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Legends spoke that great power had once lurked deep within the walls of the Metaia Temple. It had belonged to an ancient race known now only in shaded whispers and the faded writings of old parchment. It was said that these temple-builders had discovered something on this very ground, and that its power could shake the world. Now the holy conduit had fallen into ruin. Polished marble had worn to chipped and broken stone. All that was left was crumbling walls and towering arches sent spiraling up to the heavens. Scholars pondered what it might mean. Was it some religious symbol of unity? Could it, perhaps, have helped to focus the magic that lied deep within? Or was it merely decoration used by the people in the same way that Zephron's many towers consumed the modern landscape? Even after over a century of study, the scholars knew nothing. But that's the way it always was with old legends. They just needed the proper mind to bring them to life.

Kuja had spent over a week in this temple's hallowed halls. He'd woken to the scent of must and worked to the soft touch of worn paper and the soft flickerings of candlelight. Though the scholars couldn't have felt it, Kuja knew that something lurked deep within this temple. He felt it from the moment that he had approached its broken archways. There was magic here -- powerful magic, the kind that put the eidolons to shame. He could not say as to what power could be found here or if it was best to find it at all. He only knew that its energy pricked at his soul like static. Kuja had never been the kind to ignore power like that. And so he had studied.

The moon shone brightly in the sky that night -- nearly full but not yet. During the day, the temple swarmed with scholars and mages. Kuja preferred to work at night when he could wander these ruined halls alone. The darkness didn't bother him. In fact, after his many years in Treno, he quite preferred the shadows of eternal night. Walking down the streets of Treno, he'd always admired how the lamplights flickered on the waves of the canal. There was nothing of that kind of beauty here in the middle of this dreary new planet, but there was something at least. The jagged heights of cliffs like silver. The swaying of windswept grasses. Then, of course, there was the sky. Without its usual crimson stain, Kuja could have gazed upon it for hours. The red moon of Gaia had not followed to this planet, and so, it had beauty all in its own. 

Kuja's studies had brought him outside the temple walls that night with its nearly-full moon and the quiet rustlings of shadow. In the five nights since his arrival, he had explored most of the hallways, chambers, and archaeological sites located within the temple proper, but his search had offered few results. Kuja had discovered old writings in languages unfamiliar to him as well as several ancient artifacts which held little meaning. These were kept under constant guard by the scholars -- he had needed a powerful sleeping spell to gain access for only an hour -- and so they were useless to him until the time came that he could steal them for himself and slip away into the night. That time would come, doubtlessly, but it was not now. Now was the time to delve deeper in his search. There was still much of the temple far too dangerous for the average archaeologist to explore. 

Here, among unsteady foundations and the nests of monsters, Kuja thought that he might find his answers.

Along the temple's outer walls, several archways were set deep within the ground. These archways led to decrepit staircases and then to dilapidated halls. While the temple proper had been fitted with a kind of electrical lighting, the same had not been extended to these abandoned catacombs. Kuja called upon the stirrings of his own magic and a whispered spell to guide him. Flames sprang from his hand in warm tendrils. Its light played across the cobwebs, tangled roots, and cracked walls that decorated the passage before him. Kuja proceeded with careful steps. Behind him, moonlight faded to black. The halls enveloped him in utter silence.

The pull of magic grew stronger here. The deeper he came, the more he felt the burn of a dormant power buzzing through the air like electricity. His path descended deeper into the earth, and soon he would intercept other passages that splayed off like the strands of a spider's web. He heard nothing but his own breaths, his own pulse, and his own footsteps tapping in metallic rhythm against uneven dirt floors.

Then there was the scream.

It cracked through the silence like ice. One long, echoing scream. Kuja froze at the sound of it. A monster perhaps? Or the result of one? The voice had sounded feminine and fueled itself on primal terror -- a kind that could only be inspired by the open threat of death. Kuja had heard it many times (often at his own hands), and he knew that whoever else had joined him in these ancient halls must have found themselves in mortal danger.

Kuja did not rush to find the source. He fully expected the hapless victim to be dead on his arrival, and if it was not yet, it soon would be. Kuja kept his focus on the darkness. Whatever had caused such a scream almost certainly still lurked within the labyrinth. Kuja listened carefully for any signs of movement. The magic at his fingertips burned hot. But no monsters came pouncing from the shadows.

