Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Of Shadows and Dust: The Story of Kyrie ❯ Revelations ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter II: Revelations

*Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from FFIII (FFVI in Japan) seen and mentioned here. All Disclaimers from previous chapters still apply… so for the love of God don't sue me.

A day later, Kyrie lay in her bed feeling somewhat better. Apparently the emotional scars were not as deep as she thought they were. Already she was forgetting about the incident and thought instead about finding answers to all her previous questions.

A light knock at the door stirred her out of her thoughts. "Come in," she said gingerly. Wondering who would come see her. Last she checked she didn't have any real friends.

A young looking woman walked into the room wearing a cloak and hood. Her face could be seen underneath, and it was pale like driven snow. Her hair was also very light in color, and her eyes were light blue. As she took off the hood, she could see that her eyes held a certain wisdom in them that could not exist in someone who looks as young as she.

She smiled at Kyrie warmly. "Hello," she said. "I'm glad to see you are in better spirits."

"Look," Kyrie said, getting to the point. "If you are some kind of rape specialist or something, thanks but no thanks. I'm fine… really." But Kyrie knew that if this was indeed someone from a support network, she would not be so easily swayed.

"You needn't worry," she replied. "I'm not a social worker or anything of the sort. Actually I'm someone who can help you with your… other problem."

"What other problem?"

"Your difficult search for answers about who or what you are," she replied.

Kyrie's eyes widened with surprise. "How do you know about that?"

"The better question is `how can I help?'" She pulled up a chair and took off her cloak. Beyond she was wearing loose fitting and exotic looking clothing of light colors. It was now evident in direct light that her hair had some blonde in it. "First let me introduce myself. My name is Celes. Let me ask you, do you believe in alternate dimensions?"

Kyrie looked at her for a moment. "Actually, yes I do. I read about them in some of the books I was reading."

Celes nodded and then continued. "I am from one of those realms. In my world, magic ceased to exist after the second War of the Magi. The gods of the Esper were killed and drained of their power by a madman named Kefka who wanted to become a god and build a great monument to Non-Existence. He almost succeeded. After his death, magic disappeared from our world forever. I was one of many that the Empire he originally followed experiment on with what they called Magi-Tek. As a result of my infusion I became immortal, and quite a good spell slinger if I do say so myself. Strangely after magic was gone, I kept the immortality, but now I think I know why.

"I was a Magi-Tek Knight, and sworn defender of the realm. But when I realized what madness was going on, I changed sides and joined a revolutionary faction called `The Returners'. With them I met an amazing young woman who was a Half-Esper. Her name was Terra, and according to Bannon, the group's leader, was the only hope of stopping The Empire. I won't get into too many details about that."

Kyrie nodded, only partially understanding.

"Kyrie, the reason I sought you out is because you have a great power that no one has."

"But Celes, am I human or not? Please tell me!"

Celes sighed. "Are you sure you can handle it?" Kyrie nodded. "Very well. No Kyrie, you aren't human. You are the last of your kind… a full blooded Esper."

Kyrie sat there, looking down at the sheets. "Somehow, I… think I knew."

"I knew you mother," she continued, and at that Kyrie's interest peeked. "She gave you the crystal around you neck for a reason. Inside is a powerful illusion spell that makes you appear human. She wanted you to have a normal life until the day came that the truth would be known to you. It also suppressed your power so that you could not accidentally cause harm. At age 12 the spell began to weaken, and some of your amazing talents began to emerge. In less than a year, the spell will break completely and you will have to keep up the illusion yourself if you want it.

"So she did it to protect me?"

"Yes." With that Kyrie stood up and walked towards the window.

"Tell me what my mother was like," Kyrie asked.

Celes sighed. "This is a bad question Kyrie, it's certainly not the answer you are looking for. But your mother was a human scientist."

Kyrie turned towards her. "What?"

"Her name was Miriana Okani, an expert in Genetic Engineering. She's a descent of Terra, about 12 generations or so down the line. She knew that the revival of magic was somewhere inside her so she began to experiment on her own DNA. You see, she and I came to this dimension together after the end of our world."

"What happened to your world?"

Celes became misty-eyed as she turned her head to an uninteresting spot on the ceiling. "After magic disappeared from the world, the were a lot of still-births among people and animals. It seems those who believe that magic would only become non-existent if the world was were not far from the truth. Without magic the world began to slowly die. It took close to 600 years but it did finally come to pass. Your mother was the last child born in our plane. When we arrived in a world that magic had begun to disappear, she decided she would try to save it by reviving magic." Celes let a tear slip. "She had it in her head that if she could revive magic here, then she would find a way to go back in time in our world and revive it there, saving the world. Her obsession drove her to the brink of insanity and after you were born, she left me to your care for a short time to finish her experiments. She died in the lab 2 years later from a terminal sickness she ignored in favor of her work. I loved your mother so much, it was devastating for me."

