Professor Cid looked over his equipment one last time while he waited for the young army officer. He was about to try to infuse a human being with magic! If he succeeded, he would become the most famous man in the Empire, but if he failed...
He tried not to think about that as the young man entered the room.
"Private Kefka!" he greeted him, "It's good to see you again!"
Kefka nodded, nervously. "I'm ready for the infusion," he said in a shaky voice.
"Of course you realize that the process is very experimental," said Cid, "And that there’s a strong possibility that you won’t even survive."
Kefka nodded again. Cid thought that Kefka was probably one of the noblest men he had ever met. He was the only soldier out of an army of 45,000 who had volunteered to undergo the experiment.
"Sit down, please," said Cid.
Kefka took off his helmet and sat down in the seat on the left cylinder of the machine. The cylinder on the right held an Esper. Cid carefully placed the four connection devices on Kefka’s forehead, then flipped the nearby switch, and heard an electrical buzz as the connectors chemically attached themselves to Kefka. Kefka winced slightly. Cid walked over to the control panel. "Are you ready, Kefka?"
"Yes," he answered.
Cid pulled the lever. The wire between the two cylinder glowed blue, as did the wires attached to the connectors. So far, so good, thought Cid.
Then suddenly a bolt of blue lightning shot from the Esper’s cylinder to Kefka’s, then to Kefka’s head! Kefka’s head began shaking violently!
"NOOO!" yelled Cid, "What’s happening?!?! This never happened during the tests!!!! EMPEROR GHESTAHL!!!!"
Gestahl ran downstairs and into the room. "What is it? What..." his eyes fell on Kefka. "My God! What’s happening to him?!?!!"
"I don’t know! And I can’t stop the infusion! I’m afraid he’s doomed!"
Suddenly, a loud popping sound filled the room, seeming to come from Kefka. A strange expression appeared on Kefka’s face, one that Cid had never seen before, then Kefka passed out. And the Esper seemed to smile…
"Professor…" started Gestahl, "What is that Esper’s name?"
"I don’t know, Emperor. You never—" The Esper interrupted them, "My name... is Revenge!" He smiled, then silently passed away.
The sound of the Esper’s name sent a shiver through Gestahl and Cid.
"Revenge..." whispered Cid. Then the infusion stopped.
Kefka opened his eyes. That strange expression was back, and he wore an insane smile. He stood up and walked forward, letting the connectors rip from his head with an electrical snap. "Power..." he whispered, "So much power..."
"Kefka..." started Cid, "Are you all right?"
Kefka acted as if he hadn’t heard him as he turned to Emperor Gestahl.
"Summon Lieutenant Carlson," he told the Emperor, "I need to see him."
"Why—"
"Emperor," Cid interrupted, "I think you’d better do as he says. He may have gone mad."
Gestahl nodded gravely as he pushed the button on the nearby intercom,
and said, "Lieutenant Carlson, please report to the Magitek Infusion room."
Carlson, one of Kefka’s best friends, entered the room almost immediately. Cid guessed that he’d been waiting outside. His eyes fell on Kefka. "Kefka..." he started, "Are you okay, buddy?" Kefka’s smile widened, and he raised his hand into the air. It glowed red for an instant, then a beam of fire shot from his hand, and in seconds, Kefka had burned his best friend to cinders.
Cid was shocked. "KEFKA!!" he yelled, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING???!!!!?!"
Kefka turned to face them. He still wore that insane smile, and he looked satisfied with himself. He didn’t seem to hear Cid. "I’m a Magitek Knight now," he said softly to himself. He looked down at his green junior officer’s armor. I don’t need this anymore," he said as he left, "I’m going to put on the Robes of a Mage Knight."
Cid and Gestahl exchanged worried glances. "He’s mad," Cid said.
"How did this happen?" asked Gestahl, "Was it the machinery or the Esper?"
"I don’t know," answered Cid, "But I’m going to find out."
The next day at the daily meeting of the Imperial army, Kefka made his word true. He showed up wearing the colorful robes that Mage Knights had worn in the days of yore. When he caught one of the troopers laughing at him, he burned him to cinders, and that was the end of that. Kefka came up onto the short stage that was used to address the soldiers. He was accompanied by Professor Cid, Emperor Gestahl, General Leo, and an infant girl who in a basket carried by Cid. Cid stepped up to the podium and addressed the soldiers.
"Soldiers of the Imperial Army," he said, "I would like to announce the success of my Magitek Infusion technique. This," he said, gesturing to Kefka, "is Magitek Knight Kefka, my first subject," he had been ordered by Gestahl to not mention Kefka’s possible madness, so he skipped to his next point, "This is Celes Chere," he said, holding up the child, "An orphaned child, who will be my next subject. I will perform the infusion today after the meeting, and if it is successful, we may be able to raise an entire army of Magitek Warriors," a cheer rose from the soldiers at this, "Now you will hear from General Leo."
