Hey! I'm back! Hope you all like this. Due to some wierd cause however, I cannot access the second and third chapter of this story, so this is basically from what I remember those were and what I have off the top of my head. So here it is! again. The first original chapter of Soul Calibur 2: The Odyssey. Enjoy! (if you can)

Chapter 1:

Another Typical Night

It was a night like any other in this typical French port, moonlight lit the area, the stars were shinning, the water was calm, and there was not a sound but the occaisional whisper of the winds. The harbor was calm, the boats and ships were safely tied to the docks and not a soul was within sight. Except for those who borded the majestic ship Le Messager de L'Espoir, the ship that had once belonged to the prominent French aristocrat and master fencer Raphael Sörel, son of Sebastián and Flavie Sörel, brother of the three-time European fencing champion León Sörel, it was allegedly now a pirate's ship, after it was "comandeered" by the infamous japanese pirate from the Ryu Kyu region Maxi Teitsuro. Who had , supposedly on orders from the french bureaucrats, attacked the ship, kidnapped the owner, thrown all the crew to their deaths at sea, sent his own ship to the bottom of the ocean and taken Le Messager de L'Espoir as his own.

Truth was, Teitsuro had put the defeated crew in boats and added M. Sörel to his own particular crew (who joined of his own free will), though he did sink his own ship and taken Le Messager for his own. But Maxi Teitsuro wasn't the cruel being he was told to be, he was actually a man that fought for what he believed right and supported those he loved. That's why he had asked M: Sörel to join his crew, because they were both after a common goal, which they both thought to be of great importance: the destruccion of the evil blade Soul Edge.

Now, the unlikeley crew of Le Messager de L'Espoir, rested on this peaceful night, most of them were on deck looking at the stars in quiet meditation. The ship harbor the ship was docked in, had a half-moon shape, gainning elevation as the curvature progressed until it turned into a thirty feet high clif that had a lighthouse perched on its outermost corner and quite a few rocks popping out of the water, foreboding certain death to those who fell from the cliff.

It was against the lighthouse's walls, that a dark, cloaked figure leaned comfortably with its arms crossed. Its gaze covered the entire harbor, but rested on the previously described ship. That was its main target, he could feel the evil energy he was after emanate from there. He could almost smell its foul pressence in the air, and it reeked.

After making sure that none of those on deck even noticed his pressence, the figure reached inside the cloak and removed a particular gadjet, it had the shape of a cross-bow, but without the bow or the arrow, instead, it had a triangular arrow-head that was attached to a chain; that chain went inside the device's structure neatly packed. The figure looked once more at the calm night before letting out a resignated sigh, he hated to have to perturb such a peaceful moment, especially wih what was probably going to be the clash of blades and many an injury.

He took aim at the ship's main mastil, which was barely within range of his strange weapon and without previous notice, he exploded into a burst of speed towards the edge of the cliff and jumped into what looked like certain death, but when he was sure he had his aim right, he pulled the trigger of his gadget and the arrow-head sprung from its resting place, followed by the chain. The arrow-head found its mark in the center of the ship's main mastil and expanded slightly. With another pull of the trigger, the chain retracted into its sheet, janking the figure with it.

When the chain had fully returned to its original place, the arrow-head returned to its original size and became quite loose, since the hole it was in was made for something bigger now. By this time, the figure had already come into contact with the mastil and jumped from it. He nimbly jumped to one of the ship's lesser sails while putting away the strange device and drawing a knife with strange carbings on the blade. He dug the blade inte the sail and let gravity do the rest.

He quickly came into contact with the floor and returned the knife to its place inside the cloak. Where he was met by the crew of Le Messeger: Greece's most prominent female warriors, the Alexandria sisters, the Ling-Shu monk Kilik, the former Chinese soldier Choi Xianghua and the wind priestess from the wind village, Talim. All of them had their weapons at ready.

"Who are you and what do you want with us?" demanded immediately Sophitia Alexandria, older of the two sisters and apparent leader of the group.

"From you I seek nothing, but the shards of the evil blade you call Soul Edge" answered the figure in a soft voice. In that moment the door that led to the inside of the ship and from there came the rest of the crew: the captain Maxi, the owner Raphael Sörel, a student from the Seung dojo, Hong Yunsung -or Yunsung as most people called him-, and the monk from the Ling-Shu temple Kilik, with their weapons at ready too, they had been playing cards inside the ship and heard the noise from above, so they decide to go check it.

