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Chapter 30, Complications ahoy!

 "Why in Poltergeist's name did you have to do that for?!"

 "My, how perky we are!"

 "They were almost listening to me, damn you!"

 "Too bad for you then, pipsqueak!"

 "You're risking-"

 "I don't have time to deal with your headaches, woman! Take your monthly fits somewhere else!"

 "If they kill Kefka when he gets out of here, it will be your fault!"

 "Cry me a river of blood and pour poison into it you-"

 "Uh, you two…" Gogo weakly said, raising his hands in a calming gesture.

    He nearly reeled backwards due to the glares he got. Not enough to send him flying; but at least they did succeed in making his arms fall, accompanied with a few blinks on his side.

 "You stay out of this!" Siren and Kerr chorused, then froze for a moment before engaging in an even angrier scowling contest.

    The mimic leant back with a small shake of his head. This just couldn't lead to anything good… as if he wasn't worried enough about his other friends' state of mind.

~*~

Their saviors were silent. That was the first thing that the freed prisoners noticed.

    Faces pale and jaws set in stone even when they muttered spells of healing, the original Returners wandered through the bowels of the Falcon – almost absentmindedly tending to the prisoners.

    Very few dared to ask what was wrong even if they all wondered about the strange things that had happened a short while back, but nobody got any answer apart from:

 "It's nothing to worry about, we've dealt with it."

    Most of the prisoners being too tired and hungry to press for more information, there was little argument.

    As Locke and Cyan quickly set up the cooking equipment and started warming two pots of meat broth with finely chopped vegetables in, two queues immediately lined up on the bottom floor of the ship. Setzer had been reluctant to remodel the inside of his lost love's airship, but rather than risking something being set on fire he had allowed some cleaning out after it got clear that the Falcon hardly would be used for pleasure flights in quite some time. The sofas and table on the bottom floor, the bookshelves and the carpet… when looking closer, it had turned out that most of the stuff had been falling apart. Which probably had helped talking Setzer into the changes. Now there were simple camp beds lined up at every space offered, as well as the extra room on the upper floor; most of them occupied with prisoners too tired or hurt to move.

    Or dead, but those were on the floor, laid down beside each other in a corner, arms moved into a cross over their chests. Shadow had mentioned that at least one prisoner had picked up the body of a friend or brother during the fight; now there seemed to be three. Wishes for proper burials in all respect, but it was still creepy and the unmoving bearded men got a lot of uneasy glances.

    Celes' mind almost automatically kept off the very thought of dead men so close by. She had been in the battlefield for as long as she could remember, it was nothing new even if dead bodies in a homey place like the Falcon was a bit off even for her. For the time being though, she was busy staggering towards the edge of utter exhaustion, coupled with anger and confusion. At least she knew that she wasn't alone, but that didn't help much.

    That there had been a twin of the psychopath, she had seen and somewhat learnt to cope with – mainly under the premise that he had been dead ever since the flight from Vector. Even if Terra and the newly reunited family of assassins and natural magic users told her and the rest of the Returners of the mimic, he still wore a hated face they hadn't learnt to know as an ally, and never would. But now he was suddenly the man who lived, lived to face Kefka… well, Kerr then, and even dared to argue with him – and still managed to survive.

    AND could talk Kerr into helping an esper send a warning to the Returners.

    The man was either an enigma in human guise or the most dangerous creature in history. Whatever it was, Celes didn't like it one bit. Something had to be terribly, terribly wrong. She walked as steadily as she could through the aisles of makeshift beds, lips automatically muttering healing spells which flowed out of her hands in the form of gently bluish stars which elicited sighs and murmurs of relief and gratefulness from those she passed. She hardly heard it, straining her ears to hear the crackling of magical electricity and the roaring of fireballs from outside. Kerr would never help, he would set a trap.

    Though, a tired thought crawled off with, if it was a trap it was far too complicated for Kerr. Gestahl maybe, but he was never really a subtle one either, apart from that time that he lured the Returners to help him look for the espers in Thamasa.

    But regardless, that just did not work out, Kerr was not, would never, ever…

 "Celes…?"

    She nearly jumped out of her skin as a cold, rough hand suddenly closed around her left wrist, tearing her out of her brooding. Apparently she looked rather dazed when she turned to the owner of the hand, because the man let go of her as if he had been burned.

