Chapter 20, General complications

General Aglie had a troubling position. With two of the people filling the position before him turned traitors – one of them dead by the hands of the third – and mentioned last one about to drive the new one insane too, the battle veteran could only wish for aspirin.

He was a man in his mid thirties, blond, and wore enough scars to make a murderer proud. In fact, a killer was what he basically was. As a feared captain under general Celes – she certainly remembered his fists from South Figaro – he had kept his cohorts in perfect shape and full control. The soldiers had been more afraid of him than the enemy.

Despite his failure in South Figaro as the turncoat wench had escaped her punishment, there had been enough fiascos at the similar time to make his one fall back. When Kefka gained new heights, there had been a need for a new one to fill the "general" title. Aglie was as loyal as Leo had been, but he had about the same moral boundaries as Kefka. Which made him a natural pick.

But right then and there he rather missed his old position.

Glancing at the emperor he held back a sigh. The older but also more powerful man watched the frustrating part of the current trio, with vague interest behind the calm wall of his eyes.

Aglie could deal with madness, either by turning it to a smashed mess under his boot or use it like the emperor had done for years. The insanity of trained monsters, wild with bloodlust and ready to tear apart anyone they came across, civilians and soldiers alike, was a force to be reckoned with. Unlike many others, Aglie had never during most of his career regarded Kefka as a dangerous problem. The man was a tool unlike any other, set on the right track he'd do anything to get a job done. He was a machine with a brain tuned on blood, one of the finest pawns in the game that the new general was proud to be part of.

But Kefka as a madman with a clear mind was plain irritating. It was too absurd to deal with, and he was intruding on Aglie's area.

"No!" the clown snarled for the third time in one minute, his hands slamming down on the table with a deafening sound.

Aglie held back a dear wish to rub his temples.

It was obvious that the Returners had somehow slipped through the empire's net – which hadn't been too well sewn to be honest. The palace was now flying again, and had spent last evening with dropping off troops in the closest towns of the area to look for refugees and gather information. With no real luck there either, the only thing left to do was holding a war council.

It didn't seem to be going too well, not in Aglie's view at least. He had left his underfed report and was now trying to deal with the retorts.

"So in conclusion," he said in an icy voice, "they have not gone to Kohlingen, not to Jidoor, and not to Zozo. Then where the hell are they, pray tell?"

"Listen, Aglie," Kefka snapped (the general could swear the lord pronounced it as "Ugly"), "regardless of what you think, these little rats are not stupid. If they were, we would have killed them months ago. But are they dead? No!"

'He's bloody stuck on "repeat the word No"…' Aglie growled to himself.

To top off the irritation, Kefka held up a hand and begun counting down the fingers with such focused, procedure movements that it made the general want to reach out and start breaking the skinny tentacles.

"They are desperate, scared, scattered and weak," Kefka counted, bending down a finger for every word by pushing it with the other hand's pointing finger, "yes! But they are not stupid!"

The well used fingertip landed on the world map covering most of the table, more precisely on Kohlingen.

"I didn't say they weren't here, that report of stolen chocobos is too suspicious. But it tells us that they're not there anymore!"

"Yes, I know that as well!" Aglie snapped, "but we do not know if it was them, do you take that in regard, Kefka?"

The name could have been an insult considering the tone.

Kefka's smirk seemed a little peculiar, but Aglie never really cared about such details and didn't take any further notice of it.

"It was them," the lord resolutely said, crossing his arms, "Locke Cole and that ninja, Shade or whatever, were seen when they fled from the palace."

Kerr was one inch from continuing "Those two plus stolen chocobos equals Returners on the run", but in the last second he stopped himself. Kefka did not make equations, not even simple ones like that. If he did, Gestahl would be suspicious.

In fact, the madman was surprised with himself as well. He couldn't remember the last time he had been thinking so easily, this morning was different from any he had experienced in years.

But he had ideas about it, there was nothing he could hold on to. Yet.

His dear, veiled brother would have to explain himself.

Later.

"Those two can worm their way into far too tight holes," lord Kefka continued, "I have no doubt that they, or one of them, stole the chocobos."

"Fine!" Aglie said, raising his hands to silence the clown for a blessed moment, "and I can understand Jidoor, since we have decent amount of troops there. But Zozo has always been a haven for scum, and they could probably find a somewhat decent ship in that dump the rogues call a harbor."

Kefka shook his head and ran his finger over the mountain range separating the black hole of crime from the rest of the archipelago.

