The RPG Place - Final Fantasy VI - Fanfics - Final Fantasy VI Novelization, Chapter Four

Thoughts swirled around in the girl's mind, unhindered. She slowly opened her eyes, the blackness of her world changing to stark white. She blinked several times, but everything remained white. She finally realized that she was lying facedown, and turned onto her back. Her world exploded into colors and shapes. She blinked again several times and sat up in what she realized was a bed.

She wondered how she had come to be here. She tried to think, and realized that she couldn't remember anything other than the last few seconds in which she had been awake. She tried to think of her name and began to panic…she couldn't remember that either. She held her face in her hands as thoughts wildly raced through her mind.

She shrieked as she felt a rough hand on her shoulder. She jerked her head up and saw a man standing over her.

"I didn't mean to startle you. It's just that you're finally awake." The man had kind eyes. He was elderly, most likely around fifty years old, but he didn't look one bit fragile. He was wearing a plain white shirt and earth-colored trousers, all plain but clean. His thin hair was light blond, turning white on the outside edges above his ears. He spoke gently, so as not to frighten the girl any further. "You're safe here."

"But…where…how…who?" She had so many questions that they all leaped from her mouth at once, not letting her speak any single one clearly.

"Easy now. I found you in the mines. You were out cold. I don't know what you've been through, but it must have been a lot."

The man nodded grimly. "Nothing out of the ordinary. You had this on when I found you." He walked across the room to a row of shelves and picked up what looked like a metal collar or headband. He held it out to the girl. She tentatively reached out and touched it with her fingertips. She felt that it was important, but she could not remember why.

"It's a Slave Crown." Seeing the puzzled expression on the girl's face, he explained further. "They had complete control of you while you were wearing this. When I found you, it was cracked halfway through, almost off of your head. I removed it only a minute before you woke up."

"Don't worry, everything will come back to you…eventually. It's going to take some time."

"My name…my name is…" The girl's thoughts raced through her mind. Her name was in there somewhere, she had to remember it. She closed her eyes and searched her mind with every ounce of strength she had. Suddenly, it dawned on her.

The man's eyes widened, and his mouth curled into a grin. "I've never heard of anyone recovering this fast…I'm sure you'll regain your memories."

Tina swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up on unsteady legs. Her knees buckled for a moment, but she was able to regain her balance. "How…how long have I been asleep?"

"About three days, a bit less. It's mid-afternoon right now. I found you when I investigated the cave. I 'd heard an awful noise in there, and screaming. The only one I found in there was you. I'll be damned if I know what went on in there, but maybe you'll remember after some time."

"Don't think like that, you've got plenty of time to remember what has happened to you. In the meantime, try to go on and make some more memories for yourself to have in the future."

She was cut off by a sharp knock at the door. The single, firm, knock was followed by three others, each more violent than the first.

"Damn!" The man spoke in a hushed whisper and grasped Tina's arm urgently. "Follow me! Quickly!"

Tina followed the man to a door at the back of his house. "Go this way… and go out through the mines. Quickly! I wish I could tell you more, but…"

"Open this door! Give us the girl! She's an officer of the Empire!!! Open up now!"

"I don't have time, I'm sorry, good luck!" He closed the door shut behind the girl, hating to do it, but if the soldiers found her here, they would kill him.

Just as the door closed behind him the soldiers burst through his front door. He ran to it as if he was about to open the door for them.

"Don't screw with us, old man. Where's the girl." The leader of the soldiers spoke with menace. Behind him, five other soldiers with blades drawn glowered at the man.

"Like I would believe your lying tongue Perhaps I should cut it out for you. I think I'll wait until we find the girl, so you can watch what we do to her, first." The leader turned to the other five. "Search the house, you three! You two, go out to the mines and keep your eyes open!" Turning around, he said, "You can't hide her from us, old man."

Tina ran down the wooden planks as fast as she could. She didn't know what was going on, only that the man had been vehement that she run away. She didn't know why, but she obeyed. She hoped he was all right…

"There she is! Into the mines!" They ran into the mouth of a cave several feet away, followed shortly after by four other soldiers. Tina didn't know if she could run back to the old man, but she didn't want to risk it. She knew those soldiers would be waiting for her inside the mines, but what choice did she have? She racked her brain for other alternatives, but to no avail.

