Hey everyone. Silverlocke980 here again. For the reviewers-
Herofox- Thanks for the kudos.
thaumiel- Thanks for reviewing. I personally think Siegfried and Ivy "click" together very well, so their little chat was a real pleasure for me to write.
Sabriel41- Thanks for the continuing reviews. I really like the comments on Yunsung- I worked very hard on him. Glad to know you like it. And about the timeline, I'll finally clear it up here.
This fic doesn't occur before or after SCII; it IS Soul Calibur II. This is my retelling of the events of Soul Calibur II. I'm basically taking the game, and making a story out of it. This is why you've been confused- it's not a "before" or "after" SCII fic, but a "during" SCII fic! Hope that clears it up for you.
And, on Excalibur.... whoops. My bad! :)
Heh, not even halfway through the beginning and already I'm at Chapter 7. Expect twenty chapters, if not more.
You people haven't come here to listen to me babble on, so it's...
"SHOWTIME!"
Chapter 7
Ragged Edges
Cave on the coast of Spain, near Navare. Morning.
The coast of Spain is much like the coasts of any other place in the world; somehow timeless, a place apart, a place where the beating of the surf has polished the rocks into smooth gems and the cries of gulls echo in the heart. A place of beauty, where many stand and feel that they are communing with that great Spirit at the heart of it all. A place for peace. The sun was beginning to rise, it's light glittering off the waves of the sea and making them sparkle like a field of crystal.
The creature inside the cave cared for none of these things. He was among the damned, and his feelings (like so much else about him) had died with his mortal body years ago.
The cave was of medium size, big enough for three men to sit comfortably around a fire. However, there was a passage in the back, a crack in the rocks just big enough for a single man to go through if he turned sideways. The crack continued for thirty feet, long enough so that no sunlight reached it's end. And past it, an opening in the rock (it could not rightfully be called a cave) tall enough for a man to stand in, wide enough for one man to lay flat on his back. It resembled nothing so much as a stone crypt. A fitting home for the creature that now began to stir in the dark.
Cervantes de Leon, once a feared pirate (though he had possessed his own brand of honor, in those days), now an undead monster, stirred in the dark. He lay on his back, his two weapons ( a pistol sword in one hand and a long sword he'd formed from fragments of the Soul Edge in the other) crossed over his chest. His hands clenched, muscles that should have deteriorated long ago pulling against his dead bones. His eyes opened, blank and seemingly blind, and in the dark taking in the most minute cracks and bumps on the ceiling of the cave. In a darkness where no ordinary creature could see anything at all, Cervantes' sight was perfect.
He slowly raised to a sitting position, legs still straight out. He looked like a corpse rising from his grave. Which, in a way, he was. He'd come here to be away from others, to die as much as such as he could die.
He had not meant for this to happen. That had been the one thought he'd held on to all the years of his undeath. He had not meant for this.
When he had found the Soul Edges, in an island cave off the coast of Africa, he had not meant for this. He'd picked them up, knowing only that they held tremendous power, having no idea of the demon inside. He had been a pirate, always fighting, and he had thought that the power of the swords would help him survive longenough to get rich and leave the pirating life forever.
He hadn't meant for this to happen.
The swords had taken him over, and he'd become powerful, all right. He was powerful as Inferno took over his body. He was powerful as Inferno slaughtered his entire crew like they were cattle, with Cervantes' own hands. He was powerful as Inferno summoned a hellish wind to guide his ship into the nearest harbor, where more innocents waited to die.
Power? Yes. He'd gotten power. Too much of it. His life had become a long nightmare, a terrifying dream from which he could not wake.
When Sophitia and Taki had fought him, in the harbor of a town long dead, he had thought it was over. That his pain might finally end.