General Leo stepped up to the podium and addressed the soldiers, "As you may know," he said, "about thirteen years ago, after our invasion of the Esper World, a baby girl was found abandoned outside of the entrance," Leo knew that this was a lie. The child’s parents had also been there, but they had both been killed by Gestahl. Leo had been ordered by the Emperor to lie, and he could never go against the will of the Emperor. He continued, "That girl is half human and half Esper, and she has advanced magical powers. She will probably be instrumental in the Empire’s victory. I now introduce Mage Knight Terra Bradford." A lovely, green-haired young woman walked out. She was wearing an odd-looking crown on her head that Leo couldn’t bear to look at. It was a slave crown, and it forced her to obey the slightest command of her master. They were using her as a biological weapon, and Leo found it distasteful, but he could never go against the will of the Emperor.
Never.
Cid began attaching the connectors to the infant girl’s head. He hated to do it to her, but he had been ordered. The girl was an orphan, so if she died or went mad, the Emperor said, no one would lose anything. Cid didn’t buy it, but he had to proceed. He completed the connections, and looked over at the Esper. It’s name was Tempus, and it seemed to be normal, as Espers go. Cid had made sure that it would be completely unconscious during the infusion, so that it could do nothing to interrupt the process. Everything was ready, and there was nothing left to do but pull the lever. With more than a little apprehension, he pulled the it, and watched the machinery go to work. The wires glowed blue, and the machinery hummed. And there was no lightning. The infusion continued normally and ended a few seconds later. It seemed to have worked. He removed the connectors from the infant’s forehead and held her in his arms. Somehow, he knew that he had succeeded.
Celes was like a daughter to Cid, and he treated her as such. He adopted her, and raised her as if she were his own baby girl. The infusion had done something to speed up her aging, and within three years she had the physical appearance of an 18 year old. Fortunately, her learning abilities had sped up too, and she was an extremely intelligent young woman who could use magic well. Gestahl pressured her to join the Imperial army when she reached the age, and she finally did, but not as a Magitek Knight, which was highly unusual, but as a private.
She worked her way up the ranks to General quickly, but Cid believed that her sense of ethics would get her thrown out of the army, if she didn’t commit treason first when she discovered what it was trying to do.
A few months after Cid succeeded in infusing a human with magic, he invented a large, mechanical, robotic suit that he called Magitek Armor. Anyone using the armor could use a form of mechanical magic. It was a good thing, because there were many in the army unwilling to undergo the infusion, and besides, the Empire didn’t have enough Espers to infuse every soldier in the army with magic.
Kefka had managed to gain the rank of General in the Imperial army, and became head of the Magitek wing of the Empire. He seemed ordinary enough at times, but at others it was obvious that he was more than a little insane. He was a skilled magic user, though, and the most valuable fighter in the army, so Gestahl was reluctant to get rid of him. Kefka also conducted the training of the young Terra Bradford, which wasn’t hard because he never removed the slave crown form her head. He treated her as he would have treated a living suit of Magitek Armor, like a thing, with no life, no thoughts, no feelings, but the immoral and unethical Emperor Gestahl didn’t care. As long as his plans to conquer the world stayed in existence he didn’t care about anything.
General Leo felt like the last sane man in a world gone mad. He tried to stay loyal to the Empire, but it grew harder every day, as Gestahl made a madman a General, as he allowed experiments to be conducted on innocent people, and as he tried to force Leo to undergo a Magitek Infusion. Leo would never undergo an Infusion, no matter what the Emperor said. To him, the idea of magic was a terrible one. He couldn’t help but remember the stories he’d heard about the War of the Magi. It seemed to him that the Empire was attempting to reenact that famous mistake, and there was nothing that he could do to stop it. All he could do was keep doing his job the best way he knew how, and hope that Emperor Gestahl knew what he was doing.
Kefka put Terra into a suit of Magitek Armor, and told her how to use it. He then ordered 50 soldiers to attack her, and ordered her to defend herself. She burned them all up in under five minutes, and didn’t get a scratch on her. Kefka laughed insanely as he watched it. It’d been a full three years since he’d had his Magitek infusion, and he’d learned to control his madness, in a limited way. He was preparing for an attack on Narshe, because it was rumored that a frozen Esper had been found there, an Esper far more powerful than any the Empire had. And Gestahl had to have it. He’d ordered Kefka to send Terra with a couple of soldiers to Narshe to confiscate the Esper, so he was teaching her to use Magitek Armor. The attack would mark the beginning of a new War of the Magi, a new era of magical control, but Gestahl didn’t care. The world would be his at any cost.
Major Vicks, Lieutenant Wedge, and Mage Knight Terra moved to attack Narshe exactly 1000 years to the day after the War of the Magi. Kefka and the Empire started something that day that would change the world forever, and it was all because of one force given to man by God in hopes that he wouldn’t abuse it. That force was magic, and the man that abused it was Kefka.