Protecting My Devotion - Group 9

[captain-rusty.livejournal.com]

Characters: Steiner, Celes, Palom
Progress: Ongoing
Summary: Remembering what's worth fighting for.
Location: Memoria
Date: 11th March, 1805
Warnings: THERE WILL BE CAPSLOCK.

When the flash of pink light came, Steiner was patrolling the battlements. One moment he was looking over a blustery spring day, the next he found himself beneath a starry night sky, Gaia's twin moons shining down on the castle. His location hadn't changed. He was still on the battlement, still in Alexandria.

"Wha..." Steiner passed his hands over his eyes. Had he fallen asleep? Or had the flash of light transported him through time?

He rushed over to the edge of the battlement and leaned over it. Bright pennants stretched down to the castle floor. The entire place was decorated as if for a festival. What was going on? And where was the Queen?

Comments

[captain-rusty.livejournal.com]

Steiner gaped at their new location. They were floating! He'd visited Chocobo's Air Garden, yes, but that was rather small compared to this. He would have taken the time to look around, but then something else distracted him.

Steiner saw all three of Celes' friends as well as Kefka. If he'd thought about it, he would have realised that this was Celes' memory. However, he'd seen nothing of what Palom had experienced and thus didn't expect to see Celes' memory either. The sight of Kefka was like a red rag to a bull for Steiner, and he rushed forward along with Celes, raising his sword.

"Kefka!"

[magitekrune.livejournal.com]

Neither Kefka nor Celes responded to Steiner's charge. Both were intent on each other with the Emperor also focused on Celes.

"Fwa, ha ha..." Gestahl laughed. "Then you're just in time to perish. Behold! The statues!"

Celes gasped as the Statues began to glow, sparkles of energy flying between them. As the Emperor turned towards them, some of that energy flew towards him. Celes knew he was absorbing the power and that the process he had begun needed to be stopped.

"Oh, I've got goosebumps!" Gestahl cackled, facing Celes again. "What power..."

"Emperor Gestahl!" Celes cried, desperate to get him to see reason. "Please, stop this madness!" It was insanity and the whole world would suffer for it!

The energy between the Statues converged and then struck out, slicing towards Celes and knocking her sideways. She fell to the ground far to the side, thrust away with the force of the Statues' power. More of that energy gathered, striking each of her friends in turn and holding them in place. Scrambling to find purchase against the rough edges of the continent, Celes wondered why she hadn't been frozen in place as well. Of course, Kefka and Gestahl probably wanted to use her for something. But what? And why? Didn't they know her alliance by now?

Standing and shaking herself off, Celes moved back in front of her friends, facing Kefka and the Emperor.

"Celes," Gestahl called, "come to me, my pretty!"

She cringed inwardly at his choice of words.

"You and Kefka were given life to serve me!! It is your birthright to rule the world with me!!"

Kefka moved to face her evenly. "Kill the others and we'll overlook your treachery." He laughed and she knew his deal wasn't a good one. They wouldn't believe her even if she was tempted to rejoin them.

"Take this sword! Take care of them immediately!"

Kefka held Gestahl's sword out to her. Celes took a deep breath and walked forward, accepting the hilt of the sword. She resisted the urge to yank it from his hands and slice them open. No... not yet. She turned and strode back to her friends, thinking about the best way to do this, the right way to show Kefka and Gestahl what they should have known already.

She couldn't see Gestahl move towards the Statues again as he spoke. "Celes, together we can rule an entire world! Think of it...!"

Celes raised the sword in her hand, turning it over so that the blade caught the light of the Statues' energy. "Power only breeds war. I wish I'd never been... born."

Without waiting another instant longer, she moved the sword over to her left hand. In one swift motion, she turned and struck, stabbing the sword deep into Kefka's side and knocking him backwards. Thus did she show her true alliance. She would never be a blind minion of the Empire ever again. She fought for her friends and she would give anything to make sure they, and their world, were safe.

With her sword still stuck deep within Kefka's body, the memory faded, leaving Celes to blink and wonder at something that had happened so long ago.

[stfuporom.livejournal.com]

He didn't know who this Kefka person was, but he had already decided on one thing - that was a stupid name. Kefka? Really? It was ridiculous!

The sword came out,and Palom wondered what she was really seeing. Was it a battle, much like his had been? Maybe they were more connected than he had originally thought.

"Well. That was climactic."

[captain-rusty.livejournal.com]

Steiner soon realised that this was another memory. If Celes' lack of reaction didn't give it away, the inconstancy of the scene did. Kefka flickered in and out of sight, and Steiner glimpsed another man as the statues began to glow too. It was like trying to listen to someone over a raging wind; he could only hear snatches of the conversation.

He heard Gestahl say that both Celes and Kefka were given life to serve him, and stared at Celes in shock. "Celes..."

The memory ended with the general rejecting the offer in the most dramatic way. It did give Steiner some satisfaction to see Kefka stabbed, even if it wasn't real.

"Hmph!" he said. "A fitting end for such a villain!"

[magitekrune.livejournal.com]

Celes rubbed her head with the hand that had been holding a sword not moments earlier. It had vanished along with their surroundings, but now she had the beginnings of a splitting headache and she was not looking forward to the end result. She'd forgotten that Steiner would have known Kefka. It seemed so long ago that the madman had actually existed within Gaia's realm.

She sighed and rubbed her hand this time. "He didn't die then," she muttered. "I'm not even sure if I meant to kill him then or not, but... he didn't die."

Instead, he'd caused an entire world to be reshaped, reformed. Lives had been lost... the world ruined. Celes' hands clenched together at the thought. Gaia help him if he ever showed his face around her again.

[stfuporom.livejournal.com]

"If he didn't die then, what was the point of trying?"

Sure, that was going to get someone angry with him, but the question was begging to be asked. If Celes didn't mean to kill him, then why did she even try?

The mage cocked an eyebrow up at Steiner's bravado. "Fitting end. Right."

[captain-rusty.livejournal.com]

Steiner shot Palom an annoyed look. "Even if she did not succeed, that does not mean that it wasn't worth a try! Villains such as Kefka are like bad gil: they keep coming back. We can only strike down evil when we see it, and forever strive to put an end to it."

It was Kefka's name he had mentioned, but he could just as easily be talking about Garland. For how had they been trying to defeat him? For how long had Gaia suffered because of him? Much too long in Steiner's opinion, but if they gave up trying, they might as well give up their lives.

[magitekrune.livejournal.com]

Celes shot Palom an equally annoyed look. "There's more to it than just that," she snapped, glancing to Steiner as he spoke and nodding to his words. He spoke of everything she believed. Even if she hadn't killed Kefka, she'd shown him what she meant to show him and disrupted his plans, even a little. That was important.

"He thought I was on his side," she elaborated. "But he miscalculated. That was my intention: to show him how wrong he was." And to show her friends that they could trust her. "I'm not stupid. I know I can't take him on by myself. But I can wound him and it's always worth trying."

With a final glare in Palom's direction, Celes turned and started to walk away. "Come on. Let's find the exit."