Miranda Shadowind
Sabin Figaro cursed Kefka as he wandered down the streets of Albrook, the place where he'd landed when the world had blown up. All that training with Duncan at Mt. Koltz was finally paying off. He wondered if Edgar and/or any of the other Returners had survived as well..
"Hey, you seen an old man, two kids, and some other people around my age?" Sabin asked a young woman passing by.
"Why? Are they friends of yours?" was the reply.
"Hell yeah, and one of them's my brother!"
"Oh! Hmmm...there WAS a young man about your age that stopped here briefly from Nikeah, then headed north...Looked like a regular rogue, but seemed real depressed about something.."
Sabin blinked. "That's Locke! Thanks!" He bought a few supplies, then took off for Tzen. Creaming Kefka would be difficult to accomplish alone, but if he could catch up with his best friend before he (Locke) left the continent, together they had a fighting chance.
There were newer, uglier monsters abound on the grassless plain, but Sabin made short work of them. But when he reached Tzen, Locke was long gone.
"What's he up to now?" Sabin pondered out loud. But before he could think it further, there was a blinding flash of light and a power surge that sent him right into the side of a house. "The hell?!"
"Kefka's 'Light of Judgement' is upon us!" someone yelled out in the confusion.
"Someone help! My little boy's trapped!" a woman screamed. Sabin peeled himself off of the house and ran over to where he'd heard the yelling. One of the houses was on the verge of collapse!
Sabin put his back to the house and lifted a main crossbeam across his shoulders. "I can hold this place up if someone else goes in," he told the panicky mother. "Who-"
"Sabin!" a familar voice cut him off. Sabin looked up and found Celes staring back at him.
"Celes!" He gestured as best he could toward the doorway. "Hurry, there's a kid trapped down there!"
"What about you?" Celes asked.
"I'm the only thing holding this place up! I move, it'll collapse!"
Celes nodded and dashed into the crumbling house. Sabin grunted and shifted his weight. Holding up a house was easier said than done, even for him.
Just when he thought the house would come down on all three of them, Celes ran out with the boy in her arms. "Bout bloody time!" Sabin let go of the beam and quickly rolled away as the house caved into a mess of splintering wood.
"Sabin, I can't believe you're alive!" Celes cried, returning the boy to his mother, who thanked the duo.
Sabin laughed. "What, did you think a little thing like the end of the world was going to do me in?!"
Celes giggled. "C'mon, we've got work to do!"
"I know, I know. We find the others, smash Kefka, and deliver peace unto the world!" Celes nodded, and they headed for the chocobo stable.
That done, they pondered where to head next...(Locke could be anywhere by now, and tracking him on news alone would prove useless.) Just then, they overheard the now-homeless woman conversing with a neighbor.
"This is just like what happened to Mobliz," the neighbor commented, shaking her head.
"Kefka fried them too?!" asked the surprised mother.
"Yes, but more than just a house. The whole town was blasted nearly to the ground! All the adults perished protecting their children.."
Celes gasped. This in mind, she and Sabin headed for Mobliz (or what was left of it), hoping to find survivors.