Chapter 31, Prelude to chaos
"What were you doing in Maranda of all places, gramps?" Locke asked, trying to adjust his position on the simple bed as something for Cid to lean on while sitting up, "you seemed to be good at surviving those psychos before."
"The important word there would be 'before'," the older man sighed, sipping from the mug of soup that Celes carefully helped him hold.
He was in a terrible state. None of the prisoners were in best health, but what could be seen of the middle-aged scientist beneath ragged clothes, dirt and wild hair, appeared to be little more than skin and bones. How he had made it to the Falcon had according to himself, not surprisingly, involved almost being carried by a cellmate.
"It seems that when Gestahl figured that I wasn't needed anymore, he didn't feel like listening to my complaints," he said, a wry, bitter smile almost visible under the thick beard.
He looked up at Celes and smiled a bit wider.
"Though right now, I feel like I was luckier than many others. I'm alive at least."
"And we'll have you back to your old self soon enough," Celes promised, returning the smile and placing her free hand on Cid's shoulder, "Figaro castle is safe from the empire."
The old scientist smiled a bit longer, then turned his attention back to the mug. A slight frown appeared on his forehead.
"Figaro castle…" he muttered, slowly.
"What about it?" Celes wondered.
"What of king Edgar?" Cid asked, straightening up and looking around at the two Returners with concern, "not too long ago the guards claimed that he had been captured by the empire…"
"Oh sure, that was true. For about five minutes," Locke merrily snickered, "now he's pulling all our strings from the bottom of the sandbox."
Cid's concerned look cracked into a relieved smile, but before he could reply another voice cut into the talk from above.
"You better not let him hear that, Locke, he might pout or something!"
The small group and several other prisoners around turned their sights towards the upper floor of the Falcon, just in time to see a greenish ponytail sweep around above the railing and disappear with a somewhat hoarse chuckle. Celes and the thief before her did hear the slight strain of Terra's voice though, the one that did not have anything to do with her being tired. Locke held back a sigh by pursing his lips. And here he had almost managed to forget about that headache…
"Cid…"
Celes' voice was low, and she threw her gaze around the area before leaning in closer to the mechanic. Though most prisoners in the immediate area seemed too tired to be curious about what the three people were going on about, she didn't feel like taking chances on this subject.
"Hmm?" the old scientist murmured, raising his filthy eyebrows in surprise at the sudden change of tension.
Locke leant his head a little closer, though he already had a good idea of what was about to be asked. He was more interested in the continuation of the talk.
"This might seem a little sudden," Celes picked up again, "but you were in the esper project from the beginning, right?"
"Not really from the very beginning but I was connected to it… why?" Cid asked, none the wiser than before.
The magitek knight hesitated for a moment, deliberating how to express her query.
"Back then, did you know Kefka and his brother?"
Cid blinked, then stared sharply at the blond woman.
"How do you know about Kerr?" he almost hissed, taking both Celes and Locke by surprise with his tone.
"He's causing us sour stomachs and lack of sleep, that's how," the treasure hunter said, quickly getting over the change.
The scientist gave Locke a look of pure disbelief, of a softer kind than the last stare.
"Kerr?" the older man said, "he's been dead for twenty years."
"Dead?"
The word left two mouths a little louder than planned, and it turned a few heads. But as the conversation settled back into a murmur, the startled men returned to resting.
"He was killed by one of the espers, right when they were brought to Vector in the first place," Cid continued with a frown, "that was when Kefka began to change. He wasn't any crazier than anyone of us before that…"
The older man paused for a moment, thinking back on things before he continued:
"Or at least he didn't show it. Kerr was far more eccentric."
Locke and Celes exchanged glances.
"What?" the scientist asked, confused.
"That old goat of an emperor likes it contrived, I must say," Locke concluded with a shake of his head.
The thie-
Ahem.
The treasure hunter spoke true indeed…
-
The last thing Gogo remembered was Kerr's voice. Or the last thing after the world spun and turned green, then black. Then the next thing he knew, it was green again, and Kerr was yelling behind him.
"Wake up, it's pop-quiz time!"
After that, things got a bit fuzzy. Really fuzzy.
Rather blank, actually.
But he had this creeping feeling that he liked it that way. The world was slowly creeping back at him, and the first thing he noticed was that he felt like one big, formless pile of dully throbbing pain. Something surrounded his body, but his nerves were too occupied with burning to bring his brain any more specific information about the current position. Maybe he was lying down. On his back, perhaps? Yeah, that sounded plausible… always something.
