Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Soul Calibur; I'm only using them to have some fun.

Thanks to all of you who have reviewed!

From now on I will call the group of warriors the "seekers" or "blade seekers" or something along this line, just so you know.

And if anyone wants me to introduce any new characters or give more "on-screen" time, per say, to characters already in here just tell me and I'll try to see how I can fit them into the story

Well, let's get going with the story!

"Life is like a flower as it stumbles out of fall"
-Kamelot

A Pirate's Life for Me & the Trip through Italy:

In the eastern shores of Sicily, an ominously looking ship docked in yet another unfortunate city, the ship's captain hoped to find in this country what he had sought for so long and was yet unable to find: the other blade of the Soul Edge; it had been so long since he had been defeated, and it had been so long since he had reawaken as little more than a zombie whose only mission was to retake the power he once possessed.

He was standing in the ship's higher part without counting the watching post, he looked down at his troops: outcasts and thieves, murderers and betrayers, just the kind of people needed to help him achieve his goal, and now that he came to think about it, it was rather funny, he had told them that whenever he obtained the Soul Edge and ruled the land, he would give them power and riches, and he more than well knew that whenever that time came when the Soul Edge returned within his grasp, he would use his crew's souls to power the blade even more.

Silly little humans, they didn't knew, and they still followed him obediently, like a rat being mesmerized by the snake's eyes and comes closer to its death out of free will. He caressed the sword that he was holding: the female Soul Edge, the only blade that he had been able to retain after being defeated, but this one was special, this one was his own version of the Soul Edge, created out of the shards of the broken sword, and manipulated by the shards that lay within the pirate's body. He was finally the master of the Soul Edge, and when he recovered the second blade from that German thief he would be invincible.

"Soon enough my dear Siegfried, soon enough, just you wait until the power of my Soul Edge is restored and we'll see who is stronger: the Azure Nightmare or the Dread Pirate!" he announced triumphantly and then laughed maniacally at the thought of reaping the heart out of the Nightmare and then taking the blade from him "And then all will be back to the way it should be" he said evilly.

"But for now, let's just concentrate on the road ahead. This village seems pretty well inhabited, and the souls of this people will be more than enough to get me going for a while" he said smiling at the thought of the massacre to come. Then he directed his attention to his crew "Well, my men! Today comes yet another day on our ascension to power! This village is plentiful on souls and shall serve our purpose well! (My purpose, he thought) Now go and kill or take and bring to me as many as you can! Their souls will be absorbed by the Soul Edge and our power will become greater! Let the massacre begin!" and with his final command the crew ran down of the ship and went to sack and plunder at will, but most important, they went to kill.

In a few minutes the screams of alarm and fear filled the atmosphere, Cervantes considered this as music, and as each voice stopped yelling, he felt the Soul Edge increase in power and rejoice, and his evil plot seemed to be working to perfection.

"Soon enough Nightmare, soon enough. After I'm done with you, Inferno's most brutal attack will seem to you like a mother's caress and you will bow down to me and beg for mercy that you shall not receive. Soon enough" he said to no one in particular and then he just dedicated to hear the screams of dying men, women and children. After some time he got bored of just listening and decided to go down and get some action for himself. If it had been a massacre before, now it was pure slaughter: the smell of death quickly filled the air as the Dread Pirate entered the city, closely followed by the shadow of death wherever he went.

By sunrise the village had been torn down, every house burned, and every men killed and every thing considered valuable had been taken inside the vaults of Cervantes's ship, when he arrived he had told his men to forgive women and do what they pleased with the children, he had told them to take any women they thought to be pretty to be brought back to the ship.

Whoever brought a women with him would be allowed to have his way with her and share her as he pleased. There were more than a few who brought more than one, since the captain had said that every woman they brought, and so they decided to take as many as they could, in the end the ship was full of female prisoners, their age varying from the early 15 to even some 50 year old women. They were all named the captain's official "concubines" although the proper term would have been sexual slave. In the end were so many that the pirates didn't care who brought which woman, and that night the pirates went from cabin to cabin exchanging women and raping them several times. Those who resisted too much were killed, and those who weren't wished they were because the next day, the next day they became exclusive property of the ship's captain, property of the most ruthless and evil man to walk the earth.