Instead, he found a woman.

She stood alone in the darkness, hands clasped and eyes rounded in terror. By his magical firelight, she looked to be a young, likely in her early twenties, with a light frame and a kind of delicate beauty that could only be spawned by innocence. Kuja glanced from her stunning auburn hair to her sheathed sword to a fur-lined cloak. 

All in all, the woman looked quite out of place in this labyrinth of ancient magic and fierce monsters. Yet Kuja could not find it in himself to bristle with his usual irritation. She reminded him somewhat of the newly coronated Queen. There he had also seen the beauty of innocence mixed with the fires of adventurous passion. She had been like a delicate angel -- a dove caught in his gilded cage.

Or rather, a canary. Kuja widened his eyes with false concern.

"My, but I didn't expect to find another here in these perilous halls. Was it you that screamed?" Kuja shook his head lightly and then swept his sleeve into a practiced bow. "My name is Kuja. I came here as a scholar to study the ancient ruins here. Are you in need of assistance, my lady?" As he straightened, a kind of faint smile came to his lips -- the kind he only offered to those he planned to woo and then use. "My magic should prove more than enough to aid you."

ulla

The woman blinked blankly in the firelight, hands trembling, cheeks colorless. She seemed disoriented from her loosened hair to her dull frown. She slowly disentangled herself from the grasp of a half-rotten door. ”If I managed to disrupt your research, I am sorry.” The words came slowly, as though she struggled to give them meaning. Kuja gave her his most patient smile to shroud the annoyance which pricked at his soul. Fear was a powerful agent on the mind -- and yet, such weakness sent the tips of his nails clenching into his palms. Such weakness had no place but to be abused.

The woman combed soothingly at her hair without looking at him. Her fingers ran through auburn tangles, steadying themselves in grasping strands. She sent her hand through them once, twice, three times before she slowly lifted her head. First, she found the flames, flickering brightly at his fingertips. Then she looked beyond them and froze. Her eyes widened.

Here was a look Kuja had seen countless times. Shock, breathless awe, and the slight hesitation of an unspeakable scandal. Kuja knew what he looked like. To some, he was like a preening peacock -- beautiful, but ridiculous and ultimately harmless. But to others, his beauty caught a different kind of silence. He was used to the way eyes would trail from his flawless face, to sultry lips, then down across the smooth angles of hips lined in gold and purple suede. Kuja had once tried to hide his beauty and play pretend at humanity, but it had never worked. Now, he embraced it and all the advantages it might bring. The woman met his eyes and Kuja looked back into wavering blue. Then she frowned, eyebrows furrowing in some kind of quiet frustration.

Did she know him? But no, the look was gone in an instant, and they were back to the usual formalities.

"Sarah." Her voice came like a whisper flickering on the wind. "I hail from Cornelia.” Fear fluttered through her like the wings of a hummingbird. Yes, if Kuja had to compare her to anything, it would be a hummingbird. Trembling and helpless even as she flew. Her cloak fell about her like glistening wings.

"Cornelia? I've never heard of such a place, but then, none here know of my kingdom either." A mild lie, but it would have to do. In truth, he had no kingdom and none would accept him after the destruction he'd wrought, but this woman didn't need to know that, and it was hardly the time nor place for story-telling.

The woman stiffened at his mention of magic. Was it a forbidden art in this Cornelia of hers? But it seemed she had no room to complain. She crouched to an extinguished candle left useless on the cracked stone floor and took it in trembling fingers. When she rose, her initial unease was gone from her expression. She held the candle out helpfully. "Why, yes. I ask for your aid, sir." She spoke in such polite mannerisms, that Kuja could only assume that she'd sprung from nobility. Though she closed the distance between them, she kept a respectful space between them. Kuja's smile widened. He had missed the pretensions of the upper classes.

"I do hope you do not leave me, much like the last…” The woman trailed off, unable to finish. Kuja blinked in concern and brought his lips to a slight frown.

"Of course I would not leave you, my lady. In a place like this? There are likely monsters prowling, and even if not, I would hardly expect anyone to find their way through this labyrinth alone." He would hardly expect anyone but himself, of course, but he left that implied and unstated.

"May I?" The woman raised her candle to him, and he nodded politely.