As he tried to speak, he found that the only result was a helpless groan.
"Hey! You're not supposed to wake up yet! Who said you could wake up yet?"
Gogo's hazy brain made a slow analyze, performing at the lowest possible speed to save energy. Tone of voice, the voice itself, the smirk, the lack of empathy… yep, it was Kerr.
The next thing to analyze was not originally meant to be "who did say I could wake up?" but it demanded attention. However he did not get a chance to reach that answer at the same slow speed, as a wave of warm streams flowed into him, spreading across his body – which became more definable as the healing magic streamed through it.
'You enjoyed it. I know you did, you sick, twisted beast!'
Siren's voice sent ripples crashing through his almost comatose mind, and it didn't help that the cascade of curative power immediately dried up. Gogo groaned in protest, but it was drowned by Kerr's loud reply.
"I admit not being too opposed to smacking him around, but that's stretching it."
'Oh-ho?' Siren said, scornfully, 'so you want to seem nice all of a sudden?'
"Psh, now that was an insult. All I'm saying is that I don't like Gestahl ogling over my shoulder and drooling at my work."
'You were the drooling one. He was more watching you than Gogo.'
The mimic pried his left eye open, finding himself looking up at Kerr. The madman was standing over the younger brother, glaring off in empty space while he listened and replied to Siren's accusations. Gogo's vision was almost completely filled by his twin's palms, which still were spread above the still body even though the magic had ceased to flow from them.
"I thought you were complaining about my lack of sympathy and not acting skills," Kerr snarled.
'Now you're just squirming,' Siren said, a not completely hidden smugness apparent in her voice, 'and I might add, that's the least thing you can do for Gogo. You…'
"Hey…!" the subject of the discussion croaked.
This time his weak interruption of the argument was handled with a little more care than last time he had tried to intervene; when they had been shouting about poison rivers and unnecessary announcements. Siren held off her rant and Kerr looked down, crossing his arms.
"Any nice dreams?" the madman questioned, the usual smirk tugging at the red lips.
Gogo squinted as his focus swam for a moment and his brother seemed to spin over himself. If he hadn't been so dizzy, that would have been a rather amusing sight.
"What… in the… world?" the mimic finally managed to croak after Kerr stopped swooping around while standing still.
"… Happened?"
Kerr waved his right hand above his left elbow while the eyes rolled around in their red-brimmed sockets.
"Not that much," he said in a dry voice, "Gestahl just felt like seeing an evening performance. I don't think I broke any of your bones. Did I?"
He received no reply. The person in the bed was completely silent.
'Provided you were thoughtful enough to even consider that during your "fun",' Siren snarled as the silence lasted another moment.
Kerr growled at the ceiling.
"Will you shut up, whore?"
'What's this, a little soar? You? Feeling the weight of conscience?'
The madman's eyes became thinner and thinner for every single word.
'I can hear your thoughts in here, you know,' Siren kept pushing, hoarsely, 'you've got enough conflicting desires to have them start a world war on their own, and they're not pretty.'
With his face steadily constricting during the speech, the sudden smirk was somehow a relief to see. Kind of.
"Not pretty? You make it sound as if you expected that."
'I'm not expecting anything of you, ever.'
The sound of a quick hand clapping rung through the air.
"Time out!" Kerr irritably announced, "when exactly did you change from 'scared senseless' into 'stuck-up witch'?"
Siren snorted.
'Just when I saw what a pathetic mortal you are, human,' she replied.
"Shall we have a look into that, perhaps?" Kerr growled, and his eyes turned unfocused.
Inside the mindscape, Siren raised her harp and cautiously backed away as the ghastly mind avatar of her enemy rose from the black ground before her.
She would not show weakness, she would not let him win. He had gone too far with Gogo, and she would fight for her friend this time. The madman would pay for what he had done to the humans and espers, even if it killed her in the process!
Her fingers flew towards the harp's strings as the avatar raised his hands, gray fire running from his hands to mark the trail of his fingers in the air. The sky above them cracked and boiled, winds howling while clawing the clouds into shreds to mirror Kerr's rising fury. Siren's hair and clothes flapped madly in the violent air currents, but she stood steady on the ground with her willpower set on one single blow that possibly could shatter the corrupted mind. She would only have one chance, and it would have been far, far better if he hadn't been prepared for it. However, she was not so rotten that she could think of stabbing somebody in the back; not even him. And up till now, she had respected Gogo's love for his brother. But after this abuse of power, she could no longer tolerate Kerr's antics. He had gladly ripped Gogo to shreds as an act, perhaps more carefully than he normally would go about it but that was no excuse. Only the knowledge that rendering Kerr comatose to stop him definitely could drive Gestahl to killing Gogo had stopped her from acting during the torture. But the emperor was no longer there; if she could turn Kerr into a vegetable then Gogo would be able to sneak out somehow, they could switch places… yes, he would understand, even after that.
