Not Only Stone

by Lifeform

Kefka lives in his tower, with the rest of the world at his feets, but mad and lonley.

Not only stone

Once there was the world. The world was green and fertile. And God created magic from the earth and the sky to bring life to the beings called Espers and the magic was called Magi. The Espers lived on the earth for centuries in peace. Then there were some of the Espers that were not pleased with their lives. So they began experimenting with the magic. Then humans were created. But the humans stole the esper technology. The first war of Magi began. Humans fought bravely but they had not the same powers as the beings that had been spawned out of magic. When the humans were almost defeated came five of their best warriors out to face the Espers. When they attacked the Espers found that the humans were using the magic that only Espers could wield. The Espers were defeated but their technology was also destroyed. The remaining prayed for mercy. And God showed mercy and created a new world for the remaning Espers where they could hide from the humans. But behind them they left three statues of Magi so that the magic would not die from the world.

The human mages took shelter on an isolated continent before they were killed by men that feared their power. They lived there and their powers began to disappear with the generations that passed.

The human cities grew and they began to develop their own technology. Gun powder, steam engine and other technology was invented. Even new ways of war...
But the human race did not forget the powerful beasts of doom that they had fought for many decades ago. They desired the magi that the beasts had wielded.

About one millenium later there was a man who called himself Emperor of the world and still wanted more power. When he found a gateway to what only could be the Esper world he decided to get the power that he desired so much. The humans broke into their world and captured many of the magical beasts before the Espers was able to close the gate for the humans. They stole a child that was half human and half Esper. She was a powerful orphan that the Emperor raised to become his finest warrior.

The human's best scientists were taken to find out the secrets of the Magi. After a few years of studing one of them was able to give a human the powers of Espers. One of the elite warriors was chosen to be the first of the new Magi knights. His name was Kefka. But it was not until later they noticed that Kefka became more and more insane for every day that went by. They had already choosen and given several other warriors the same power.
There was Celes, a woman that fought better than most men. She gained magical power simular to Kefka's.
And Leo, who was capable of combining the powers with his swordtechnqie.

Then another war broke out and the Magi mages was sent out to war. In the beginning it all pleased the Emperor but then he both lost the Esper child and Celes to his enemy, the Returners. It was now that Kefka began to make his moves. He told the Emperor about the statues in his dreams, about how they could give them the power to rule over everything. Kefka knew that the Esper child was the key to everything so he let her find the gate to the Esper world. The gate were opened and the Espers fled Kefka and out in to the world. Both the Emperor, his pawn and the Returnes followed the Espers to a continent where the dedeendants of the five warrior's lived.

There they found the Espers, and three statues. Kefka used his powers to capture the Espers and then activated the statues. The continent began to change and then it began to rise from the earth, and a floating continent had been created. The Retuners attacked the Emperor and Kefka on this new-born fortress. There Kefka for the first time showed his true ambitions and took control of the statues. With their power he killed the Emperor to keep the power for himself. He moved the statues into the formation he wanted and the statues were out of balance and the world began to change. Kefka was using the power that God had locked inside the planet. But yet the Returners fought him. One of the Returners was so brave that he pushed one of the statues over Kefka and the others were given a chance to escape.
It is here that the story begins.

A tower he had built. A tower from what was left of his home town. Now he was sitting there and looked down on the world that he had taken as his. The world was no longer as he remembered it. The vegitation was gone now. There was not even earth left, just dusty cliffs of the once fertile lands where farmers had grown their crops. Now he could not even see any remains of it. Not one. Left was just those stupid memories. He wished that he could destroy those too.
Kefka sat on the cold floor on the top of the tower and looked on the world that was before his eyes. His left leg and a wound in the stomach hurt but he embraced the pain that he felt. He felt that he was alive. The pure power that he had used to create the tower was just a smaller part, as a drop in the ocean of the magic that he had.

Kefka looked at a city. He did not remember the name on the city anymore, and why would he even care about what the humans called their cities? He was irritated. His leg had swollen up and to get rid of all anger he had thrown enormous amounts of magic on the city. But yet they had survived and were rebuilding the town. He rose to his feet and began to scream when he noticed that the pain from the leg was more than he could handle. Suprised he sat down again. He could handle strong magic like nothing so why could he not control his own suffering? He got back up on his feet again and began to move forward so that he would be able to see more of the world.