"Please. Allow me," he said and extended a finger towards the candle's wick. Kuja willed his magic forward, and the fire crept down his fingertips until it sparked at the candle's touch. The dual-light played against each other, flickering in yellow shadows against cobwebs and tangled roots. The woman smiled at him, ever so slightly with the convictions of the weak.

”I do not wish to be a burden to you,” she said, "I would not ask much from the factions which have served me, much less a kind stranger…”

'A kind stranger.' The title brought a spark to Kuja's eyes. How terribly mistaken first impressions could be...

"It is no burden," Kuja said, "I came to these halls led only by curiosity. Your safety should prove far more important than mere curiosity." At least, it should when it came to women of some high rank who could be easily misled. Kuja tilted his head, furrowed his eyebrows, and looked at the young woman in a kind of polite concern. The frown had not left his lips. "Now, tell me. What brought you to such a dangerous place? And how did you end up alone here?" If there was some enemy lurking, then Kuja wished to know of it. And most women took comfort in expressing their woes.

"It must have been a terrifying experience."

ulla

The woman gladly took her candle and sealed it once more in a lantern she had dropped. When she turned back, her eyes were gleaming with praise. "Wonderful! I do not believe I have witnessed such control before. Truly, it’s astonishing!” Kuja laughed quietly at her compliments, a subtle but obvious show of appreciation. Of course, he always welcomed praise, but to think that she gave it so vibrantly for the creation of fire. But then, the people of Gaia had acted much the same. Just a simple flame, a spark of electricity, and he'd had them wrapped around his fingertips. Nevermind that his magic was enough to slay dragons, no, for the general populace just a spark was enough. Kuja liked to keep it that way. There was no reason for anyone to consider him a threat.

At least, not until it was far, far too late.

Kuja had barely asked to the woman's well-being before she had swooped in upon him, grasping his arm as though he were a noble guardian and not a stranger found traveling a labyrinth. For a moment, Kuja couldn't help a blink of surprise, but it was gone a second later. He had a role to play after all, and he returned to his placid smile. "I am sorry for my boldness." The woman looked up at him through long eyelashes and strands of that striking auburn hair. She smiled at him faintly and clutched tighter at his arm, "But I fear you will wisp away like mist, just as the man previously did. A woman can only be tricked so many times. ’Fool me twice, shame on me,’ they say.”

For a moment, Kuja could only stare -- had she really succumbed to his charms so easily? -- but while he would have liked to have grasped this victory as yet another example of his skill over the weak-minded, something did not feel right. It was too easy -- far too easy, and there was something about her batted eyelashes, the careful control over her face, and that last line that tugged at his subconscious. 'Fool me twice, shame on me.' It felt too ironic, really. 

The woman pulled on his arm, leading him carefully away, and then it clicked. This was a noblewoman, caught up in the subtle politics of manners and proper etiquette. A long time ago, Kuja might have been lost in the perilous seas of nobility, but years of sweetly muttered lies and false platitudes had given him the skills to navigate any social waters. Sarah walked with a kind of delicate grace, even over rocky and cracked terrain. Arm in arm, Kuja might have been escorting some young and gullible noblewoman through the Alexandrian courts, yet there was still that spark in her eye. That careful manner of speaking that told him she had not completely dispelled her guard. 

If anything, her mannerisms reminded him most of Lady Hilda Fabool. There too, he had seen a kind of social grace even as he'd held her life between his fingers. Every conversation with her had been like a game -- how long can we pretend that you are not powerless? He saw that same dignity in the woman at his side. She, too, seemed determined not to acknowledge her own perilous situation.

'It seems you desire a game, sweet hummingbird, but do take care. I am an excellent player.'

The woman spoke of her awakening on this world. She came into it devoid of name or memory in a desolate forest. She had not been welcomed by this world's people, and had wandered without aid or hospitality for quite some time. Her memories awoke to the familiar strings of a lute, though her past had not returned to her completely. After days without assistance, mysterious lights led her to a man shrouded in a wolf's pelt. He offered her reprieve, and as she spoke of the many luxuries he gave her, the woman gave a short and longing sigh as she nestled closer into Kuja's arm.

Her hair was like threaded flame. His heart fluttered at the heat of her body next to his. There was so much beauty in this world to admire, and so much that he longed to make his own.

"The devotee spoke of humanities, he was courteous, and yet he left me in this dreary place. He said I could confront and regain what memories still remain hazy…”

"Regain?" Kuja echoed. Of course, it could have all just been a lie to lure the woman into a deathtrap, but still, those words rang deep within him. Was there something here which could recover lost memories?

