Celes wondered how it all had happened.
One moment, she and Kefka and Leo and Emperor Gestahl were standing on top of a tower, waving at a crowd that was wild with adoration after having heard the Emperor's plans to take over the world.
The next moment, the entire world had gone white.
The moment after that, she was lying down in a pile of metallic rubble with smoking bodies all around her. There were some live people, too; she and the survivors staggered to their feet at about the same time.
One couldn't help but wonder, what had happened?
"Lightning bolt," said one of the survivors. A technician, by his uniform. "I warned 'em it was stupid to stand on top of a metal tower in a thunderstorm. But did they listen? Nooo...."
"Excuse me," said General Celes. "What's going on?"
"Oh, excuse me, ma'am," he said with an awkward salute. "I didn't know you were alive. Er, that is to say.... Ah, your tower got struck by lightning. Ma'am."
"Is the Emperor alive?"
A harsher voice behind her responded. "Regret to inform, General, His Excellency did not survive. Neither did Generals Kefka and Leo." She turned; there was a man who looked suspiciously like a drill seargant behind her.
"Oh," she said. This was huge. She had to sit down. So she did. On the ground. "Do you realize that the entire plot of Final Fantasy 6 has just been ruined?"
"I'm sorry?" said the Technician.
"What?" asked Celes. "Sorry, I guess my brain must have been a little fried. Or something. I don't know. What about the girl?" She was referring, naturally, to Terra, Kefka's little experiment.
The technician simply shrugged, and the drill seargant said, "I haven't seen her. It's possible that she survived."
"I see," said Celes. "One of you, take me back to the capitol."
A few weeks later....
A new Emperor had been chosen, a completely mediocre, sane fellow named Frank. Emperor Frank. His sole redeeming virtues were that he didn't want to take over the world, and he didn't stand on top of metal things in thunderstorms. Emperor Frank is irrelevant to this story.
Celes walked out to the mailbox on her lavish estate, which she had been granted upon her promotion to the rank of General. She no longer had that rank, now; Emperor Frank was demilitarizing. She was given an honorable discharge and a crapload of money. Not to mention the workman's comp pay, and the extravagant salary generals made and she had scrupulously saved for her past four years in the position.
The mailbox had a single letter: the last of her back pay. 800,000 Gil.
Well, she thought, that's good. She had collected enough to retire in luxury for the rest of her long life, even though she retired at such a young age that even professional sports players would find it out-of-place.
Well. She was young, she was rich, she owed her allegiance to nobody and nothing but her own country, the Empire that nobody seems to know what it's called.
She was open-minded. She thought she'd try something new. She had always wondered what it would be like to be fat.