The First SOLDIER

By Saiyanx

Chapter 1

It was evening at Vector Castle. All the guards were doing there usual rounds, unaware that down below their feet, something unusual was occurring. A newborn baby was crying. Of course, there's nothing unusual about that, but what was unusual was that, instead of being held in its' mothers' arms, the baby was laid on a table surrounded by all manner of lab equipment.

Cid, the chief scientific engineer of Vector, stood on a higher station watching the activities below him. He was flanked by none other than the Emperor himself and his young protégé Kefka.

"Kwa ha ha ha, she certainly has the cry of a warrior. Listen to her wail!" Kefka grinned manically, looking down at the infant. "That's the spirit, kid. Kwa ha ha ha!"

Cid didn't really see what was so funny. In his heart, he couldn't help but pity the little one. She was the daughter of Lionel Chere. The best fighter in the Empire's entire army. Or, at least, he had been. During their recent excursion to the Esper world, the guards had been foolish enough to turn their back on an esper that they thought was dying. The beast had leapt up and hurled a fireball right at the Emperor, but Chere had thrown himself in front of it, saving the Emperors' life but loosing his own.

It was found out afterwards that Cheres' wife was with child. The Emperor had been looking for a suitable subject for his project and, never being one to miss an opportunity, had promised to raise and care for the child. He would even guarantee that it would become an important member of the Empire. Of course, the childs' mother was a loyal subject of the Empire and would do anything her Emperor asked. Even hand over her first-born.

And so, here she was. Barely thirty minutes old and about to go through a life-changing procedure. Cid watched as his assistants gathered around the baby. Each of them holding a needle attached to several vats lined up against the wall. The needles were pushed into the babys' arms, legs and chest, causing her to cry even more. Dials on the vats were turned and coloured liquid ran through the thin tubes, into the needles, into the child.

Kefka seemed to find her agonized screams absolutely hilarious! Cid however found it difficult to watch. The Emperor had assured him that the child stood the best chance of surviving the procedure at this stage in her life, as her, still developing, body systems were more likely to absorb the magic than try to reject it.

And so, the baby was infused with magic in its' purest form. The Emperor predicted that the child would grow up with a natural ability to use magic, rather than having to learn it from scratch. He also believed that her strength and speed would be affected too, so he already began to make plans to have the best trainers in the kingdom teach her every form of armed and unarmed combat they knew. He said she would become the best warrior in his army.

Cid sighed. He knew what that would mean. The child would never know anything except fighting. She would never get to play with any other children. Never experience friendship or have any kind of a family. In fact, Cid doubted she would ever experience real love her entire life.

20 years later…

The Golem roared as it swung its' club down on top of its' victim. The ground shook and trembled at the force of the blow. Grinning, it lifted the club… and found nothing there!

"Sorry, Stony!" The Golem turned around to see the human standing a few feet behind him, with her arms crossed and a cocky smile on her face. "You're going to have to move a lot faster than that, if you want to catch me!"

Celes leapt back as the monsters' club swung at her again. Her beautiful blue eyes shone with confidence. She hadn't even drawn her Runic blade from its' sheath in her belt. She knew she could probably turn this thing into a pile of rocks with a few well-aimed slashes, but Lockes' exact words had been to distract it. Besides, this was much more fun!

Locke Cole, worlds' greatest thi-sorry-treasure hunter, took another careful step across the rope-bridge, trying not to look down at the sizzling magma below him.

'Lava-pits.' He thought to himself. 'Why is the treasure always over a lava-pit?'

The ground shook again as the Golems' club missed its' target once more. The bridge wobbled and Locke gripped the side ropes so hard his knuckles turned white.

"Celes!" He called over his shoulder. "Could you possibly try to distract the Golem a little further away from the rickety rope bridge?"

"Sorry." Celes answered in a sing-song voice and, although Locke couldn't see her, he was sure she was grinning as she said it. The sounds of smashing did start to move further away though, and Locke was able to finish crossing the bridge.

The gemstone was about as big as his fist, and was positioned on a stone platform. After carefully examining the platform, Locke decided that it had a weight mechanism, so he needed to replace the gem with something of equal weight. Reaching into his traveling pouch, he pulled out an ether bottle. Since all the magic in the world had been sealed away when Kefka was defeated, he'd had no real use for them and so only kept them for little odd-jobs. Like this, for example.

Holding the bottle in his left hand and gently gripping the gem with his right, Locke took a deep breath. He had to put the bottle down just as he removed the gem. His eyes became focused. His hands were perfectly steady. Quick as a whip, he took the gem off the platform and replaced it with the bottle.

After a few seconds, he let the air out of his lungs in a sigh of relief. Nothing had happened. He started back across the bridge, when suddenly the platform he'd just been on began sinking into the lava, taking the end of the bridge with it!

"What the-? How! The ether should've weighed the same as-" Locke then noticed a small 's' carved into the side of the bottle. "Oh right, that's the spare bottle I keep for my shaving cream."

He then started running like mad, across the bridge, leaping to the safety of solid ground just before its' ropes snapped and it fell into the lava.

"Phew! That was close!" Locke lifted his bandana up and wiped his forehead. Just then, the ground beneath his feet started to give way! The whole floor of the temple began tumbling into the lava!

Locke was running backwards, just keeping ahead of the falling floor. He managed to turn himself around and sprinted towards the exit.

Meanwhile, Celes was still running rings around the Golem guard. She looked up at the shaking ceiling and decided playtime was over. Gripping the hilt of her Runic blade, she ran, head on, at the monster. The Golem raised its' club to meet her coming. But, before it could swing down, Celes leapt forward, drew her sword and slashed at the creature several times. She landed behind it and re-sheathed her blade. The Golem stood in the exact same position for a few seconds, then realized it was dead and fell to pieces.

Celes began heading back towards Locke, but saw him coming, very quickly, her way.

"Run Celes, run!" He yelled.

Seeing the ground giving way behind him, Celes turned and sprinted away, with Locke closely following.

An outsider would've seen the ancient Mazari temple collapse in on itself, amid a huge cloud of dust. Out of the dust, two figures were thrown. Locke and Celes landed hard on the ground. They were covered in dirt and their hair was sticking up.

Looking at the pile of rubble before them, Celes said,

"There's got to be an easier way to do this. That's the third temple this week we've decimated!"

(Well, there's the first chapter. I'll have the next one up as soon as I can, but that might be difficult since I'm leaving town for a few weeks. Anyway, please let me know what you think so far. I shall return!)