Everyone assembles in the village square, though Shadow remains missing in action. "Kids Run Through the City" plays.

Lock and Celes approach each other.

More or less. Relm's definitely making a smart-alecky comment.

The music starts to fade out. Celes and especially Lock look awkward, while Stragus and Relm have a good laugh, which Leo, Tina, and the soldiers join in on after a moment. However, just when it's looking like everything is wrapped up, an obnoxious laugh interrupts. "Kefka" begins playing as the clown himself bursts onto the scene, followed by several soldiers on mechs, who "accidentally" knock him over on the way in.

Cefca repeatedly refers to himself throughout this scene using ぼくちん (boku-chin), which helps give his remarks a mocking and childish tone.

He beckons forward a soldier, who starts knocking people out indiscriminately. Leo somehow avoids the havok, and rushes forward to confront Cefca.

He fries Yura and gathers up the magicite remains. Leo is aghast, but Cefca just laughs and repeats. The last Genjuu present has the sense to (finally) make a run for it, but to no avail.

Cefca walks over to his escort.

They start burning. Cefca laughs some more.

He signals a soldier forward to zap Leo. Fade to black. Some time later, as Cefca continues to laugh, General Leo regains consciousness. The others remain out of commission, so it's up to him to deal with the problem.

You can try attacking the soldiers or leaving the village, but trying just results in an unwinnable battle against the invincible Guardian. Though apparently too afraid of Cefca to defy him openly, the soldiers at least seem reluctant to attack Leo...

...and make no effort to prevent him from retreating (Guardian's in-combat text is as in Vector).

Cefca is the real problem anyway.

Combat ensues, though with "Battle Theme" as the music. Leo's equipment is fixed, but he has some pretty good items. The Gold Armor and Gold Helm are the best heavy armor currently available, the Crystal Sword and especially the Aegis Shield are better, and the Proof of Initiation is one of only two to appear in the game, with a Giant's Bracer complementing it for an extra damage bonus. In addition to an impressive attack that hits four times, Leo also has a Shock command that inflicts powerful unblockable magic damage on all enemies, even when surrounded (refer to his character entry for details).

Cefca has a number of spells available, including Figa, but Leo has a good change to dodge, and it should come as no surprise after past encounters that Cefca falls without much of a fight. Except... something doesn't seem quite right.

"The Empire "Gestahl"" plays as Leo looks around in confusion.

Gastra appears in a puff of smoke.

The emperor vanishes in another puff of smoke, to be replaced by Cefca.

He pounces.

He pounces again, laughing, and the screen turns red.

Oh, that's not good. Leo's not moving, and the others have yet to recover. The music stops, as Cefca tosses Leo aside for extra rudeness points. Just then, a smattering of strange noises and colorful screen flashes interrupt, and the screen starts shaking.

The remaining Genjuu have apparently sensed that something's wrong, and burst through the rockslide over the Mystic Barricade. "Metamorphosis" plays.

After taking some time to gain their bearings, I suppose, they fly to the village. The soldiers on mechs are running around in a panic, but Cefca just stands there and laughs.

Cefca does something fancy. Whatever it is, it sacrifices the soldiers he brought with him, mechs and all.

He starts tossing his magic death sparkle into the air and gathering magicite, laughing at every pause. More screen flashes and noises interrupt.

An Ifrit-like Genjuu attacks Cefca, casting Fire, Fira, and even Figa. However, Cefca blocks or absorbs all of it.

Internally, he has absurbly high stats for this battle: 80 strength, agility, stamina, magic power, and base attack power, 180 defense and MDef, and 60 evade and MEvd. On top of that, he's also using a Hero's Shield, which provides the absorption and gives him a total of 239 MDef and 100 MEvd. This gives him about a 67% chance to dodge against the 150 hit rate of these spells, reduces the damage to roughly 1/16 even on a hit, and turns that into healing anyway.

He uses something sparkly that turns into a spell resembling Dejon and reduces his attacker to magicite.

After that, Cefca seems to get bored, though it doesn't stop him from laughing as if compelled to.

Another unknown shiny spell zaps the rest of them.

At least he decides to leave at this point rather than killing anyone else, but that's still not good. Dozens of Genjuu have died, and worse, been added to the Empire's magicite collection. General Leo didn't survive either, but he deserves a decent burial, so our would-be heroes give him at least that, in a previously unreachable clearing on the east side of the village. "Awakening" plays.

She places flowers on the grave.

Interceptor hobbles up to the group. There's no sign of Shadow.

Lock treats Interceptor's wounds, possibly using a spare bandana as a bandage.

"He was"? With this context, that sounds like Shadow... ninja assassin mercenary equals gentle?

Relm sits by Interceptor.

"Under Martial Law" plays as the the Blackjack flies in shortly after. Setzer leads Cayenne, Mash, and Edgar into the village.

He laughs, but Mash is not amused.

Edgar looks puzzled.

Relm keeps waving her arms, but Mash laughs.

Tina, Lock, and Stragus react strongly to this...

...but Mash just seems confused.

Edgar hesitates as the others leave. Relm walks back to talk.

He scratches his head awkwardly, but she just looks puzzled.

She runs off.

That's right, he was thinking about hitting on her, but ten is a little too young even for a shameless womanizer like Edgar.

Incidentally, there's a small side event in Thamasa, where "Under Martial Law" now plays, after returning there once all the scenes are done.

One with painfully awkward translation, though part of it is understandable given that one of the lines is used as third-person in one case and second-person in the other. I've compensated by avoiding a subject, which works well enough in a conversation.

Stragus just stares at the ground.

Largely irrelevant for now, but it's there. A small bit of land, presumably Eboshi Rock, is visible north of the village, though there's no room to land there.

The party assembles on deck. "Terra" continues playing as the scene begins.

Meanwhile, Gastra and Cefca are heading into the Mystic Barricade. The music stops to be replaced by wind noises.

Cefca stops to laugh as Gastra continues on.

Cefca looks rebellious, but follows. Back on the airship...

The wind fades, and a great rumbling begins. Evidently, Gastra has reached his objective. The camera pans across the large island with the Mystic Barricade, then shows some random townspeople in a grassy area. 3-02 "Catastrophe" begins playing as the ground splits apart and one side rises, dumping several people into the crack formed. A huge shadow passes over Jidoor (even though it ought to be Alburg given the locations of everything involved). The island rises high into the sky. We see Gastra and Cefca gloating atop it, standing before three large stone statues that have sparks of energy passing between them.

On the airship again...

Clearly, this must be stopped. In any case, Vector is now abandoned (with no sign of what happened to the rest of the Returners and Narshe guards), and Alburg is covered in darkness as the Mystic Continent, as it comes to be called, blocks out the sun in the area. Definitely not good.

Character lines revert to what they were before the airship crashed. Those who weren't available then have lines too, of course: