Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Soul Calibur; I'm only using them to have some fun.
Well, here's chapter 6, I hope it satisfies everyone's expectations. Enjoy and Merry Christmas, Hannuka, Kuanza or whatever you celebrate!
Impossible is nothing, but improbable is a real bitch.
Pablo Mastretta
Venice:
The day after the seekers arrived at Venice they immediately started looking for information about Cervantes's location, apparently he and his crew had been plundering coastal villages. Following a pattern similar to the one in Sophitia's vision, but due to his continuous stopping he would take an extra two weeks to arrive to the city. Before the seekers arrived no one knew for sure that he was heading there, but it was a guess many had taken, and the city had been practically emptied, by the time they got there only about two hundred persons had stayed behind, either out of confidence that the pirate won't attack them, or out of love to their land.
They walked in the middle of the town's square and summoned all people. When they were all gathered there Kilik -who was the un-proclaimed leader of the group along with Sophitia and Raphael- gave the fatal announcement.
"People of Venice listen to me! The Dread Pirate Cervantes is coming to your city! He is coming here to pillage your houses, rape you women and kill you all!" he announced solemnly. This obviously got all the people very agitated and on the edge or rioting. "Is he supposed to say that? I thought we were going to give these people hope" whispered Yunsung to Talim's ear. "Shh! be quiet" was her only response.
"But Have no fear! I and my friends are willing to help you fend off this fiend!" he proceeded without hearing Yunsung's comment but was interrupted before he could go on any longer as a voice came from the crowd.
"How? The man is the devil himself! We could never stand up to him! He'll squash us like he did to all those other cities! Even our own government has not sent an army to help us in fear that the Dread Pirate would destroy them as easily as if they were sheep!"
"The reason why your government has not sent an army is because they don't know for sure if the pirate will stop here or just go to another city. But I have sent word to Rome summoning help. They will be here by the time he comes."
"It doesn't matter! The pirate will kill us all no matter what" said the same voice.
"That's not true! Me and my friends are willing to teach you all how to defend yourselves, we can make a plan on how to counterattack the pirate's forces, and the only thing we ask in return is food and a place to stay until the pirate comes." Kilik was getting really tired of this, by now, the guy whom he was arguing with had stepped up and he seemed to be getting more people on his side than Kilik was.
"And how are we supposed to trust you all? I would want proof of your 'great' skills before putting my life and my town on your hands." At this, everyone in the crowd nodded and demanded the same proof.
Kilik was getting tired, these people obviously needed to see to believe, so he decided that if they wanted them to show off their skills, they would do just that. So, he went to his pack and took out a bag of dry apples from it. Then he called Link, whom he already knew to be the best archer of the group. He then made all the seekers draw their weapons.
"You people want proof of our skills? Well then, Link draw your bow!" and he did "Now, I'm going to throw this bag of apples to the sky and I want you to use nothing but your bow and arrows to rip the bag open and then hit each apple in the center with an arrow." He then turned to the rest of the seekers "Then, I want all of you to cut all the apples straight trough the middle with your weapons before they touch the ground." He then turned the people and told them "If we manage to do that, will you trust us?" the crowd immediately responded yes and Kilik took the bag of apples and waited for Link to get ready, when the elf gave him the signal, he threw it as hard as he could straight up.
The bag flew up until it was about 30 feet from the ground but, by the time, it had several holes in it due to Link's great aim and it wasn't before long that all the apples were pierced straight through the middle by one of the elf's missiles. When the apples came down, they were all met by the seeker's swords, some jumped up to have more time to cut down the falling fruits. They all did their part and by the time the apples hit the ground they were cut in half, with each half pierced by an arrow that had also been cut by the blades.
When this was over, the crowd immediately started cheering. But the man that had been arguing with Kilik didn't seem satisfied yet. "How about you?" he asked the former monk. "I didn't see you do anything but throw a bunch of fruit in the sky. Why should we you trust?" The people quickly realized this was true and demanded Kilik to do something as well.
"Well, I'm waiting." Said the man impatiently.
That was it; Kilik could take anything else from this man, so he decided to use him for his little demonstration. He drew Kali-Yuga and walked to the half-apples in the ground, he broke the arrow that was coming out of one of them with his staff so there was not a splinter coming out of the piece of fruit on either side.
He then hit the apple on of the sides so it jumped up a little, then, before it hit the ground, he hit it on the bottom part and the fruit jumped to Kilik's eye level. Before it could fall down, however, Kilik hit it once again, this time sending it flying straight towards the annoying man's face. The apple hit him straight in the nose and he fell down unconscious and with a bleeding nose full of pieces of apple.
