Dead Man's Logic

[05.20.01] » by Asa Sanderson

I'm going to go out on a limb here and give you some advice. If ever you find yourself sitting on the Phantom Train, riding to the "other side," and you're possessed by some extraordinarily puerile desire to sneak into the engine room and start pulling the levers out of the wall and tearing the wiring apart just to see it all spark... make sure you know who's riding with you, first. If I'd bothered asking around a bit, I might have known Wrexsoul was on the same train as me, and then I'd have known he'd escape when that damned train derailed, and then perhaps I would have thought about that while I was standing in the Phantom Train's engine room with tangled, broken wire clenched in my pale fists.

I still would have torn it up.

If I hadn't been dead already, I don't think I would have survived the crash. One minute, I was shredding everything that I could get my hands on; the next, there was smoke everywhere, and the wheels of the train were screeching, and I was thrown out of the cab and into the Phantom Forest. I smacked into a tree before falling to the ground. I kicked it when I stood up, but that didn't accomplish much, so I took a look around. The Phantom Train lay in a heap by this time, crunched into the tracks like a broken caterpillar, white smoke wafting from its windows. I had to let the vision sink in. First day of my death, and I'd already broken something.

It was so funny that I nearly doubled over with laughter.

"That laugh." From the wreckage, a violet, luminescent mist had begun to rise. It straightened into a tall, shrouded form. "I've heard that laugh so many times, in so many nightmares." Its yellow eyes narrowed. "I didn't know I had the honor of riding the Phantom Train with Kefka Palazzo."

I brushed off my robes, which were still covered in tree-bark, and looked the ghost over. "Who're you?"

"Who are we, perhaps, being a better question." He folded his hands. "The only name I was known by in my living death being Wrexsoul."

"My name certainly being Kefka, but how did you know that?"

"Did you think there was an undead soul who didn't tremble at its mere mention? Seeing as how you sent nearly every one of us to this living hell which we now inhabit, and how it was you who populated this train and its destination with the souls of the innocent and unavenged?" He shrugged his draped shoulders. "Nightmares, as I said before. I once haunted Doma. Surely you remember Doma; an entire kingdom murdered by your poisoning hands?"

He saw I wasn't going to grace him with a response yet, so he continued.

"I once haunted Doma, a lone spirit. But soon, others joined me. Others who had been felled by your hand. And the hands of your dictatorial predecessors. Yes, I am the multitude of lost warriors whose lives were destroyed- in the most literal of senses- by the inane and inhumane wars that people like you imposed upon us. Known only as Wrexsoul, we haunted Doma, looking for more souls to devour, more battle-scarred lives to swallow into the abyss of ourselves. And it was there, from the few straggling vagrants who dared enter the haunted city, that we learned of your name. In their minds, we heard your laugh. Your mournful laugh of agony. I heard it over and over, echoed in so many souls..."

"Which you promptly sucked like the self-righteous leech that you are. Look, this conversation is getting boring. Is there anything specific that you had to tell me?"

"I wanted to ask you why you destroyed the Phantom Train."

"The seats were uncomfortable."

"Your only reason for destroying the train, and trapping the souls therein in Limbo for perhaps an eternity, was that you thought the seats were uncomfortable."

"I didn't think the seats were uncomfortable. The seats were uncomfortable. And flimsy. The metal was flimsy, there were holes in the floorboard, the wiring was half-stripped, and the widgets holding this rotting carcass of a vehicle together were ancient. They made it too easy for me; the temptation was too much to bear."

"Thrive you so greatly on destruction?"

"Talk you always this backwards? Making my head hurt, you are."

"I see." He tilted his shrouded head. "I shall have to kill you."

"I'm already dead, brainiac."

"Then I shall eat you."

"I'm not into that."

"I shall devour your soul, the way that I devoured the souls of those travelers. That way, you will be assimilated and entirely unable to cause harm to anyone else."

I didn't flinch as the violet vapor floated toward me. I put my hands on my hips, waited while he inched ominously forward, waited until he'd gotten about two feet away from me, and said, "You can't."

He ignored the comment until he wrapped his filmy tendrils around me and found that I was right. "How can this be?"

"You just said you could only devour those who had been killed or 'scarred' in some kind of war. I was killed because I fell off my tower. That means you can't devour me."

"I am to understand that you were pushed off your tower by a former subordinate after one of her friends took a rather large piece out of your wing."

I looked over my shoulder at the large, pie-like slice in my feathery wings. "But that still wasn't a war. I mean, the people who came to kill me weren't ordered to. They weren't an army, and they weren't under any kind of flag. Nobody dared oppose me but them. It wasn't a war."

"I am also to understand that you were created to be a human Magitek weapon."

"Yes, I was- before the Empire started heavily using magic and picking fights with every little hamlet it came across. That was preparation for war, not war. Get your dirty mummy wraps off me."

The phantom straightened his back and retracted his tendrils. "I cannot allow you to go back into society to create mischief. If I did that, others would suffer the same fate as I."

"Don't tell me you want to fight."

"I do not fight. I merely consume."

"Then how exactly are you going to stop me?"

There was a glint of determination and utter hatred in his yellow eyes. "Any way that I can, Kefka. Any way that I can."

He faced the totaled Phantom Train and then, looking at me over his shoulder one last time, framed by the burning, demolished metal, floated away through the forest.

Amusing, really, that such an oaf would think he could make trouble for me. Perhaps it was the insult that prompted me to follow him and make sure whatever plans he had for me fell through the instant they were conceived. I wasn't going to be harassed by a saintly soul-sucking specter in my lifetime. Or beyond it. I couldn't take the embarrassment.

Of course, if I'd known then, darting though the snaggled trees and sloshing through the muck of the Phantom Forest, what I was getting myself into, I might have left him alone and went into hiding instead.

...Nah.

***

People used to spread some randy rumors about me and Branford. And while some of them were so ingenious that I was tempted to change the names, write them down, and publish them as erotica under a pseudonym, I found the idea kind of gross. She looked like a kid; compared to me, she was a kid; and besides, I didn't think she was very beautiful. In fact, I didn't think anybody was very beautiful. I hadn't seen anybody, male or female, that inspired that mind-altering state of hormonal and instinctive bullshit that you like to call "love."

Until I saw Natissa Drakken.

I followed Wrexsoul for weeks; over the tossing ocean, through a raging thunderstorm and waves that looked like snakes in a pit, all the way to the desert of Figaro. Once located near Narshe, the castle had relocated itself several times and now fit snugly between the mountains and Kohlingen. I didn't know why Wrexsoul wanted to go to Figaro, since the king was a lech and anyone who was either male or over forty was about as welcome as head lice, but I followed him into the castle anyway. I wondered if he didn't plan on telling King Edgar about me.

Excuse me, your highness, I'm a conglomerate demon who just escaped from the Phantom Forest, and I'd like to tell you that the ghost of your old enemy Kefka is on the loose. Not that you can do anything about it, since he's blown up the Phantom Train, effectively barring himself and everyone else from Hell.

Yup, that would accomplish something.

I figured it'd be easier to spy on Wrexsoul than outguess him, so I haunted the castle, trying not to lose sight of him in its many sweltering stone corridors. Every human I passed was covered in sweat and sand, their clothes sticking to their bodies and their hair plastered to their faces. Positively nauseating. Why would anyone want to live in a place where you could fry eggs on your boots if you kept them polished? I followed Wrexsoul around another corridor, glad I was too dead to be feeling the heat myself.

That was when I heard it. Yelling. It was coming from behind a wooden set of double-doors. Wrexsoul had stopped in front of the door, and was listening intently, so I followed his lead.

"... and since the Cataclysm rearranged this range of mountains here," A high-pitched but strangely imposing female voice was saying, "The pools of Kyrithian are in Jidoor's territory and, as such, are mine."

"Our borders have always been defined by those mountains." That was the deep, unmistakable voice of King Edgar. "My subjects have built towns; grown farms. There isn't any way to relocate them, or any place to relocate them to, so that you can drill on land in which you've displayed no interest until now. "

"I didn't check until now. I have maps here, for comparison. This one is before Kefka's Cataclysm; this one is after. Look at them; go on! It is quite obvious that these mountains have moved nearly a sixteenth of an inch on this map, putting your subjects' farms over my borders!"

There was a pause; then: "M'lady, I am not accusing you of anything, but I believe that any map made either here or Jidoor, in light of recent events, can't be trusted. If we could get our hands on a recent map drawn by an unbiased arbitrator-"

"Are you accusing me of fraud!"

"I have already told you that I am not, madam, I'm just saying-"

"I think we've done enough talking for one day, thank you very much!"

One of the perks of being a ghost is the ability to become invisible and/or intangible to the living. When we heard the doorknob turn, Wrexsoul and I did both. We were still able to see one another, but the woman who came bursting out of the room walked right through me.

I was stunned. Dressed in a tight bodice of white silk, with her puffed, breezy undershirt and matching skirt splashed with intricate ink patterns, the woman looked more like an unorthodox opera bride than a politician. The heavy makeup she was wearing gave the impression of a different profession, but her face was so youthful and her brilliant red hair so wavy and soft that even that couldn't ruin her elegance. She was, dare I say it, a bona fide hottie.

Figures I wouldn't meet one until I was dead.

Edgar, a blonde, long-haired pretty-boy, stormed through my invisible frame after her. He grabbed her arm. "Natissa, wait!"

"You take your hands off me; I'm not one of your sleazy entourage!"

"And I would never insinuate such a thing. But perhaps we're both being too hasty in this matter? Perhaps we haven't even identified the problem-"

"I've identified the problem, and it's you!"

"We can still settle this like gentlemen."

"Oh, did you want a duel? I could give you that, fool, and I'd win before you could draw."

"I mean, we've got time; weeks, months, whatever it takes! We can work out an agreement that will benefit everyone involved, especially our subjects. Think of them, won't you?"

"I am thinking of them!" She crossed her arms. "Ever since magic became an invalid source of energy, I have worked tirelessly trying to find a replacement so that Jidoor, Figaro, Narshe, and the whole damn world won't have to give up their way of life and go back to the ruddy dark ages! And now, that I've discovered Kyrithian, a gallon of which can produce just as much energy in a burning as low-level Magicite summon, you've put up every roadblock you could to stop me from getting at it!" She pointed a sharp, blue-painted nail in his face. "I'm not going to let you keep me from it, Edgar Roni Figaro, even if I have to bully you off of it."

Edgar grimaced. "Let's hope we don't have to go that far. After all, it's not me you'd be bullying away; it's the people who live there."

"If that's what it takes, for the good of everybody else." Her angry face dissolved into a slightly less hostile pout. "But I also hope we don't have to go that far."

And she stormed down the hall, silken, patterned dress trailing after her.