The next day Cervantes called upon his 'troops' and made them release the few male prisoners which hadn't been fed to the evil sword "You are now free to go and die in any way you please!" he said sadistically "Now go! And tell the world that the Dread Pirate, Cervantes de Leon has returned!" he said with a maniacal tone in his voice to the prisoners, which immediately broke in a sprint towards wherever fear or the hope of safety led them.

Then one of the pirates approached Cervantes and kneeling before him he asked "Where are we heading now my lord?" Cervantes looked down at him and said: "I've always liked trading cities, and they say Venice is lovely at this time of the year" he said as if he was planning his next vacation while an evil grin crossed his face.

"Venice it is then, sir" replied happy that they would get to sack such important city. "Wait for me Nightmare, and do not waste my sword's power…when I'm done with you, you will bow down to me and beg for mercy. That'll be of course, right before I kill you and retake what is rightly mine" he then laughed maniacally at the thought and after a few moments he calmed down and went to "initiate" his concubines. But first, he went to check on what his men had plundered from the destroyed city in which they were docked.

If he was going to live for ever, he couldn't find a better way to do it. "Oh yes, I was borned to live a pirate's life" he said when he looked at all his treasures.

Sophitia awoke in the middle of the night with a scream, she was covered in sweat and her breathing was uneasy. "No way! He should've been death! I saw his body burn in the flames of Soul Edge after Taki defeated him!" she had seen Cervantes's attack to an Italian port from a few days ago. She knew what his evil mind was capable of, but she didn't know that he was able to come back from the death.

After she finished talking to herself Cassandra rushed inside her tent, followed closely by Link and Kilik, who had their weapons drawn "Sophitia what's wrong?" she said greatly concerned "I think I just had a nightmare" she said still uneasy "Well, that isn't so bad" said Kilik relieved "it wasn't just a dream Kilik, it was more like a vision, it was far too real…I saw him, I saw him slaughter all those people, and I saw him feed the souls of many an innocent person to the Soul Edge" she said trying in vain to forget what she had just seen in her dream.

"You mean Nightmare?" he said, his relief far from gone by now.

"No, I meant Cervantes" she said simply

"WHAT!" I thought that you and that ninja Taki had defeated and killed him a long time ago!" he said without believing her words.

"That's what I thought too, but apparently he some how managed to return from the death, and take with him one of the blades of the Soul Edge" she said still in shock.

"He's headed to Venice, we have to stop him before he reaches that city. If he manages to power up his word with the souls of all the people living there he will become almost as powerful as before." Said Sophitia as they were exiting the tent.

"Then we'll change our course north-east wards, if travel trough coastal towns and we're lucky, we might be able to intercept him before he gets to Venice, if he is in the south western shores of Italy it will take him long enough for us to catch up with him, it should be at least a month for both of us to reach the city, and if we hurry we might be able to get there before him. Good night." And with that he and Link went back to their guard posts, leaving Sophitia to an uneasy sleep while Cassandra stayed behind.

"Sophitia…"

"What is it, sis?" she answered.

"Well, I have a question to ask you."

"Tell me."

After some hesitation, she finally responded: "Well, how do you know when you're in love?"

This was probably the last thing the Athenian expected to hear at the moment. She thought it was going to be something along the lines of "do you think we'll be able to beat him?" or "do you think we'll come out of this one alive?" Not something about love.

"Why do you ask me that? Is there someone back at home you've been thinking of lately?" she asked the later with a mischievous smile on her face.

"Not exactly at home" Cassandra responded. And when she saw that mischievous glint on her sister's eyes again, she knew she had said too much and quickly tried to correct her mistake. "Just wanted to know" she finished blushing, thankful Sophitia couldn't see this through the darkness of the room.

"Well, just listen to your heart and you'll know, little sister." She finally answered with a smile. It was good to be able to talk about this sort of things with her sister in these hard times.