She quickly walked out of the open, into the darkness of the mines. It looked vaguely familiar to her, though no single thing stimulated her memory in particular. She walked along the dark cave, pressing up against the solid walls for support and sense of direction. She nearly choked every few steps on the damp air, stale and thick with dust. The coal dust in the air stung her eyes, and a few small tears ran down her eyes to flush the stuff out.

Leaning her back against the cold, damp wall, Tina ran the back of her hand over her eyes to wipe away the moisture. She sighed heavily, looking around the cave for a passageway to go to. There were so many paths…but at least some were blocked off, limiting her chances of getting lost.

Tina had no idea where any of them led to, but she knew that the soldiers were coming for her. She took a deep breath and chose a path, hoping it would lead her out. "This one's as good as any, I suppose…what do I have to lose, anyway?"

Not much, she thought. She knew her name, and that was all. You can't lose something you don't remember, she thought dejectedly. She walked down the passageway, which was so narrow that she could feel her sides brushing up against the walls. She followed the passageway to its end, where it opened up into a cavern just like the previous one. Passageways branched out from it in all directions.

Tina picked a random direction, hoping it wouldn't be one that led her in circles. She wiped coal dust off her face and out of her eyes. She saw a dying torch ahead, and took it from its holder on the wall. It offered her a bit more light than she'd had inside the cave so far. She held it as far ahead of her as she could, trying to see ahead in the passage. She thought she saw light up ahead, so she quickened her step.

As she came closer, she realized that there was light coming from the passageway ahead. She'd been lucky enough to find a way out! She took two steps forward up against the wall and peeked around the corner.

The sound of the scream startled Tina and she whirled around to see soldiers surrounding her. They stepped in closer to corner her against the cave wall, and she took a stumbling step backward, even though she knew she was trapped. As the heel of her boot touched the floor of the cave, it began to crumble away. When she finished the step, settling her entire weight on it, it gave way and she fell through the weak spot in the floor. It was a deserted mineshaft that had been improperly plugged up.

She fell down several feet, her shoulders and legs suffering scratches as she went down the narrow mine shaft. She tried to grasp the shaft walls with her hands, but they were too smooth to hold on to. Her fingernails bloodied as she clawed at the walls. Finally she came to the end of the shaft, falling several feet down cleanly as the shaft opened up into yet another cave, hitting the ground with a loud thud. She hit her forehead on the ground as she landed, and pieces of rock rained down on her from the open shaft above her.

Tina tried to sit up, but her vision blurred and she fell on her hands and knees. She managed to crawl a few feet from the spot she had fallen, but her arms finally gave out and she landed on her face, her world once again fading to black.

Colors swirled like snow before her eyes. Time had no meaning…years passed…but time was running backward. Tina saw herself…but as she looked several years ago. She was little more than a girl…at least, she was reasonably sure it was her that she was seeing.

She was sitting in a large chair with a red cushion, staring into the face of a man. He stood in front of her, towering over her as she sat stiffly in the chair. Her hands were at her sides, on the armrests of the chair. The man standing before her frightened her nearly to tears, yet she did not dare show him that. He was absolutely hideous, his face covered in grotesque paint. She stared directly at his face, into his eyes. That was where he had told her to look; she didn't dare do other than he said.

"Ah, my sweet little magic user…" The words were endearing, but the voice of the man was the complete opposite. His voice was thick with lust, but not for what men typically lust after. This was a lust for pure, unlimited power. His eyes crinkled at the corners while his mouth curled into a delighted grin. On any other man it might have looked handsome. On Kefka, it looked demonic. "With this Slave Crown…I'll practically own you!" He cackled with glee, and Tina thought it to be the most disgusting sound she'd ever heard in her life. The sound of nails scraping against steel was more pleasant than this man's demonic giggle. She had the incredible urge to cringe, to run screaming from this man, but she stayed put in the chair. She closed her eyes to get rid of the image of his hideously painted face, but didn't keep them closed for more than a split second.