He was laying outside the area of the statues. His leg hurt more than he ever could imagine that it could do. That damn ninja had pushed the statues over him! Kefka giggled. He, who was the master of Magi, how ironic that just a Magi statue would hurt him like that. He also felt the warm presence of another wound in the stomach. Kefka had never felt so much pain in his life before, and he loved it. But he shook from the pain and badly wanted back to the statues where he would feel nothing of it. He began to crawl back.
To move hurt, and he loved it, when his leg touched the ground, blood and a yellow tissue coloured the floor. When he came inside the place where the Magi reigned he sighed and decided to take a look at his leg. The first thing he saw was that his pants had seen their best days..

The wound would have been deadly for a mortal. Kefka had carefully taken off his boots and pants to take a look at it. His leg was soaked in blood and he could see his bone-pipes sticking out. He saw fester and blood all over the pipes and when he touched it he felt that it was warm and sticky.
The stomach wound was nothing, just a minor flesh wound compared to this.
How funny that the wound that little Celes, when she had impaled him on the sword he had given her was nothing compared to the broken bone he had gotten when the Ninja had pushed the statue over him. Kefka smiled, and then began laughing like a lunatic.
It was not until then that he realised that he never had cared to learn any curative spells. He had studied fire and ice magic, protective walls and physical attacks, but never any healing spells.

Kefka looked up at the statues and they looked down at him. He felt their presence and he knew that they felt his. He knew that they were able to teach him what he needed, they had already taught him that magic that he had used on the town. But they were hard to get to. The statues seemed to have minds of their own, and they did not like him. He looked at the Goddess statue. He had used their power, for evil, so they hated him. Kefka laughed at the idea.
"Evil depends on your point of view!" He screamed, and the statues looked at him and listened.
"Nothing like good or evil exists," he smiled at them.
"It is all just a joke, the world is something God created to play with," Kefka explained to the statues.
"And now is it my toy to play with, 'cause it is I whom is that God!"

Kefka turned around and looked at the statues. They tried to push him out of the magical field that provided him with the magic that he needed to survive. But he just smiled.

That Kefka was insane was obvious. He had no reason for destroying the world, but yet he was in his tower and unleashed the Light of Judgement upon the people. Soon there came people that began to believe that Kefka really was the God that had created earth. They called them self the Cult of Kefka. The ironic was that Kefka never even found out that it was formed to obey him.

Sevreal days after they had taken away his powers was Kefka dying. His leg had gotten limp and there was nothing he could do to somehow heal it. In the beginning he had tried to get back the powers, but the statues refused to give them to him. He could not understand, the statues were only stone and magic. His magic. They could not do this, not to him. He still referred to them as beings, he even spoke to them. He believed in them.


"To use magic or Magi as we refer to the powers of Esper, you have to believe that you can do it," Kefka chanted. He knew the rules of Magi by heart, and seeked knowledge in the familiar speech that Cid had told him several times.
"If there is any disbeliefs you will surely fail. That's why most people would be unsuccessful within the art of magic," Cid had told them. But it was a long time since those lectures. Kefka felt for a few seconds that he longed back to those days when he had been able to think straight, but the feeling disappeared as fast as it had come.
"Any disbeliefs upon your self will bring faliure," he screamed angrily.
"I believe..." he began to cry, "I believe..."
Suddenly he looked at his leg. He suddenly realised that it was all because of that ninja, who had used the statue to stop Kefka from destroying the world. Kefka remembered that once when he had been a little kid, he had fallen from a roof in Vector.
He had broken the same bone that day.
He had thought that he would die then. His bonepipes were sticking out of the leg the same way they do now. But someone had taken care of me that day, he thought. But the feeling was still there, how he had felt, thinking that he was dead. Did he believe that now too? Was the situation similar enough to bring those feelings up again?
That's why the statues would not obey him! They had found that little memory to scare Kefka from using them, having him to think about his broken leg.
Suddenly he began to smile again. It was a victorious smile.

Kefka lived in that tower. Under him fought the humans for survival. The Cult, as they were called, turned more and more people and grew in numbers for everyday. Many towns were destroyed, and humans were killed. It was like there had come a war or a disease that no one could fight. The homeless fled the angry God and his followers died like flies when they tried to serve under Kefka. Once this people thought that they suffered when the Empire had the power...

But the time went by and summer turned into autumn, the leaves fell from the trees and the snow came. The winter was here.

Kefka sat down on the cold floor. The impossible had happened. He felt snotty-nosed and his throat itched. He, the God of Magi, had caught a cold.
He had already tried all of the healing spells that he had learned from the statues, the spells that he had used to, after a lot of time, heal his broken leg.
But the cold would not go away that easy.

