Although I published this first chapter ages ago, it's only just occurred to me that I should have written a brief introduction! The idea for this came to me while watching the ending scenes of Final Fantasy VI earlier this year. Immediately I found myself craving a sequel, so this happened! The events that follow take place immediately after the game's ending...
Disclaimer: All rights belong to Squaresoft/Square Enix.
KEFKA PALAZZO HAD, at long last, been toppled from his tower. The World of Balance had been restored. The Falcon took to the skies with its brave and beautiful crew all enthralled at their miraculous victory. Cue the end credits.
But the world's eighteen-year-old saviour, Terra Branford, was disturbed by a pressing thought as she dug her nails into the airship's main mast for dear life. "The end lies beyond chaos…"
"UUUUAAAAOW!" Gau erupted with glee as he threw all of his weight down on the rickety joystick that served as the Flacon's steering device. The ship groaned as it bent itself upwards, soaring in a straight, vertical line. Setzer hung from the rails, his grizzled, grey hair and grubby overcoat blowing madly against the turbulence. His mouth hung open, but the roar of rushing wind obscured any sounds that were tumbling out. Meanwhile, the rest of the terrified crew had wrapped themselves in, on or around any solid object they could find.
Gau swung from the joystick like an upturned sloth, before throwing himself off the controls, sending the Falcon plummeting down towards the ground like a broken lift-shaft. Setzer seized the joystick just in time, curving the ship up and level with the jagged rocks below, rather than headlong into them.
"Phew! What a rush!" he laughed manically, "well done Gau!" From somewhere behind him, Locke promptly vomited into one of his boots.
"I'd just like to address an issue here," Edgar stated, raising one acclamatory finger as he staggered across the deck in a disorientated zig-zag pattern. His blonde hair hung loose and matted like hay, while his tender, regal cheeks burned red from the wind's repetitive slapping. "Perhaps now that we are free to do what we want… doesn't necessarily mean that we should." There was a collective murmur of pained agreement from the others, who were now uncurling and detaching themselves from their various places of safety. Setzer raised his eyebrows at the windswept crew that had gathered muttering around him. Locke groaned, hugging his boot to his heaving chest.
"You hear that, Gau? You've been voted off The Falcon's Next Best Pilot," Setzer announced in softened tones of mock-sadness. Gau was apparently too busy chewing on the main sail's rope to notice.
"I'm calling a meeting downstairs!" Celes shouted from across the deck, after she had irritably disentangled herself from her white cloak. She tossed back her mass of thick, blonde hair furiously, before beginning her descent down the stair-case, swiftly followed by her wild-haired comrades. Locke lifted his pale, shining face from his makeshift basin, and groaned audibly as the ship lurched again. He rose unsteadily to his feet and tottered between the ship's rails and the steps, unsure whether a secondary wave of air-sickness was going to render him into a helpless, heaving wretch.
Meanwhile, Setzer withdrew a bronze-embossed telescope from inside his coat and surveyed their flight path. Nothing but beautiful, clear, blue skies… unless one counted that mountain range that loomed in the distance. The potentially vast-distance. Setzer muttered some complicated and inaccurate calculations to himself.
"Right, let's leave her to coast. Cyan, don't throw on any more coal, and we should be good for another twenty minutes!"
The airship had returned to pumping and hissing steam in a regular rhythm. Setzer found the entire party assembled in a downstairs room around a plain, pinewood table which had taken the name of the Board Room. Only Celes remained standing behind the chair at the head of the table. Setzer strolled in humming the chorus to 'Draco and Maria' and relaxed in Celes' seat. A flicker of annoyance crossed the young general's features, but she simply placed her hands on her hips and continued on valiantly in the face of such thoughtlessness.
"I call this meeting to establish our next line of action," Celes explained, falling comfortably into her role as commander-in-chief. "We no longer have any obligation to serve together as the war is over. What does everyone want to do?"
It was an odd question. Since the day that a frozen esper, tucked away in the mountains of Narshe, had blown two Imperial soldiers to smithereens and sent a third amnesiac fugitive with rare, magical powers on the run, it had consistently been a case of what do we have to do now. There had never been time to want anything. The question stunned the party into silence. Then, after respectfully timing five seconds in his head, Edgar slowly raised his hand.
"I vote we have a party," he suggested, trying to subtly downplay his idea enough to encourage the others. "We could have a get-together up here on the Falcon. I guess we would send carrier pigeons to all the towns with survivors and just make a night of it. I mean, how often do you get to celebrate saving the world right?" He leant back casually in his chair, crossing his feet on the table as if to add a flourish to his words. Celes glared at the young king until he sheepishly dropped his feet to the floor again.
"I was thinking more along the lines of helping the world back to stability," Celes uttered through clenched teeth, "bearing in mind that an apocalypse hit the world only a year ago, I would have thought there was an awful lot of clearing up to do."