When she opened them, she saw that the man had taken a step towards her, and he was holding something in his hand. He lifted it up towards her and showed it to her. She looked at it questioningly, and then back into the man's face. It was a metal device of some sort, but she had no idea of what it was.

His evil smile widened. One of his hands came up underneath her chin, and she could feel his sharp nails digging into it as he lifted her face up. He held the metal object in his other hand. "This, my dear, is a Slave Crown. I'll tell you all about it. You're going to wear it for me."

Tina wanted to scream, but she felt trapped. There was nothing she could do to get away from him, so she just nodded her head dumbly. He let go of her chin, and she could feel the marks his fingernails had left in her flesh. She wanted to rub the marks off her face, but she didn't move an inch. The man took the Slave Crown up in both of his hands and touched the surface of it to a metal bracelet that he wore on his wrist. The crown snapped open. He placed the crown on a table near his right elbow. Then he motioned to Tina to get up from the chair. She quickly jumped up out of her seat. He grasped her wrist and led her to a low, flat, metal table.

He had the girl lie down on the table, and lit a lantern hanging above her head. The light shone into her eyes, and the table was freezing underneath her. She stared straight up at the ceiling. The man walked across the room and picked up a tool from a high shelf. He shook it up and held it away from his body, pressing a button on the device. A blue flame shot out of a small pipe that jutted out of the tool.He placed this next to Tina's head and retrieved the crown from the table. He placed it on the other side of her head.

He shrugged off the enormous cape he wore, covered in clashing colors, and laid it on the back of the chair Tina had been sitting in. He walked over to the door and made sure it was bolted tight. He didn't want anyone interrupting the delicate procedure. He turned around to face the table that Tina was laid out on. He walked over to her and told her to stay still. He stroked his fingertips across her forehead three times, then slid them down to her temples and rubbed in small circles. Tina became drowsy, her eyes heavy. Before long, she fell into a deep sleep.

She felt as if she was floating on the very current of time. Waves rolled over her…she felt calm and relaxed. She wondered if she were somewhere in the middle of the ocean, or suspended in the clouds. Then, along with the flowing of time, another memory found its way out of the darkness of her amnesia.

She was piloting a huge machine in the middle of a city. At her side, piloting another of the machines was the same man she recognized from the other vision. She was watching herself manipulate the controls of the machine as if she was a spectator, a mere onlooker of her own actions. She saw half a dozen soldiers fall to the blazing fire that was emitted from a panel inside the giant machine. As they fell, the man in the machine beside her spoke to her through an intercom.

"Wonderful! Burn them all!" The man giggled insanely, and if Tina had had any of her senses about her, she might have turned the machine on him instead of doing as he commanded. She saw herself slaughtering dozens of soldiers, and after each group screamed and writhed and finally died, the man giving her orders cackled and urged her to continue her slaughter.

She saw a metal band wrapped around her own forehead…and was able to piece together some the broken shards of her memories. That band…the Slave Crown…That man had put it on her head and taken control of her mind…and he must be from the Empire…

She couldn't remember anything else, but that was more than enough for her mind to handle. The blissful floating feeling ceased, and her world faded into darkness yet again.

Arvis stared out of one of the dirt-crusted windows in his house, looking for the tall, slim form of the man he'd sent for. His thoughts turned to Tina, the girl he had tried to help earlier. He hoped that she had been able to escape safely through the mines. Even if she had, though…where would she have to turn to? Even if she did have any relatives, which he sorely doubted, she wouldn't know who or where they were.

He sighed impatiently. He couldn't afford to be dilly-dallying…this was a serious matter. He glanced around the room and began pacing anxiously. He didn't know how long he'd been doing it for when he finally heard the click of his door opening. He knew exactly who it was.