But, for such as him, it was never really over. Cervantes was cursed to live on. A Soul Edge was destroyed, yes; but even in it's destruction the sword damned him. The shards pierced his body and gave him unholy life, binding his soul to this mortal coil. Making him the undead. He'd fallen when the sword was broken, his body shaking and twisting as the shards transformed him into something less than human. He'd watched (through eyes coated in blood from the wounds on his face) as Sophitia fell, her body pierced by the sword she had destroyed. He watched as Taki rushed to help her friend, catching her before she fell. He watched Sophitia pass out, blood gushing from her stomach. He saw, before darkness took him into the lands past death, Taki yell to her friend in a foreign language, switching to her native Asian tongue in her distress, frantically looking for a way to stop the bleeding. Cervantes had died then, and he had always wondered (in those moments when his nightmare existence allowed him a brief repose) if Sophitia had lived. He hoped to God that she had survived. Such a brave woman... so much like her...
He drove the thought from his mind. She was dead, too. Not by his hand (at the very least, *that* sin did not belong to him) but she was dead, nonetheless. The woman who had birthed his Isabella...
His musings stopped as he heard it. A pulse in his mind that he knew far too well. A shriek of purest need and want. If he had not given up breathing some time ago, his breath would have caught in his throat.
The Soul Edge. It was back. And it was calling.
Cervantes stood up, his long, dead mustache swaying. He heard it's siren call and fought, fought as best he could. He'd thought that the only pieces of the Soul Edge still in existence were the ones embedded in his body, which had flowed out of him to form a long sword some time ago (a month after he'd lost the second Soul Edge? A year? Time held no meaning for him, ageless and deathless as he was). He'd felt the second Soul Edge shatter, heard Inferno's screams and a battle-cry that faintly reminded him of the boy he'd fought, soon after his death, the one who had taken the Soul Edge from him.
But now... oh God, that cry...
He tried. If nothing else, Cervantes tried. But the call was too strong. His undead voice, ringing loud and somehow wrong in the air, was not his own but that of the shards that formed his sword. Cervantes was Cervantes no longer.
" Familiar cries..! Come back to me!"
Sliding between the rocks like a shadow, Cervantes left the cave and began heading towards Navare, where, unbeknownst to him, his Isabella was just waking up.
************************************************************************
South of Spain's border with France, Raphael's campsite. That night.
Raphael looked up into the night sky, his face calm and detached. He was an unemotional man by nature, brought up in the ruthless world of French politics. He was a man whose face was as unemotional as a snake's. He was the kind of man who could look at the sky and feel no wonder there, just a sort of detached appreciation for it. His life had been the same way, no wonder and no terror. Just a sense of duty to his family.
Amy had changed all that. Their first meeting had been very, very odd. Raphael didn't know why, but for some reason their meeting seemed predestined, somehow, too much a coincidence to be dumb luck. Raphael did not believe in Fate, but he did believe that sometimes God changed events to suit His eternal plan. Raphael personally wondered why; if God had arranged their meeting, to what purpose?
************************************************************************
The meeting itself was at a bad time in both their lives. Amy had been wandering the streets aimlessly, the last family that had sheltered her having been kicked out of their home by their landlord. Amy had left them soon after, not wanting to add any strain to their lives by hanging around and being an extra mouth to feed. Raphael had been running from the guard, his own family turned traitor against him. It had been the day of the Evil Seed catastrophe that had spread across the globe, changing the lives of millions in one act. Those susceptible to the curse had become monsters, and Raphael's family was no exception. One cousin. That was all it had took to bring him down. One cousin, gone mad, trying to kill the Queen. Though he had been caught and trialed, Raphael's cousin had claimed that Raphael had put him up to it, had been planning all along to kill her. Raphael had tried to hide until the Queen's wrath had passed (it would, soon enough; the royal family had a short memory), but his own family had turned him in. He had never understood just why they had turned him in. Jealousy of his position as head of the Sorel family? Hatred? Misguided loyalty to the Queen? He had never found out, and no longer cared.
As he was running from the guard, he had almost killed Amy by running into her. He'd crashed into the girl, not looking at where he was going, and tripped headfirst into a sewer ditch in the side of the road. He'd pulled himself up and, without looking at the girl again, hiding himself behind a wooden door. He'd stopped, catching his breath, when he heard the guard talk to the girl. He'd looked out through the cracks in the door, as the guard grabbed her up from the ground and shook her. The guard asked her where the man was. Raphael had pulled his sword out. The girl would tell them for sure. He didn't think he could best all of the guards after him, but he would try.
And then, the act that changed his life forever: the girl gave them wrong directions. A simple kindness, really. But, at that time in Raphael's life, when it seemed that everyone had turned their backs on him, even such kindness as that was a blessed salve.
The guard had run off, following a path that would take them far away from him. Raphael had slumped heavily against the door, panting. He heard the little girl knock tentatively on the door, and ask, " Are you all right, sir?"
He had opened the door, and said, " Yes, thanks to you. Why did you help me?"
" I don't like them," the girl had said. " They're mean to all the commoners. Who are you? That dress doesn't look very cheap."
Raphael looked at his red shirt and pants. It was the main reason the guard had so little trouble following him; he stood out like a big bright banner among the mostly brown dress of the commoners. " I'm Raphael Sorel. What's your name?"
" Amy," she'd said. " Are you a noble? I don't like nobles."
Raphael had grinned then, amazing even himself. The girl's statement had, for some reason, cheered him up. " I'm not a noble now. Guess I'm a peasant, like yourself."
" You better get those clothes off if you don't want to be followed," Amy had said, appraising him like a tailor. " You look like a giant cherry."
Raphael had burst out laughing, one of the first times in his life he'd actually laughed like this; full-throated, hearty laughter, the kind that leaves one feeling weak but happy inside. " Oh, this is great," he'd said when he was done, holding onto his stomach and still chuckling. " I've just been reduced to a commoner, hunted by the guards, and told I look like a giant cherry. What a day."
Amy had smiled at him then, a sweet and innocent smile. " Yeah, sounds like it. Where are you going?"
" The gates," Raphael had said, looking around for anyone who had noticed his outburst. " I'm leaving this place. Do you know a way there?"
" I've got a better place," Amy said. " It's through the river. Under the bridge on the south side of town, there's a little place you can leave town through. I can take you there."
" That would be great. But I thought you didn't like nobles?"
" You're different," she'd said, and shrugged.
************************************************************************
Raphael had almost gotten caught leaving town, and Amy had left with him in the ruckus they'd caused. In the time afterwards, they'd traveled south. They'd reached the border with Spain by the time Raphael found a home, a mansion whose owner had recently died. He'd actually not poisoned the man (he hadn't the faintest idea who had), but if everyone thought he had, why not use that image? No one in town argued against him. They all thought he was insane.
In the time they'd traveled together, he and Amy had become close. He'd never thought of family as a thing of love before; it had always been something you had a duty to, not something that gave love to you. But with Amy, he thought he had a real family. A real home. She might as well have been his daughter, for all that he loved her.
But in the last few days, as he read in the library of the mansion, he'd found so much out. About the Evil Seed that had ruined him- about the Soul Edge- and about the pettiness of human nobles. It was that last that had caused him and Amy such grief. Simple human pettiness.
And a grand, insane plan had been born in his mind. It was wild, risky, and probably impossible. But he had to try.
He would gain the Soul Edge, gather it's pieces together, and give it to the nobles. In no time at all, they would battle each other, kill each other. End their tyranny with their pettiness. And Amy would never again suffer from such as they.
But first things first. He was heading to a place called Valencia, Spain. There, he hoped to investigate rumors of an undead monster that possessed some sort of demon sword. He didn't know much else, but the information available strongly hinted that it might be Cervantes, the dread pirate who had wielded the Soul Edge before Nightmare had gotten hold of it. Raphael wondered if his mission might be as simple as killing this undead monster and taking the Soul Edge. He doubted it, but that was no reason to lose hope.
He put his fire out and rolled into his sleeping bag. He wasn't afraid of wild animals; this area was patrolled by the Spanish armies, and they were no monsters in the area. The most dangerous animals here were the bandits, and with no fire, his sleeping form would be hard to spot. Besides, he didn't have anything on him; his sword, the Flambert, was the most expensive thing he had. That, and maybe his cherry-red clothes.
He fell asleep grinning at this thought.
- There you go, people! Send reviews please! And I noticed a mistake I made. It's a little late, but in Chapter 1 Ivy's mom said it had been 25 years after Ivy had been found, making Ivy 27. I actually meant to make her 25. Stupid me.
Love and honor to all my fans. See you around, friends.
Herofox- Thanks for the kudos.
thaumiel- Thanks for reviewing. I personally think Siegfried and Ivy "click" together very well, so their little chat was a real pleasure for me to write.
Sabriel41- Thanks for the continuing reviews. I really like the comments on Yunsung- I worked very hard on him. Glad to know you like it. And about the timeline, I'll finally clear it up here.
This fic doesn't occur before or after SCII; it IS Soul Calibur II. This is my retelling of the events of Soul Calibur II. I'm basically taking the game, and making a story out of it. This is why you've been confused- it's not a "before" or "after" SCII fic, but a "during" SCII fic! Hope that clears it up for you.
And, on Excalibur.... whoops. My bad! :)
Heh, not even halfway through the beginning and already I'm at Chapter 7. Expect twenty chapters, if not more.
You people haven't come here to listen to me babble on, so it's...
"SHOWTIME!"
Chapter 7
Ragged Edges
Cave on the coast of Spain, near Navare. Morning.
The coast of Spain is much like the coasts of any other place in the world; somehow timeless, a place apart, a place where the beating of the surf has polished the rocks into smooth gems and the cries of gulls echo in the heart. A place of beauty, where many stand and feel that they are communing with that great Spirit at the heart of it all. A place for peace. The sun was beginning to rise, it's light glittering off the waves of the sea and making them sparkle like a field of crystal.
The creature inside the cave cared for none of these things. He was among the damned, and his feelings (like so much else about him) had died with his mortal body years ago.
The cave was of medium size, big enough for three men to sit comfortably around a fire. However, there was a passage in the back, a crack in the rocks just big enough for a single man to go through if he turned sideways. The crack continued for thirty feet, long enough so that no sunlight reached it's end. And past it, an opening in the rock (it could not rightfully be called a cave) tall enough for a man to stand in, wide enough for one man to lay flat on his back. It resembled nothing so much as a stone crypt. A fitting home for the creature that now began to stir in the dark.
Cervantes de Leon, once a feared pirate (though he had possessed his own brand of honor, in those days), now an undead monster, stirred in the dark. He lay on his back, his two weapons ( a pistol sword in one hand and a long sword he'd formed from fragments of the Soul Edge in the other) crossed over his chest. His hands clenched, muscles that should have deteriorated long ago pulling against his dead bones. His eyes opened, blank and seemingly blind, and in the dark taking in the most minute cracks and bumps on the ceiling of the cave. In a darkness where no ordinary creature could see anything at all, Cervantes' sight was perfect.
He slowly raised to a sitting position, legs still straight out. He looked like a corpse rising from his grave. Which, in a way, he was. He'd come here to be away from others, to die as much as such as he could die.
He had not meant for this to happen. That had been the one thought he'd held on to all the years of his undeath. He had not meant for this.
When he had found the Soul Edges, in an island cave off the coast of Africa, he had not meant for this. He'd picked them up, knowing only that they held tremendous power, having no idea of the demon inside. He had been a pirate, always fighting, and he had thought that the power of the swords would help him survive longenough to get rich and leave the pirating life forever.
He hadn't meant for this to happen.
The swords had taken him over, and he'd become powerful, all right. He was powerful as Inferno took over his body. He was powerful as Inferno slaughtered his entire crew like they were cattle, with Cervantes' own hands. He was powerful as Inferno summoned a hellish wind to guide his ship into the nearest harbor, where more innocents waited to die.
Power? Yes. He'd gotten power. Too much of it. His life had become a long nightmare, a terrifying dream from which he could not wake.
When Sophitia and Taki had fought him, in the harbor of a town long dead, he had thought it was over. That his pain might finally end.