 "Who…?" the magitek knight started, staring down at the worried face.

    The man lying on the simple bed seemed to be in his later forties, but it was hard to tell since his blond, dirty beard obscured his face. There were however a few white strands in his equally messy hair, around the ears. The ragged, dark remains of clothes gave no other clue than that he had been a prisoner for quite a while – as if the hair and dirt wasn't enough.

    But there was something familiar with the green-blue eyes that anxiously peered back at Celes, they should be smiling…

    She blinked, brought completely off balance for the second time that evening. This was somewhat more pleasant however.

 "Cid!"

~*~

The blackened remain of a plank once belonging to a wall cracked under Kerr's boot.

 "Psh, amateurs…" he muttered, turning his head around in a disdainful check of the area around him, "they left most things standing."

 "So says the great man who didn't finish off the Returners in one blow when he had the chance," general Aglie's voice came from behind him.

    Kerr didn't even turn around, just kept his back at the general while raising his right hand to be seen above his shoulder.

 "T-t-t," the lord said, for every 't' moving his stretched up pointing finger from side to side in an irritating fashion, "now you step on dangerous ground, my simple-minded friend. Emperor Gestahl was the one who wanted them all alive."

 "And you could have easily captured them instead of sending them flying all over, had you only known a little restraint of your trigger-happiness."

    The general had rather good control of his frustration, but he couldn't fully keep the malice from his voice. Unseen by Aglie however, Kerr smirked widely. He found his work companion's declaration of war nothing but highly amusing.

    It was just too easy.

 "Trigger-happy, me?" he said, cocking his head to the side in badly faked thoughtfulness, "but didn't some tin soldier call me in the middle of the night to clean up a crazed magitek armor for him?"

 "Which you destroyed beyond repair, I will add."

    The frustration was definitely more notable in Aglie's voice this time.

    Kerr turned his head, but not to look at the general but to take in the ruins of Maranda again.

 "Well, I might have destroyed an armor, but you seem to have lost us a whole prison… oh dear me!"

    The madman slapped his forehead, letting the head tip back violently with the smack before he straightened up again and threw a mock concerned glance over his shoulder.

 "I suppose that you lost the most then, and thus you win," he said with a deep sigh, "I truly admire your skills of blowing holes in the imperial budget, Ugly."

    He turned away again, basking in the feeling of a death glare trying to blow holes in his neck. 

    It was like stomping on rhodoxes; they squirmed, made funny sounds and dove underground plotting revenge.

 'You're pathetic,' Siren muttered inside his head.

    Kerr rolled his eyes.

 'Oh sure, just go spoiling my fun. I'll sob a bit later on and then break your back, how does that sound?'

 'Just like all the other threats you've thrown at me for the past couple of hours.'

 'I recall that you didn't act so tough when you were inside that bubble, strip teaser girl.'

 'You try to stay collected when you're carried around by a loon with the wit and temper of a berserking were-rat.'

 'You forgot the looks, princess Scream-a-lot,' Kerr reprimanded, obviously enjoying the mental banter as much as the loud one with Aglie.

    Siren pressed two fingers to her forehead, reminding herself that she would not let him drag her down to his level of brain killing banter. Before it was too late.

 "I warn you, Kefka…" Aglie started, meanwhile.

    He was cut off by a call and turned around to scowl death at the soldier skidding to a halt before him. The poor private saluted as if his life depended on it, trying to stifle his shaking under the general's glare.

 "We fo-found so-some more su-survivors, sir, general, sir!" the man in the brown uniform stuttered.

    He realized horribly well that he would receive a punch later because of the way sir Aglie glowered, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

    Kerr swept past the two men, offering Aglie a vague smirk.

 "As much as I adore chatting with you, I suppose that there are less funny things to get done."

    He paused and turned around at the agitated warriors, smiling brightly.

 "Too bad general Leo isn't around anymore, I'm sure that he'd be able to add a lot more to our conversation if he hadn't dropped dead like that."

    And with that thinly veiled threat, Kerr pirouetted back on course and strode off.

 'You don't scare him,' Siren informed.

 'Getting there is half the fun. I didn't scare Leo either, at first.'

    The esper pursed her mouth.

 'Speaking of scaring…'

 'Yeees?' Kerr drawled, hoarsely chuckling at thin air.