Edgar put a hand on his forehead and retreated to the room he'd just come from.

"Ah, ha." Wrexsoul watched her leave. "The seeds of contempt are already being sown here. If this is not a meaningless war, then I do not know what is. Now, the question is... how to kindle it."

"Kindle it? You think you can hurt me by starting a fight? Get real! I love fights! I'll even place a bet on that luscious vision of beauty that just stormed out of here with the sour-grape face."

"She will be dead when I am done."

"Even better. If she's a ghost, I'll be able to place more than a bet on her, mwa ha."

"They all will. And they will all be part of me." Wrexsoul spread his large, swathed arms. "Figaro and Jidoor are the biggest nations on this planet. If they clash with appropriate rage and abandon, they will wipe out all life... and I will be able to devour the remnant." Wrexsoul paused. "You wouldn't like that, would you?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"With all of humanity part of one whole, there can be no one to war against. You will not be able to harm anyone the way you have harmed us."

"Wait, wait." I held up my hands. "I want to run this through with you, 'kay? You want to stop me from harming anyone, right?"

"Yes."

"And if I remember correctly, you said in the Forest that you wanted to do this so nobody would have to experience the same living hell that you do."

"I did say that."

"And you're going to start a meaningless war in which everyone will die and become a part of you, ensuring that there's nobody for me to hurt?"

"Yes."

"Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?"

Wrexsoul shrugged. "You will not be able to hurt them."

"Being a little petty, there, aren't you?" I flexed my wings. "I might be a bit worried if I thought you'd succeed, but I don't. You don't know Edgar. I do. He may be a hentai, but he's also a goody-two-shoes. He'd sign the disputed land over to Natissa before he'd let her start a war over it."

"Do you really think so." It wasn't a question. "Then, perhaps I will make a bet with you. I'll bet you that they choose to fight rather than negotiate. If you're right, and this ends peacefully, I will go back to the Phantom Train, wait until it is fixed, and go to the other side, leaving you in peace. If it erupts into conflict, as I am certain it will, you will do this."

"Do you really trust me to keep that bet?"

"No, but if it erupts into conflict, you won't have to. I'll absorb everybody and they'll be safe anyway."

"Safe in eternal agony!" I didn't care, but the guy's insolence was really pissing me off, and that overrode my apathy for the state of humanity. "Tell you what, you've got a deal. And you don't have to worry about me backing out. I'm that confident in Edgar's standards."

"I hope, for your sake, that he's as good as you say. Because I will try my hardest to make him yield to the temptations of battle."

"And I'll try double-hard to ensure his impure thoughts are restricted to the Chancellor's daughter. Got it?"

Wrexsoul forcefully shook my hand. His hands were colder than the blizzards in Narshe, only I was dead and couldn't feel normal changes in temperature. Freaky.

"So be it," Wrexsoul said, sinking into the floor. "I will see you then."

He vanished from sight.

I stomped the ground he'd fallen through just for good measure, then turned my eyes back to the room Edgar had retreated into. What could I do in order to stop them from fighting? I could always take the easy route: get myself a bunch of goofy-ass chains, jingle them around Figaro for a few nights, scare some of Edgar's "entourage," then appear to him amidst a cheesy eruption of fire and brimstone and mournfully tell him that I was forced to do penance for my eveel ways by warning him of the dangers of armed conflict. Or I could risk my undeath to stay true to my convictions and murder either Edgar or Natissa so they'd have no one to declare war on.

Which strategy to pick? I looked back over my shoulder at my sliced wing. I remembered too clearly the hand that had dealt that wound. Unroyally calloused from constant tinkering, the hand had belonged to King Edgar. He'd also put an ugly bruise on my stomach with his Air Anchor. After my recent demise, I was nowhere near secure enough to mess with one of the people who'd killed me. That would be dumb. But I wasn't humbled enough to kiss up to him, either, even as a manipulation. That left me with one option.

"Wonderful," I said to myself, "I finally meet a girl I like, and I have to kill her."

I laughed so hard that a passing page jumped and ran away from the disembodied noise.

***

Stopping and smelling the flowers has never been a past-time of mine. I'm too hyperactive. But sometimes, there are things that command your attention, and the view from Natissa's window was one of them. The glaring sun was baking the sand, sending up waves of mirage that distorted the yellow dunes in the horizon and gave everything the look of blown, hand-shaped glass. I didn't really think about it like that until Natissa came back, sat at a canvas, and started to paint it.

She was good. I thought she might even be better than Relm Arrowny, the pint-sized prodigy that painted Owzer's famous Starlet portrait. Better, but distinctly more warped. She did paint the landscape as I'd described it, only she cracked the glass and added extra red, distorting the landscape nightmarishly.

Of course, once I'd noticed, I wasn't particularly thrilled, either. My main concern was getting hold of Natissa's schedule.

I had it all worked out. I couldn't just stab her, throttle her, or throw her out the window. Jidoor would assume she'd been murdered by Figaro sympathizers, or worse, Edgar himself. Then Figaro and Jidoor would be even more paranoid of one another. I'd have to wait until Natissa left Figaro, kill her in a manner that looked like either an accident or a suicide, and make sure that more than one Jidoor-friendly eyewitness saw everything but my ghost. Ideally, I wanted to ace her in crowded public with hundreds of eyewitnesses, but realistically, that kind of opportunity wasn't likely to present itself.

I looked back at Natissa. She was still coloring her canvas with long, swirling strokes. Very clean and professional. She didn't even splatter the paint. However, she didn't look like she was having much fun.

I considered being a poltergeist and overturning her pallette just to spice things up, but I was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was thumping and heavy, and the wood shook under its weight.

"Edgar, if that's you-"

"No, Ms. Drakken, it is Bedivire."

"Oh. I apologize for my tone." Not that she sounded any less belligerent. "Come in."

A burly man with a face like a warty gourd and a moustache as bristly as Natissa's paintbrush stepped through the door. He was grinning widely, showing off rows of large white teeth, and I figured he was one of those people who are too dumb to be anything but unconditionally happy.

"Did you get the parts from the tool shop downstairs?"

"Sure did. They've got mighty fine craftsmanship here, they do. I'll bet we could get the entire machine-"

"You want to pay our enemy so that they'll know exactly what we're buying and why we're buying it? Don't be a fool. We can afford the extra cost getting the rest of the drill elsewhere." But she cringed, as if affording the extra cost were causing her physical pain.

"Where are we getting it?"

"We're stopping by Maranda on our way back. Their products are of moderate quality; mostly salvage from Vector; the chunk of the old city that fell off the tower. But it should serve us."

"If we can talk Edgar into releasing the land."

"Ugh... Bedivire, this is something I would rather not discuss right now."

"I'm sorry. But what I did get here is amazing! The engine's only ten tons worth of freight, but it's powerful; it's basically a smaller version of the one in this castle. And I picked up a few pipes and some coolant... you wouldn't believe how much more advanced Figaro is than the rest of the world."

"Which is exactly why we want to best them. With magic dead, Jidoor is no longer the wealthiest city; it's split between Figaro, which has steam power, and Narshe, which has geothermal electricity. Land and entertainment no longer serve us; technology is the new gold, my friend, and if we want to keep ourselves and our town from going the way of Zozo, we have to be able to compete. Kyrithian would let us do that, and I'm willing to bet that's exactly why Edgar wants to keep it from us. All his talk of philanthropy for his subjects."

"I don't know... he seemed pretty sincere to me..."

"You're starting to sound like his female staff."

I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from laughing.

"So the new engine is ten tons, eh? That'll be a monster, with the shell casing we're picking up in Maranda. It's recycled Magitek, and it's thirty-eight. A fifty-ton drill, once it's assembled. Won't that be amazing? I'll bet nobody's built a portable machine of that magnitude before."

I couldn't take that. I whispered "Kefka built the Light of Judgement," and left them to squabble over who said it. I didn't stick around to see who won.

I now knew exactly what I was going to do. Thirty-eight tons of spare Magitek parts, eh? Thirty-eight tons, if they were mishandled, could cause accidents resulting in serious injury or death. And I was positive that by the time I finished mishandling Natissa's equipment, her "accident" was going to kill her.

***

Considering that it had been through a burning by General Celes Chere, a Cataclysm by Ex-General Kefka Palazzo (me), and a wave of escapees from Zozo, I was surprised at how little Maranda had changed. I'd come to this town when I was a grunt, way back in the dark ages, and that staircase had been just as uneven and cracked, its bannister just as rusted, as it was now. The blue-roofed, packed-together shops hadn't fallen any further into disrepair than they had been then. The Inn was still a dump, and dogfighting still seemed to be the employment of choice. The town was nostalgic for me, but not near as nostalgic as what I saw next.

Magitek Armor.

It was piled into corners, stacked under tents, and littered on the cobblestone like old candy wrappers. Though utterly useless without magic power to operate it, it was made of the best metal the Empire had been able to afford, and it had a lot of intricate little moving parts. That must have been why they'd decided to sell it as scrap. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I had to resist laughter, lest I be heard.

Since nobody could see me, I slid down the bannister and began to look around. Most of the suits were small, one-man machines, but they couldn't be what Natissa was describing. I looked for something big enough to weigh thirty-eight tons, with a "shell casing" that could be used in a drill. There was only one armor that fit that bill, and it was under a pleasantly cheap plastic yellow canopy that I found it: the Guardian. Only four had been made. One hadn't worked, I'd stolen one, and one had been destroyed with Vector, making this the last.

Now, to make it deadly.

I removed the main gun, pulled the mantlet away from the console, and rerouted the cooling lines. Those foot-wide stiff pipes served a dual function; while they ran coolant through the many gears of the Magitek armor, they also served as extra support. Gestahl, my dear hack of an Emperor, seemed to know how to turn the most expensive project into a half-assed failure, and the Guardians were no exception. Of the thirty-eight tons of metal on the machine, a good twenty-five was in the turret and basket; that is, on the top. And of course, they'd stuck the top on a ball race, which meant that twenty-five tons of steel was sitting on top of a flimsy metal ring and a handful of marbles. That was what had made the prototype collapse, and those cooling pipes were where most of the extra support came from. By moving them, I made the top-heavy Guardian unbalanced and very easy to push over. When Natissa got close, I was going to shove twenty-five tons of the Empire's Finest on her head.

"Hope she has a hard hat," I mumbled.

I had just finished twisting the gun back onto the machine when I heard female voices. I vanished quickly, snuck behind the Guardian, and waited for Natissa to show.

But it wasn't Natissa who came through the door. It was Terra Branford.

Branford, the Imperial Witch.

Branford, who'd been in my regiment.

Branford, who'd shoved me to my death.

What was she doing here?