But, for such as him, it was never really over. Cervantes was cursed to live on. A Soul Edge was destroyed, yes; but even in it's destruction the sword damned him. The shards pierced his body and gave him unholy life, binding his soul to this mortal coil. Making him the undead. He'd fallen when the sword was broken, his body shaking and twisting as the shards transformed him into something less than human. He'd watched (through eyes coated in blood from the wounds on his face) as Sophitia fell, her body pierced by the sword she had destroyed. He watched as Taki rushed to help her friend, catching her before she fell. He watched Sophitia pass out, blood gushing from her stomach. He saw, before darkness took him into the lands past death, Taki yell to her friend in a foreign language, switching to her native Asian tongue in her distress, frantically looking for a way to stop the bleeding. Cervantes had died then, and he had always wondered (in those moments when his nightmare existence allowed him a brief repose) if Sophitia had lived. He hoped to God that she had survived. Such a brave woman... so much like her...
He drove the thought from his mind. She was dead, too. Not by his hand (at the very least, *that* sin did not belong to him) but she was dead, nonetheless. The woman who had birthed his Isabella...
His musings stopped as he heard it. A pulse in his mind that he knew far too well. A shriek of purest need and want. If he had not given up breathing some time ago, his breath would have caught in his throat.
The Soul Edge. It was back. And it was calling.
Cervantes stood up, his long, dead mustache swaying. He heard it's siren call and fought, fought as best he could. He'd thought that the only pieces of the Soul Edge still in existence were the ones embedded in his body, which had flowed out of him to form a long sword some time ago (a month after he'd lost the second Soul Edge? A year? Time held no meaning for him, ageless and deathless as he was). He'd felt the second Soul Edge shatter, heard Inferno's screams and a battle-cry that faintly reminded him of the boy he'd fought, soon after his death, the one who had taken the Soul Edge from him.
But now... oh God, that cry...
He tried. If nothing else, Cervantes tried. But the call was too strong. His undead voice, ringing loud and somehow wrong in the air, was not his own but that of the shards that formed his sword. Cervantes was Cervantes no longer.
" Familiar cries..! Come back to me!"
Sliding between the rocks like a shadow, Cervantes left the cave and began heading towards Navare, where, unbeknownst to him, his Isabella was just waking up.
************************************************************************
South of Spain's border with France, Raphael's campsite. That night.
Raphael looked up into the night sky, his face calm and detached. He was an unemotional man by nature, brought up in the ruthless world of French politics. He was a man whose face was as unemotional as a snake's. He was the kind of man who could look at the sky and feel no wonder there, just a sort of detached appreciation for it. His life had been the same way, no wonder and no terror. Just a sense of duty to his family.
Amy had changed all that. Their first meeting had been very, very odd. Raphael didn't know why, but for some reason their meeting seemed predestined, somehow, too much a coincidence to be dumb luck. Raphael did not believe in Fate, but he did believe that sometimes God changed events to suit His eternal plan. Raphael personally wondered why; if God had arranged their meeting, to what purpose?
************************************************************************
The meeting itself was at a bad time in both their lives. Amy had been wandering the streets aimlessly, the last family that had sheltered her having been kicked out of their home by their landlord. Amy had left them soon after, not wanting to add any strain to their lives by hanging around and being an extra mouth to feed. Raphael had been running from the guard, his own family turned traitor against him. It had been the day of the Evil Seed catastrophe that had spread across the globe, changing the lives of millions in one act. Those susceptible to the curse had become monsters, and Raphael's family was no exception. One cousin. That was all it had took to bring him down. One cousin, gone mad, trying to kill the Queen. Though he had been caught and trialed, Raphael's cousin had claimed that Raphael had put him up to it, had been planning all along to kill her. Raphael had tried to hide until the Queen's wrath had passed (it would, soon enough; the royal family had a short memory), but his own family had turned him in. He had never understood just why they had turned him in. Jealousy of his position as head of the Sorel family? Hatred? Misguided loyalty to the Queen? He had never found out, and no longer cared.
As he was running from the guard, he had almost killed Amy by running into her. He'd crashed into the girl, not looking at where he was going, and tripped headfirst into a sewer ditch in the side of the road. He'd pulled himself up and, without looking at the girl again, hiding himself behind a wooden door. He'd stopped, catching his breath, when he heard the guard talk to the girl. He'd looked out through the cracks in the door, as the guard grabbed her up from the ground and shook her. The guard asked her where the man was. Raphael had pulled his sword out. The girl would tell them for sure. He didn't think he could best all of the guards after him, but he would try.
