Awaiting My Overture

[kefka]

[glow=Yellow,2,300]Way down in the darkest regions of the Castle of Naught, inhabiting the massive chambers below, where enormous columns supporting the structure spread out throughout the cavern, stood Kefka's Heartless, surrounded on all sides by wires, barrels and naked dynamite.

He sat atop one of the broken barrels, staring with a raised eyebrow at a lone captive, tied to one of the great supports and strapped with dynamite. It was a woman with gorgeous blond hair and a remarkable, flawless face. She struggled within her grasp, but it would prove useless. She stared at her captor with teary eyes, knowing full well what was her fate.

The Mad Clown hopped off his barrel and walked over, a finger scratching at his quizzical chin before he addressed her.

"Hello, Mommy," said the deranged clown, his eyes locked onto her with a cold, dead stare. "Though you've been anything but, so I should just call you Maria. I've found you at last! How wonderful, and yet oh so foolish of me not to know this! Of course, how could I have been so blind! I was abandoned for your career."

Kefka let out a demonic chuckle before turning back to the Opera diva, his pale hands reaching up and hovering around the woman's neck.

"I just thought that...maybe you'd like to be a part of my final act, as I was unable to get your approval back in my first regime. Kwee-hee-hee! Though...I suppose I've just gone mad and wish you dead." He shrugged. "Well, it doesn't matter now. You're here, you're toast, and I'm used to it."

He walked off with another laugh and returned to working on the castle's rigging. Who knew what this buffoon was working on, or why after all this time he found and kidnapped his own mother.[/glow]

[kefka]

[glow=Yellow,2,300]***Some time later***

Kefka had had about his fill on torture and working, and taken to roaming about the dusty catacombs of Naught Castle; there were interesting findings, he realized, and began rummaging the rubbish for interesting "toys". There was so much time for this, he knew, being alone to his work.

In one dusty corner, where he assumed used to be a massive machine of some sort, he found several scraps of raw metal, some bursting with overpowering spiritual pressure; he tucked them away into pouches at his side, examining them each, one by one, as he did so. Quite possibly he could use this later, or hand them off to his associates, for a ridiculous price, of course.

The Mad Clown danced his way passed the collumn supporting his unconscious mother, and he grinned, moving over to a large broken spire, poking it and squinting to see the ancient markings. This did not interest him; instead, he found it irritating and decimated the structure, kicking away the debris.

"Grahhh!!!" he cried, tossing a large chunk of stone at the cavern's wall. "I can't stand this! Alone with no voices crying together in unison under my destruction!"[/glow]

[Atticus the Fallen]

"Keeping busy?" came an echoing voice throughout the underground caverns now filled with high explosives. From the darkness formed the dark wizard of the Heartless, his arms behind him casually as he stepped into view and observed all around him.

Once fully formed, Atticus looked from the barrels of explosives to the woman tied to one of the many support pillars. His glowing eyes then fell on the mad clown. "Charming... now you need only a Snidely Whiplash mustache/cape combo and you'll be set..." he muttered in a rather dry humor. "Let's not detonate the castle before the finale, hm?"

Looking off, Atticus considered how the barrels would be detonated though spoke on other topics. "I came to collect you, Kefka... The endgame draws near... I'll be needing you at the alter of naught once our final guest is dressed for the party..."

[kefka]

[glow=Yellow,2,300]Hunched over another small pile of these metal chuncks Kefka played with them like dolls now, and when Atticus the Fallen's presence was felt, he dropped them, his eyes wide and twitching, his bony fingers shaking as he turned; his grin stretched from ear to ear when he saw his savior and he shot up, using his powers to lay on his side, hovering in midair.

"What on Cosmos took you people so long!? I thought this job would be full of death and destruction, for crying out loud! Too much boring and not enough burning. I want action, damn it!"

"The...Altar? That's it? That's ALL?" he roared, reverting to a standing position while still suspended several feet off the ground. He hunched forward, one arm extended back and arched behind his back, the other drawn forward to scratch his chin.

"What exactly is going on, Atticus? Hm?"[/glow]

The bound woman--Kefka's mother Maria--began stirring, the recent addition of darkness filling the chamber. Her dreams right now being intruded upon by this overwhelming hatred must have been terrible, as she began screaming in her slumber. Kefka simply chortled.