"So you left me to the care of the orphanage until it was time to know the truth."

"Kyrie I'm sorry," Celes cried. "I just couldn't bare to look at you after she died."

"It's okay, I understand."

"You do?" she asked between tears.

"Yes, I do. I probably would have done the same. Its not easy to lose the ones you love." She sighed. "But I have a question that is bothering me. If magic had vanished, how did mom manage to create the pendent?"

Celes calmed down. "With my help. During her experimentation she did experiments on herself and me to see if she was making progress. She did manage to wake up a small amount of magical energy we both had. Borrowing my power, and using her own she crafted the pendent."

"Ok that makes sense, but how can I be full blooded Esper if my mom was more than likely only 1/24th Esper?"

"That's a little harder to explain without genetic knowledge, but I'll try. According to your mom, she managed to find DNA sequences within her own DNA that couldn't be human. Using what she knew from that and information she managed to compile from The Empire's Magi-Tek experimentation, she managed to create completely new chromosomes. When pieced together, she used her own ova to provide the base cell after extracting the genes from it. Amazingly, the new chromosomes were accepted by the ova and… well… the rest is history."

"So in a way, she really wasn't my mother… but she is. That's weird."

"I hope this doesn't change your opinion about her."

Kyrie smiled. "I have no memories of her except sometimes in dreams, dreams of the small amount of time she spent with me. I have nothing but good dreams about her Celes, nothing you can say will change my mind about her."

"I am glad of that," Celes replied with a smile of her own. But the smile was short lived. Celes seemed to stare in one direction, her gaze falling upon a wall.

"Celes what is it?" Then suddenly she felt something herself. A dread she had only felt once before. "What is that?" her voice trailed off.

Suddenly, Celes leapt to her feet reaching behind her for what appeared to be a small rod of silver metal. "Kyrie!" She shouted. "Get away from the wall." Instantly she complied, and as she did so, dark shapes began to pull themselves from the wall. They vaguely looked human with dark claws and glowing red slits for eyes. Strangely they seemed to be made up purely of shadows.

Celes held the rod like a sword hilt as a blue energy blade extended from it to the length of a claymore. "Stay behind me," she ordered.

"What is that?" she asked as she hid behind her. "A light saber?"

"No Kyrie, Its an Esper Artifact that your mother wanted you to have when you were ready. It's the Atma Weapon, a family heirloom passed down by your ancestors and a weapon of great power." She then began speaking an incantation in a language that Kyrie didn't understand but seemed vaguely familiar somehow.

"What are you doing?"

Celes finished her incantation as spectral energies began to swirl around her. They seemed to form illusions of old clock faces with their hand spinning rapidly around. She then launched herself at her attacks with inhuman speed.

"Wow," Kyrie thought. "A spell that can speed up the body. Amazing…"

But the attackers were even faster than her. Within seconds the Atma Weapon was knocked from her hand landing at Kyrie's feet. Upon doing so, the blade disappeared. Celes was then restrained by these shadow things and held in the air. Kyrie picked up the Atma Weapon but no blade appeared for her. As she tried to make it work, a dark figure walked though a nearby wall and stopped less than 3 feet in front of her.

The shadows faded around the figure forming into a woman who looked like some kind of dark elf to Kyrie. She had white hair and dark skin. Her eyes were glowing red, illuminating her face.

"Shadalexia!" Celes Screamed. "I might have known."

"Well hello again Celes," came the voice of the dark one. To Kyrie it sounded like a ghost, echoing and evil. "I was hoping you would be here when I managed to get my hands on your precious Esper."

"Get away from her!"

But she was ignored. "Well Kyrie, you've grown up to be quite the young lady haven't you?"

Kyrie stepped back as terror gripped her soul. "What do you want with me?"

"You'll learn soon enough, now come along young one. We have much to do." She turned towards the other shadows holding Celes aloft. "She is no further use to us, kill her," she said coldly.

Kyrie was horrified that people could actually be this evil. She had enough; they were not going to kill her on her watch. Without a word she grabbed her pendent and ripped it off of her neck.

"What are you doing?" the evil woman hissed.

"I'm not going to let you kill her," Kyrie said with resolve in her voice. "This ends now." As she spoke those last words, she crushed the crystal in her hand. The illusion that had long been Kyrie began to fade revealing her true form.

*End of Chapter

*Next Chapter: Kyrie goes all out, but will it be enough?