"They'd have to pass this," he said, "and as we all know these mountains are hazardous. The chance of anybody surviving a climb is minimal, there's hardly anything but straight cliffs. Going around it would take an awful lot of time even with chocobos, especially since they'd be overloaded. The rats want to get away, and fast."

"A group of people running for their lives would certainly take that risk," Aglie pointed out, faking patience.

"I'll hand you that, Ugly boy."

Aglie's fingers twitched over his sword hilt. All the while, Gestahl remained silent, mildly amused of the show though he wouldn't admit it even to himself.

"However, Zozo is not safe for them," Kefka continued his endless tirade, "every innocent-looking little baby there would sell those heroes to us for a bag of crack."

"So they are still here somewhere, you mean?" Aglie snarled, on the verge of what he could handle in aggravation.

Kefka's voice was one of the most irritating things he had ever heard, and the words coming out were colored with arrogance.

That voice was better off when used for cackling out "laughter" and rambling about killing bystanders.

It didn't get any better when the incarnation of annoyance wrapped his cloak around himself in a flourishing movement and waved cockily with his finger, smirking.

"What you forget is that the little rescue team got here somehow," Kefka purred, "we don't know where they came from but I highly doubt it was any town around here. They doubtlessly came here by ship."

At this point, the only logical thing to do was to give up and go along, whether it was pleasant or not.

"And that ship was hidden along the coast somewhere, waiting for them to return, you mean?" Aglie grunted, frowning at the map.

"Precisely! Thank you, you were a lovely audience."

Kefka performed an overdone bow and hoarsely chuckled.

Aglie inwardly groaned, realizing that he had been led into a trap. Kefka had made it clear that he was done, and now it was time for somebody else to point out the bad news for the emperor. The damn clown was much smarter than he pretended to be…

Strangely enough, Gestahl broke the scheme.

"If you are right, it leaves them a lot of opportunities to hide," the emperor grimly said, frowning dangerously as he thought while leaning his chin on a fist.

The lord and the general silently nodded.

"We will leave troops to keep searching this area," the emperor concluded, "for though it's a sensible idea you came up with, Kefka…"

"Why thank you, but is there irony in your voice, emperor?"

"Shut up."

Gestahl eyed the map while Aglie hardly could contain his smirk. Kefka glared in another direction like a sour child.

"We can't be sure that your hypothesis is correct," the emperor eventually continued, "but as for now we'll simply have to wait for them to make a move. Until then there's nothing we can do."

"Sadly so, emperor," Aglie nodded, pursing his mouth.

"Tragic," was Kefka's comment while thoughtfully circling Figaro desert with his pointing finger, "and I have such marvelous ideas, too…"

"I'm sure we all have, Kefka," Gestahl said with a faint, cold sneer.

He glanced at Aglie.

"You may go."

"Yes, emperor."

The general stood, bowed and marched out. Not without relief. As the door closed behind him he set his goal; the barracks. Somebody would suffer for his built up frustration.

Still in the meeting room the lord turned to leave as well.

"Wait a moment, Kefka" Gestahl said, casually.

The pale man stopped at once.

'ShitImessedup…'

"Yes emperor?" he merrily said as he spun around, bowing almost in the same movement.

Gestahl stopped himself from rolling his eyes at the exaggeration.

"Cut that out," he growled.

"Of course, if you say so…" lord Kefka said with a faint smirk, "what is it, then?"

"I was just wondering about your behavior today," the emperor said.

Kerr dearly hoped that the blink and questioning tilting of his head was all that showed from the chaos in his mind.

"You seemed to be quite sharp there," the emperor clarified.

'I can't act but I sure as hell better…' ran through Kerr's brain.

He forced his eyes to thin, waving his finger as he had done before to irritate Aglie.

"Well, after all I have a better reason than ever, emperor," he said in a meaningful tone.

To his suspicious relief Gestahl nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer as there was a sneer on the royal lips.

"That I can understand," the emperor approved.

'Use more idiocy! More!'

"It's rather boring," Kerr shrugged, "but as long as it serves its purpose…"

"Are you taking your medicines?"

The madman almost jumped at the sudden change of subject and tone.

'Sheez, you're as jittery as a tap-dancing eel! Note to self, blame Kefka.'

He eyed the suddenly grimmer emperor as indifferently as he could.

"I am touched," he said, willing a snicker, "you sure seems to care about my health lately."

"Whenever you act strangely, it is safe to blame your medicine first of all."

'Good point there…'

Kerr's thoughts paused for a moment.

"… You're frickin' drugged!"

