Viola was surrounded by four unwelcome visitors. Her day had started with a typical trek through the woods just outside the Schwarzwind citadel, but now she was facing the unknown. Something about these young women was interfering with her heightened perception and prevented her from reading their thoughts, but an irking suspicion still told her their intentions weren't for the better. Her signature weapon-a crystal ball that acted as her familiar-hovered lonesomely somewhere in the forest ceiling.
Tira spoke once she got a chance to glimpse over her target.
"It's been a while, Amy. I like your new look."
Viola didn't have any memory of that name. Could these strange girls have known something about her amnesia? She pulled her hood further over her brow before she answered in a cautious voice.
"My name is Viola."
Pyrrha stood just beside Tira, shaking her head and blowing a puff of air through pursed lips.
"Sure, Amy. Call yourself whatever you want."
Tira curiously poked the left side of Viola's bosom with her armored index finger, adding her commentary once she assessed its quality.
"At least you filled out nicely."
Viola crossed an arm over her chest in instant modesty and backed out of Tira's reach. A look of scornful disgust grew on her face as she spoke in a cold tone.
"That's quite enough. I suggest you be on your way before any harm comes to you."
Tira tilted her head and snickered.
"You could have just told me you were ticklish."
Talim crept up behind Viola, wrapping fingerless leather gloves over her shoulders and speaking into her ear with a teasing smirk.
"You don't have to be such a prude, Amy. We're just trying to have some fun."
Viola was becoming increasingly disturbed by this whole ordeal. Without realizing she was playing precisely into her enemy's plan, she raised her clawed hand in a menacing manner and willed her magical orb to join her in battle.
As soon as it was in her sight, Tira hopped from the ground and freely plucked the sphere out of the air.
"Hey Talim, catch!"
Tira passed the orb to Talim. Talim continued down the circle and sent it floating toward Pyrrha. When it finally landed in Leixia's hands, an ominous smile crossed the girl's lips. Tira and Pyrrha closed in around Viola, catching her by the arms before she had a chance to react. Pyrrha was careful to avoid the fingernail blades that armed Viola's right hand.
Leixia lovingly cradled the globe so it pressed against the jewel below her neck. Viola watched in confusion as a stream of thick black ink seeped out of Leixia's gem and rapidly filled the orb, turning its interior into a murky cloud. It lost its crystal transparency and became something resembling a solid obsidian sphere in a matter of seconds. A ring of dark energy burst from the object's diameter once it was filled to the brim, and the blackness suddenly peeled apart to reveal a single demonic eye. Leixia giggled contently as the now cursed artifact left her hands and hovered back toward its owner.
Tira and Pyrrha released Viola from their grip. She didn't understand why they had voluntarily set her free, but she wasn't in the mood to slow down and ask them. With an angered glare, she pointed one of her clawed fingers forward and willed her remote weapon to spring toward the target.
It was a futile effort.
The orb didn't respond to her orders to push her opponents away. It failed to form a protective barrier around her when she motioned for it to do so. It only floated in place, practically taunting her. She realized something was horribly amiss when each member of the surrounding circle took turns laughing at her. This was one of the few times Viola was actually surprised by something.
"What did you do? It's not following my command!"
Leixia was the one to answer, rolling her eyes as she tapped her foot impatiently.
"Well, duh. That's not how it works. You have to follow his command."
This time it was Talim and Pyrrha who took her by the arms. The sweet and supportive way Pyrrha delivered her next words only made them sound more chilling.
"Don't worry, Amy. You'll figure it out after we break you in."
Viola's eyes widened as she tried to squirm away and found Talim and Pyrrha's grip to be impossibly strong. Leixia took the orb in both hands so she could keep it steady. Tira crossed her arms as she oversaw the procedure.
Talim guided Viola's naked palm closer and closer toward the globe in Leixia's arms. Although she still not entirely aware of what they were trying to do, Viola had enough sense to know allowing them to complete their venture was going to have negative consequences.
Talim sounded all too cheerful when she spoke over Viola's resistance.
"Oh, no you don't. You're going through with this whether you want to or not."
Pyrrha joined in with more of her unsettling support.
"Yeah. He just needs to poke around in your brain a little so he can make sure you'll be a good girl. We've all gone through it. It'll be over before you know it, then you'll be one of us."
They anxiously pushed her into her awaiting doom. When the surface of the crystal ball made contact with her fingertips, Viola screamed.
The visions were terrifying. Nauseating. Maddening. When she used to gaze into her crystal ball, she would see glimpses of the future. Now some thing was using the orb as a gateway to gaze into her mind. Her greatest strength had turned into her most vulnerable weakness. She saw whole worlds dominated by Soul Edge's influence, and she lived through the lives of every living being fell to his power in a matter of seconds. Eons flew past as each world ultimately turned to dust, and soon her only companion was the flaming, screaming skeletal figure that comprised Soul Edge's native form. He was the only thing that always survived. He was the only thing that was always true. Each time one torturous, deranged hallucination ended, another came bursting from the back of her mind.
Whatever depraved force was exploiting her powers wasn't going to go away. This wasn't a simple matter of just closing her eyes or turning her head away, as she had done so many times when her crystal ball would show her an unpleasant vision. This was inside of her mind, greedily wearing down her will so it could mate with her consciousness.
From the perspective of her four captors, Viola was a woman in the throes of insanity. She rocked on her knees and clawed at her scalp, trying desperately to rip an invisible entity out of her head. She eventually started to settle down, only to roll her head back and laugh uncontrollably once she caught her breath.