[Atticus the Fallen]

Atticus' attention was drawn to the screaming woman momentarily, his demeanor betraying that he wasn't much concerned about Kefka's less than pleased words. The shape of his yellowed eyes betrayed a lifted eyebrow deep in the darkness under the rim of his hat. "I see you chose to pursue more personal endeavours while we gathered..." Atticus noted, then looked to Kefka fully once more.

"What's 'going on', my friend... is that I am preparing a pathway that you can utilize to fulfill the ultimate destruction..." Atticus slowly moved forward, one hand gesturing as he spoke. "I know how you love a single attack spreading out in almost domino-like fashion. So, just for you, I'll provide the ultimate target. When you attack this, you will see destruction unlike anything you have ever seen... nor will ever see again..."

He turned, gesturing to the entire area grandly. "All this will seem like a child's firecracker compared to the specticle I have in store for you and our fellow creatures of the darkness. And when all the sound and the fury has quieted, and nothing remains of the light to be broken... you will be welcomed into the new universe of darkness as a hero by our kind, who will worship you not out of fear, but of love for what you are... Subjects that truly understand you..."

He paused, then looked to Kefka slowly. "That is... once we've gathered at the Alter..."

[kefka]

[glow=Yellow,2,300]"Destruction the likes of which I've never seen, you say? I sure hope that you're not planning for me to be satisfied with one simple victory! Hell, I am a mad genius, I tell you, and I hunger for destruction."

Kefka pondered a moment before looking to his wailing mother again, and back over to Atticus. "The Alter of Naught...hm! Well, then, once I am finished here, Attikins, I will come to your tea party."[/glow]

[Atticus the Fallen]

Atticus nodded to Kefka's statement. This one... seemed insatiable, but his heart was in the right place for Atticus' plans. For now, that's all he cared about. He turned as though to leave, nodding curtly. "Very well, then... I look forward to your long streak of stunning explosive displays..." he said, then took a few steps forward, intending to disappear as he usually did.

"You'll know when we are ready... I'll send word for you..."

[kefka]

"No!" Maria cried out in horror, her body convulsing beneath her bindings as she shrieked. "I can not take it any longer; there must be another way, lest he becomes a devil! This mirror lies, father! It lies, for it speaks of my son--your grandson--becoming...no!"

[glow=Yellow,2,300]Kefka stared simply, an eyebrow raised.[/glow]

"We must lock this Oracle away, as it speaks in lying tongues; lock it away, father, somewhere in the Opera...leave it, for its power is not only of fortelling; I fear it is a Compelling Foresight!"

[glow=Yellow,2,300]"Wheeeeeeeettt?"[/glow]

[Atticus the Fallen]

Atticus stopped in the middle of his advance, listening to the screaming woman. He turned when she began, and when she mentioned a mirror and an oracle, his curiosity was properly peaked. He tilted his head somewhat, listening to all, taking it in. He paused, then looked to Kefka, seeing his bewhildered expression.

"Did you know of this?" he asked, then looked away. "A prophetic mirror... located in the Opera House, hm? Would that happen to be the one I sense Acteur milling around?" He lifted a hand to the feathers at his neck in thought, his other held across his chest and hooked at the elbow of the first.

"This... merits looking into. I think I could withstand a little... culture. I'm going to go check on this so-called oracle..."

With that, Atticus flapped his wings once, creating a portal behind him. "After all... the tactical advantage would be most useful... but first..." with that, he stepped through, and disappeared...

**off to see Orestes**

[kefka]

[glow=Yellow,2,300]Kefka's eyebrow was still raised, and now one of his nostrals was raised, his mouth ajar slightly; he looked less like a deranged clown and more like a drunk and deranged psychopath. "I...haven't, but it's ridiculous to even talk about, isn't it?" His shifty eyes darted about, and he looked back to Maria, giving her a menacing stare.

"I don't like this, not one bit. Nope, nope, nope! Alley-oop!"

He hopped into the air and spun several times, stopping once and disappeared, reappearing beside his mother, and began to poke her. "Wake up, you harlot!"[/glow]

The woman did, indeed, seem to wake up, but her eyes were glowing and she was screaming out in the name of that mirror she muttered and carried on about in her sleep. Soon she would explode in a flash of light and disappear, the image of a godly facade standing in her wake, only to fade away in a "Corridor" of Light. Kefka was quickly shaken and escaped through means of his own Corridor of Darkness, very confused now.

***Off to The Final Showdown, in The World that Never Was***