Hey people! This is my first stab at fanfic. Please R and R and have fun. Thanks!
Disclaimer: Only the pirates and the plot are mine. If I owned Chrono Trigger, I would know where Schala went after the game.
Author's note: I do not know where Schala went after the game.
Chapter 1: The Hunt for Jerky
Crono's mother put a hand to her chin and rubbed it thoughtfully.
"I don't think we have any Jerky left ."
"Noooo!" Marle wailed. "Five eras and not a stinkin' Jerky in the history of this place!"
"Eras?" Crono's mother looked puzzled.
"Errors," Lucca put in hastily (although the sentence wouldn't have made any sense anyway). "It's...um, Marle's dad's...ah, birthday, and Jerky's supposed to be his favourite food."
Crono rolled his eyes. Some cheap present.
"Oh... all right then. I'll look for you," Crono's mother said. She turned and made a business of looking for the food.
The three friends took seats at the table, looked at each other and sighed.
They were on their least life-threatening/perilous side-quest so far. Marle had gone to visit the king back home...seconds before another ear-splitting, castle-crumbling, earth-shattering massive fight erupted between father and daughter. Then the king went into a huff and went to his room to sulk, and the chancellor came, out of the blue, to Marle to tell her that her dad liked beef jerky.
Then it struck them appropriate to apologize with some beef jerky, so now they were on the not-so dangerous quest to find beef jerky as a present for the king.
Lucca glanced at Marle. "Don't worry, I'm sure that you and your dad will have patched things up by tonight."
"Oh dear, you've been fighting with him?" Crono's mother tsked-tsked, still rummaging around. Children these days. And a very familiar child was Marle...now where had she seen her before?
No, I got a hole in my jeans. "Kind of," Marle sighed.
"That's too bad, dear," The motherly green-haired lady said. "Especially on his birthday!"
Marle and Lucca bit back smiles. Crono found himself wondering how he was ever born to such a naive mommy.
"Never mind," Crono's mum continued. "I'm sure there's nothing a little present couldn't fix. Now Marle, dear, I'm terribly sorry, but we don't have any Jerky left."
Marle sighed miserably.
"You could get some down at the Snail Stop down South," said Crono's ma, "but that's awfully, awfully far away..."
Marle jumped up. "REALLY?"
"Yes I'm afraid so," Ma said sadly.
The princess darted out the door.
"Wait Marle!" Lucca shouted as she and Crono followed suit.
"What?"
"I'm not walking all the way to the South Continent," she said. Her voice was on stubborn mode.
Marle stared at Lucca. "Why not?"
"Well...it's across the other side of the equator."
"So?"
"So let's take the ferry."
Disbelief. "That boat thing?"
Lucca scoffed. "No, the nymph down by the wharf."
Marle blinked, confused. What the heck? What nymph... oh.
"Lucca," she said with very forced calm. "It takes about eight seconds to walk down Zenan bridge and down to Porre Village. It takes about an HOUR by ferry. And it's a total waste of 10G."
Lucca sniffed. "I don't want to hear the soundtrack again."
"Soundtrack?!"
"You know...the music changes when we exit the village. And it's kind of depressing," Lucca said.
"It'll be over in eight seconds!" Marle exclaimed.
"How long eight seconds is depends on the sufferer," Lucca said sagely.
"Sufferer?!" Marle said in disbelief.
"I'll pay for the tickets, OK?" Lucca said desperately.
Marle thought about it.
.::::.
Somehow Crono ended up paying for the three of them.
The tangy ocean breeze whipped about the girls' hair. Marle seemed pretty happy for someone who didn't want to sit on the ferry for an hour.
"I wonder if there'll be dolphins?" Marle jumped up and down excitedly.
"Nah," Lucca said. "They ran out after the tuna crisis."
Crono and Marle blinked. "What tuna crisis?"
"The tuna ran out because of over-fishing," Lucca explained.
"And the dolphins starved?" Marle said, shocked.
Lucca sniffed miserably. "Yeah."
The foghorn blew, and the orange ferry crept out of the wharf.
Dolphins forgotten, Marle was positively flipping. "Waaai! I haven't done this in AGES. I forgot how fun it was."
Crono stood by the railing in mounting boredom. He could swear that the boat was snailing. IF he could swear. His mommy washed those naughty words away with soap years ago.
Like a slug struggling its way up a wall the boat made its way down south. About what seemed ten hours later the boat reached the southern part of the ocean, a tiny ant on the great blue picnic rug.
Crono was sleeping when it happened. Great dream too. Something about being the best swordsman in history. And being a king. With Marle in the other big chair in the big chamber...
"CRONOOOOO!"
"Wha-?"
He jerked awake, his dream gone in a puff of smoke. Lots of smoke. And great orange tongues of heat...
Fire!
Crono rushed across the deck in the fumes. "Marle!" He shouted.
"Fine then, make her priority!" Came a very indignant voice.
"Oh... ah... Lucca!"
He reached the other side of the boat. To his utmost amazement there it was; the biggest pirate ship he'd ever seen.
OK, it was the first pirate ship he'd ever seen.
There. More chapters coming soon. Please tell me what you think!