As the thoughts of a long-forgotten savior drifted, the plates dividing sectors six and seven trembled with a forsaken and terrible power. The first district to feel it was the commons. Vagabonds and blue-collar commuters were quick to dismiss the racket as an imbalance of mako extraction. It was the way in which the Golden Age of materia typically worked, as most any wonder or oddity nowadays could be directly explained (and easily dismissed) through mako. Out with the old and in with the new. It was ever the cyclic way of things, vastly unpredictable and yet equally organic.

An unbroken cycle, until that very moment.

The explosion rocked the boundaries of the two sectors down to their very foundations, ripping apart and vaporizing a large swath of sterile earth amidst heaps of metal scraps and rusted out locomotive husks. The infamous Train Graveyard of Midgar was momentarily awash with the color of lifestream as the riven landscape fought the uphill battle to heal itself. As it did so, tendrils of the mystic radiance started weaving together an amorphous shape within the terran geyser of power. Points of light and energy danced and converged, filling a suddenly humanoid form with mass - and then, volume. Iron boot heels only recently remade stepped out into the ashen ground, leaving a set of flaming red footprints in their wake.

Color soon joined with the empty vessel, as every conceivable tint of unrefined mako filled the empty recess: a cascade of curled amber locks reigned together, commanding the form's once-naked scalp; the gleam of ruby summoned life anew to its eyes, fanning out into a rictus jester grin across its pale face; and finally, lifestream itself swirled in a wide arch around the man's sculpted physique - sheltering him, completing him.

He looked around.

Memory was not so quick to reshape itself in the resurrected man's mind. Only half a thought, less than a spark enfeebled by cold shadow, would surface. Warcries - a battle! Yes. One veiled by thunder and darkness. What had become of him after that battle? The last thing he could remember seeing was some dressed-down relic hunter leaping into the air and lashing him across the midsection with a blade of golden light. The jester man winced inwardly, as though the sword still pierced his side. Could that miscreant still be around here somewhere? Could they all still be around here somewhere?

He took several more cautious steps towards one of the abandoned railway cars. It sparked nothing. Just a railcar. His eyes ventured, then, further away from the graveyard, noticing for the first time labyrinthine grids of metal gangways and python-like conduits snaking down through the earth he stood upon.

Who could make such a nightmare of this land before he had a chance to?

"Shhhh, don't give us away."

The blond man stiffened, feeling his joints creak for the first time. It seemed like decades had gone by since last he had used them.

"Okay, okay. But I got dibs on his cloak."

He pivoted, spinning on the balls of his feet. Those voices. Where were they coming from? What did they want from him? Realization seized his bones. The Returners. They were still here, ready to finish the task they had started!

A stray body suddenly flung itself at him, knocking him off balance. A second and third followed suit, bearing down hard with punching fists and stinging daggers.

"Looks like you caught a train into the wrong part of town, stranger!" one of them jeered, earning him fits of laughter from the man and woman in his company. "But that cloak and those boots could buy you another day's impunity!"

The painted man puzzled over this statement. Maybe it was just dark. Maybe he was under one of their spells. Maybe the destruction he had wrought upon this world had been so great that his enemies were far worse off that he had realized. Assassins and plunderers, however, the Returners were not. Something was amiss . . .

"You will fail," he warned them, face twisted with rage, "Just like you failed the first time."

An amused confusion settled over the faces of his three assailants. The woman, her own face partially obscured by shadow, spoke first. "If we had jumped a circus freak like you before, I'm sure we would have remembered."

"Yeah, really," the third chipped in. "Kinda hard to forget a face as ugly as yours."

The jester was suddenly smiling. Smiling, because he knew. He could suddenly make out the forest from the trees. These were not Returners. They may have been suffering from the same deplorable fashion sense, but they were nothing other than vagrants - directionless, with no power to call their own. As if to demonstrate, he took hold of the blade held firmly against his throat and pulled it back with little or no effort. His attacker tried forcing the dagger back down again, an effort which split the blond man's face not in agony but with laughter.

Shrill, piercing laughter.

"Grab 'em!"

Vision blurred in the wake of the jester man's agility. Blinded by his own forward momentum, the thief who had first accosted the former tyrant felt his knife stray from target and disappear harmlessly into the dirt beside them. No time was wasted, as he then seized the vagrant into a vice-like headlock and hoisted him up off the ground. His legs flailed, sending a kick crashing into the face of each of his two accomplices and knocking them backwards. Reclaiming the lost knife, the jester straightened his helpless attacker with a hair-pull and slashed his throat out from under the jaw. A spout of crimson gore spewed free, killing the man where he stood.

This, thought the blond man with a hum of bliss, was sparking something.

The second of his male attackers roared and charged, wielding what appeared to be miniature pickaxes. He shook his head. His swipes were frenzied and chaotic, driven more out of hatred than any desire for striking true. He skirted left, then right, then left again. Not a single swipe found its mark. Finally, the sardonic looking clown locked wrists when the blades came around the next time, keeping the bloodthirsty man in his place. Spinning out and then away, he inverted the hold and jumped. A wretched cracking sound, joined with the roars of anguish, rent the air as the man's kneecaps shattered from the kick. With the grace of a trapeze artist, he flipped over the now-genuflected man - the pickaxes suddenly under his control.

Each one found their mark - into the man's eye sockets.

The lone woman of their company, now all that was left, saw not one second of the carnage unfold. She lay a little ways away from the jester's meddling, spread-eagled beside the remnants of a long-defunct diesel engine. Tears courses from her eyes, blood from her nostrils. It was everything she could do not to scream as she heard her companions become undone. She cried out for her mother, needing her now more than ever.

"Oh mother, I'm sorry . . ." A set of cold, tight hands made their way up across her face, smeaing the blood into a mask of horror. She willed herself not to look up at the man. "I'll come home, I'll be good from now on. Please help me . . ."

Caustic chuckling was the only answer she would receive. This time, she couldn't help but look up. He was there, upon her, with a look like fast culminating ecstacy rippling across his red/white face. Cold terror creeped up her spine.

"No! Pl–!"

Snap!

x x x x x

Kefka lingered for the briefest of moments, nursing the dead, gory face between his palms, delighting in its clammy, bloody texture. Delighting in its lifelessness, in nothingness.

"Still got it."