    Well, that wouldn't draw more looks at him than usual at least, as he was prone to talking and snickering to himself on a regular basis. Most of the soldiers and workers around him were too busy digging in the ashes of Maranda to care too much about the lunatic, anyway.

 'You didn't have to do that to Kefka,' Siren grimly said.

 'What? I was gentle about it.

 'Really. He might be dead when you pull him out again.'

 'If the Returners didn't die by being inside the wall for a few months, then he won't be hurt by a few hours.'

 'Even after that smashing?'

 'Well, if you had reminded me to lock the door properly I wouldn't have had to fling him around like that when the soldier entered,' Kerr mentally shrugged, snickering.

 'Hence the fact that I don't think that you were gentle at all. The soldier might not have seen his face but-'

 'He won't be complaining… much.'

 'Especially not if he can't speak.'

 'That would be really damn relaxing, now that you mention it. Maybe I should rip his tongue out?'

 'I thought you liked talking to him?'

 'Yes, to him. I like the pipsqueak better when he's not whining about things like people dying and the cheese being old.'

 'Or that you're mutilating him bit by bit?'

 'Ah yes, that too.'

 'You are disgusting.'

 'Why, a compliment from you, dear bar singer?'

    Siren rolled her eyes.

 'Your short term insults are just getting worse, demon. Running out of ideas?' she growled.

 'Yours are hardly anything to write essays about either.'

    Their silent exchange of sentences was interrupted as Kerr reached the old town square, where Gestahl already stood with his arms crossed, listening to a slurring, half-comatose soldier that just had been pulled out of the rubble.

 "Monster… demon… with horns… fire… fire…" the man croaked, head rolling back and forth against the bottom of his stretcher.

    Most of his body was hidden under a blanket, but he had a black eye and the left side of his face was nastily burnt, the skin cracked up in sickly red and yellow gooey bits. The helmet was gone to reveal that quite a bit of dark hair had been scorched off as well. Not a pretty sight at all.

 "They have Ifrit, I take it," Gestahl muttered, waving at the hooded warrior that stood waiting on the other side of the stretcher.

    The officer immediately began muttering a healing spell and soon the wounded soldier slept soundly, his face steadily healing.

    Turning around, the emperor set his eyes on Kerr so quickly that it almost seemed as if the older man had known that the madman approached.

 "Emperor," the lunatic smoothly said, performing his trademark wrap-cloak-around-self-and-bow.

    Inside the soulscape, Siren grunted and pressed her hands against her ears as the wind began howling profanities about the overcooked tyrant again.

 "I want a word with you, Kefka," Gestahl said, darkly.

 "My, my, what did I do this time?"

    The emperor didn't reply, instead turning his head to look at the next incoming higher-up.

 "Keep an eye on things for a few minutes, Aglie," he ordered.

 "Yes, emperor," the general said, saluting his superior.

    Gestahl gave no reply to that either, walking down towards what had used to be a simple wharf. Now it was just blocks of burnt rocks littered with ashes and scorched planks. Despite not liking the description of his act, Kerr obediently followed the emperor out of hearing range for the workers.

 "Did you ask him about any magicite that the Returners still has?" the older man demanded as the lunatic came up beside him.

    No questions needed about who that was supposed to be. Not with that tone.

 'Is there inside information available?' Kerr thought, irritated.

 'Wouldn't you come off as horribly suspicious if you hadn't told him something like that earlier?' Siren gravely pointed out.

 'I hate it when you have a somewhat good point.'

 'You're welcome.'

    The conversation took only half a second, and Kerr slapped his forehead much in the same way that he had done earlier during the smooth argument with Aglie.

 "I knew I forgot something!" he grunted, "give me five minutes after we get back and I'll have him cough it up."

    Gestahl didn't answer at first, glaring at the ocean for a moment. Then he turned his face at Kerr.

 "I will be watching that, Kefka."

    While Siren made a half-strangled sound, Kerr just smoothly glanced back at the enormous shadow that was Vector, resting about a few hundred yards to the north of Maranda's walls. And smirked.

 "Then I will do my best to make it entertaining for you, emperor," he promised.

 'You like that idea!' Siren lashed out, nails clawing the air inches from the strings of her harp.

 'What did you expect?' Kerr's mental voice snorted.

 'What are you going to do?!'

 'Beat Kefka half to coma in front of Gestahl of course. What did you expect?'