"Wow, I forgot how big this thing was!" She ran up to the Guardian and began to walk around it. I watched helplessly, wishing I had breath to hold and hoping that she wouldn't touch it and ruin my opportunity to kill Natissa. She didn't. "It hasn't been that long. I wonder if the programming's still operational?"

"Don't think so," A slight figure bounced to Branford's side. "The computer ran on magic, didn't it? I guess it would be erased now."

That was Relm, holding her paintbrush and wearing her silly, floppy beret like some kind of mini-bohemian. Behind her stood a group of other children, some older than she was, some younger, and beside her was her black dog, Interceptor. Relm set down her paint set, stood by Branford, and stared up at the Guardian, her mouth hanging open. I tried not to think that I was a mere shove away from wiping the little moppet and my protégée off the face of the planet. I tried to concentrate on my bet with Wrexsoul.

"You're right. How silly of me."

"You are silly. Coming out here on the basis of some anonymous note..."

Branford smiled and patted Relm on the back. "You've called me worse. Come on. Let's go look at the Heavy Arms."

The two walked out of the tent, and the other children followed. Relm forgot her paints. I wondered how long it would take one of them to notice. That was why, when I heard footsteps and chatter about ten minutes later, I thought it was them. It wasn't. It was Natissa, in some violently purple and pink applique mutation of a satin dress, trailed by Bedivire and a greasy, one-eyed salesman who must have come from Zozo.

"It's amazing, the condition we found this in," The salesman said. "I'd say that, if you could find a power source for it, it would run good as new."

"I don't need it to run," Natissa said.

"How will you be moving it, by the way?"

Bedivire grinned as stupidly as he ever had. "We'll take it by train down to Albrook. We've already got a ship reserved for it there; that'll get it back to Jidoor."

"Good. I want this thing off my hands as soon as possible. Children keep sneaking in here to look at it. I'm afraid one of them'll hurt themselves and I'll end up paying for it." He chuckled a gurgling chuckle that sounded like it came out of a pool of oil.

Natissa stepped forward. Come on, I mentally goaded, just a few more feet, come on.

"Mind if I...?"

"No, no. Go right ahead, Ms. Drakken."

She took three wide steps forward and started to climb the front of the machine. I couldn't have asked for a better shot. With a swift, ghostly kick, I booted the top of the Guardian off balance. It teetered, back and forth, and then it started to fall.

The rest felt like slow motion. Natissa looked up at the creaking sound, widened her eyes, and gaped. Bedivire and the salesman both jumped forward, both knowing full well they'd never make it in time to save her. And then, a green blur shot across the front of the Guardian, dragging Natissa out of danger just as the metal crashed into the ground and crumpled like diaphanous toilet paper.

Branford.

Branford lifted Natissa from the ground. "A-are you all right?" She asked, in her usual mousy voice.

Damn her! If I hadn't been in a situation that required absolute silence, I would have been swearing like a trooper.

"What happened?" Natissa turned to the salesman. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Ms. Drakken, the Guardian model has always been a bit off-balance; that's why it never went into mass production-"

Natissa walked shakily to the wrecked machine, knelt down and inspected the ruined metal, then stood and frowned. "Fine, fine. I don't care. Where can I find a replacement?"

Branford looked from Natissa to the Guardian, and back again, her face running the gauntlet from surprised to confused to shrewd. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I already told you I was!"

Branford's shrewd look turned even darker.

"Aren't you one of Edgar's... friends?"

"He helped me bring down the Empire. Of course he's my friend."

"What are you doing here?"

"I live in Mobliz. It's chocobo-riding distance." She nodded back to the entrance of the tent. "The children wanted to see the Magitek armor."

"'Tissa, are you okay?" Relm ran to the wrecked Guardian, with Interceptor at her heels. "Kuso, I thought you were dead for sure!"

Natissa's expression softened when she saw Relm. "I think I may have gotten a few bruises. Nothing serious. What brings you to a place like this?"

"I forgot my paints." She scooped her pallette from the floor. "Terra said she'd let me paint the Prometheus model."

"That is a lovely machine. Maybe I'll do one."

"Show me if you do!"

"You'll have to show me your painting, too." Natissa turned to Branford, and her smile faded. She mumbled, "Thank you for rescuing me."

"I'm just glad I came in when I did. Relm? I'm sorry, but we can't stay for too long."

As quickly as she'd come, Branford left, dragging Relm by the arm.

Natissa straightened out her dress, then turned back to the salesman. "As I was saying. This machine is ruined. What do you have to replace it?"

"That was the last salvageable Guardian, and there's no other Magitek that size."

"Are you sure? I'd pay double-" She grimaced, "-If you could find me another."

"The only other Guardian I know of is the one in Kefka's tower, and I wouldn't go traipsing around those old ruins for any amount of money!"

"Kefka's fortress? That's past the ruins of Vector, isn't it?"

"You can't go in there; it's overrun by wild animals, and besides!"

"Besides?"

"They say... that is... people who have been there say it's haunted."

"I'm not afraid of ghosts," She snapped. "And if there is the slightest possibility that the Guardian, or any of the machines in that tower, survived its collapse and could be salvaged, I'm willing to risk the animals."

"Nobody knows if the machines are intact. Nobody's ventured that far inside."

Natissa straightened her hair. "We'll take a team, then. Bedivire?"

"I'll send for backup right away, your ladyship."

The salesman tugged Natissa's sleeve. "You really plan to go inside those ruins?"

"We have no choice."

She marched out of the tent, annoyingly calm for someone who'd barely escaped being crushed by a giant suit of Magitek armor.

***

"I saw it, but I still don't believe it. I can't believe that, after all we've been through in the past few decades, with Kefka's Cataclysm barely a month ended, anyone would want to do it all over again!"

Branford's voice stopped me in my tracks. I ran up the stairs and peeked over the battlement. There, in an alley behind the armor shop, Branford and Relm were whispering intently, while those other children huddled around, looking confused.

"We don't know what she was buying it for," Relm said.

"What would you buy a weapon like that for? Decoration?"

"Probably. People in Jidoor are weird. Owzer commissioned a possessed painting from me, remember?"

"But she was doing exactly what that note said she'd be doing!"

"We don't know who wrote that note, or why!"

"I don't care who wrote it. I can't keep this from Edgar. If she's found some way to run those things, and if she's planning on using them, he'll be in danger!"

I nearly gagged.

"Let me guess," I said, already knowing who was behind me, "You wrote Branford a note saying Natissa was buying Magitek to use on Figaro."

Wrexsoul appeared in front of me. "How did you guess."

"That was deceitful, manipulative, and shamefully low..."

"I thought we agreed that the rules allowed for dirty fighting."

"... and I like it." Actually, he'd worried me, but I wanted to hurt him. It worked. Even though Wrexsoul had no face, I could tell by his eyes that the concept of gratifying me revolted him.

"You know what will happen if Edgar hears of this. Edgar's going to start producing weapons, thinking that Natissa plans to attack him. Jidoor will find out about Edgar's weapons and do the same, thinking he intends to attack them. It will only be a matter of time, then, until one of them breaks down and attacks the other. You're not putting up much of a fight, O Maniac of Legend."

"You're counting your proverbial choco-chicks a little too early. In case you hadn't noticed, Branford brought Relm. Relm and Natissa seemed awfully friendly back there. Are you sure she won't work against you?"

"I suppose that, if worse came to worse, I could kill her and blame it on Jidoor. That is the bulk of your plans, is it not?"

I smirked. "You don't have the balls to murder a kid."

Wrexsoul crossed his arms and tried to look imposing, so I knew I was right.

"I'm impressed that you were able to figure out what I was doing. Now let's see you stop me."

I turned and walked away. I didn't want Wrexsoul to know how much he'd gotten to me.

If Branford were allowed to tell Edgar about the Guardian, he'd start working on defense right away. Even if I managed to kill Natissa, he wouldn't find out about it soon enough to halt weapons production, Wrexsoul's described scenario would take place, and relations between Figaro and Jidoor would be permanently shot. But if I stopped chasing Natissa and followed Branford instead, Wrexsoul could get to Natissa and do any amount of irreparable damage. It was a little too early in the game to be sacrificing my queen.

Wasn't there anything else I could do?

***

Albrook was the exact opposite of Maranda. In the pale lamplight, its clean cobblestone streets and gothic buildings looked like the watercolor illustration of a child's horror story. Both its height and length stretched endlessly into the night, connected by narrow streets, winding stairs, and frightfully symmetric rows of street lamps. They glinted and reflected in the buildings' windows, adding even more illusionary dimension to the labyrinth.

I made my way to the docks and, ceasing a pickaxe from the tool shed, went about putting holes in the boats.

My new, revised plan didn't give me a lot of time. The continent that Albrook, Maranda, Tzen, and Vector were on was a huge island. There were only two ways off the island: ship, and airship. I was going to destroy the ships, and hope against hope that Branford wouldn't be able to signal an airship before I was able to follow Natissa and her crew into my tower, kill her, and let her crew get news of her death back to Maranda. Plus, there was always the possibility of Branford meddling. I shuddered. I wasn't ready to get into it with her. I hoped those brats she was babysitting would keep her occupied.

After hacking enough holes in the boats to sink them, I went back to the street lamps, ripped one out of the ground, broke the protective glass around its flame, and set fire to them. I did the same to the dock, walking backwards and dragging it along to make sure that I didn't miss a spot.

When I was finished, I climbed the stairs, went to the bridge, and watched the docks burn. I even made myself visible so that I could watch the flames' vaulting shadows play off my scarred forearms, which I rested on the bannister. Red, yellow, and black, rippling the sky like waves in the ocean, the blaze danced.

It was so beautiful that I almost wept.

***

By the time I was finished digging through the ruins of my tower, I was glad that my body had been incinerated in a burst of magic right after I'd fallen. Walking through the broken skeleton of my old home, seeing its rusted, crumbling supports sticking out of the ground like broken trees with flimsy roots, looking at rooms and staircases reduced to gravel, I felt the undeniable truth of my old philosophy: all human creation leads to destruction. I did not need to see my own corpse to verify my philosophies on human mortality.

Luckily, I had several things to distract me on the walk through my grave site. First of all, I had to concentrate on my limited time frame. Second, I had to try and find a trail that humans could use through the messy ruins. Third, I had to litter fresh animal carcasses in inconspicuous places on that trail, trying to attract the notice of those wild animals the salesman had been so afraid of. I hoped that, should I not find a more controllable way of offing Natissa here, a behemoth or two would do the job for me.

I was soon to get another distraction. When that Zozo salesman had said my tower was haunted, I though he was spreading the superstitions of a few treasure hunters who'd ventured too far in, let their imaginations get the better of them, and ran screaming from a resident Leafer that had hopped out at them a little too fast. I had no idea there was an actual ghost living in the place until I saw him.

