whose face, with its spike-back red hair and sharp features, did indeed seem to resemble a bird of prey. "I believe though that we have gone to a time... long before our own."
"How is that possible?" Kozo demanded. "How even remotely could we have gone back in ti..."
"Oh, are you awake?"
Kozo turned to face one of the doorways, where Garlyle was standing. "Who are you?" Kozo moved, switching into a fighting position.
Garlyle laughed. "Don't worry, boy, I mean you no harm. Who are you?"
"My name is Kozo Grausherra. Who are you?" Kozo demanded.
"Grausherra? That's funny..." Garlyle thought to himself. "Wasn't Taka's last name Yobuu-Grausherra...?"
Then Garlyle gave a proper response, after shaking that strange thought out of his head. "My name is Garlyle Wilds."
"Garlyle Wilds, huh?" Kozo smiled. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too. Where do you come from?" Garlyle asked.
"He may be simplistic, Kozo, try to explain it nicely. Children from this era in time were rarely well educated..." Falcon muttered, from beside Garlyle.
"I'm from way after the day after tomorrow" Kozo tried to explain.
"So you're from the far future? Interesting indeed" Garlyle smiled. "And what's that at your side?" he pointed.
"That is my... err... how can I explain this? My friend... he's kinda not real, but..." Kozo stuttered out, trying to find the right way to explain it.
"Well, what's his name?" Garlyle demanded.
"It's Falcon" the man in the device introduced himself.
"Mechanical, right?" Garlyle asked. Kozo blinked, then nodded his head. "No need to play stupid around me, after all, I've got been through a lot."
"So, then, this isn't the past? You seem about as intelligent as a person of my time..."
"Depends" Garlyle shrugged. "Actually, I come from... another time and place... as well as I believe you do..."
"Re... Really?" Kozo asked, perking up.
Garlyle nodded his head. "Listen, tell me your story... how you got here, what it's like in your time and world..."
"Wait just a moment..." Kozo smiled. "You tell me yours first..." he smirked. "Falcon will record every word of it, right?"
"As you wish, Kozo-dono" he responded.
Garlyle wondered what the title was for, but he decided not to ask about it. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"
And so, with the other three standing in a room near them, listening, Garlyle went through his story, ever since having met with Syiolen that first time...
And Falcon recorded it down, digitally storing it away.
"This will make one hell of a story, back home!" Kozo smiled. "If I ever get back home, anyway... People won't ever believe it's true, but..."
"Well, let's hear your story" Garlyle smiled.
"If you insist..." Kozo leaned back a bit, and began his story.