After Cassandra left the room Sophitia gave out a little giggle, thinking of the men on the ship and trying to figure out which one had stolen her sister's heart: There was Kilik with his stoicism and strong character, Yunsung with his rebellious attitude and wild persona, Maxi, since Cassandra had always been attracted to danger and adventure and a pirate could very easily provide both things, Raphael with his aristocratic elegance and confident demeanor and last, but not least, Link, with his mysterious aura and other-worldly handsomeness. All of them were very skilled fighters and each attractive in his own right. Man, she wanted to know! So she decided she was going to start an investigation on Cassandra and try to find out. And with that she laid down and tried to get some sleep while recalling the way Cassandra acted around all of these men.

They arrived at a port in southern Italy and stayed in there for two days, trying to learn what they could about the Soul Edge, on their second day they heard that a knight who commanded armies of fear and wielded a sword of death had been attacking small villages in the southern region of Italy, and that the only information they had about him was the moans of a dying man who had lived in one of the firsts villages that had been attacked, he had only lived long enough to tell of the attack and that the attacker was like a nightmare, that he was followed by demons of many terrible forms, that even the forces of the underworld bent to his will and his crimson gaze would make the bravest of men fall to their knees and beg for their lives; "We didn't stand a chance, everyone who fell inside his attack range was almost immediately killed by his massive blade, all I could hear were the voices of men and women alike begging for their lives and those of their children, but the fiend showed no mercy, I doubt that hell itself would take him back" were his last words.

The attacks had been following a northern path and many thought that he was a general of the forces of hell itself who was going to Rome to destroy the center of the Catholic Church.

Of course, the seekers knew better than to believe the last statement. But the description was too close to that of the Azure Nightmare and they knew that he wouldn't care at all about the church unless there was a Soul Edge shard inside a Catholic temple.

"I still can't believe he survived the void" said Xianghua when they heard of this "his power must be great indeed to have survived our last encounter and get back to the path of destruction in only four years" she stated troubled, for she remembered that the wound she had inflicted upon Nightmare with the Soul Calibur would have been deadly to any man, especially one of such evil being pierced by something as pure as the Soul Calibur. She was also starting to be afraid since she and Kilik had barely been able to survive their last encounter with Soul Edge and Nightmare, it had almost taken their lives and apparently it had not been enough, she wondered if he would be able to survive yet another battle against him. Would she be able to beat him this time? She hoped so.

"Don't worry Xianghua, this time we'll make sure that he and the Soul Edge go back to the hell hole from which they came from" said Kilik since he was thinking the exact same thing that Xianghua was about their last encounter with the knight

The next morning they told the others about what had happened to Sophitia in the night and they headed north east. When they were wandering about how to get transportation, Link pulled out a small sack full of green, blue, red, yellow, orange and even silver gems he called "rupees." They were all amazed at the beauty of these gems, especially when Link told them they were the currency of his land.

"So you and your people have enough of these laying around to just use them as money?" asked Talim in awe.

"Well, they're not just 'lying around,' most of these are products of alchemy. Except for the silver and orange ones, which are actually very rare and are quite valuable in may land. I've used them to pay for everything I've bought along my trip, since your people seem to take these as more than enough payment."

"I can see why they would, they're beautiful!" exclaimed Cassandra. "If I had even a small one of these in a ring I would consider myself lucky."

After they all were over the beauty of the gems, Link explained them the way they were valued and a little about Hyrule's economy right before they went to the market to get some transportation. They managed to purchase some horses by using two of Link's many green rupees which the salesman took as more than enough payment and he even promised to take their ship to Venice for just another rupee, which they gladly gave him since they had so many. He seemed a good, honest man and that was almost enough for Maxi although he still needed some convincing from his friends.

They left everything they could on the ship and mounted their horses. They were at the moment riding through one of Italy's mountain ranges, since it was easier to cut through the country than to go around it on their way to Venice. They had been ridding for about a week, at first it was a little hard on some of the seekers to get used to ridding a horse, especially since some didn't even knew how to control completely their horse.

After they figured out how to do all this, they went swiftly though the hills of Italy and after two days they exited the mountains, then, after another five days they arrived at the Italian coast line, from there they headed north, carrying only food, water, their weapons, tents, clothes and a small box where Sophitia had stored the shards of Soul Edge they had gathered so far.