Terra shook her head, frowning slightly at the suggestion. "Actually, no there isn't, Celes. Didn't you see what happened when we were up on the deck back there? The sky and sea turned back to blue again, the grass was suddenly green, except in Zozo, and birds appeared everywhere... it was actually like nothing had changed at all."
"It can't all be fixed that quickly," Celes countered in a pained voice, rubbing her temples with her index fingers, "I mean, there's so much rebuilding to be done!"
"Sorry, Celes," Sabin sighed in a heavy voice, "I know you wanted to help, but the world has officially been restored to balance. It literally all happened about three seconds after Kefka blew up. It was a ridiculously-fast miracle of nature." Celes opened her mouth to respond, but found she was wordless to comment on the impossibility of it all.
"So, to go back to Celes' original question then, what does everyone want to do?" Sabin continued smoothly. When everyone had taken to staring down at their laps in uncomfortable silence, he added encouragingly; "think back to your dreams! What have you always wanted to do? Now is your chance to make them a reality!"
Still no one spoke. Much like a bad smell that no one wanted to admit to, a horrid realisation was sinking into the minds of The Returners. Their sole purpose and goal had been to eradicate Kefka and save the world. Now that it was all game over… what else was there to do? Had Kefka actually been trying to do them a massive favour by warning them that their existence was pointless after all? Perhaps if he had obliterated them as promised, they wouldn't be in this terrible, emotional fix. Terra sat chewing her lip, considering all of this and finding it vaguely humorous how theirs was potentially the most ironic story in the universe. It was a very welcome relief when Edgar spoke again.
"So… where did we land on the party idea? No one actually said the word "no" right?"
It certainly served as a necessary distraction. Thousands of invitations were flown down by carrier pigeons to the world's hundred survivors. Setzer turned the ship around and left it lazily drifting westwards ("Come on, Celes! Life is all hit or miss. We'll see what we find when we get there!") Relm had decorated banners which read 'International Day of Victor' (after Gau had sat in the wet paint), and Edgar had sent for several casks of his home-brewed Figaro beer. By nightfall, the party was in full swing, and there were enough people and inexplicable creatures present for the Returners to avoid talking to each other about "what happens now?"
Celes had decided not to waste any more time contemplating the implausible laws of physics that operated in the World of Balance, and had agreed to join the growing party upon the ship's deck instead. She gave herself a quick, scrutinising glance in the dusty mirror that hung in the downstairs lounge, before pulling her golden hair up into a tight pony-tail and switching her Imperial General's cape for a tan, sleeveless jacket that matched her leggings.
Upstairs, she found a band of greasemonks playing Figaro's national anthem on a set of steel drums, led by the very same conductor who worked at the Jidoor Opera House. Celes smiled at him as she slipped through a band of scruffy thieves who were eyeing up two women from Maranda with heavy-looking purses. As she grew closer, Celes spotted Cyan, Edgar and Locke leaning by the railings, animatedly re-telling the epic battle the party had waged against Kefka only three hours earlier.
"Should've seen this guy," Edgar explained to a young women with vibrant red hair as he jabbed Cyan in the ribcage with his thumb, "absolute legend with a scimitar. He vanquished a big, old demon the size of this airship! Vanquished him." Edgar repeated the word as though it were a fancy foreign delicacy. The starry-eyed young woman gaped at the Doman knight in absolute awe.
"Oh, t'wasn't just me…" Cyan blustered, his cheeks prickling with heat. He heaved himself away from his companions. "King Edgar has a chainsaw, you know? Perchance-"
"Oh sshhhhhh," Edgar interrupted, slinging an arm around Cyan's shoulders and nearly shoving him on-top of his young admirer. In the king's other hand was clasped a beer bottle, the contents of which had slopped out all over the deck. "He's a real gentleman, you know? But when he means business, he means business, you know?" The young woman nodded, open-mouthed, showing that she knew. Locke lifted his own beer bottle, flexing what little biceps he possessed as he did so.
"It wasn't an easy fight. There was a moment where I thought we weren't going to make it." Locke took a dramatic breath as his eyes fluttered closed. "I just grasped my dagger," Locke mimed the action, pounding his fist to his chest emotionally. "I stared Kefka in the face and I-"
"Screamed like a little girl?" Celes cut into the circle and waved a dismissive hand towards Ultros, who had perched on-top of an ice-box and was extending bottles with his purple tentacles to anyone who passed him. Locke stared around wildly at her, choking on his last sip of beer.
"I didn't scream!" he protested, before his adamant expression faltered into a look of defeat. "Well, if I did, then I screamed like a Magitek Knight." It was too late, however. The red-haired woman heaved a sigh and walked away towards the poker table Setzer had set up at the other end of the ship. Celes exhaled loudly through her nose, tapping the toe of her boot against the deck's scrubbed, wooden planks.
"The day you become a Magitek Knight, I'll become a chocobo." She turned to glare at Edgar. "Make one joke about riding me and I'll have you singing soprano for the rest of your days." Thinking better of it, Edgar closed his mouth and dropped his gaze to the floor. Seizing the chance to escape the young king's match-making skills, Cyan passed his undrunk beer bottle to Locke and disappeared below deck.