It was deep into the tower's ruins, right by my dilapidated old statue of Poltergeist, that I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and came face to face with one of the dead animals I'd thrown down some ways back.

A hand pinched a dead Chickenlip between its thumb and forefinger, letting it dangle in front of my face, blood-slicked yellow feathers and all. I looked past it and saw a ghost clad in ragged black shrouds, a good amount of his body hideously mangled. His face was covered. All I could see were his raised eyebrows. He looked from me, to the dead Chickenlip, to the other corpses I'd left on the trail.

"Aren't you that assassin?" I looked over his tattered clothes and body again. "You don't look so good."

"Looked in a mirror lately?"

"What? What's wrong with me?"

He dropped the dead Chickenlip. "My dog didn't like you."

"I didn't like your dog. Now if you'll excuse me."

He pushed me back.

"I don't have time for this, Shadow!"

"You remembered my name."

"Glad I could make your day. Now move."

He poked the dead bird with his foot. "What's this?"

"Air freshener."

"Kawaii." He didn't look like he was anywhere near the point of letting me leave "I'm surprised to see you here. I thought they'd lock you up and feed the key to Cerebus."

"I could say the same thing about you, assassin."

He shrugged. "Let's just say I dug my own grave. Now I'm lost in it."

"Then let's just say that the Phantom Train, like so many before it, fell victim to my charming personality."

"I don't like the sound of that."

"You wouldn't like the look of it, either."

He took this opportunity to shift his grip from my shoulders to my throat. "I also do not have time for this. What are you doing here?"

"I live here, idiot."

He chuckled. "Death doesn't want to admit he's dead, eh. Don't blame you. When I first woke up in this wreck instead of on the Phantom Train, I tried to talk myself into believing that I'd somehow survived being buried under a tower's worth of mortar and steel."

"I'm guessing it didn't work?"

"While I was talking, I walked through a wall. Someone once told me that suicides can't leave the place of their death; guess he was right."

"Suicides? You helped kill me, then you killed yourself? You're awfully dedicated to your job. Don't suppose you could lend me a hand?"

Even though I'd mumbled the last part, Shadow picked up on it. "Lend you a hand doing what?"

"Nothing. I was joking."

Shadow released me. Both of us instinctively stopped talking as a pack of Vector Lizards walked through us and began to fight over the Chickenlip. It was a funny scene. Here we were, two hardened murderers, both already dead, hushing down so that a pack of carnivorous reptiles wouldn't notice us. I snickered. But not loudly enough for them to hear.

I was interrupted by Shadow. "As I was saying, lend you a hand doing what?"

"And I said I was-"

Voices.

"-Dammit, she's here! Turn invisible!"

He shot me a quizzical look, but faded.

Thanks to Shadow, I hadn't had time to come up with a concrete plan, so I had to hope that the Vector Lizards would do their jobs. Thanks again to Shadow, they didn't.

He looked back to the reptiles, who were still tearing the Chickenlip into fleshly strings, then to the direction the voices came from. "Suppose I've got more grave robbers to chase away." And he proceeded to make some goofy-looking movements with his arms.

"What in the hell are you doing?"

"If I were in Hell, I wouldn't be doing anything." He did one final twist, then yelled. "ZINGER!"

If his disembodied yelling hadn't frightened Natissa and her crew away, what happened afterwards would have. In a blur of red, he flew backwards toward the Poltergeist statue. And the statue, the corpse whose former spirit had been permanently evicted, whose once-powerful frame had been incinerated to the point of being dust and rubble from the waist up, began to fly back together like a reversed Meteor spell. The dust rose furiously, forming a mist. The mist cleared, and I got my first good view of the creature that would soon considerably change my outlook on my fight with Wrexsoul. Tattered shrouds sculpted in onyx, black wings nearly as big and not near as shredded as my own, Shadow hefted Poltergeist's spear and stood between Natissa's crew and the Vector Lizards.

Natissa had been struck speechless and, for once, so had I.

She hadn't been struck motionless, though. The second Shadow hefted the spear and threatened to throw it at her, she and her entire group turned around and began to run.

Things started to go by in a speeding blur. Natissa tried to turn and run the way she'd come, but thanks to my "decorating," a behemoth was now blocking her path. She and her crew rerouted, scaling a bit of wreckage. The behemoth got a few of the stupid Bedivire-clones she'd brought with her, but Natissa made it to the top and fell down the other side. Ignoring Shadow-geist, I flew through the wall and followed her down a dark, narrow corridor of twisted steel supports. She dashed across a broken conveyer belt, Bedivire and a few others in tow, and found herself on the edge of a collapsed, rotting monstrosity.

One of my monsters, and one I remembered well. My Organic Tower.

After staring at its rotting, misshapen half-bone, half-steel skeleton, Natissa excused herself behind a bit of rubble and vacated the contents of her stomach. She was even cute when she was retching. After digging into her backpack and using the contents to scrub her face, she came back out and began to examine the surroundings more closely.

"What is this place?"

"It's... it's Kefka's..." Bedivire shook. "...Inner Sanctum!"

I expected Natissa to follow Bedivire's example and start panicking, but she didn't. Her eyes widened, and she began to dart around the room. "Really? The man himself lived here?" She grinned. "And, oh Bedivire, we've seen it! I'll bet we're the only ones other than his killers who have!" She went back to the skeleton that had inspired her to vomit up her guts two minutes earlier and began eyeing it with voracious interest. "What a hideous monster! He must have used magic to make it. I wonder what it looked like when it was alive?"

"L-let's find a way out of here, all right? If there are ghosts like that out there, just think of the ghosts that must be hiding in here."

I considered laughing loudly, just to get a reaction, but I refrained when Natissa, enraptured, moved toward a glint of metal in the corner.

"You three! Over here!" She knelt down and began to pull rubble off the metal. "Help me dig."

They obeyed her command. In about a half-hour, they had unearthed It. The machine I considered my greatest achievement of all time. The machine at whose name people still trembled. The machine that could wipe out an entire town of people from half a globe away.

The Light of Judgement.

"The Light of Judgement," Natissa breathed, in the same tone another woman might speak the name of Draco, the annoyingly popular pretty-boy Opera star. "I'm actually touching the Light of Judgement! It's in such perfect condition, too. Kefka must have outdone himself on this; all that weight on top of it for all this time, and it's barely dented! If magic were still around, I'll bet we could make it work. That would give Edgar something to chew on!"

That's because I, unlike the Empire, pride myself on building machines that don't collapse under the stress of a well-aimed fart. The Light of Judgement was a cylindrical Magitek polylueridia bitch; a flawless piece of art that frequent use, destruction of its home, reconstruction of the world, and a month's worth of corrosive conditions couldn't irreparably damage. Natissa had every right to be impressed. I'd built that thing to last.

So why was I so horrified to see it sitting there in near-mint condition?

"Your ladyship, if you would-" Bedivire tugged at Natissa's sleeve. "We must find another way out of here!"

"Find another way out? Whatever for?"

"We can't go back the way we came! That winged statue ghost is still out there!"

Natissa was still staring dreamily at the Light. "Oh... all right. I think I saw a tunnel there, on the other side of the conveyor. Let's explore it."

Casting one last look over her shoulder, Natissa led the group out of my "Inner Sanctum."

I should have followed her. I probably would have been able to kill her right then if I had. But I couldn't move. Like Natissa before me, I was glued to the spot, mesmerized by the slightly dulled gleam of the Light of Judgement's polylueridia casing. The building had collapsed, but it survived.

Something survived.

That was more unsettling than any of the destruction I'd witnessed, and when I made my way out of the tower hours later, it was still gnawing at me.

***

Let him do it, I told myself.

Let him try and end the world and see if he gets any freaking further than I did.

Let him beat his thick head against the wide-as-it-is-high wall of eternity in a pathetic attempt to crack it.

Sitting in Natissa's room, watching her delicately flip through the pages of a fashion booklet, I found myself edging dangerously close to another breakdown. I'd received my first taste of fear when, lying broken and bleeding on the operating table I'd defected trying to avoid, I saw the hollow-eyed, nearly-dead Esper with whose magic powers I would soon be infused floating eerily in a jar of bile-colored jelly. My first taste of sense-stealing anger had come to me on the Floating Continent, when my dear Emperor thanked me for years of loyal service by trying to kill me because I'd outlasted my usefulness. Now I was getting my first taste of depression. I didn't like it.

There was no way I could have been wrong about everything. Death was still the inevitable outcome of every birth. Eventual corrosion the outcome of every human creation. But it survived. Something I made had contradicted everything I stood for, and barring tearing the Light of Judgement to pieces, there was nothing I could do about it.

I worked too damn hard on that thing to destroy it.

But that was the point, wasn't it? That even my work was futile? That even my life, as full of fun experiments and treacherous emperors as it may have been, would be forgotten by time, remembered only by pompous historians who found broken and inaccurate records of my deeds in the crumbling pages of forgotten books?

But it survived.

And as long as it survived, I survived.

When I'd welcomed the sixteen people who'd come to kill me into my home, I thought we'd had an agreement. They'd kill me, proving that even the struggling of someone endowed with all the magic of the world was fruitless. In the process, they'd destroy magic. They'd destroy my tower, erasing all proof of my being from history. Eventually, they'd die, leaving nothing behind to certify that any of us had ever been here. My monument to nonexistence would be completed in my absence.

How could those unfathomable morons have neglected to break my deadliest weapon!

If I was as wrong as I feared, it meant my bet with Wrexsoul was a sure win. If his goal was to start a war that would end the world, and the world couldn't be ended, he'd backed himself into a narrow, inescapable corner. No matter what the smug bastard did, he and his war wouldn't do any lasting damage to anybody. In a few years, or maybe a few centuries since it didn't really matter, Figaro and Jidoor would be on good terms again, bad feelings forgotten by all but a few overzealous citizens. So my pride was safe, and my self-concept was evaporating faster than my corpse.

Crud. What a mess.

I wasn't about to let Wrexsoul win the bet. The last thing I needed right now was someone else boasting victory over my sinister ideals.

But if he lost, it meant everything I believed was groundless.

I clenched my ghostly fists and began beating my wings so furiously that Natissa felt the change in temperature and put on a sweater. Right now, my mind was as blurry as her distorted painting of Figaro desert. One thing, and one thing only, was clear. I wouldn't have gone anywhere near that tower if I hadn't made that bet with Wrexsoul. I never would have seen any of this. I probably would have still been in the Phantom Forest, sitting against a tree and laughing my fool head off... if it hadn't been for Wrexsoul. This was all his fault.

Wrexsoul had to pay.