He spun around to face the man that had just walked into his house. It could only be one man…and it was. Locke Cole. He was much younger than Arvis, only in his early twenties. His dark eyes matched well with his sun-tanned skin, from which it was obvious that he spent a great deal of time outdoors. His hawk-nosed face was slim and angular, and a glass bead was set in his pierced ear. His short, light brown hair was disheveled and pushed back by a well-worn bandanna. On his hands he wore wrist-length, brown leather gloves that exposed his fingers. His navy blue jacket had a high, stiff collar and brown trim at the edges. Emblems decorated the shoulders of the short sleeves, and the rounded neckline of an off-white, linen shirt peeked from underneath the jacket's collar. The waistline of the jacket ended several inches above his wide leather belt, displaying a good amount of his torso, covered in the light fabric of his shirt. The belt was adorned with a silver buckle, and was fastened around plain, loose-fitting, brown trousers with worn spots at the knees. Large pockets were sewn into the pants at the hips. The cuffs of the trousers were tucked into ankle-high, black leather boots with narrow, pointed toes. All of his clothes were well-worn, but not ragged. He was poised for movement, and his eyes darted about the room constantly, a habit that was an effect of his profession. He ran his slender fingers through his hair absently as he spoke to the older man.

"So, you sent for me? What for?" He tapped his foot impatiently, crossing his arms over his chest as he waited for an answer.

At the sound of the word 'robbing', Locke's face flushed scarlet, his eyes narrowing. "It's called treasure hunting, old man," he muttered.

"Puh…semantic nonsense." Arvis wore a triumphant grin. He knew just which buttons to push to get this one's goat.

At that, Locke quickly strode right up to the old man, only inches from his face. One slender finger jabbed Arvis' chest firmly. "This better not have anything to do with that MagiTek-piloting, Imperial…witch, Arvis!"

Sighing, Arvis nodded. Locke whirled around and turned his back to Arvis, taking several steps away from him. "You've got to understand, Locke, she wasn't doing it of her own accord! They were using her…they had a Slave Crown on her…" He trailed off, unsure of how to plead to Locke to go help the poor girl. Luckily, Locke spoke first.

"So they were controlling her…that's horrible!" He turned back to Arvis. "You know who's behind it, Arvis, don't you? That bastard, Kefka. It has to be…Damn him! He's the only one with enough know-how to manipulate something like a Slave Crown. Even you and I only know what it does, not how to work it. It takes someone with inherent magical powers to work something like that!" Locke beat his fist into the wall, leaving a small dent. "Sorry, Arvis. I just hate that bastard. Him, and all the other Imperial pigs…"

"Calm down, Locke, this is important. We've got to help that girl...If the Empire…if Kefka…managed to get his hands on her again…" he didn't have to finish the statement for the impact of it to sink into Locke's mind.

"I sent her out through the mines…Imperial soldiers had come to the door…they were going to find her here, and I couldn't let that happen. They may have even caught up to her by now…"Arvis trailed off, implicating what the Imperial soldiers were capable of if they had been able to catch the girl. There was no need. Locke knew exactly what they were capable of doing. He knew it all too well…

"Alright Arvis, I'll go get her." Locke sighed in resignation. He left Arvis, going out the back door that lead into the dark, cold mine. The girl had been sent this way, Arvis had said. Locke figured that she must have left some visible trail inside the deserted mines, and would be easy enough to locate. As he walked along the rickety wooden bridge that led to the entrance of the mine, uneasy thoughts filled Locke's mind with doubts, and he was distrustful of the entire situation. Arvis had assured him that the girl had no malicious intent, and was vehement about the fact that she was not acting on her own. The fact that she had been a victim of the slave crown was proof enough of that…but… Could the girl be nothing more than a splendid actress? Or what if she was one of Kefka's minions, willing to sacrifice herself to the cause? He would never put it beyond Kefka's fanatical followers to do such a thing.

The thought of Arvis letting a girl fool them with such a ruse was appalling and stayed in the back of his mind as he descended into the depths of the empty mine. His keen treasure hunter's eyes quickly spied several footprints disturbing the long sleep of the dust-covered floor of the mine. The prints were small and narrow, left by a light-soled leather boot, obviously belonging to the girl. Locke followed the prints, his own heavy-soled worn leather boots plodding softly, making "thud" noises as he walked.

