Chapter 2
The Hunt
Disclaimer: I do not own FFVI, its characters, locations or clichés.
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"THANK YOU FOR DEPLOYING THE GUARDIAN MARK II" the automated vice boomed. Guardian was the empire's ace in the hole for defensive purposes. Although it could not move in any way shape or form, the amount of firepower that it held was awe-inspiring. It required the powers from a drained Esper just to operate the basic turret guns, let alone the newly installed atom ray which could incinerate targets in a matter of nanoseconds. Leo always thought that deploying it anywhere could be considered over-kill but with Kefka following a different set of orders to Leo, dividing their forces and leaving Vector practically defenceless, it was necessary.
"Hey Leo, wanna trade orders? Yours sound much more fun than mine. You get to hunt her down like the dog she is! Uwe-he-he!" Kefka cackled sinisterly,
"For the last time Kefka, Gestahl made it quite clear as to why you shouldn't be on this mission."
"But you get damn near the entire army at your disposal! What do I get? And I quote: 'A small bodyguard party'. I'm gonna be flanked by bloody midgets! How are they supposed to protect me huh? They can't make decent human shields, they're more like human bucklers…"
"Kefka, that is not the definition of what you are charged with commanding. The Emperor means is a small number of elite troops. And no I would not like to switch orders even if I could."
"Meany."
"Kefka…" Leo's sword arm itched to grab the hilt of his blade and possibly Skewer Kefka, he could not see what Gestahl saw in him. Sure he'd been loyal to the empire before he went insane but sometimes there was just no hope for the man. If you could still call him that.
"Anyway, hope you don't have too much fun General. But make sure she has to be tortured before you can put on that little crown. Uwe-he-he!" Kefka then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"General Leo! Sir!" Shouted one of the young soldiers, his helmet completely concealing his or her face "Permission to give report sir!"
"Permission granted private." Leo responded.
"Albrook port has been successfully cut off from the rest of town, only military personal can now access the port with a specific password."
"What's the password?"
"I…I don't know sir, I've forgotten"
Leo sighed, at least if the messenger didn't know the password, the weakest link in the chain had been eliminated and Celes would have to resort to interrogating a soldier, and that took time, not to mention one less person on the roll call was something you noted in this job. "Very well, dismissed." The General decided to search the forests surrounding Vector. The monsters within the area were simple enough to deal with if you had magic, which Celes had, both from the infusion and the Magicite.
"What's with the general?" Whispered the messenger to another low-ranking soldier.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, usually when I forget important things, he yells at me a bit. Sometimes he just smacks his own forehead, but he never used to give an exasperated sigh whenever I did something stupid."
"How long have you been in the army?"
"About a year, I keep on getting lined up for promotions then something bad happens. I'm never going to get promoted to Lance Corporal at this rate…" The first soldier said, hanging his head in shame.
"Do you remember what happened to that sorceress?"
"Pyro or Ice queen?"
"Pyro, Ice queen's the one we're supposed to be capturing."
"Oh yeah, she used to be the Major in charge of my Platoon when I first joined."
"Really?"
"Yeah, surprised she didn't climb the ranks as fast as Ice Queen did."
"I don't know either, but the point is you remember when she was given to Kefka after that nasty business in Tzen?"
"Yeah… wiped out 50 of our best with magic in under 3 minutes. Glad I dodged that bullet. Leo went completely mental on that nut-job afterward though. Never seen him go ballistic like that. Completely destroyed his personal Magitek armour."
"Well from what I've heard, and this is only word-of-mouth sort of stuff so it may not be true…"
"Yes?"
"Well apparently she was under Leo's direct command. After Tzen, she was handed over to Kefka who put the slave crown on her."
"So why is it affecting him now?"
"Well this is just between me and you, but I think there may have been some feelings for her back then."
"Eesh. Is the General robbing the cradle there or what?" The soldier said, slightly disgusted. Terra was only 18.
"Shh… he's coming." Both soldiers peered round the corner to see Leo approaching them, almost making their uniforms spontaneously transform into latrines, he had made it clear that he did not like gossip. Especially not about him, the bit of Kefka bashing here and then was fine but he was not a fan of having people speaking behind his back.
"Okay he's gone." the first soldier said, causing the other to breath a sigh of relief. "So what was going on between General and Pyro?"
"I dunno, but with Ice queen now, it's like history's repeating itself for him. Gotta be hard on the guy."
"Yeah maybe. Hey, do you know what the password for the port is?"
"What you forgot already?"
"Well… kind of."
"Fine, its 'Callous Deceiver'." The second told the messenger shaking his head.
"Thanks, shouldn't you be getting back to your post now?"
"Oh-!" The second soldier rushed off into the darkness, leaving the person who had delivered the report to Leo alone, and chuckling slightly.
"Fool. He should have known by now never to repeat passwords to anybody except for when a designated officer's present." the soldier rushed into a nearby alleyway, checking to make sure no-one was looking the helmet was removed, allowing wavy blonde hair to fall down her back. Her mind was racing, this was almost too easy to accomplish, the lower ranks were idiots, Leo wasn't pursuing her at all as of yet, he was just trying to seal off all exits to the continent except for the Blackjack. Not that there was any chance of Celes wanting to return to the Returners so soon. She didn't particularly fancy seeing Locke or having to put up with Setzer's and Edgar's flirting.
What does it matter anyway? The Empire knows I've betrayed them and the Returners most likely think the same. To everyone it seems, I'm a traitor.
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Dialogue heavy I know, but it was necessary to get a bit of background information. Review please, I know Favourites and alerts are good but what really sets a fic out from the rest is how many reviews it has.