***

Natissa and Edgar sat across the table from one another. They ignored the brats playing in the sun-soaked grass outside, the sound of the wind banging the shutters against the window, the calls of the chocobos in the stable next door, and Branford's timid presence, and stared intently at one another. Edgar's mouth looked chiseled in a grimace, his usually flirtatious eyes narrowed to crystal-blue slits. Natissa matched his glare. But for all its intensity, Edgar and Natissa's little glaring contest was nothing compared to the way Wrexsoul and I were looking at one another. If the both of us hadn't been dead already, we would have been tearing each other to shreds. Alas, the most I could do was flip him the bird. He graciously returned it.

Both of us turned our attention to Edgar, who had started to speak.

"Miss Drakken..."

"I won't have more of your condescending gentility. Spit it out."

"What were you doing in Kefka's tower?"

She tossed her hair. "As if it's any of your business!"

"If I have reason to believe that you went inside to procure lost weaponry, and I assure you that I do, then it's my business, and the business of every other peaceful nation on this planet."

"I was exploring."

"You went into the ruins with a team of trained salvagers because you wanted to go exploring."

"Yes, that's correct."

"Where's the rest of the team?"

"Pardon?"

"You hired six. Two came back. Where are the others?"

"They were killed by animals; I don't know what that has to do with anything."

"Can you prove that they're dead?"

"What is this, am I under arrest? Would you like me to bring the behemoth in to testify? Is that it? Or maybe you'd like me to go back and bring you what's left of their bodies? If I can even find my way back to the Inner Sanctum-"

"Why would you want to go in there?" Edgar sounded thoroughly disgusted.

I saw Natissa's cheeks redden. Well, it's like this, Eddie, we were being chased by a giant animate statue of Poltergeist, and our path out was blocked at the last minute by a behemoth and a handful of Vector Lizards, so we had to climb the wall and we just sort of fell right into it.

That wouldn't sound suspicious at all.

"The animals had us cornered. We had no choice. Why don't you tell me what you really landed your little airship down here for?"

"I came in my airship because Albrook's port is inoperational. But I'll ask you straight; did you go into that tower with the intention of removing Magitek?"

Natissa's scowl shifted from Edgar to Branford. "I don't know who would have given you that idea. But for the sake of argument, let's say that I did. Magic is dead, Figaro, and I'd have no way of running it-"

"Except for Kyrithian-"

"Which I couldn't get in high enough supply to run the opera's stage lights, thanks to your efforts-"

"Do you think you're encouraging me to settle with you by doing things like this?"

"Doing things like what! You don't even know what I wanted it for!"

"So you did go in there to remove machinery!"

"Not to use as weaponry!"

"What other use does Magitek have?"

"I'm sure there are millions of other uses, as expensive as the parts in those machines are!"

"Then surely you can name me one!"

"For instance," Natissa said slowly, "The parts could be scrapped and used in an industrial-sized drill..."

"So you were planning on drilling wether I gave you permission or not."

"That's an awfully big conclusion to jump to. It doesn't hurt to be prepared."

"And you were willing to sneak into the ruins of Kefka's Tower in order to 'be prepared'."

"It was the only place I could get the materials-"

"-without my knowing!"

"If you want it straight, yes! Exactly! But you must have known anyway or you wouldn't have gone to such an effort to wreck my means of transporting them!"

"What do you mean!"

"Don't be coy with me. You got here in an awful hurry by airship after Albrook's port was destroyed. I suppose you just had a premonition that I was here and that you couldn't reach me by boat."

"I was informed of the situation."

"I thought she was a spy!"

"What?" Branford said.

"I am as sick of your innocent damsel act as I am of his self-righteousness!" Natissa stood. "You're the only connection Figaro has in these parts; you're the only person who could have told him!"

Edgar shook his head. "Terra didn't tell me anything. If you must know, an anonymous informant wrote me this..." He produced a piece of written-on parchment.

I glared at Wrexsoul. He crossed his arms and looked proud of himself.

Natissa stared at it. "I don't recognize the handwriting."

"Neither do I."

"Yet you implicitly trust it."

"No, my lady, I do not. But it's been right thus far."

"If a half-truth is a good enough excuse for you to plunge your beloved citizens into a war."

Edgar's stern face wavered. "Perhaps you're right. Anybody could be writing these, and for any reason; I don't want you to think that hasn't occurred to me. But... Natissa, I don't want to come off sounding 'self-righteous', as you put it, but only when you have seen the destruction caused by Magitek first hand can you understand the fear I have for it."

"I lived through the Emperor's raids, just like you! I was alive for the two hellish years of Kefka's reign! I know what Magitek is capable of!"

"I know you do," Branford said, "And you shouldn't have been put through that. Nobody should have. But you didn't stand there and watch, utterly helpless, as someone you used to know and respect got drunk with power and turned Magitek on someone you cared for... and on the entire world. I did."

Know and respect? Geeze, who was she talking about?

"So you can understand how we would be suspicious of anyone trying to remove the machines for any reason," Edgar said. "And I know they can't be run. Trust me, if I thought someone had found a way to run those machines, I'd be acting even more the curmudgeon right now."

"Finally admitting it, eh? Very well. I won't go back into the tower. I'll find the parts somewhere else. Is that satisfactory?"

I jumped from my chair and noiselessly cheered. Then I flipped Wrexsoul off a second time.

Edgar nodded. "Say. I was just thinking."

That must be a new experience, I thought.

"Do you remember when I said we needed to scour some maps drawn by an unbiased party? Why don't we get them here in Maranda? Maybe we can have this mess worked out before we leave town."

"That would be wonderful!" Branford clasped her hands together.

Natissa raised a penciled eyebrow. "I can't think of any reason why we shouldn't try."

"Wonderful! We can do that tomorrow!" Edgar stood and stretched. "As for now, why don't I treat both of you to dinner? It's not every day that someone like myself has the chance to spend the evening with two beautiful women."

"You certainly had me fooled," Natissa mumbled. She raised her voice. "I apologize, your Highness, but I will have to decline. I've other plans."

"Very well, then. Terra?"

"If you don't mind my bringing the children."

"It's settled then, O exquisite vision of loveliness." He hammily extended his arm. Branford looked like she was on the verge of bursting into laughter.

Natissa turned, grimaced, and stormed out of the place looking as disgusted as I felt.

But I couldn't feel too disgusted, considering that my team had just dealt Wrexsoul a near-fatal wound. He didn't seem too upset about it; he stood, gathered his ragged black-and-purple robes, and faded wordlessly through the wall.

I should have known that he was up to something.

***

You have no idea how much night impairs your vision until you have a way to directly compare a place at daytime and nighttime. In the daytime, Maranda looked like a run-down hick town in the middle of nowhere. But haunting the place at night, with the Magitek-covering tents snapping in the blackness like the wings of a Dark Wind, flickering illumination shining on the plastic as if it were sheet metal or flesh, littered street a chain of one jagged edge after another, I was one creeped-out ghoul. It didn't help that I could see bits of Magitek sticking out of the tents like oversized insects.

When a bit of black, torn cloth flickered in front of my eyes, I thought it was a bit of tent at first. But no; that tent was plastic and shiny; this had been dull, almost like a hole in the air. I turned and saw Wrexsoul, standing in front of the Prometheus Magitek armor, framed by its crimson glow as he had been by the wrecked Phantom Train, making sharp motions with his hands. Whatever weird little jig he was doing, it looked awfully familiar.

Shadow.

Shadow had been making those same movements when he...

"ZINGER!"

In a fountain of red fire, Wrexsoul vanished into the Prometheus armor.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, the long dead engine growled. The main wheel in the front began to spin. The mechanical claws on either side of the machine jolted to life, and its lights exploded into bright white, bringing false daylight to the street before it. And then, as if it had been splattered with ink, the machine's metal exoskeleton began to bleed black and violet, which spread until no red was left. With a cloud of dust, the rest of the machine's wheels churned, and it began to slowly drive itself down the street. Its rusty screeching could be heard for miles.

I flew after the fleeing Prometheus. There weren't many places in Maranda to take something that big; Wrexsoul seemed to be heading toward the edge of town. What was he planning to do with it?

I knew the answer the second the Inn fell into its headlights. Edgar's words jumped to mind. "Trust me, if I thought someone had found a way to run those machines, I'd be acting even more the curmudgeon right now."

"Oh, shit!"

Prometheus halted about a hundred yards away from the Inn. I could see smoke oozing from the barrels of its launchers. A second later, a shower of sparks trailed a missile all the way to the corner of the Inn. That corner erupted into flames like a volcano, sending bits of charred wood spinning through the air. I don't think Wrexsoul hit anyone, aiming for the side and all, but he'd served his purpose. People began to run, screaming, from the Inn, and Edgar, Branford, Relm, and Interceptor were among them. Branford was herding her brats behind her, but when she saw the machine, she whispered something to Edgar- then drew her sword and left them with him.

"Terra!" Edgar yelled.

"Get them to safety! Go!"

Edgar obeyed, herding the survivors down the stairs, toward the armor shop.

Branford was going to fight that thing? By herself? She must have picked up the "rush in headfirst" strategy from Leo, 'cause she sure as hell didn't get it from me. There was no way she could take that thing, and she should have known it.

As nauseating as I found the idea of rescuing the girl who'd killed me, I couldn't let her die. That would make Edgar even more resentful and suspicious, and it might cloud his judgement in his dealings with Natissa. I was angrier at Wrexsoul right now than I ever had been at Branford. I ran underneath one of the tents, found the Heavy Arms, tore the claw from one of them, and began to think about the Prometheus armor. I'd had a lot to do with the design of that model, which meant it didn't have any glaring structural errors like other nameless armor styles (*hack, cough, the Guardian, cough*). Add that to the fact that it was possessed, and I knew that the easiest- and maybe the only- way to stop that thing would be to take out the wheels.

I was dead. What did I have to lose?

Wielding the Heavy Arms claw like my old Morning Star, I charged the Prometheus and slammed at the tangle of fraying electric lines behind it. Wrexsoul turned it around, which was exactly what I needed. I crawled underneath it and began to use the claw to loosen the axle. Though it was roughly equivalent to sculpting marble with a butter knife, I managed to disconnect the first one while Branford kept the machine at sword point.

"You shall never succeed," Wrexsoul hissed.

"Yeah, yeah. That's what Gestahl said." I could see my scarred hands working through the tangles of wires and pipes, manipulating the Prometheus's frame as ancient grease dripped off of them and hit the ground below. "And where is he now?"

"I came across his spirit on the Phantom Train," Wrexsoul said, "And ate it."

"Really? He must have tasted awful."

"On this, and only this, I yield to you. So bitter a soul I have never encountered."

"That'll teach him to try and stab me in the back!" I laughed, then peeled off a layer of rubber tubing and threw it aside. Outside the Prometheus, Branford had managed to slice off one of the machine's grabber-arms. It sparked, and caused some of the stuff I was working on to catch fire. Fire has a really strange effect on me; again, I had to turn myself visible just so I could see its glow on my hands.