"But, enough of that man.” The woman's grip tightened on his arm, and he felt her fingers tremble against him. Kuja banished his theories and returned his attention to the conversation at hand. "His deeds have been smashed, thanks to you. Not to mention, I confess I’m curious over your kingdom. Would you mind telling me about it?” It was innocent question, particularly of one so seemingly startled, and yet Kuja had not imagined her previous confidence. It was the kind of question that Lady Hilda might have asked to ease the boredom of her captivity and also to find some hidden weakness in him. Yet, before he could smile and placate the woman's curiosity, she spoke again. "The air isn’t heavy with magic,” she said. She glanced from the tunnel then to Kuja and then behind them, as though expecting something. "I believe we have rushed, robbed you of your research, though I am wary of monsters which lurk.”

"Hm." Kuja had noticed the rise of their winding tunnel, but he had not thought to comment on it. Before long, they might resurface to the temple, its surroundings woods, or somewhere else entirely. It hardly mattered to him.

"That is quite alright, my lady. Should any monsters appear, I shall be certain to protect you. And I can always return another night for research." No, first impressions were far more important than an interchangeable and likely futile attempt for answers. Kuja refused to let this woman leave with anything which might tarnish his reputation. No, he would either play his part as the noble protector or he would kill her here. The first required far less effort.

"But it seems we have some time before we might resurface. If I may return to your original question, I arrived in something of a similar situation as your own. I, too, awoke in this unfamiliar land with nothing to guide me. So I ask for your patience if my memories prove inconsistent." It was a blanket statement of apology which was neither unbelievable nor untrue. Kuja's memories had muddled near the end, after all. It would diffuse any undue suspicion. 

"I was a traveler from a desolate continent of monsters and wastelands. I came to the kingdom of Alexandria with only my magic to guide me, and sought to make a name for myself in spellwork and charms. The people of that land had never experienced such magic as mine, and over time, my reputation spread. It was not long before I took to that kingdom as my own. My new-found fortune gave me rank among the nobility."

Kuja left out the crucial steps he'd taken to gain the trust of the naive Lord King, proprietor of Treno's famed auction house. He also did not mention how he might have pulled the strings in a business deal granting Kuja access to the man's wealth and title. And of course, he gave absolutely no hints to having played any part in the man's tragic and unexpected death. The allegations against him had never been proven, anyway. 

"As for the kingdom itself, Alexandria is..." Kuja allowed himself a pause to place the right words, "...an opulent kingdom. It is a place ruled by tradition and that revels in works of theater, craftsmanship, and literature. Unfortunately, it is also a kingdom which often partakes in the art of war." Kuja gave a lamenting sigh. "The late queen was quite the war-monger, and so the continent was plunged into chaos. But I remember nothing more. My memories prove quite fogged, I'm afraid."

"Since my arrival, I have met others with similar stories such as yours and mine. It seems the native population has grown used to amnesiacs falling from the sky, as of late." Kuja gave a bitter smirk and shook his head. "No one quite knows the reason, but that is why I came here. I thought that perhaps I might find some clues hidden in these ruins. You sense the power of this place, do you not? The scholars were right to study it, though I fear they do not know what they seek."

The ground had evened beneath their feet, and Kuja searched ahead for some sign of an exit. "But it appears we might be nearing our end. I do not know who you had the misfortune of meeting before, but I assure you that most of the scholars here have proven receptive to strangers and without higher agenda. Once you have found an escort, there is a city along the road north of here. Perhaps you would fair better there than in this wilderness?"

Kuja's words had not yet ceased their echoing along the cavern walls, when a noise brought him to a halt. It came from ahead, somewhere lost in the darkness. It was a kind of rustling -- footsteps or perhaps the scratch of claws. Kuja steadied the woman and then released his arm from her grasp. "Keep your grip on that lantern," he said, "It seems that something approaches."

ulla

The tunnel smelled of damp, rotting earth.

It was no surprise. The walls of the once-elaborate catacombs had crumbled. Limestone laid in pebbles across a path that was half dirt and half cracked cobble-stone. Here and there, arches still stood but most were incomplete while the rest were barely recognizable for the dust and cobwebs. Kuja had not imagined the magic here -- its power beat beneath his feet in strengthening pulses. The air hung heavy with a weight like static electricity.