"Anybody else wants a demonstration from me or my partners?" asked Kilik exasperated. No one said anything. "Good, so lets get on with the training."
The next two weeks were spent training the people from Venice how to defend themselves: They were thought basic swordsmanship, hand to hand combat skills and tricks and how to shoot a bow and arrow. They were all very enthusiastic about learning all this in order to fending off the evil pirate all except the man that had caused them so much trouble when they arrived. But it wasn't such a problem after all, since he left the city two days later with his family, saying he wouldn't "trust some random mercenaries that just appeared out of nowhere like the rest of the fools in town."
One of the seeker's main concerns had been the making of the weapons, but they were met with the happy surprise that a smith and his family still lived in the town. He and his son made swords and bows for the entire town. Link said he would take care of the arrows. And he did in an unexpected manner: he went to a forest near the city, chopped down a few trees, brought them back to the town to make the body of the arrows, went back in and killed a few birds to take their feathers and why not their meat, then went back into the forest and came back with a bag full of dead snakes, spiders, tarantulas and scorpions, which he was going to use to mix their poisons and soak the arrow tips in them. The arrowheads were made by the smith and son under Link's specifications.
After nine days of careful planning, the seekers and some Venetians came up with the perfect way of defeating Cervantes: They will first burn down all the docks large enough for a traveling ship to pass except for one so they knew where Cervantes was going to arrive no matter what. They, they will blockade all the streets with whatever they could find to create an alley of sorts that went deep inside the city and was about three miles long.
They will place archers on the rooftops of the buildings on both sides of the alley that would be shooting at Cervantes's troops as they walked through the alley. When Cervantes arrived and his troops empty the ship, a group of volunteers would lead them into the alley deep enough for the people on the rooftops to seal the entrance to it, so the pirates would have no choice but to stay on their path.
When the pirates had all entered the passage, people who were inside the first buildings would come out and block off the exit and then the fun would begin: The idea was to trap all the pirates inside this place, where they would then be shot at with the bows and forced to run. After running for three miles, of course, they would be quite tired, so, in the end of the alley, there would be a small militia unit formed by those who couldn't shoot with a bow or were better as swordsman. The pirates that survive the first attack would then be cut down by the militia. When the archers reach the end of the alley and the brawl starts, they will come down from the rooftops through the buildings' fire escape stairs, draw their swords and join the fray.
The Venetians had been divided in two groups that were placed on each side of the alley. One was led by Link and the other one by Yunsung who, amazingly, was really good with the bow and arrow. Each group would be positioned on each side and both groups were divided into several other small groups that were led by other Venetians -so most of the seekers, being the most skilled warriors could be in the main fight and the Italians wouldn't be in so much danger of being killed or wounded- and were placed along the buildings so everybody didn't have to run that much.
Cassandra walked into the smith's workshop. She had been looking for Link all day long and was told that she could find him in here. She found him bent over a table, a small knife on one hand and a small, straight stick that was soon to be an arrow. She said hi to him and then sat down next to him, looking at him work, behind him, next to the wall, was a huge pile of soon to be arrows, next to it was a sack full of what she thought were the bird feathers and small mining cart full of metal arrow tips that were not going to be dripped in the deadly mix of poisons until they were completely assembled and the archers were ready to use them on Cervantes's pirates and nothing else.
After being dripped in the poison, the arrows would stay on their quivers and would stay there by orders of Link. Cassandra looked intently at Link's work, then at the craftsman himself, trying in vain to get a look into his eyes marveling at his concentration, his work, and other things. After some slight thinking, she finally came up with a small question that would help her get to know more about her belo… Link.
"So, it seems that you've been involved in something like this before, haven't you?" asked Cassandra to Link while he was making the arrows. He had made four-hundred until now -which would seem like much but was actually about three or four arrows per person, since the women and children from the two-hundred Venetians were obviously not going to fight- and was far from finishing.
"Yeah." He answered plainly without letting his attention drift from the task at hand.
"Really? Tell me about it" she asked exited about having an excuse to talk to him. She loved hearing about his land and the adventures he had lived in his short life. She knew that he needed to concentrate on the arrows, but she didn't care, she wanted to talk with him. But most importantly, she wanted him to pay attention to her.
But Link seemed to be ignoring her, since he kept working as if she wasn't even there. This made Cassandra really mad, even though she knew that he needed to keep working on the arrows. She wanted him to pay attention to her and she wanted it now. She made little noises and angry faces but he didn't seem to notice her, she could even swear that she felt her face go red like a tomato, but not a sign from Link.