One particular thing about the girl's prints he noticed was the fact that they were very erratic, darting this way and that, as if the poor girl was in a panic. If she was a charlatan intent on deceiving them, he couldn't find a reason why she would be frantically running around the mines.

As the prints crossed over each other in all directions, the trail became a bit more difficult to follow, though he was able to sort through the layers of tracks and continue along the main path. As he neared the end of a tunnel, what Locke saw was quite disturbing to him. In addition to the girl's prints, several sets of large prints neared her sets of tiny ones. They looked to be formed by the thick leather soles of heavy leather boots that were part of the uniform given to soldiers of the Empire. Locke tracked the prints, and saw them near the girl's.

As he came to the end of the tunnel, he saw the large prints stop and the girl's prints seem to layer over themselves several times. Looking up from the ground, Locke stood about three feet from the cave wall, at the edge of a large hole that seemed to be an old mine shaft. The girl's prints seemed to stop at the edge of the shaft, and the air was clouded with a thick dust that had already started to cover over Locke's own, fresh boot prints. The dust invaded his nostrils, and he could taste the grit of it in his mouth. It stung in his eyes, and he wiped a stray tear from his left cheek as the saline washed out the foreign unwanted substance.

Upon further investigation, Locke confirmed that it was a deserted mineshaft that had been sealed up rather shoddily. The girl must have stepped on it, and her light weight had been enough to break it open again. Pushing aside some of the stray debris that still cluttered the shaft, Locke could see below, and noticed a pile of chipped rocks and dust underneath the newly opened shaft. He didn't see any sign of the girl…but with the rumors he had heard about her, he wouldn't be surprised if such a fall didn't faze her at all.

Setting down a small coil of braided rope from his shoulder, Locke took a small metal peg out of his pouch and drove it into the hard mine floor near the opening of the mineshaft. Driving the peg into the ground, he tied the rope securely to it and tested his weight on it to make sure it would hold. Grasping the lip of the shaft with one hand, he grasped the rope in the other and slowly began to lower himself down. Pressing up against one wall with his back and the other with his heel gave him quite a bit of leverage, and he was able to descend quite quickly.

Locke reached the bottom in just a few minutes, and proceeded to shake all the rocks and dust from his hair. Relieved to finally set his feet on solid ground again, he sighed and let the rope drop from his hands. Brushing away a few stray fibers from his palms, he looked around the large expanse of the room he had just lowered himself into.

Just a few feet from him lay the girl's body, still and lifeless. Locke took a few small, wary steps toward her, looking around over his shoulder every few seconds for any sign of the group of soldiers that had been chasing her. Not seeing any sign of intruders, he knelt down next to the girl's body and took a moment to observe her.

She was lying facedown, a layer of dust coating her torn clothing. Locke wasn't able to tell if she was alive or dead; she did not move at all. He gently rolled her on her back, watching for any rise and fall of breath in her lungs. After a moment, the girl was visibly breathing, though it was low and shallow. There was no blood on her, and no bones looked to be broken. Upon more careful examination, Locke found a large, purple bruise on her right temple, most likely caused from one of the falling rocks.

Climbing to his feet, Locke began to lift the girl's body into his arms. She was extremely light, and her skin felt clammy and cold; she needed a doctor, and quickly. Suddenly, loud, heavy footsteps echoed in Locke's ears. Turning around, he saw an Imperial captain standing there, a group of lower-ranked soldiers gathered around him.

Locke looked around frantically for an exit, but he saw that there were groups of soldiers standing all around the room. He noticed that the one directly behind him seemed unguarded, so he bolted towards it, not an easy task with the girl in his arms. Running forward in the darkness of the unlit mine passageway, something lightly brushed the sleeve of Locke's jacket, and stopped him dead in his tracks. He could hear the slow, heavy footsteps of the soldiers drawing nearer behind him. Suddenly a shrill, childlike voice pierced the silence of the deserted passage.

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~*~ Chapter Four ~*~

**~~ Chapter Four ~~**