"Fare thee well," Locke sighed monotonously, raising a drink to Cyan's retreating form. He turned to catch Celes' eye and grimaced at the livid hue that was rapidly spreading across her features. "I see you're in a cheerier mood. Are you still sulking because the world magically fixed itself without your divine intervention?" Sensing immediate danger, Edgar side-stepped around Celes, slipped on his own split beer and stumbled headlong into the band of greasemonks. There came a cacophony of metallic clangs and agonised shrieks, followed by the dull thud of a wrench being thrown at the young king's head. A solitary steel drum slowly rolled backwards towards the ship's helm. Neither Locke nor Celes blinked.
~̃*~*~̃
A pale, sweaty man who wore possibly the world's worst toupee, shuffled past the couple, quite ignorant of the raw, unspoken tension. Edgar had hired the Impresario (from the very same Jidoor Opera House) as a party planner, thinking that he would ensure an evening of smoothly-organised entertainment. The Impresario ground to a halt in front of Setzer's poker table, his blonde tuft flapping in the cool, evening breeze. With a scowl and half a dozen choice words, a topless Setzer flung a fistful of cards at the table. Terra triumphantly punched the air, while the other women around the table fell about laughing with glee.
"I know you want to get me out of my pants, but you don't have to be that enthusiastic about it," Setzer snarled. A polite cough from the Impresario, snapped the Captain's head in his direction.
"Excuse me sir," the Impresario implored, "there is a signal being flashed from the rocks directly below us. King Edgar has ordered that the ship pick up any party-goers who wish to flag us down, as directed in the party invitations." Setzer ran a hand impatiently through his unkempt hair and nodded his consent, ignoring the whistles and giggling from his female companions.
"Right. Terra, you can help me with this one." Setzer removed his bronze telescope from the bundle of clothes under his chair, before padding barefoot up the ship until he reached the joystick. Terra pulled on the pair of red, leather boots which she had lost during the poker game, and jogged up the deck behind him.
Setzer held the telescope to his left eye and peered down into the dark, mist-filled air which hung over the rocky canyon below them. In the gloom, he could see a faint green glow which pulsed brightly, then dimmed again swiftly until it faded from view altogether. The pattern repeated itself three or four times before Setzer contracted the telescope and turned to Terra.
"I'm going to descend as far as I can, without hitting the rocks too much," he decided aloud. "Can you lower the crane so she can jump on?" Terra made an impatient noise, halfway between a groan and a sigh. She frowned at Setzer, her violet eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"How do you even know it's a woman?" Terra inquired, reaching out a gloved arm and uncurling her slight fingers for the telescope. "It's far too misty to tell. Let me take a look." Setzer shook his head and quickly pocketed the bronze device.
"I just have an instinct about this," he replied, waving away Terra's opinion as though it were no more than a mosquito. He pulled down on the lever, and the Falcon slowly sank downwards towards the dark canyon. Terra moodily shoved the switch to release the ship's crane, and then tugged down on the control to lower the chain until it reached their mysterious party guest. A great clanking noise sounded, making the ship shudder as the heavy crane swung lower and lower through the night's sky. On deck, the guests held their drinks close to themselves to avoid spillages. Locke inhaled deeply through his noise as he felt the stirrings of nausea take hold once more.
Setzer whisked out the telescope and, confirming the green light had vanished, gave Terra the thumbs up to reel in their unknown companion. Using both hands, Terra hauled the lever upwards until the clanking of the chain ceased. There came a sound of muffled footsteps from below deck which grew steadily louder as the unidentified person made their way up onto the surface. Finally, a watery-eyed man wearing safety specs and covered from head-to-toe in a vibrant yellow radiation suit materialised from the bowels of the airship.
"Professor Cid!" Terra exclaimed, "and here we were thinking you were just another poor, village girl." Here she shot Setzer such a look of superiority that he clapped his hands down on Terra's shoulders and steered her away from the ship's controls.
"Thanks for that Terra," he managed shortly, "why don't you get the professor a snack? There should be some fish around here somewhere."
However, neither of them were prepared for the gut-wrenching wail that emitted from the old doctor's mouth. Setzer and Terra gawped in unknown horror as the professor slid to his knees, sobbing in agony. The greasemonks, who had resumed their drumming, dropped their wrenches in astonishment. Everyone stopped to stare open-mouthed at Cid, who sat with his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Terra knelt and placed a tentative arm on the doctor's shoulder.
"Professor, tell us what's wrong. Maybe we can help?" she tried soothingly. Cid lifted his swollen, blotchy face to hers and gave a great, injured sniff.
"You've helped enough…" he muttered bitterly and refusing Terra's help, he pushed himself awkwardly to his feet. Professor Cid stared around wildly at the faces in the crowd and then announced in a voice like lead:
"The world as we know it… is coming to an end."