Finally, I managed to find the rod I was looking for. I didn't think I had time enough to disconnect it correctly and, hey, I wasn't going for neatness. Instead, I wielded the claw like my old Morning Star and bashed it into two pieces.

The wheel came unhinged.

Almost done. Just had the other side to go.

Branford buried her sword in the carapace, flattening the front tire. That slowed Wrexsoul, but he kept going. I used the opportunity to switch sides and began plucking out the wires. He wouldn't be able to keep going if the thing was immobilized, and that was what would happen the second I-

Raising the claw, I tore through the metal. The Prometheus collapsed on top of me, and I saw Wrexsoul float out, invisible, and disperse through the ground.

Chicken shit.

I stood and tried to wipe some of the grease on my hands onto the Prometheus's dented carapace, then I went about tugging the Heavy Arm claw out of the axle I'd lodged it in. I gave it a good, swift kick for emphasis. That was when I noticed that Branford was staring quite intently in my direction, her mouth hanging open. I snorted. She looked like she'd just seen a ghost.

Wait a minute...

"I'm visible, aren't I?"

"K... Kefka?"

I tossed the Heavy Arm claw into the burning Prometheus, then waved and grinned hammily.

Branford, who had been fighting like a rabid Hippocampus a second ago, vacantly shifted her gaze from me to the claw, from the claw to the broken innards of the Prometheus, then fell to her knees in a daze.

I vanished.

I should have been concerned about the moving Magitek, because Wrexsoul had done me some real damage with it. I should have been worried about Branford seeing me. But right now, both of those things were in the back of my mind. This entire situation left me with one burning question, and I floated back toward the ruins of my tower with fierce determination to find the answer.

What was 'Zinger'?

***

"Shadow? Shadow! Hel-lo!"

I banged on some of the rusty metal of the ruins, then walked a little further.

"Shad-"

Something slammed into me, shoved me against the wall, and twisted my arm behind my back.

"You called?"

"Lemme go, you psycho! If I'd come here to fight, I wouldn't be making so much noise, you think?"

Shadow, still walking around in Poltergeist's shell, released me and stood with his arms crossed. "I'm going to give you five minutes."

"I'm going to need longer than that."

"Condense it."

I took a deep breath. "How do you do that Zinger thing that you did the other day?"

"I'm not teaching you how to possess things."

"I don't want you to teach me how to do it. I want you to tell me where you learned it."

"Need a bedtime story?"

"This is important!"

I must have looked really desperate because, despite the shrouds over his face, I could tell his smirk was fading. "I learned it in Doma Castle. What's so important?"

Wasn't Wrexsoul from Doma?

"Tell me more."

Shadow folded his arms. The look he was giving me was nothing short of intense. "I, Relm, Terra, and Cyan Garamonde went to Doma to spend the night. While we slept, Cyan was attacked. We followed him into some kind of... inner nightmare... and found this..." He motioned with his hands, as if struggling for words.

"Wrexsoul."

He nodded.

"Go on."

"Wrexsoul attacked us in Cyan's dream, and he incapacitated everyone except me by... possessing them with the Zinger attack. I watched him. I memorized it. And when he started to do it to me, I cut him off and slit him from his neck to his gut."

"Woah, woah. You can injure him?"

"If he's visible and tangible. So tell me, Palazzo... how do you know Wrexsoul?"

I spilled everything. I couldn't afford not to.

"Quite the predicament you've gotten yourself into."

"Myself? Excuse me. If Wrexsoul wins, I'm the only person who'll come out of it non-assimilated."

"Which leads me to wonder why you care. You'll pardon me if I don't believe that you're doing this out of altruism."

"I don't want to lose."

"I suppose that's the closest thing to an ethical motivation we're ever going to get out of you. Especially considering that it's your fault Wrexsoul exists in the first place."

"I know. I killed a bunch of people in my hostile takeover, they formed 'Disgruntled Spirits Incorporated' and named themselves Wrexsoul, and now they've got a grudge against me."

"That's not exactly the case. Someone told me a story, about suicide. Want to hear it?"

"Oh, do I get a bedtime story after all?"

"In Doma, a lone ghost began to cannibalize his brethren, and Wrexsoul was born."

"Wrexsoul himself told me that much."

"Didn't you ever stop to wonder who that lone ghost was?" Shadow leaned against the wall. "Hundreds of years ago, before Doma became a prosperous nation, it was a small village, led by a retainer named Murasaki. He was just, and fair, and honorable, and all those things everyone thinks a leader should be. But he had one problem."

"DID?"

"He thrived on battle. Any petty dispute that arose between Doma and its neighbors became an excuse for him to go to war. He'd even go about inventing conflicts simply so he would have a battlefield to play on."

"Sounds like a perfectly normal guy to me."

Shadow ignored my commentary. "Doma always won because, in addition to his aggressive tactics, he was a brilliant warrior and strategist. Too brilliant, in fact. Soon, he'd eradicated or assimilated every nation on the continent. The lack of battle threw Murasaki into a depression, and he killed himself."

"The end."

"No such luck. Before he died, he made a vow. A vow that, the second war spilled Doma blood on Doma soil, he would return to fight that war."

I slapped my forehead. "Don't tell me."

"That's right. When you poisoned the water supply, you became the first man to kill a citizen of Doma in wartime since Murasaki's death. You revived Murasaki. But he came back to an empty, ravaged castle- and because he'd committed suicide in it, he could not leave it. Desperate for some way out, he began to devour lost spirits. He hoped to dilute himself enough to leave Doma castle. He never did; it was me who eventually freed him, by killing him."

I thought. "So you're telling me that Wrexsoul is really this Murasaki character."

Shadow shook his head. "He's long since lost all sense of self."

"So he doesn't just have a grudge." I laughed. "He came back because he wanted to fight! That's funny!"

"You'll laugh yourself into Hell."

"Sorry, sorry. But are you sure this is true? That your source didn't elaborate just a bit?"

"My 'source' was Wrexsoul. He likes to talk about himself."

"I guess his fairy tale hasn't given you any insight into beating him."

Shadow's eyes narrowed dangerously. "There are people out there, among the living, that I care about. For their sake, I'll help you stop Wrexsoul. I have an idea. But, as I've already told you, I can't leave the ruins. I need you to do something for me."

"Okay."

"Find Relm," He said. "Tell her to come to the entrance of the ruins. I'll meet her there."

"Like she's going to want to come with me."

"Give her this." He reached into a pile of skeletons, pulled out a bit of metal, handed it to me, then put both hands on my shoulders and glared. "Don't let her come into the ruins. And watch her back. If she so much as scrapes her knee on a misplaced rock, I will make you suffer for all eternity."

I had half a mind to tell him that the delightful little urchin had taken out the Tools section of my Organic Tower by herself and that she was a hundred times more equipped to traverse the ruins than Natissa and her crew had been, but I didn't. I figured he wouldn't be asking me to run this errand if he didn't know that. "I got it. You can let go now."

He gave me a shove, then walked away across the skeletons, mumbling something about 'being reduced to this'.

You and me both, asshole.

***

As I suspected, and as Wrexsoul had planned, the rampaging Prometheus had completely undone all the progress Natissa and Edgar had made the day before. They poured over the maps in complete silence, stopping only to bestow murderous looks on one another and the large hole in the wall of the inn. Relm and Branford hovered a few yards away from the table, but they didn't involve themselves in the tense, wordless negotiations that were taking place.

I waited until Relm excused herself and Interceptor to the kitchen to get a drink, then I followed her. I looked down at the thing Shadow had given me. It was a ring, set with a red stone way too deep to be ruby. It didn't look like something that would convince Relm to go traipsing off into the ruins with me of all people, so I decided on a different tactic. I dropped the metal thing right next to her, causing Interceptor to bark, growl, and vault about.

Relm knelt, picked it up, and gave a small yelp.

I leaned close to her, whispered as softly as I could, and hoped like crazy that after a month, she'd forgotten what my voice sounded like. "Go to the entrance of the ruins."

"T-the ruins of Vector?" She said, speaking in an even more hushed tone than my own.

"The ruins of Kefka's Tower."

I didn't know then what significance that bit of jewelry had to Relm, but it- paired with my disguised, disembodied voice- spooked her considerably. Without a word to Branford or Edgar, she ushered Interceptor out the back door and left town.

***

Where do dreams go?

That was one of the questions that had pecked at my brain, right up to the moment of my death. A man named Clyde Arrowny once had a dream. He dreamed that someday he'd be able to forget ignoring his best friend's dying request. He dreamed that he could have a normal life and family in a normal little town that got next-to-no visitors. He dreamed that he could drop his black reaper shrouds and be a real father to his little girl. He got so fed up with this dream's elusiveness that he took his own life.

But the dream didn't die with him. I could tell something was up the second Relm skipped into Shadow-geist's view.

She halted when she saw him, though Interceptor kept running. The dog leaped onto Shadow's stone knee. Shadow patted his head, then motioned for Relm.

"Oh. Shadow." She took a few more steps forward. "Where the hell have you been? We've been looking all over for you, and-" She squinted. "You have wings."

"Wings of stone." He leaned lazily against the ruins' entrance and gave Interceptor a rough scratching behind the ears. "You're making my dog fat."

"He likes fried rice."

Shadow nudged the dog. "I can tell."

"Like I was saying, why haven't you come to see us? I thought you got past your 'dark, mysterious stranger' phase. Gogo's been doing some really silly impersonations of you, and you haven't even been there to stop him; and Sabin was trying to tell us about your fight with Siegfried on the Phantom Train, but he thinks he doesn't do it as well as you; and Locke and Celes wanted you at their wedding, but we didn't know where to send the invitation." Relm ran out of breath, paused, then held up the ring. "Was it you who... sent this?"

He nodded.

"Where'd you... I mean, this was mother's..."

Shadow turned his back to Relm, and I could see his face contorted in absolute agony. For a second, I thought he was going to scream, but when he turned back to her, he was wearing his usual poker face again. "Don't have time to talk. Needed you to come. Wrexsoul's after you; you're all in danger. Come out, Kefka."

I reappeared.

"Omae!"

"Feeling's mutual, rodent."

"What's he doing here?"

Shadow crossed his arms. "Explain."

I related the story to Relm.

"So," Relm said, "Terra wasn't seeing things. You really did save her life."

"Don't go spreading it around." Rumors involving whipped cream were one thing, but this nicey-nicey stuff could do serious damage to my reputation. "I only did it because I had to."

"And you torched Albrook."

"Are you surprised?"

"No. But why are you telling me all this?" Relm turned to Shadow. "Why didn't you send for Edgar? I mean, he's the king, he has more say than I do. Or why not Terra, she's stronger than I am, and-"

"You're the only person who can do what I'm asking."