Kefka magically created a handkerchief one after another to stop his running nose. He wanted so badly to scream and let his irritation and anger out but he had lost most of his voice. He spoke to the statues like they were real living persons. Maybe they heard him, maybe not, but Kefka whispered his insane thoughts to them because they were the only ones who fully understood him.
"I wish that I could die just here and now, so that I would get rid of this annoying cold. I just hate that I can't get it to stop. Really irritating," Kefka leaned against the Goddness statue and looked up at her. "And some idiots have been chanting all morning too. I can't stand it. What do they want with me?" Kefka did not know that it was exactly 6 months since he first had seized the powers which the humans feared. And now was the Cult celebreating his victorious half of year right outside his tower.
"I might be able to do something about it if it wasn't for my cold," he looked up into the statues face. "No I am not like that, it is just that I can't chant the spell with this itchy throat," he said and began to scratch himself on the neck and on the throat.
"What the hell are those idiots screaming about down there? Can't a man have peace in his own tower anymore? I'll show them how." And then he began to cough. He smiled when he rose up from the place. He turned to the statue.
"Excuse me, my lady. But it seems like I have to take care of my guests," he joked. "Maybe I should take care of them all by myself, or what do you think, dear?" he continued. But when he got no answer from the statue he simply turned around and vanished into the shadows of the tower, out from the magical fields of the statues.

The Cult celebrated Kefka, and held a cermony in his honour. They had put up an altar and candles whose light flickered in the cold wind from the wastelands. They were a total of 5 small humans who tried to reach up to Kefka in his tower with their prayers. Soon they would wish that they never had tried to get the insane God's attention.

"Kefka will be the one who shows us the path to the light," one of the members screamed over the wind. "He will raise us from the ordinary people and hold us under his protective wings. He will be the God and we will be his pupils. He has the power to take and to give," longer he did not come. He had looked at the others who had begun to stare at the tower. He was just going to give them a lecture about not listening to him when he heared an amused laugh from behind. He turned around to look at who it was who had laughed at him. When he saw the one he became pretty irritated. The man was sitting on one of the tower's lower cliffs. He had a pretty torn but still colorful suit and a mocking smile on his lips. His face was painted so that he looked like some sort of clown. His hair was blond, more against plain yellow than the ordinary human blonde. And on the right side of his head, just above his ear, was a red feather. He looked like he was having a great time.
"So, you think that you can get The Great God of Magi to like you just by screaming meaningless things in front of his tower?" the clown said with a sarcastic voice.
"Who are you, who thinks he can interupt Kefka's loyal followers, the Cult of Kefka?" he said contempuosly.
"Oh, me? I am just a clown, one of the emperors best fools," the jester answered.
Fool Geshal was exactly what I did.
"Go away now. We have important things to do," the Cult member was annoyed with the colourful, little man who had stopped the whole cermony.
"What are you doing? You are not trying to get Kefka down here I hope?" the man asked and jumped down from the wall like a cat. It was something of curiosity which shone in his face under all the makeup.
"Ha, would you like to know that? We are," the Cult member said with a smile on his lips. But then the clown began to smile that evil smile again.
"So you think that if you scream high enough he will come down here and just give you some power? Just like that? That's hilarious!" the clown laughed. The other members screwed on them self a litle, but the one the clown spoke to was just even more upset and walked towards against the fool. Then the clown spoke again
"But don't be so angry! You have acomplished the task, or at least a part of it," he said with a deadly low but yet clear voice.
"What do you mean?" the cultist called out.
"You got me out of my tower," this notifying gave the cultist a shock and he stopped. "It is just that other part about me giving my powers to you which isn't completely right. I think that "Kill you all" would be more fitting," the members could not believe in what this man was saying. Was the clown the god Kefka?
Then the clown picked out a ball of fire from nowhere and held it in his palm. That took away all their disbelief.
"It was really irritating to hear you screams for a half day. I thought that going down here to speak to you would make me feel better too. It has really been boring lately. So I thank you, Cult of Myself. It has really been fun to speak with you. It is really sad that you have to go so soon," he declared.
"So you will let us go then?" The cultist asked with a scared voice. But then Kefka began to laugh, and the laugh broke into a cough. He used his sleeve to blow his nose.
"Not exactly. Since I am in one of my better moods right now will I give something to you."
"Really? What is it you will give us, oh Lord?" the Cult member asked with curiosity in his voice.
"I will give you a power which will be yours for eternity, and it will also give you a better understanding of life," Kefka explained vaguely.
"And what is this power?" they dared to ask.
"Eternal... death!" he screamed and threw the ball of fire into the group of people. They were set alight by the fire and were running around screaming out their dying voices in pain when Kefka turned his back to them and climbed the tower to see his beloved statues again. He felt much better now.
"They did not even thank me" he muttered when he was inside again.
"People nowadays don't know any courtesy."