"Oh yeah? Well, you'll have to go past us to get them" replied in an arrogant tone Raphael, hoping that the number difference would scare off the mysterious being.

"Very well, as you wish." Responded the figure. His hand then went to one of the folds of the cape just to throw it towards the warriors, who had moved into a close group. This took them off guard as the cape extendend like a curtain in front of them, blocking their view from their attacker to be. But as soon as the cape extended, a barrage of arrows came flying through it towards the warriors, most of them ducked, but Maxi, was unfortunate enough to get caught by the aorrows, lucklily for him, however, none of them hit him squarely, they all just went through his clothes giving him minors scratches. But the arrow's strength was so great that they pulled him towards one of the ship's wall and pinned him to it, and when he made contact with t, his head hit the wood hard and he was knocked out.

The warriors barely had time to worry about their friend, as the intruder stepped over the cape and attacked them while wielding a huge battle hammer, they also noticed that his ears were strangely large and pointy, like an elf.

But before they could wonder about the intruder's race, they had to worry about defeating him. First, he went towards Raphael, whom he caught off guard square in the head and knocked him out. Then he threw the hammer to the first person's head within sight, which turend out to be Cassandra, the younger of the Alexandria sisters, who was left unconcious by the blow. He then drew a pink bladed sword and a red shield with a mirror-like silver plating on the front and turned to his next oponent in line: Yunsung. The Korean swordsman quickly reacted and crossed blades with the intruder.

Kilik took this moment as his cue and jumped towards the intruder, staff held high to be brought in a swift motion. But in the last second the intruder sidespped and the staff hit Yunsung square in the head and knocked him out in the process. The monk, however, didn't have time to lament his mistake as he was caught in the head with the flat side of the intruder's blade and also being taken out for some time.

As he turned around, the attacking swordsman had to dodge under the blade of Xianghua, he then grabbed her by the arm and launched her towards the boat's railing to which she barely managed to hold on to, escaping a very unpleasant fall into the harbor's cold water.

"I see this isn't the first time you fight multiple opponents at the same time" said Sophitia, who was flanked by Talim with her sword and shield at the ready. "But lets see how are you when you have lost the element of surprise." And at that moment Talim put away her strange weapons and rushed to the railing to which Xianghua was holding on to, obviously in an atempt to help her while Sophitia fought this enemy. The intruder saw this as another opportunity and quickly put away his blade and reached into his belt to draw a boomerang, which he hurled at the prestess's feet while running towards her.

By the time Talim saw the weapon coming at her it was too late, she was hit on her right foot by the boomerang -which then turned back the way it came towards its owner as most boomerangs do when thrown correctly- and started to fall. However, she did not touch the floor, as the intruder had already caugh up with her, he then turned to Sophita and used Talim as a human shield. He put away the boomerang which he had cought while running and drew once againd the strange knife and pressed it to the pirestess's neck.

"Give me the shards or I'll kill her!" demanded the stranger. Sophitia was shocked at the speed and skill this opponent was showing and tried to think as fast as she could. Her shock didn't diminish, however, as she looked around the ship while thinking what to do and saw her friends and companions lying on the floor or hanging for dear life on the ship's railing.

She didn't need to finish thinking as a voice came from behind the intruder and Talim "Not if I can help it!" they all turned around to see Yunsung flying through the air with his blade held high and ready to strike down his enemy.

But as soon as he saw him, the swordsman took the knife off Talim's kneck and projected her towards Yunsung. He caught the youth in mid air and both of them fell to the ship's floor with a thud.

This is going to be much harder than I thought said Sophitia to herself

"Do I need to defeat you too, or will you surrender the shards of Soul Edge to me?" asked the stranger.

"Never!"answered Sophitia with confidence. "You speak of the Soul Edge as if it was just a weapon, but you can't even fathom its power"

"Oh, I believe I can" replied the intruder with a smile. "So, since you don't seem to be near relinquishing the blade, I think I'm going to have to defeat you to get it."

"Ja! If you even come close to defeating me, then I'll give you the shards personally." Responded Sophitia arrogantly to xianghua's dismay, who was climbing back into the ship.