Kuja raised his hand and the magical flame leaped higher from his fingertips.

The light flickered across ruined pillars, tattered tapestries, and a chipped pedestal inset along the right wall. Outside the four foot sphere of his flame, the darkness was absolute. The rustling sound had strengthened into a rhythm of its own -- step, step, drag / step, step, drag -- like a macabre waltz edging closer. The footsteps were muffled by earth, but in the absolute silence of the catacombs, they came almost deafening.

Kuja had some experience with the exploration of subterranean ruins. The Earth Shrine, too, had been a place of rot and crumbling stone. He had side-stepped trip-wires, magical barriers, and far too many trapped panels before the labyrinth had given way to the temple's core -- a single, arching shrine and an energy that corroded at fetid air. From the depths of that darkness came a soft rustling and then the sounds of movement. The guardian had emerged as though born from the shadows themselves -- hollowed eyes and a wide, skeletal grin.

Kuja had expected something like that to approach them now. His magic burned ready for lunging teeth or the flash of an undead spirit. What he found instead was a man.

The man did not need a candle. He slipped easily from the darkness and stood at the fringes of their fire-lit refuge. The light caught at the brown and gray bristles of a tattered wolf's pelt. His eyes were shadowed beneath a long muzzle that sloped over his head like a hood. He carried only a thick staff of knotched wood with feathers tied about the top in all exotic colors.

"My, what have I here? Wandered from the flock, did you not?"

The voice groaned like dying wood. When the man spoke, it was as though the words carried with them a ghastly wind. The woman beside him flinched and then stiffened. Kuja himself felt an odd tingling at the base of his neck. Instincts, he supposed, or perhaps his natural sensitivity to spiritual fluctuation. The magic beneath them had strengthened to an almost tangible hum.

Despite her fear, the woman snapped back with a sarcastic tongue. "The shepherd left me, I fear. Have you had your fill of amusement, sir?” The last word echoed with emphasis against empty walls.

The man froze -- a monstrous shadow in flickering candlelight -- and then turned. Kuja felt the weight of the man's unseen gaze.  "To think, you were momentarily blessed with a savior. Yet, not all is what it seems."

Kuja blinked once in surprise. "Pardon?" The word came innocently, but his eyes flashed with warning. "I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about." For once, he was not lying.

The man had spoken as though he somehow knew. 'A savior who is not what he seems.' It was far too accurate for coincidence. Either the man was a mind-reader or Kuja's reputation had leaked ahead of him. Yet the man did not seem surprised or even confused to find him here. There was no flash of recognition, just that mocking tone and a moment of piercing attention. Kuja's soul itched with an odd sense of exposure.

Had the man seen his wrong-doings somehow? But no. Only Garland had ever been able to read Kuja's soul.

The two spoke for some time. The man untouchable and wheezing, the woman horrified and offended. The man referred to Sarah as a princess, and the woman's bristling shock was enough to confirm the title. She was far too engulfed in her own indignity to notice how Kuja's eyes flashed and his head tilted in interest. A princess meant not only nobility, but also a level of social power. This woman had intrigued him from the start with her batted eyelashes and far too confident words. She had struck him as a willing player in his game, and he had relished her sense of strategy.

The ground shook beneath them. The air seethed with magic. Below, Kuja heard the sounds of footsteps -- some dragging, some scampering, others clicking, and all of it punctuated by deep, throaty cries. Some spark of the temple's power had awoken under their feet. Kuja could only barely identify its element -- not fire, ice, water, or thunder, but something entirely alien to this planet of life and change. It brought with it a sense of dread -- a kind of caustic eternity that would swallow the living whole.

Kuja could not classify it for certain, but he had never encountered magic more stained with the blood of the dead.

The princess stiffened at the sound and then pulled a sharpened rapier from her belt. ”I believe our game is over, Kuja," she said, "If it’s any consolation, I favor breathing. We'd best act.”

Her words were cut short by a sudden movement in the darkness. Kuja dodged the strike on instinct, but the princess was not so nimble. The snarling face of a wolf cut through their dim lantern-light and lunged. Even as it moved, the princess whirled about to bring the sword to its neck. The wolf's own momentum skewered it on the end of her sword. Kuja's eyebrows raised in interest.