Then the time went on, and the winter changed into spring. But there was no flowers, the trees did not show their leaves, and the humans lost more of their hope for a better tomorrow. It was like Kefka's presence had killed the natures wish to live and grow.

Kefka looked up into the blue sky. Birds flew around in it and a few small clouds drifted along the winds. He sat in the area of Magi and studied the azure blue sky. It was pretty beautiful. The sky took up his whole eyesight. A warm wind blew and he felt warm in his heart too. He was wondering where humans go when they died? Their souls couldn't just disappear. He thought about the problem for an hour or so. The reason why he thought about it was because he had killed so many of them, but never even for once had found out where they actually went after that. Even if he was what the humans called a "God" he did not know so much about what Gods were supposed to know.

Then he suddenly was blinded by something stronger than the sun in the west. A light reflex was playing on his face for a short while and then continued down and then away from the tower. He looked up in the sky to find the source of the reflection. In the far east was a small airborn ship visible. To Kefka it looked like a child's toy, tossed into the air. He looked at the aircraft for a moment. Then he noticed that it was coming this way, keeping a very high speed. He rolled over to his stomach and waved his feet in the air behind him. He felt a litle sleepy after spending the whole day to count all the clouds in the heaven so this was something new. It looked like an airship he had seen before. Setzer Gabbiani's "the Falcon". But Setzer had gone over to the returners and Kefka had destroyed the Falcon when he first had come in contact with the statues. So it could not be that. Kefka waited for the ship to come closer before he took a close look at it again. With his hawklike, Magi improved, golden eyes could he see the incoming aircraft.
It was all in metalic plates, and under it was a bridge hanging in cables. In the rear and on the top of it were large propllers which brought the ship forward with an incredible speed. On the bridge he could see several people, even if he could not distinguish who.
He thought about striking the ship with the Light of Judgemet but then he, just because the ship was so beautiful, looked at again. And this time he saw who it was, riding the doomed ship. All the returners were on the deck. It was the half esper, charming Celes, the so called tresure-hunter, Sezter steering the ship, the two brothers of Figaro, the hated ninja and even more people were aboard.

They have come now, Kefka thought. They have come! His mind shouted with joy. They have at last gotten enough courage to meet him. At last he would get his revenge. They had all betrayed him in one or another way. Or hurt him. Or just been hated by him. But he did not care about his reasons to kill them anymore. Just the joy when he could feel their human hearts punding with fear was enough. Killing a human life with the light was not enough anymore, he wanted to feel their soul leaving the body, the heart stop, the breath go away. It was so exciting.

Kefka let the returners climb his tower. Their way was not easy, but when they were all there, just next to Kefka he felt his blood in his veins, they were so close. They had made something Kefka never could have done, they had destroyed the Goddess' statues. Oh, if they just had known that when they had destroyed the statues, they had given all the Magi power locked inside the statues for Kefka himself. Kefka was in full charge of all the magical power on the planet.
He looked at them for a short second with something diffrent in his eyes. Was there a posibility that they, if the past had been diffrent that he could have been friends with them? Was it really necessary to kill them all? He would maybe spare a few of them, like Terra the Esper girl and Celes. And maybe Relm too, she could do him a magical potrait. And the moggle, he looked kind of cute.
But then he knocks all thoughts like that out of his mind and welcomes them with a pretty funny speach. He tries to tell them about what he believes. That life is of no importance. That life, love and all the other human feelings are just an illusion to hide the fact that there was no real reason of living exept to die at the end of it.
And then they tried to convince Kefka of that living and everything that comes with it is important. Kefka feels a stick of sadness when he understands that he has to kill them all. They do not understand why humans live, so he has to show them the awser, death.

Kefka looked into the sun. It was dawn now, an everlasting dawn. He felt his heavy wings on his back. He had changed so much since that day in the laboratory when he for the first time had gained his magical powers. He thought about how it had been before that day, and how happy he had been at the time after his new ability. And then had the insanity begun to consume his mind. He lifted his eyes into the presence, and looked at the Returners. They stood there, waiting. What were they waiting on? Were they tired of fighting? Had they understood that they were going to die, sooner or later? He held up his arm to use the Light of Judgement, but when he he had said the words which should have called upon it, nothing happened. He looked closer at his hand and noticed a light at his fingertips. He could not feel his fingers anymore, and then he, suprised, looked down to see the light at his feets too, and he could not feel them either. The light consumed his body fast even if it to him seemed like an eternity before it reached his head. It was no pain, nothing like that. Kefka wondered if it was like this to die? He shone brighter than the downing sun in the west when he felt the last tickeling of a feeling disappear into nothingness and his body began to crumble. Kefka knew that he had to make a last effort to tell the returners about why they live.

"The End Comes... Beyond Chaos."