Soul Calibur
Written By: Johnny Lee
Chapter I: Being Watched
"AAAAHHH!" Swinging her sword with perfection, Kalik barely dodge the blows and had to use his rod to block most of the attacks. "Woow! Slow down Xianghua! Where just practicing, remember!" "Oh, stop whining. Show me what you've got, come on!" Sitting down on the stairs of an abandoned temple, laughing with his right leg across his left, and his left hand on his right leg holding his head in place, Maxi smiled as he knew that Xianghua finally had Kalik's number.
"This should be a good match." "Hey Maxi, help me out here!" "You think I want to get involved with how she's fighting right now? No way man, your on your own." Having no choice but to defend himself, Kalik jumped back from Xianghua's attack and then rushed in with an attack of his own. Tripping her with an leg sweep, she fell to her butt and quickly got back to her feet and blocked an high kick from Kalik, but took her eyes off of his bow as he placed it between her legs and gave it a twist, causing her to fall to her butt once again. Jumping up with anger and swinging her sword wildly, it was now easy to do dodge her attacks, as now all she was doing was creating the same slash over and over.
Invading and blocking her sword with his rod, Kalik tapped her on the back of the head causing her to stumble a bit. Having a split second on his hands to think, Kalik slammed the tip of his rod to the ground as he jumped and pushed off of it. Coming down with a jump kick, Xianghua blocked the kick with her sword. While still in mid air, Kalik pushed off the sword with his right foot, grabbed his rod, landed, and placed the sharp tip of his rod under her chin; directly at her throat, before she had a chance to attack. "Xianghua, it's over." Kalik claimed his victory as he lowered his rod."
As Kalik and Xianghua got out of their attack stance, they both looked at Maxi and saw him quickly jumping his eyes from left to right. Maxi?" Xianghua questioned his eye movement. "Were being watched." "Are you sure?" "No doubt about it, someone is here." Slowly getting to his feet, a lady in blue with an Rekki-Maru sword landed from out of the tree to the left of the temple's stairs. As Xianghua looked over, she saw that it was a woman wearing a mask. "Is that Taki?"
"What are you three doing here!" Taki demanded an answer. Walking towards her, Maxi was quickly stopped by the tip of her blade. "You three are in Fu-Ma No Sato territory." Brushing away her sword with his left hand Maxi just stood there and looked at her for a moment. "Like you care. Why were you watching us?" "Answer my question, now!" "We needed a place to crash for the night, so were here. Now it's your turn. Why the hell was you spying on us?" Removing her mask, Maxi saw Taki's beautiful face as the wind blew each strain of her hair.
"Lately, there has been attacks around here. I thought you three were on it. Are you?" "If we were, you'd be ground by now." "Oh, you think that huh!" "Anyways, there must be a reason behind the attacks since it has you all jumpy." "...Yeah." "Well?" "Heh, like I'm going to tell you! Spend your night here, but if any of you get out of line, I'll kill you." Stepping towards her with his big mouth Kalia pointed his rod towards her. "Oh yeah? You and what army?" Hearing people landing on the ground behind him, Kalik turned around to see thirty three masked ninjas ready to attack him on her command. "That army." Taki replied to Kalik's question.
"How about we help you guys out?" Maxi suggested and continued. "It's been a while since we had any excitement, so what do you say?" "I say that you should attend to matters of your own, and stay out of mine." "...Fine, go get your ass kicked." Talking to her calmly, Kalik then leaned over towards Maxi to whisper in his ear. "Um...while your talking to her like that, I guess you forgot that we're surrounded!"
Lifting her right arm, she gave the signal for her ninjas to leave. All disappearing without a trace, Taki pulled out a smoke bomb. "Like I said, stay your night, be gone by dawn. That's an order!" Slamming her smoke bomb to the ground, smoke quickly arose and Taki disappeared without being seen. Standing where they all stood as the volume of the night was silent, the sound of crickets chirping and owls hooting begun to break the silence.
Maxi continuing to stare at the smoke until it completely vanished, Xianghua walked over to Maxi and Kalik, wondering what were on their minds. "So, what's the plan?" Kalik asked Maxi as Xianghua knew what was now on their minds. "We do as we please. We don't need to help her, but if you think about it, things have been steering up lately." "Why didn't you tell her none of that?" Xianghua asked. "Because it's none of her business. She don't want us to learn any information, so were not giving her any either." Maxi replied.
Walking over to a pile of wood stacked up for an camp fire, Kalik sparked the wood and created a camp fire. "What your doing?" Maxi asked as he saw Kalik laying out his red blanket next to the fire. "I'm gonna go to sleep. Feels like I been up for days. I need some sleep. Don't worry about trying to figure out the connections between the attacks, just get some sleep." "How could you sleep when you know someone is watching us!" Xianghua asked with a little bit of attitude in her voice.
"Just like this..." Before they knew it, Kalik was asleep. Shaking her head as she looked at Kalik sleeping, she turned her head slightly to the left just to see Maxi doing the same thing. "Maxi, not you too!" "He's right, we need our sleep. I don't think that all them ninja are here. If this place is being attacked as well, then they'll need all the reinforcements that they have. They might have two or three out here watching us, but don't worry, there not going to attack." "How do you know that for sure?" "...I just do, now get some sleep. Were leaving early tomorrow morning to go into town and try to grab a bite to eat."
Not feeling safe about laying down and going to sleep, Xianghua laid out her blanket and laid there with her eyes open. But before she knew it, she fell asleep, not knowing how tired she really was. Opening his eyes, Maxi surveyed the surroundings one more time as he felt that he knew directly where the ninja were, but then decided to close his eyes back and fell asleep.