The next day they arrived at a small town in which they stopped to take a rest, that night, while having dinner on the inn's tavern, they learned that the hellish knight that had been terrorizing Italy was finally identified as the Azure Nightmare, this the seekers already knew but they also learned that he was moving at a really fast pace and by now he had already past Rome -which was a great relief for the pope and all the other members of the Catholic Church- and he was probably somewhere near the Italian northern borders as they spoke.

"The evil of the underworld is giving him speed, and the darkness of his heart gives him strength without measure, no one who has faced him is known to have survived and told the tale, only those who hide deep inside the earth ere his arrival or under the bodies of the fallen manage to survive" said the man who was telling the tale "No one knows what his purpose is, but some say that it is to destroy human kind, but I don't really think that is the reason"

"Why not?" asked Sophitia to keep the guy talking so they could get as much information as they could.

"He has not attacked many important cities, mostly countryside villages that are apart from the world, if he wanted to destroy human kind, he would have started by destroying Rome, one of the most powerful cities of the world and maybe the richest and the house of the Catholic Church"

"So what do you think he really is up to?" asked Yunsung, he really didn't care much about this guy, but if he could provide them with information about the Soul Edge he would listen.

"I'm not sure, probably some sort of treasure that has been hidden away from society, that would be the only reason to attack those God-forsaken places"

A treasure... Everyone pondered the thought, Xianghua and Sophitia had told them that the Soul Edge, being a living and cunning thing, would probably try to find ways of restoring itself as fast as it could, so the thought of the Soul Edge hiding itself from the world while using its puppet to find the shards seemed quite possible.

On the other hand, that also meant that Nightmare was able to track down the shards with very good accuracy and at what seemed a very fast rate, which would make his sword stronger very quickly and, if that was true, he could probably feel the shards they had with them and might be able to found them anytime he wanted.

"We must get ready to leave tomorrow" said Link coming from the bar "we have to stop the Pirate Cervantes, I've learned from a man at the bar that there had been several attacks to costal towns all over the Italian peninsula, starting from the isle of Sicily, they are all commanded by a pirate of Spanish appearance who wielded two swords. For what you've told me about him, it must be Cervantes" they all nodded with determination and went to their rooms to get ready for the next day.

"We leave at dawn, so be ready" said Maxi. Before they all broke up into different groups and went to their respective rooms.

The next morning, they had all woken up at least an hour before dawn, they got dressed, cleaned, and went to the stables to make their horses ready, the fact of Cervantes and Nightmare killing all around Italy, and anywhere inside Europe in Nightmare's case, gave them strength to endure the ride, when the sun showed its face upon the town in which they were, they had already reached the village's borders and rode as fast as they could when the first ray of light hit them, they went at an almost continuous sprint for almost three hours before making a stop so the horses could rest and graze a little. After about thirty minutes they mounted again and rode away at a slower pace, although they were still going faster that any common group of travelers would go, they arrived at Venice after two weeks of swift riding, hard walking and traveling from sun to sun. It was now only a matter of getting ready for Cervantes and his ship to arrive at the city.

That's it! How did you like it? I'm not very good at geography so I'm not sure if my timing on the trip was right. If you think it was good review and tell me (even if it's a simple "good job" or "well done") If not, also review and tell me why you think it wasn't. C'MON PEOPLE! IT'S NOT THAT HARD!

Well, on the next chapter we will see:

What happens to our heroes when they arrive to the city of Venice. Some comedy included, Warning: everybody looks extremely bad-ass in the beginning of this chapter. It will be sort of slow and mostly just sets up the stage for chapter 7, the battle of Venice. That's when the real action comes up; but you won't understand most of it if you don't read the next one.

It would be a great and bloody battle with some comical situations and a rather unexpected ending. Wait and see!

Jastul

Impossible is a word that weak men invented to live comfortably in the world they're given. Impossible is not a fact, is an opinion; it's not a statement, but a challenge. Impossible is unattained potential, impossible is temporal.