And then there was silence.
Viola opened her eyes once she was back on her feet. Her intense visions had taken their toll by leaving one iris clouded and blind, while the other was now a fiery disc. When her lips pulled back into an oddly serene smile, a pair of ivory fans emerged from her mouth. She was already coming to terms with the fact she possessed a few peculiar traits aside from what her new benefactor had granted her; a certain impurity that she had always tried her best to conceal. Whatever humanity she had clung to to suppress her darker impulses had been strategically ruined, however, leaving her with no reason to hide her full nature.
Viola's crystal ball floated back to her side when it wanted to, not when it was called. The globe normally functioned as a magical beacon that followed her will in battle, but now it seemed to foster a mind of its own. It slowly circled her frame with an almost sensual quality, emitting a faint warmth that it never possessed before. She felt it pass close to her skirts and tenderly brush over the curve of her lower back more than once. She found the gesture comforting.
Tira and her companions regrouped around Viola. The ringleader spoke through a devious grin.
"How do you feel now, Amy?"
Viola replied with only one ominous word.
"Thirsty..."
Leixia broke the eerie atmosphere with a cheerful wink.
"That's Soul Edge for you. He really knows how to drive a girl crazy."
Pyrrha and Talim approached her from behind. Talim peeped over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of the crystal ball.
"Do you see anything?"
The globe landed gently in a pedestal formed by Viola's open palm. Her mismatched eyes gazed into the single flaming eye staring back at her, seeing things only a sharply trained fortune teller would be able to see. Although it had been corrupted into yet another manifestation of Soul Edge's will, the globe still allowed her to use her certain precognitive abilities that reached beyond his domain. After she spent several moments focusing on one particular spot on the face of the glass, she spoke in a hushed tone.
"They're saying I've been gone too long. They're following me."
Pyrrha leaned over Viola's opposite shoulder and squinted, straining to see whatever was bothering the oracle.
"Who's following you?"
Viola gazed deeper. Her response came with an increased urgency.
"Schwarzwind. Hide and wait for my signal."
Leixia curled her nose and planted her fists against her hips as her eyes shifted away in thought. One of her eyebrows perked when she decided she couldn't understand Viola's vague advice.
"What signal?"
Viola kept politely to herself, never looking away from her globe.
"You'll know when the time is right."
Viola was standing alone in the middle of the path when Siegfried and Zwei arrived. Although she was facing the two mercenaries, her head was low and her hood was high, casting a shadow that obscured everything but the lower part of her face and her silver curls. She remained silent even when they stopped directly in front of her. After an awkward pause, Siegfried stepped forward and offered a concerned look.
"Is something wrong, Viola?"
Viola's gaze remained locked toward the ground as she answered in slightly above a whisper.
"You are."
Siegfried's concern turned to confusion.
"What?"
Viola finally lifted her head so the two mercenaries could witness her altered features. Her crystal ball levitated up from a hiding place behind her shoulder, staring directly at the onlookers as if it were taking the place of Viola's bad eye. Her voice changed from soft and charming to icy and menacing.
"You're wrong for ever thinking you could truly escape Master's power. Now he's come for your soul."
Siegfried stepped back with a horrified gasped as he recalled his own experience as one of Soul Edge's vessels, but Zwei remained baffled.
"Is this some kind of joke?"
Viola spread her arms and turned on one leg in a spontaneous exotic dance. Her movements summoned a circle of fire around the dry forest brush, trapping the group in a relatively small space. Four more shadowy figures leapt down from the surrounding trees to join the inferno.
Siegfried and Zwei only caught brief flashes of the femme fatales as they were butchered by a Grecian broadsword, a Chinese shortsword, a pair of sharpened tonfa, an enormous ring blade, and a set of knife-like claws. Once he fell to the ground and found himself immobilized by his injuries, a small, dark shape straddled over Siegfried and carefully tugged his gorget away with slender fingers. He thought he smelled Viola's perfume as he felt two hungry fangs slip into his neck, but it was impossible to know for certain as his mind struggled to make sense of the carnage. Turning his head away from the pain, he barely managed to see Tira holding a wounded Zwei against the trunk of a tree, writhing seductively against the poor fool as her friends cheered her on and she stole his remaining strength with a poisonous kiss.
When the ambush was over, the fire died along with the two men.
Thin streams of smoke rose around the forest clearing. Viola wiped a faint trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth, then peered into her black looking glass in deep meditation. Tira and Pyrrha tried to look into the orb from opposite sides without much luck. Talim stood slightly away from the group, stretching her arms and peacefully sighing as a gentle gust of wind cooled her off. Leixia poked at Zwei's eviscerated remains with the toe of her slipper, then spoke to no one in particular.
"He was right about one thing. These guys were a joke."
Pyrrha gave up in her attempts and turned her attention toward her clairvoyant partner.
"What do you see now, Amy?"
Viola hesitated to answer as her eyes remained fixated on the glowing orb. She shook her head in uncertainty when she shared her findings.
"A few things. I'll have to sort through the visions before I can tell you which way we should be heading."
Tira, Leixia, and Pyrrha each offered separate discouraged looks. Talim raised her voice in complaint as she worked a knot out of her shoulder.
"Can't you hurry it up? It's boring when everything we fight ends up dying so quickly."
Viola twisted her lips in mild annoyance before she softly replied.
"Fortune telling is no easy art. Give me time and I'll see that your bloodlust is well sated."
Her answer seemed to please the rest of her party.