"My, but Princess Sarah, could it be that you have offered me false impressions?" Despite the chilling darkness and the scent of rot, Kuja could not restrain a small laugh. "It seems that you hardly needed my protection at all."

Kuja did not catch her reaction. There was another movement in the darkness and Kuja silenced it with a harsh crack of lightning before it reached their sight. There was a soft moan, the pungent scent of burnt fur, and then nothing. Kuja glanced toward the princess to gauge her response, but she had not moved. She stood frozen with sword in hand, face sheet white as she stared in horror at...

A short humanoid figure twitching and dripping with blood. Kuja's paused at the sight of it. Blonde. That familiar hated blonde above a squat, genderless form and a wiry tail jerking in pained spasms. Kuja's mind sparked with instant recognition.

'Odd. But hadn't it been a wolf?'

There was movement again, and Kuja raised a hand to face it. His magic burst and the hallway flashed in orange, red, yellow, and white. He saw it then -- a swarm of them ascending from the tunnel they had passed. The wolves were sprinting up the path with blind white eyes and tongues lolling. They ran together as a pack, but did not hesitate as his light reached them. They were thrown back almost silently, nothing but muffled bodies slamming into ground, ceiling, and wall. What was left was consumed by his effortless firaga.

Kuja turned as the woman pried the figure from her sword. For an instant, Kuja saw it -- a boy, blood streaming from his neck as his too-blue eyes caught his -- before it hit the ground as a wolf once more. Kuja stared at it and tried to place his sudden sense of unease.

"You both spoke of magic." The man was speaking again, a man long since forgotten. "Both of you are correct. Long has this magic been left unchecked and, like a woman, its illusions are unpredictable...”

"Illusions?" he echoed. Kuja knew of magical glamours and illusionary barriers. He had used them himself on the renovation of his Desert Palace, but he knew that they took time and precise incantation. This had been nothing of the sort. This magic was, as the man had said, unstable. It was impossible to tell whether the trick had been from the man or the temple itself, but one question lingered in the back of Kuja's mind.

'Why Zidane?' From the woman's panicked, bloodless expression, Kuja was certain that the magic had shown her something different and altogether terrible. For Kuja, it had only produced a genome whom he had hated, thrown away, and then used. If the intent was to horrify, then why show him that?

And even more intriguingly, why had Kuja's stomach lurched at the sight of him?

"Boy." The wheezing sigh caught Kuja's attention, and it seemed that those sightless eyes were on him again. ”What of you? A loved one, perchance? Ah, but no." The man's head tilted up as though he had smelled something through his skinned and useless snout. His cracked lips widened into a grin. "That is not your nature, so your blood screams.”

"My blood? What does that-?" But the time for questions was over. The man was changing.

The wolf's muzzle fell over his lips then folded together and grew. Fur bristled in the still air as the pelt twisted and convulsed like something alive. It stretched until it reached the floor and then kept stretching higher and taller than the man had ever been. Jet black stains shot from its center in reaching tendrils that smoothed and hardened into metal. Behind them there were growls, groans, and dragging footsteps, but Kuja could not look away as the darkness grew over the pelt like a shadow, growing and staining and finally releasing into a tattered cape held aloft by sharp metal shoulders. The armor moved with a rasping groan of metal joints and Kuja stood rooted in horrid fascination as a the center was lit in crimson shadows and a grizzled face emerged from the darkness.

”Death personified, yet death is only a beginning…”

Time froze with that single moment, with that single voice, with a single word: "Garland."

Kuja knew that it had to be an illusion -- the old man had stated the power himself and Garland would certainly not materialize out of a wolf's pelt -- but that did nothing to ease his shock. He heard the woman calling his name, heard the monsters approaching, and yet he could not move. For that single, eternal moment, there was only that face -- a face he had not seen in twelve years -- glaring down at him with white, omniscient eyes. 

'-I'm not like them! I'm not-!'

'-they're empty! Master Garland, what does it matter if I just-?'

'Why do you need him? I'm stronger! Why won't you-?'

'-listen to me! I can-!'

'Master Garland, I-'

'Master Garland, please-!'

The grasp of metal claws. The merciless hold of telekinesis. The choking twist of his soul, compressing, writhing, shooting pain as his body seized and his vision went black.