And with that the greek warrior quickly rushed towards her enemy. Their blades clashed with intensity on the ship's front side and entered the complex, beautiful and deadly dance known as a sword fight. They both moved swiftly and with unmatched intensity, but it wasn't before long that the downed warriors quickly recovered and surrounded the combatants, more importantly, their attacker.

The intruder realized this and decided it was time to end this. He locked his blade with the greek's and sidestepped to kick her in the gut and send her to the floor. But instead of going for the kill, he quickly sheeted his sword and put away his shield and did something very unusual: he took both of his hands to his right hip, moved his arms in a circular motion in front of him and punched the ship's floor with his left hand.

When his hand touched the floor a fire ball came out of it and expanded quickly but it didn't burn its creator, instead it traveled fast along the ship towards the warriors, which quickly ran towards the other side of the ship in a thight group.

But, as quickly as it came, it faded right before touching them, leaving them all in awe. Before they could know what was going on, however, they heard from behind them the last thing they expected: clapping. They all turned arround to look at their attacker leaning comfortably against the ship's railing and clapping at them with a rather amused look in his face, but if they had seen their faces at the moment they would have been amused too.

"Congratulations ladys and gentlemen! You have proved to me that you are worthy of my aid and that it wasn't sheer luck that brought you to this point!" he anounced triumphant.

Kilik was the first one to recover from the impresion and asked "What the hell is going on? And what do you mean by that?"

Amused, the swordsman replied "Well, I was just testing you, to see your intentions, how good you were at fighting, and since you have proved that you are not evil, I offer my help to you, if you will have me."

"And what if we won't? Are you going to attack us and take the pieces from us? Your sneak attacks won't work again and you are greatly outnumbered." Responded Yunsung arrogantly.

"And what if you shut up for once and let the big boys do the talking, Hong?" cutRaphael, who had a scarlet line trailing from his brow, where he had been hit with the hammer, without counting the massive headache he was suffering; Yunsung only shrugged his shoulders and muttered something like "look who's the little boy." he kept quiet, however.

"Now, with all the silly interruptions out of the way, (Yunsung huffed at this) what was that about knowing our intentions?"resumed Raphael.

"Well, the best way to know people's character is by fighting them, and you all didnt' seem evil to me on our little brawl." Replied the former attacker.

"But, give us one good reason to trust that you won't steal the Soul Edge pieces from us and kill us in our sleep if we take you in." Demanded Xianghua.

"Well, like I said, the best way to know someone is by fighting him, did I seem like someone who would do that right now?" asked the intruder. After some time, they all realized that what he just said was true, even though he did sneek attacked them, he hadn't killed any of them when he had the chance which was more than any could say of most of the things thay had faced.

"Well, then, we'll take you in only if you tell us your name and why are you searching the pieces of Soul Edge." Responded Kilik after pondering the situation.

"Well, my name, is Link, and as to why I search the Soul Edge, it has caused so much suffering to my people that destruction it is the only thing I want for it." Responded the elf.

The warriors took this as a very good reason, since it was this same reason what moved most of them. As for the name, well, as unusual as it was, maybe he just didn't want to give his real name.

"Well, Link, that seems good enough, I will take you to your quarters in this ship. Do you have any other belonings somewhere else, say a cap nearby?" asked Raphael.

"Yes, but I'll colect them in the morning and bring them back." Responded Link.

"Very well, let us go to bed then" asnwered Raphael. But they all then heard a groan and turned around to see that Maxi, still pinned to the wall by the arrows was coming to. "Just help us get him down from the wall."

And with that, they all went to their rooms inside the ship to have seome sleep, all except Raphael and Link, who were taking Maxi down from the wall. After that, Link took the arrows and put them with the rest of the in his quiver and followed the French man to his new room. Maxi had a hard time believing the story of what had happened while he was unconcious, but in the end he believed it and went to bed.

It was a night like any other in this typical French port, moonlight lit the area, the stars were shinning, the water was calm, and there was not a sound but the occaisional whisper of the winds.

There you go! How was it? Good? Bad? Or should I erase that from memory and throw myself into a cliff? Anyway, review and tell me what your thoughts are!

Yours truly:
Jastul