And then, the act that changed his life forever: the girl gave them wrong directions. A simple kindness, really. But, at that time in Raphael's life, when it seemed that everyone had turned their backs on him, even such kindness as that was a blessed salve.
The guard had run off, following a path that would take them far away from him. Raphael had slumped heavily against the door, panting. He heard the little girl knock tentatively on the door, and ask, " Are you all right, sir?"
He had opened the door, and said, " Yes, thanks to you. Why did you help me?"
" I don't like them," the girl had said. " They're mean to all the commoners. Who are you? That dress doesn't look very cheap."
Raphael looked at his red shirt and pants. It was the main reason the guard had so little trouble following him; he stood out like a big bright banner among the mostly brown dress of the commoners. " I'm Raphael Sorel. What's your name?"
" Amy," she'd said. " Are you a noble? I don't like nobles."
Raphael had grinned then, amazing even himself. The girl's statement had, for some reason, cheered him up. " I'm not a noble now. Guess I'm a peasant, like yourself."
" You better get those clothes off if you don't want to be followed," Amy had said, appraising him like a tailor. " You look like a giant cherry."
Raphael had burst out laughing, one of the first times in his life he'd actually laughed like this; full-throated, hearty laughter, the kind that leaves one feeling weak but happy inside. " Oh, this is great," he'd said when he was done, holding onto his stomach and still chuckling. " I've just been reduced to a commoner, hunted by the guards, and told I look like a giant cherry. What a day."
Amy had smiled at him then, a sweet and innocent smile. " Yeah, sounds like it. Where are you going?"
" The gates," Raphael had said, looking around for anyone who had noticed his outburst. " I'm leaving this place. Do you know a way there?"
" I've got a better place," Amy said. " It's through the river. Under the bridge on the south side of town, there's a little place you can leave town through. I can take you there."
" That would be great. But I thought you didn't like nobles?"
" You're different," she'd said, and shrugged.
************************************************************************
Raphael had almost gotten caught leaving town, and Amy had left with him in the ruckus they'd caused. In the time afterwards, they'd traveled south. They'd reached the border with Spain by the time Raphael found a home, a mansion whose owner had recently died. He'd actually not poisoned the man (he hadn't the faintest idea who had), but if everyone thought he had, why not use that image? No one in town argued against him. They all thought he was insane.
In the time they'd traveled together, he and Amy had become close. He'd never thought of family as a thing of love before; it had always been something you had a duty to, not something that gave love to you. But with Amy, he thought he had a real family. A real home. She might as well have been his daughter, for all that he loved her.
But in the last few days, as he read in the library of the mansion, he'd found so much out. About the Evil Seed that had ruined him- about the Soul Edge- and about the pettiness of human nobles. It was that last that had caused him and Amy such grief. Simple human pettiness.
And a grand, insane plan had been born in his mind. It was wild, risky, and probably impossible. But he had to try.
He would gain the Soul Edge, gather it's pieces together, and give it to the nobles. In no time at all, they would battle each other, kill each other. End their tyranny with their pettiness. And Amy would never again suffer from such as they.
But first things first. He was heading to a place called Valencia, Spain. There, he hoped to investigate rumors of an undead monster that possessed some sort of demon sword. He didn't know much else, but the information available strongly hinted that it might be Cervantes, the dread pirate who had wielded the Soul Edge before Nightmare had gotten hold of it. Raphael wondered if his mission might be as simple as killing this undead monster and taking the Soul Edge. He doubted it, but that was no reason to lose hope.
He put his fire out and rolled into his sleeping bag. He wasn't afraid of wild animals; this area was patrolled by the Spanish armies, and they were no monsters in the area. The most dangerous animals here were the bandits, and with no fire, his sleeping form would be hard to spot. Besides, he didn't have anything on him; his sword, the Flambert, was the most expensive thing he had. That, and maybe his cherry-red clothes.
He fell asleep grinning at this thought.
- There you go, people! Send reviews please! And I noticed a mistake I made. It's a little late, but in Chapter 1 Ivy's mom said it had been 25 years after Ivy had been found, making Ivy 27. I actually meant to make her 25. Stupid me.
Love and honor to all my fans. See you around, friends.