His memory would be fuzzy; she had done the only thing she could to help the mimic and locked up his fresh, painful memories for the time being. It was mediocre, but he had been spared waking to the horror at least.
But now… no more!
She bravely faced the mighty ghost before her, fear gone in the whirlwind of rage in her own mind. This would be the end of their false connection, the termination of a perverse co-existence that had sickened her for far too long. She and Gogo would both be free of Kerr's uncontrollable cruelty.
His burning eyes glared back at her, free of all sympathy. Yes, he aimed to erase her very existence, to devour her soul and mind with his raw magical power. Unsophisticated, but one of the deadliest things in existence. Unless she was faster, there would be no rescue.
All this realized during the half heartbeat, hardly even that. Only the time it took for his hands to reach the end of their arc, her fingers to reach the golden strings.
The sky exploded with thunder.
And the ghost fell over.
"Augh!?"
Siren blinked, dumbfounded. Her hand fell from the harp in surprise, and the world around her even flicked for a moment before returning to the normal, dull peace. Gone was the storm with its rumble and winds, and gone was the mind avatar.
There was a loud comment from Kerr's thoughts, however.
'The hell, Kef?!'
More instinctively than anything else, Siren leapt out of the mind to float, unseen, above the two brothers.
Kerr was probably still blinking, which she had to guess as all she saw was the back of his head and the ponytail. His situation demanded a bit of surprise, that was all.
He was still standing, but sharply bent over the bed. This was because Gogo's hand was clenching around the collar of his robe, and the mimic had apparently pulled rather hard to get his brother face to face.
From her position, Siren couldn't see her friend's expression any more than she could see Kerr's. But as Gogo spoke, it was rather apparent in his voice.
"Kerr, finish the healing before I kill both of you."
There was another moment of silence, a memorable time during which Kerr actually was stunned mute. It was a time to savor well, for it would surely not be reborn anytime soon.
Eventually, the older one recovered and reached up, grabbing the wrist of his brother's hand.
"Well, well, sounds like somebody's starting to develop an attitude," Kerr said.
He met no resistance when moving the hand back down on the blanket and straightened himself up, smirking again.
Gogo looked less amused, but just as well too haggard to growl anymore. He simply turned his head and stared up at the ceiling while Kerr theatrically rubbed his palms together before holding them up again. A low sigh was all that escaped the mimic when the healing magic began to work its way through his beaten body.
All this was seen by the silent Siren, who floated back and forth above Kerr's bed – though it was currently occupied by Gogo. Words burned her tongue wanting to be unleashed upon the madman, and the chaotic mix of crazed bravery and fear only a minute ago still held her in its grip. Her hands were shaking slightly even as she gripped the harp as hard as she could to control the shivers. But she could not bring herself to attack Kerr again; the desire to do so laid paralyzed in the wake of Gogo's snarling.
It seemed like Kerr finished the healing as quick as he could, even he touched by the uncomfortable feeling that still lingered.
"That should do it," he concluded as the green curtain of light dissipated.
He shook his hands as if trying to rid them of water, all the while looking down at his unmoving brother.
In whose court the ball was now seemed apparent. One had to give Kerr that much credit, for once.
Eventually, after what seemed to be ages, Gogo's eyes rolled towards the man standing over him. The younger held the older's gaze for a second, then the eyes made another twirl around, though it seemed aimless Siren realized that the mimic was searching her invisible eyes.
'Yes?' she hesitantly said.
Gogo looked back at the ceiling, sternly though tired.
"I get the feeling," he murmured, "that you two are constantly bickering because of me, but you still let me take the punches."
'No really, Gogo, I…' Siren quickly begun.
Not quick enough.
"I'm your big brother, I've got the right to be bossy," Kerr cut her off.
Awfully cheerful. Siren gritted her teeth, but forced herself to stay put to honor Gogo's verbal lash.
The mimic looked back on Kerr, eyes thinning slightly.
"I'll get back on you someday, brother."
And he got a smirk back, of course.
"Whatever you say, little one…"
Kerr should have taken heed of the fact that this time, his brother meant it. Things were moving in the mimic's head.
Strange, complicated and definitely unpleasant things.
But they still needed to mature before Gogo could voice them.