"What do you want me to do?"

Shadow motioned Relm closer, then leaned over and began to whisper in her ear. At first, she looked skeptical, but slowly a grin spread over her face.

"What a great idea! I don't know why I didn't think of that!"

"Neither do I."

"Baka."

Shadow laughed. "You said it."

Her face fell. "But... what if she won't agree to it? What if Edgar won't? It's so trivial compared to what's at stake."

"Edgar doesn't want his subjects being killed; Natissa, from what I've heard, is arrogant. They'll agree to it."

"Natissa's good. What if I lose?"

"Then you lose. The war will still be avoided."

Relm turned to leave.

"Relm?"

She turned back, wide-eyed and hopeful.

"You know I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think you could pull it off. I have faith in you."

She smiled weakly, then walked away. Interceptor bounded after her. Watching her leave, shoulders unnaturally stiff, I started to "get" what had just happened.

"You'd best get going, too," Shadow said, "Just in case Wrexsoul tries anything."

I watched Shadow turn his back and sink to his knees, then I floated after Relm. Of all the people I'd ever met, Shadow the heartless assassin was the only one I'd come even remotely close to respecting. I wasn't going to stick around and watch him cry over his own cowardice.

Once she was well into the surrounding ruins of Vector, far enough away that Shadow could neither see nor hear her, Relm punched the wall. She punched it again, so hard that Interceptor yelped and leapt backwards. She hit it again, and again, until her knuckles bled from the impact. Then she began to tear the wall, and her other already-broken surroundings, into pieces.

"Kusotare!"

I ducked out of the way of a flying metal shard. Relm glared at me, then at Interceptor. The dog and I were wearing the same expression. She threw her hands in the air. "Does he really think I don't know?"

She sat and wrapped her arms around her knees, looking straight ahead, on the verge of tears but refusing to cry.

I didn't say anything. I left her there and waited at the edge of Vector's ruins.

Apparently, Clyde's little girl had been doing some dreaming of her own. And the reality of the situation- that the both of them were too stubborn and ashamed to yield first- was a painful realization that they had yet to make. Perhaps that was all that kept their dream from dying.

Sickening. Asinine. Pathetic.

***

Have you ever been so terrified that your breath froze in your mouth?

Have you ever been so furious that your heart felt seconds away from combustion?

Have you ever been so despondent that you couldn't stop laughing?

Haven't we all.

If you're digging into me, trying to find something to love, stop. There's nothing there. If you want to find a valid reason why I set fire to a castle in the middle of a desert, thinking there would be no way to extinguish it; or why I thrust my sword through the stomach of the only man who'd ever been nice to me, laughed when it broke through the back of his coat, and licked his blood from my fingers like cherry syrup; or why I turned the Light of Judgement on Mobliz and watched a hundred people dissipate into ashes when they threw themselves over their children; then wake up. Sooner or later, you'll have to look at me.

Here I am.

Look at me.

I'm only as far as your mirror.

***

If we'd come a few moments later, all may have been lost.

When Relm and I finally returned to Maranda, Edgar and Natissa were screaming at one another, so much so that Branford had taken her children out of the inn, and a few of the other patrons had taken cover under tables and counters. The maps lay on one of the tables, and I could see that they were scored with red markings, x's and lines, and other writing around the disputed area. I could also see that the maps were inconclusive. The rearranged mountains, which had once been a straight line, now zigzagged ridiculously, making it impossible to tell where the land had been before the Cataclysm, even with an old map for comparison. That seemed to be the subject of Natissa and Edgar's 'conversation', but they were yelling so incoherently that I couldn't tell exactly what they were saying.

Unlike the others, Relm wasn't frightened. She walked straight up to them, her face placid and chillingly stoic, just like Shadow's. She tucked her arms behind her back. "I've got a proposition for you."

Edgar and Natissa both stopped to look at her.

"Relm, dear," Edgar said, sounding winded, "Now isn't the time."

"Now is the only time. I know how we can settle this dispute without fighting."

Natissa snorted. "Then let's hear it."

"I say we paint for it."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Relm straightened her beret. "I think we should have an art contest. Whoever wins the contest gets the land in dispute."

This was Shadow's brilliant idea?

"Relm," Edgar looked pained, "It isn't that we don't appreciate what you're trying to do, but matters this complex just can't be solved by-"

"And why not?" Natissa asked.

Edgar looked stunned. "Because! Well... really! Natissa, would you want to tell your people that you lost the rights to the land in an art competition? I wouldn't!"

"Would you rather tell them that they have to pick up arms because you can't think of anything better?" Natissa retorted. "I wouldn't!"

Darling, sweet Natissa. Despite her noble tone, I could tell that she was jumping at this prospect because she had every intention of cheating her pretty ass off. Some friend. I liked this woman more every time I saw her.

"But..." Edgar's voice trailed off. He couldn't think of anything better, and it was driving the responsible fool nuts.

"What kind of painting do you suggest? Predetermined subject? Abstract? Anything goes?"

"I have a subject in mind. Horror."

Natissa smirked. "There's no lack of that, in this world. Where do we have it?"

"We can have it wherever you want. We can have whatever judges you want."

"Then I vote we hold it in Jidoor. Owzer can be one of the judges."

"How about the Auctioneer?"

"I think he'd do. We need at least one more."

"We can work that out when we get there."

"How are we going to get there? Albrook's new port is still under construction!"

"Edgar can take us in the airship."

"Wait! I still haven't agreed to this." Edgar held up a hand.

"Then agree to it already!"

Edgar looked dumbfounded. "There are so many things that could go wrong. What if the people feel cheated and revolt? What if the loser refuses to abide by the judge's decision? What if the judges can't decide?"

"It can't hurt to try, can it?" Relm looked up at Edgar.

There were a few minutes of silence.

"I... am grievously outnumbered, aren't I?"

Both Relm and Natissa nodded.

"Oh, very well. We'll try this your way."

I walked out of the Inn and left them to work out the details. Once outside, I slid down the bannister, climbed up the trash bin, and sat on top of the armor shop, wrapping my arms around my knees. I took another long look at Maranda; at the plastic tents that housed old Magitek, at the armor shop whose sign was still crooked and hadn't been fixed, at the little dogfighting arena. I hadn't been to Jidoor for years. I wondered if it had remained as static as Maranda.

"Nonviolent confrontation," A voice behind me said, "I never would have thought you capable of such a suggestion."

"It wasn't my idea."

Wrexsoul drifted to my side. "Oh, I figured that much. I am still astounded that you're allowing them to go through with it."

"You said it yourself. The rules allow for dirty fighting."

"This is your idea of dirty fighting?"

"It certainly makes me feel unclean."

He narrowed his eyes, crossed his arms, and made a professional show of disapproving. "Don't think the game is over. This hand could still play in my favor."

"I wouldn't place all hope on the musings of Edgar Figaro, if I were you."

Standing there, with his lightless robes teasing the wind, Wrexsoul was a grisly figure indeed. "I would be preferring it this way."

"Preferring what how?"

"You... being in utter ignorance."

"Ignorance? It's a bit rich of you to be preaching to me about ignorance. You've spent your entire undeath talking yourself into believing you're fighting the good fight, when you're just a bloodthirsty bastard who doesn't know when to give up. At least I know what I am."

"Oh? What are you?"

Life... hope... dreams...

I buried my face in my crossed arms. "I'm a dead man." I laughed, more joylessly than I ever had before. "And so are you."

He didn't have anything to say to that.

***

An exceptional painting can be better than a photograph. Better than a mirror. Perhaps that's because artists aren't nice enough to leave out all the little imperfections that blur out of photographs and are so easy to ignore in a mirror image.

The picture Relm painted for the competition was painfully true to death.

I gazed at it, wishing it was a mirror. If it were, I could have overlooked the red spiderweb scars that crisscrossed my face. Or the black spot on my stomach where I'd been hit by a speeding Air Anchor. Or the gash on my thigh.

The worst part was that it was still unmistakably my image. My blonde hair. My golden eyes. My pale, glowing skin. I'd always been ashamed of my pretty-boy looks, to the point of burying them under layers of pancake makeup. I didn't have that option now. I was hit with the realization that I was going to spend eternity looking like an opera star who'd gotten into a barroom brawl with an armed Sabin Figaro. No wonder those all-encompassing shrouds were so popular among the other ghosts.

She'd painted me burning Albrook's port, and despite not having been there herself, she did a pretty good job. Natissa had decided to stick to something she'd seen; she'd painted the rampaging Prometheus armor. It was as photorealistic as Relm's rendition of me and, in my opinion, much more interesting subject matter.

Perhaps I should have been flattered when Owzer, the Auctioneer, and Maria unanimously declared Relm's painting the winner. A lot of people had come to Jidoor from Figaro, Maranda, Thamasa, and other places to see the competition, and when Relm won, the vast majority of them began to cheer.

Wrexsoul didn't. Neither did I.

I stood, invisible, behind Relm as she sat on the marble steps with Branford, Edgar, and Interceptor crowding her. "I can't believe it," She kept repeating. "I can't believe it actually worked!"

Edgar didn't think it had worked yet; I could tell from his facial expression. "I'm glad you won, Relm."

Branford clasped her hands together. "Oh, me too! How wonderful for you!"

Relm blushed. "I'll have to go back and tell him... so he knows his plan was good," She quickly amended.

"Tell who?"

"An old friend from Thamasa."

Wouldn't Shadow just be tickled. I wondered if their next meeting would be as dodgy and angsty as the one I'd had the pleasure of witnessing.

Silence fell over the cheerful crowd as Natissa came up the steps, carrying her gown like a princess. She did not look happy. When she got to Relm, she stared for a few minutes, eyebrows raised, then extended her hand.

"Good job. I yield," Natissa said.

Relm shook her hand. "You too."

Edgar sighed in relief.

Funny that Edgar, who had always been the reserved one, was being so hasty to accept Natissa's deference. I wasn't about to.

I'd shaken people's hands like that. I knew what Natissa was thinking.

When Natissa excused herself, I didn't stick around to congratulate Relm. I followed her. She was nowhere near the yielding point.

It looked like I would have to talk some sense into her.

***

Having seen Natissa shrug off numerous near-death experiences, I knew that it was going to take more than a little bullying to stop her. However, considering her fashion obsession, her snooty character, and her delicate looks, you really can't blame me for underestimating exactly how much more. I followed her through Jidoor, to a small, one-story house that was very neat-looking. Its interior was decorated expensively but spartanly, which was why it took me so long to figure out that the queen of pomp actually lived here. Bedivire was waiting by the door, holding it open; she charged through, easel and canvas under her arm, without even giving him a second glance.

"Get together the council," She said, "I vote we declare war on them."

"Yes, your ladyship."

He left, shuffling his huge feet.

