Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. I do not profit from this writing.

Prompt 002

Loyalty

One of the captains looked sidelong at the clown-general, his bushy black eyebrow raised. He'd been on since he was a teenager, and now he was in his thirties. A good servant of the Empire, with an honest living. The vein behind his eye pulsed, causing his eyelid to twitch. Kefka's stillness was inhuman, and it gave him an unease in the pit of his stomach that he could not hide.

"Problem?" the General drawled. The question came as a low grown, but with the drawing of the letters the pitch raised. Even still, the General was still, but then suddenly his head whipped to the right dramatically, twisting all the way to one side in a feat that was seemingly impossible under the physics of human flesh and bone.

"N-No General," he stammered. "Of course not."

Before them, the Elite 50 were lining up onto the field in battle formation. They were just in front of the palace, and the weather was favourable. It was noon, and there was a warm breeze on the air. Butterflies frolicked above the shin-high grass, and birds lined the castle walls to sunbathe. They sat on strange beasts of metal that once resembled horses but had been altered to the point where the idea was all that was left.

From behind them, the doors opened and the heavy thump-shuffle-thump-shuffle with the whining mechanical noise betrayed the protege's presence. The girl, in her eighteenth summer, was incredibly fair of face, with long tumbles of blonde hair pulled up behind her in an intricate ponytail. At the apex of her head sat a golden circlet with a gem centered on her forehead. Her gaze was impassive at best, eyes seeming almost sleepy as she looked up into the sky for a brief moment.

"Terra..." the clown said, his voice laden with boredom. "I've a small task for you."

She directed the Magitek Armor between the two of them, blatantly ignoring the captain and focusing only on Kefka. "Anything," she said. She didn't smile, but the way her voice uplifted, it sounded as though her only desire was to please him. The captain felt nauseous, but said nothing. He had heard rumours of this girl's abilities, but now was the time for proof. Behind them, the entire castle was stuffed to the brim with people watching – every window, every door – they were all pushed open wide as people hung out of them, waiting. They were all waiting for Terra.

"Those men out there?" he prompted her, a gesture with a hand that was rested from a bent elbow on his own technological beast.

"Yes?" she asked, turning her head only halfway to gaze upon them. It was as though she was unwilling to tear her attention from Kefka fully. "Are we preparing to march? Have you need of me on one of the borderlands?" she asked.

"Those men have just become your enemy," he informed her. He straightened on his mechanical beast just as she sat more straight in her Magitek, watching her carefully. "I need for you to dispose of them," he said.

She counted them quickly by their formations, now her eyes trained to the groups ahead of her. "Fifty men," she said to herself. "Only the fifty or will there be more to reinforce them?" she asked, looking back at Kefka.

He seemed to consider this. "Only the fifty. We've taken the trouble of separating them for you already. I will warn you, though, they will not be easy to kill. They are the Elite."

Terra smiled to him. "They are just men," she said, as though it explained everything. The captain watched in horror as the blonde climbed down out of the Magitek and put her two feet firmly on the ground. She turned back to them after she'd rounded the front of it, and then undid her scabbard and laid her sword down in the cockpit of the Armor.

"Terra, don't you think -" the captain began.

"Don't need it," she said, cutting him off. She walked away from them onto the field, and turned to look back at Kefka once more. "All of them?" she asked, one eye closed slightly more than the other.

"Every last one, my darling," he crooned. He leaned forward, elbows pressed against the neck of the beast and folded backwards, his hands clasped under his chin. He looked like a child at Solstice, waiting to open a mountain of gifts.

She turned back to the men, who raised weapons at her in one singular movement. Both of her own hands raised, and in her palms flames began to grow. The Firaga spell was a brutal one, consuming and hateful. It was one of the ones Kefka had wanted her to learn so badly. She would use it this once, for him. The light illuminated her face in a most captivating and fearsome way, and with her back still turned to them, she rose her voice to Kefka.

"Consider it done, General," came the low purr. The captain shielded his eyes as she loosed the first hand, an explosion of fire raining down a mere fifty feet in front of them. He would never forget the screaming, as long as he lived – which wasn't very much longer after Terra had finished with the Elite, come to think of it.