A few minutes and ten arrows later, Link put down the knife that he was using to carve the arrows from the wood and looked at her. Their eyes met and Cassandra could see that sad look in them again which made her forget immediately about her anger and feel pity of sorts towards Link. It was then that she realized how painful it was for him to talk about his land, having left to save it without chance of coming back and enjoying what he had worked so hard to preserve.
He let out a sight, as if resigning himself to wound his heart once again. He started speaking softly, as if having a hard time recalling what had happened, "It was about five years ago, when I was in the land of Harkain on official businesses with my… sister, Zelda. The people of Harkain had just entered war with the land of Stigia and summoned us to negotiate an alliance with Hyrule.
The fun part started when a massive Stigian army decided to lay siege to the country's capital a day after we arrived. We knew that the city wouldn't last long, so we moved all the people inside the castle, where there was more than enough space for all of the town people and us -Hyrule's envoys- to live in, weather inside it on one of the many empty rooms, or on the dungeons –which were adapted for every-day living- or on the gardens, which would have been enough to fit them all in small tents anyway.
After meeting with the King and his military officers, me and Hyrule's commander in chief Darunia, who had come with us as part of the negotiations crew, managed to draw out a plan to take back the city and maybe even capture the Stigian army: during the night, a small military contingent and a militia unit formed by all the men in town would take an underground passage from the castle to the other side of the city. We all had nothing on but ragged pants and the rest of our bodies were covered in body paint and our faces bore the emblem of the Ice Dragon, the Stigian envoy of death and our chests had the inverted Tri-force, the international sign of doom in my land.
Since the town was being used as a temporary home by the Stigian army, we knew we weren't going to be detected. So, when our troops had arrived to the other side of the passage, we placed them in a two-line ring that spread all around the town, except where the castle was of course.
When we were all set, I shot a fiery arrow in the sky, indicating that we were ready. At that moment, every Harkanian soldier that was left inside the town came out from the castle-grounds as silently as they could, walking inside the houses and killing or capturing the Stigian soldiers within them. By the time the Stigians knew what was going on, half of their army had been killed in their beds or wounded badly at least.
The ones that managed to escape the Harkanians and make their way out of the city were met by a group of raging, rabid, drooling demons, which took them inside the castle as war prisoners and killed those who attacked them almost instantly.
And the best part is that not only did that little brawl practically ended the war, which gave us the Harkanian's permanent allegiance; and that we –me and the Hylian envoys- were never proven to have helped the Harkanians in the incident, therefore managing to maintain a good political relationship with Stigia.
"Wow, your people sure know their way around war and politics" Said Cassandra when Link was over.
"Well, warriors are well loved around my land… especially by beautiful woman." Said simply Link and returned to his work immediately after saying this, which intrigued the Athenian. Cassandra could have sworn that she saw Link's face twitch of surprise for a second, but if that ever happened, it was replaced immediately by his sad little smile that was only in his lips, since the and by the expressionless mask that was his face, the only sign of any feelings were those two emerald eyes that were, at least for Cassandra, more beautiful that a thousand green rupees combined. She could not help notice a strange mix of emotions when he said that, of course, many were natural -after all, he did leave his land with close to zero chances of ever seeing it again just to save it- such as sadness, loneliness and nostalgia, but, the one she didn't expect was the most notorious one: love.
She tried to start a new conversation with Link, but he only talked back to her when asked a question and even then he did so as briefly as he could, using the same sad tone he had used right now. In the end, Cassandra got annoyed by Link's lack of interest towards her -or, more precisely, for giving more interest to his work than to her- and stormed out of the door, even though she knew that he had to finish what he was doing and could afford no distractions.
The one thing that kept bugging her and stayed on the back of her mind was that Link had said that warriors were well loved in his land… especially by beautiful woman. Why had he said woman and not women? In the end she decided that she probably hadn't heard correctly. But if she mixed that with the love on his voice… did that mean that he…? No, she couldn't torture herself with those thoughts, at least not now with the battle so close.
That's it! How did you like it? Review and tell!
Well, on the next chapter we will see:
Cervantes arrives at Venice; they expect to meet a few hundred common pirates; nothing to worry about if they follow their plan, but most of Cervantes's troops have been lost in the multiple attacks to Italian cities and he has brought up from the depths of the underworld a sect of ancient demons to replace them. It will be a great, long, intense and bloody battle. I was originally going to put it in this chapter but it's so long that it needs a chap of its own. I've already written most of it and it takes nine pages in word with Times New Roman, 12 pt. (this one was a paragraph longer than six pages together with the quote in the end and my signature)
This was Jastul, saying: "cut yourselves a big slice from the pie of life!"
The greatest achievements of human kind have been the work of men and women who were not smart enough to realize that what they were trying to do was impossible.