I watched Natissa set up her canvas, then stare at the picture with a dry smirk on her face.

She was so pretty.

I steeled myself, then appeared in her living room. I walked the length of the room and stood behind her.

"Bedivire," She said, turning, "I thought I told you-"

I waited for the appropriate face-faulting, then I grabbed her by her hair and yanked her out of her seat. She pulled a Mythril dagger from her belt and tried to swipe me with it, but I caught her arm.

I remember how the other soldiers handled women, and I gotta say, it disgusted me. Torture is something that I excel at, and I know for a fact that if you want to permanently alter somebody, you have to isolate their worst fear and then shove it down their throat. You have to make it personal if you want to make it hurt. But they didn't know that, so they went for the same blasted uncreative kill every single time. They don't know what the hell they're doing.

I stared into her eyes, so unblinking and unafraid, then turned and looked at her canvas. She'd prettied up my armor considerably. The room we were standing in, too, was a miniature shrine to visual beauty. I looked back at her, then swiped her Mythril dagger and, with long sweeps of my arm, shredded her painting, cutting the flesh-like canvas into jagged, fraying, red-dripping strips. I crosshatched those, watching painted bits of cloth float, weighted, to the floor.

"Do you want to play me? Do you?" I turned the knife on her. "Then you're going to have to look the part, aren't you, my sweet?"

I buried the tip of the dagger in her forehead and cut a long, neat line all the way down to her chin.

And then... my dear Natissa... my sweet Natissa... served me one final surprise.

She laughed.

"In your raid on Narshe," She whispered, "I remember seeing you there. I remember thinking that you looked like one of the dollies my brother used to win in the town square." She laughed harder, raising her voice. "I'd heard about you. I'd heard about how you'd let that witch kill fifty of your own soldiers. I heard that you'd set fire to Figaro castle. I heard that, just a few days ago, you'd laid waste to Doma single-handedly. And when I saw you in Narshe, I remembered thinking... that you'd killed them all and that now you were coming for us..."

She pressed her lips together, and with her flying, messed-up red hair, she looked quite mad. "Well? Have you come for me?"

"Not to kill you." I threw her into the wall. "Not if you don't call your boy-toy back here and tell him to call off the war."

"Then you've come to kill me."

"If that's how you want it." I slashed her across the nose. She giggled.

Yes, I liked Natissa more every time I saw her.

Maybe that's why I did what I did next.

Again using her hair as a grip, I picked Natissa up and threw her onto a chair. I sat on the table across from her, still holding the knife to her, and smirked. "Don't want to negotiate with Edgar? Fine. You'll do it with me instead. Let's run through what we know, okay? You want to get to pools of Kyrithian, which are on Edgar's land, which is unfortunately inhabited."

"What-"

I held up a hand. "You lost the rights to the land in a contest with Relm, and now you're planning on fighting for them."

"Would you do any less?"

"Truthfully? No. But this isn't about me. Show me a map, will you?"

She started to stand.

"Ah-"

"It's over here."

She stood, picked up a tube of paper, and unrolled it in front of me. She also grabbed a dishcloth and began dabbing the blood from her face.

"Got a pen?"

She procured a quill from the table.

"Shade in the areas where you've found this Kyrithian crap."

As she colored on the map, Natissa looked up. "You know an awful lot about this, for someone who's been dead for over a month."

"I'm being forced to do penance for my eveel ways by warning you of the dangers of armed conflict."

"Forced by whom?"

"Another dead bastard."

Natissa faltered, nearly dropping the pen. "Then you've been there. The other side."

"I kind of got a bit sidetracked on my way there, actually."

"Ha."

She slid the map over to me.

I looked at her scribbling. "Okay, nice... yes, that's now Figaro borders." I peeked over the edge of the paper. "But you know, there's a bit over here that's still on your side."

"Where?"

"Here."

"I know that, confound it; that's in the mountains."

"So?"

"So, without Magitek, we can't drill through that much stone."

"Give me your pen."

She handed me the quill.

"You mind if I write on the back of this? No? Good." I flipped the map upside-down and began to scrawl on it. It had been awhile since I'd done this. "Obviously, this is freehand so the measurements are going to be off by... oh... ridiculous amounts, but if you get an engineer that doesn't suck, they oughtta be able to figure it out. For the material, I'd suggest polylueridia. It'll stay straight, and it'll take the impact- hey, I destroyed half the planet with it."

I could tell that everything I'd said had flown straight over her head, but that she'd gotten the main point.

I held the drawing forward. "I'm only going to give this to you if you call the war off. But you shouldn't see that as a bad thing. I used to be a General, you know, and wars cost a lot. I'm going to give you this for free. If you accept, you'll be saving yourself quite a bit of money."

"Oh... well, I'm a reasonable woman... I suppose that you're right." Her eyes flashed. "You're doing more than warning me. Pardon me if I think it seems a bit... out of character."

"No need to pardon yourself. You're right. I came in here with every intention of killing you."

"Why didn't you?"

"You remind me of myself. When I was younger."

I vanished from sight as Bedivire came through the door with another handful of Jidoor nobles.

Natissa stood, holding the scribbled-on map with one hand and stemming the blood flow on her face with the dishcloth in the other.

"Natissa!" Bedivire ran to her.

"Don't make such a fuss; this isn't important! Gentlemen!" She motioned to the other nobles, "Gentlemen, I've called you because I have something important to show you. Our recent loss to Figaro has left us with no choice but to drill the mountains, and it just so happens that I've found a way to do it..."

I walked through the wall. Good bad girl.

I hoped I'd never see her again.

***

You must be familiar with the old cliche, "Deal with the devil and you're bound to get burned." I was. Yet as familiar a saying it was, its truth didn't occur to me until it was too late. I was standing alone on Jidoor's bridge, watching the dying sunlight burn my scarred hands, when Wrexsoul came gliding up the stairs, looking as if he were ascending from a pit of flame. His ragged robes fluttered in the mild wind, and I was suddenly aware of how terrible a figure he must cut in the eyes of normal folk. I was as unimpressed by him as usual.

"Come to say goodbye?" I sat on the rail. "As much fun as it was playing with you, I can't say I'm sorry to see you go."

"To this moment, utter ignorance."

"What? Don't tell me that, because Natissa declared war on Figaro for ten minutes, you think you've won the bet!" I stomped. "If I recall, the deal stated that the thing had to erupt into armed conflict. Edgar will probably never even know about the ten-minute war he had with Jidoor."

"No, no. You have won. You have impressed me to no end, as well. I was shocked to see how professionally you handled Natissa. If you'd been that sensible in the days of the Empire, perhaps you- and the thousands of other people you murdered- would be alive today."

"I'm too dead to have regrets. Right now, all I want to do is forget this ever happened."

"Why do you feel you need to forget it?"

"Because!" I threw my hands in the air. I was not going to tell him how he'd turned my box of sacred things upside-down, dumped the contents on the floor, and trampled all over them. "Because it was boring."

"Ah," He said. "And I suppose you were cheering at the meetings because you were bored."

"You are a pain in the ass. Are you gone yet?"

"You once asked me if I trusted you to keep your end of the bet."

"Yes, I did."

"I find it foolish," He said, "That you did not ask me the same question."

Before I knew what was going on, he'd wrapped his tendrils around my ghostly form.

I held up a hand. "Woah. I thought we'd already been through this. You can't devour my soul, because I haven't been scarred in any kind of... ah!" My body was suddenly tingling with pain; I felt as if I were being burned alive.

"Do you really think I am the type of person to waste my time playing games with the likes of you?" Wrexsoul hissed. "My goal, my only goal, was to get you involved in a war; one that would do enough harm to your already-fragile mentality to enable me to devour you. And you, like the egotistical fool that you are, played right into it."

"It wasn't a war! Nobody was hurt!"

"Millions of people were hurt by your Cataclysm, but technically, it was not a war. And though there was no injury in the ten-minute span you and Natissa fought, barring those curable scrapes you put on her face, it was."

"Damn you!"

"You," He said, "do not have that authority."

Perhaps you think I deserved this. And maybe you're right. Hell, you're absolutely right. But my mind wasn't working logic at this point. Despite being dead, my only thought was that I didn't want to stop existing. Not like this. Not at his hands.

But there was nothing I could do about it, either.

If there was one thing that I'd come out of the past few turbulent days knowing, it was that I did not want to go out whining. I wanted to be like Natissa, who laughed in the face of a knife-wielding ghost and shrugged near-fatal accidents from her shoulders. I wanted to be like Shadow, whose face never betrayed love or fear. Or even like Branford, who charged straight at death waving a sword. Idiots? Yes. Fighting the inevitable? Most certainly. Wrong for doing it? Perhaps not as much as I'd thought.

Why do you yearn for life when you know death is inevitable?

To piss death off.

I did the only thing I knew to do. I laughed.

Just when the pain got so bad that I thought I'd have to stop laughing, I saw Wrexsoul turn and look behind him.

"You!"

The next second, I saw something poking out of Wrexsoul's neck. He jolted as it slid from his neck to his stomach. Metal. The metal tip of a sword. He was tangible. Slowly, the burning subsided, and the tendrils wrapped around my arms, legs, and waist slackened.

Wrexsoul slumped over. Standing behind him?

Branford.

She shyly pulled the sword from his gut and stared at me with her huge, innocent eyes. "There. We're even."

"Bra-"

She stepped over Wrexsoul's dissipating body and placed a finger on my lips.

"Don't say anything," She whispered. "You killed my closest friends. You destroyed the lives of my children. But... but I want to hope that... he's still in there somewhere. The General Kefka who used to sneak me chocolate and potato chips when Cid put me on that training diet. The one who used to do funny impressions of the Emperor when he wasn't looking. The one who would rather defect and face execution than take the life of an Esper. And I will never, ever forgive you if you speak and take that hope away from me."

That Kefka died on you, and he didn't leave a ghost.

You needed those snacks. You still look like a scarecrow.

You killed me, you little termagant.

I remained silent until she left.

***

Wrexsoul's in the Phantom Forest somewhere. I know that. But I've been sitting here for weeks and I haven't seen him. I figure I'll be safe from him once I get to the underworld.

I know that, with Wrexsoul gone, I had free reign. I could have tried to undo all the good deeds that I accidentally committed trying to best him. It wasn't like I didn't have time; the ghosts still didn't have the train in working condition, though they did have it upright and on the tracks again. The way things look right now, I'll be waiting a few more days. I guess I could still leave and stir up some trouble, if I really wanted.

But I'm just too damned tired.

The moral of the story: If ever you find yourself sitting on the Phantom Train, riding to the "other side," and you're possessed by some extraordinarily puerile desire to sneak into the engine room and start pulling the levers out of the wall and tearing the wiring apart just to see it all spark... make sure you know who's riding with you, first.

THE END