”Kuja, please.” It had been twelve years since he'd craned to look up into those pitiless white eyes. Twelve years since Kuja had been condemned to a strange, alien planet. Twelve years since - 

Crimson red feathers. His feet touched lightly upon the luminescent upper decks of Pandemonium. Before him was a shadow -- still alive. Kuja approached it with an almost regal air, hips swaying mockingly. Garland, on his knees. Garland, looking up at him. Garland, weary and defeated.

Kuja winced and touched his forehead. Where had that come from? A fantasy?

”Kuja! We need to get out of here!” The ground trembled. The walls groaned beneath a cavernous weight. The darkness snarled with shuffling feet. And in that moment, Kuja tilted back his head and laughed.

He laughed until his shoulders shook. He laughed as the monsters entered their circle of light. He laughed as their rotten, half-dead faces peered towards him, teeth bared. As their hands raised into elongated claws, Kuja touched his forehead, raised his free hand, and cast a spell without even looking at them. Magic shot out from his palm with the force of a small explosion and then danced from target to target in waves of black, purple, and yellow. The flare incinerated them whole. 

The temple's power had not stilled and more legions were doubtlessly coming, but Kuja had bought them time. As the last of his spell disintegrated with the scent of vaporized human flesh, Kuja slowly lowered his hand. The laugh still played on his lips, though he no longer gave it voice. "How clever of you," Kuja said, smiling at the apparition in a way that suggested he didn't find it clever at all. "Using your victim's innermost turmoils against them? Oh, how very clever."

Kuja took a few careful steps towards the facsimile of his creator. He looked delicate, fragile, and largely feminine from the sway of his hips to the haughty flip of his hair. He touched his nails to his cheek and tilted his head, considering the image. His smile widened. "But I'm afraid you have miscalculated. You see, I've waited a very long time for this moment, and you don't appear to have any of his old tricks up your sleeve." Kuja laughed again and spread his arms. "Please, by all means, prove me wrong."

Blank white eyes met Terran blue. For the first time, a flicker of doubt crossed the man's face, and the spell lost all meaning. Kuja had never seen Garland with that expression before. He doubted the man was capable of it. 

No searing words pierced his mind. His soul was not compressed by ethereal hands. Kuja waited another second longer and then shook his head. "Well then, I suppose I'll cut this short." Kuja flicked his sleeve and gave the phantom a taunting bow. His eyes changed as he straightened. They burned with a venomous focus. "I truly must thank you for the pleasure you're about to give me." The words played at the edge of a sneer. He raised a hand.

"Thundaga."

The air crackled heavy with electricity and then struck at his command. Blinding blue-white light. Searing dry heat. The force came like an explosion that reverberated off of trembling walls and nearly deafened him. Over the sudden ringing in his ears, there came a faint cry. The figure staggered.

"Thundaga."

The magic was like a heat inside of him. Burning, burning, burning. It reflected in his eyes, possessed his fingertips, and scorched his blood. His heart beat faster. 

"Thundaga!"

Again and again he cast, mouth sneering in sadistic pleasure, eyes burning with feral magic as he watched the man stagger, fall, and fry. He knew that one spell would likely be enough -- two at most -- but he could not stop himself. The illusion that looked so much like Garland shuddered at his power. His metal body collapsed into dirt. Those blank eyes rolled. It was like Kuja's most elaborate dreams played out in ethereal form. 

Catharsis, Kuja would have called it. Yes, a beautiful and cleansing catharsis after a troublesome first act. 

Kuja did not stop until his magic dulled and his breaths came in pants. Magical fatigue. He was by no means a stranger to the condition, and yet, it surprised him that this man had survived long enough to test his limits. The illusion knelt very still now, yet still it breathed. Barely. 

Slowly, it raised its head and met his eye once more. "Your fate has been sealed." The voice came not in Garland's graveling tones, but in the wheezes of an old man. "For death created and from death reborn. It trails behind you like a shadow. So says...your blood..."

The darkness receded. Metal contracted and softened to fur. White eyes shuddered and faded to hollow sockets. Joints collapsed and converted into a smooth layer of skin. In a flash, the image was gone. All that remained was a singed and tattered wolf pelt.

Kuja lowered his hand. The walls still trembled. The air sparked with magic. He felt a headache lurking somewhere behind his eyes. 

"Well then," Kuja glanced at the woman still standing beside him. He swept his arm in a mocking bow. "Shall we continue, princess?"

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