Prisoners!

"Does this display please thee, Master?"

"It does," nodded the Master approvingly. "It does."

"One question. How in the world did you get all of them down here?"

The Master took a deep breath, searching for a way to explain the situation easily to this brain-dead demon servant.

"Well," he began, "as you can see, they are all, or were sometime in their lives, evil. They are all down here for punishment, demon." The demon seemed to understand.

"Uh huh. Continue."

"You see that knight over there? That's Garland. A being known as CHAOS possessed him for a time."

"You mean the thing that had access to our Time-Loop?" asked the demon fearfully.

"The very same. Garland used the Time-Loop to--shall we say--dominate. However, CHAOS was defeated by the Light Warriors and Garland returned to normal. That is, until I caught up with him and imprisoned him."

The demon nodded.

"The one next to him is Golbez. I already told you about him."

"KluYa's son, right? But if he's KluYa's son, why is he down here, and not on the surface?"

"Because he has no light. KluYa bore two children, one of Darkness and one of Light. But it was partially Zemus' fault that Golbez is down here."

"Zemus?" quivered the demon. "Don't scare me like that!"

"Zemus telepathically controlled Golbez, and forced him to capture the eight Crystals to awaken the Giant of Bab-il. Unfortunately, both the Giant and Zemus were defeated and Golbez recovered his senses."

"Until you caught him," grinned the demon.

"Precisely. And do you see the one over there?" asked the Master.

"Uh, which one is that? Ardeath?"

"Exdeath, demon. A brilliant ally of ours for the longest time. I believe he is one of our fiercest, being able to manipulate 'Mu'."

"Mu... don't get me started..." said the demon fearfully.

"Ah, yes, Mu. The one thing even I did not think of. But, alas, Exdeath's time was up, and even his name betrayed him." There was silence in the fiery cavern for awhile. "Now for the next one."

"Ooh, I know this one! It's Kefka!"

"That's right, your own idea. Even I was impressed when you told me of a way to manipulate technology and the resurrected magic. The resulting combination was breathtaking--literally. But of course, for his vile crime of stealing and siphoning the stone Goddesses, he is trapped here." The two fixed their eyes on the next and final prisoner, Sephiroth.

"Despite his zealousness," began the Master, "he is here for unspeakable crimes against the Planet. Even we cannot affiliate ourselves with such barbarians."

"True, but you still hafta admire his powers. He wreaked lots of havoc!"

"True. Well, do you understand now, demon?" asked the Master. The demon nodded.

"Good. Let us retire." While they were leaving, the demon stuck out his forked tongue to the five prisoners.

No Escape...

"Infidel," sneered Golbez. "How dare they keep us here!"

"Shut up," barked Sephiroth. "Let's try to find a way out of here."

"Good luck! Those chains are unbreakable! Not even a behemoth could snap them!" snapped Kefka. Unfortunately, he was right.

...right?

"So, they want to escape, eh?"

"What was that, Master?"

"I overheard our prisoners. Seems they want out!"

"The nerve!" cackled the demon.

"I'm going to set them free." said the Master plainly.

"Yes, well--what!"

"Oh, don't worry. There's a catch."

"Care to let me in on it?"

"Our prisoners will have to fight their past in order to renounce it. Just for this occaision, I have summoned a figure from their past that would prevent them from becoming good. There's CHAOS, Zemus, Emperor Gestahl, Jenova, and Gilgamesh. Once I release our prisoners, they must do battle with their past, or die trying." With that, the Master waved his hands, and his prisoners were whooshed out of the fiery cavern, onto the surface.

Price of Freedom

"Wha--what happened?" stammered Golbez.

"I believe... we are free from our bonds," said Garland. The five prisoners were no longer prisoners of the chain. But, to their ultimate dismay, were still prisoners of the dark. Before any one of them could react, five phantom beings from the past were bombaring the ex-prisoners with painful memories and attacks.

"CHAOS?!"

"Zemus?!"

"Gilgamesh?!"

"Emperor Gestahl?!"

"Jenova?!"

The five met the five, and perhaps one of the most intense and interesting, if not violent, battles began.

CHAOS

All of the battles were fought one-on-one. CHAOS, the great dragon-thing, launched itself at Garland, intent on finishing off his former servant. Instead, Garland thrust his long sword forward, causing CHAOS to run right into the blade! The demon disentegrated the second it ran into Garland's blade. And with that disentegration, Garland became the first to truly be free.

Zemus

Zemus pitied Golbez. Such power should not have been wasted like this, he thought. Oh, well. He was a useless appendage anyway. And it was beyond time to cut him loose! Zemus raised his arms, and showers of lightning engulfed Golbez, causing him to collapse in an unresponsive pile.

"I do not...perish!" shouted Golbez. He bolted upright and struck Zemus hard with his powers. Zemus was flung back, hard! So hard that he disentegrated when he hit a tree, and Golbez was freed.

Gilgamesh

The Great Gilgamesh didn't stand a chance against the Greater Exdeath, but the Master had made Gil Extra Great! Exdeath was still very powerful, and in only one swipe of his immense sword, he had cleaved off Gilgamesh's spear.

"Gilgamesh! Why do you fight me?"

"Because..." began the warrior, "you need purification."

With that, Gilgamesh morphed into a being even Exdeath could not beat! Or could he? With the powers of Mu, Exdeath annihilated his pitiful foe, and his stained past to boot.

Emperor Gestahl

"Kefka...why did you have to kill me?" asked Gestahl eerily.

"E--Emperor Gestahl? But... I thought..." stammered Kefka. Before Kefka could react, Gestahl had plunged a sword in Kefka's leg.

"YEOOWWCH!!!!" he screeched. "I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE you!!!" screamed Kefka, feeling a bit of deja-vous. Kefka blasted the Emperor with Flare and Bolt 3 before hitting him with his Havoc Wing.

"Oh... once again... I fail..." murmured Gestahl. He vanished into nothingness, as well did Kefka's evil hold.

Jenova

"Mother...why?"

"You must do this to rid yourself of the evil inside of you. You realize that I will neither give you nor allow you this right!"

"In that case..." began Sephiroth. He charged towards his former mother and neatly slid Masamune through her body. It disentegrated into nothingness. But Sephiroth was not cleansed yet. He knew he had to rid himself of Masamune to be completely purified. Sephiroth took his sword, pulled back, and flung it as far as he could, deep into outer space. They were free.

The Unforgivables

"So, now what do we do?" asked Sir Garland.

"I don't know. I can't remember what I did before I became under Zemus' control," said Golbez.

"None of us can. Our memories seem to have been wiped clean." noted Exdeath.

"But not our skills," reminded Sephiroth. He had borrowed one of Garland's swords, and used it to swipe off some tall reeds.

"So how can we use our newfound freedoms and powers?" asked Exdeath.

"We can make a sort of Superhero League. We can call ourselves 'The Unforgivables'." said Kefka.

"Why?"

"Because I bet nobody could ever forgive us for our deeds, and it sounds so cool, too!"

So the five joined forces, and set out into the world, to right their wrongs...and maybe even be forgiven.