"You're frickin' paranoid…"

'But why does Gestahl even know about the pills? Did I ever tell him? Can't remember…'

He pushed the thoughts aside and focused on the moment.

"True that," he nodded, "but no need to call the firemen. I'm taking it, but right now I'm really looking forwards to a family reunion."

Gestahl nodded again.

"Just wanted to make sure," he said with a satisfied smile, "you can go."

"Yes, emperor."

Aglie had thought that he had been relieved to get out of the room.

It took Kerr a few minutes to walk to his own chambers.

As the door opened and slammed shut Gogo looked up from the book he had been studying.

"I should wring your scrawny neck, you know that?" Kerr grunted while crossing the floor, taking out a bottle of wine from the lower part of the cupboard.

"Is something wrong?" the mimic carefully asked, putting the script about magic down.

"Yes, I'm getting paranoid too! You're contagious!"

'Ah, another flaw to the collection,' Siren murmured without letting anyone hear her.

She stayed on a safe distance from Kerr, the shock from last evening had still not settled.

Gogo easily caught the glass that was carelessly thrown at him, placing it on the table beside the small heap of books. It wasn't a big collection since it was what Kerr had kept in his room – getting more from the scientific archives would be risky – but it was quite informative for one working on learning stronger magic. Kerr hadn't written much himself, but others had studied and planned on passing it on for the growth of the empire's might. Now it would hopefully be used against the tyranny, however.

Mere moments after opening the bottle Kerr emptied half a glass of wine in one sweep, trying to calm his nerves.

"Do you think that Gestahl is suspicious?" Gogo worriedly asked, accepting a little wine only from politeness.

Kerr shook his head.

"Not right now, I think I averted it… but…"

He glared as his brother.

"Kef, this thing…"

A pointing finger tip-tapped against the pale forehead.

"It works."

Siren bit down on her lower lip, assuring herself that she was not close to chuckling at the grim tone in the bizarre statement.

"It's supposed to work, Kerr," Gogo mildly but carefully pointed out, "I believe it's very important for the rest of you."

"Not in this case, it works too damn well!" Kerr snapped with a grimace, "if I keep slipping on being smart, Gestahl will start wondering."

Siren's amusement died.

Slowly the mimic nodded.

"Yes, that's a danger, bro," he grimly said.

"Then what are you doing about it?" Kerr said in a clearly accusing tone.

Gogo tried to look innocent.

"I?" he said, "it's your brain, not mine."

"And what about the fact that it hasn't been this sharp for years, not until you came here?" the pale one pointed out, "it's a little too much of a coincidence."

"I'm not doing anything with your head," Gogo assured, halfway truthfully, "believe me Kerr, I don't have any magic for that."

He met his brother's glare as calmly as he could.

Seconds snailed by.

Siren considered interfering, but remembering yesterday's hazardous adventure with Kerr's sensitive mind, she choose to remain passive. There would be times when she'd have to calm him down, but this was not an emergency and she didn't want to take risks.

None of the brothers yielded.

"Please, it's true," the mimic finally said.

Kerr rolled his eyes and shrugged.

"Fine then."

"Kerr…" Gogo hesitantly began, rising from the sofa.

"But you'll be in an awful lot of trouble if I find out that you were lying to me, little one," the older of the two said in a rather icy voice, without looking at his brother.

Gogo had to fight with all his might not to wince. He could feel Siren purse her mouth; she was worried too.

"Bro, I came here three days ago," the mimic said, trying to keep his voice friendly, "we were apart for twenty years. I will not risk that again."

Kerr regarded him for a moment.

"Three days, not more…?" the one with the makeup absentmindedly muttered, looking back at his emptied glass, "feels like weeks."

"I'm bound to agree. It's just because you gives me so many headaches."

Gogo was trying to snake out of the tight situation with a joke.

Both he and Siren silently breathed of relief as Kerr chuckled.

"Speak for yourself, sir one thousand stupid questions and conspiracy theories."

"So sorry…" Gogo mildly smirked.

Inwardly he was less amused.

'If he finds out, he'll loose his trust in me and then all will be lost,' he muttered to Siren, bitter and worried at the same time.

'We have worked too hard to let that happen,' she concernedly whispered, 'all we can do is make sure that he doesn't find out.'

'But how can we do that if you keep healing him? He's already noticing it.'

'I tried to make the healing process slow in the beginning, but I don't have outmost control over every single detail,' she tried to explain, clenching her teeth, 'I'll let this settle before I do anything more.'

'Sounds like a good idea…'