"Have you noticed that there's seven tasks Gaspar set out for us, seven of us, and suspicious coincidences between tasks and our own histories and abilities?" Crono mused once the six who needed rest were rested. "We retrieved the Rainbow Shell, a relic from Ayla's time. Frog honored Cyrus's grave. Marle saved her father from that Yakra spawn. Magus finally finished Ozzie off. Lucca undid her own past. And Gaspar said something about the 'Birthplace of Machines,' so I'm fairly certain that's for Robo."

"Eight," said Lucca.

"We haven't done anything that has to do with me, though," Crono continued, ignoring Lucca. "He said something about someone close to one of us needed help... process of elimination, that's me..."

"Eight," Lucca repeated.

"But my mom's not in trouble, is she? I mean, there's not really any inherent danger living in Truce in our time – you think it's Marle? But he said 'Find this person,' that kind of says whoever it is is lost... so it's not Mom or Marle..."

Lucca's eye twitched. "Eight! Eight tasks!" she nearly shouted at Crono. "He set us eight things to do! You've forgotten the Sun Stone. Magus went with Marle and Ayla to go and retrieve it. Gaspar had said we should get it. We got it. Eight tasks. Your theory is flawed."

"I wonder if it's my dad? I've never met him..."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Lucca turned toward Epoch. "Robo, come on - we're finding this 'Birthplace of Machines.'"

"An admirable outburst, Grease Monkey. You wouldn't mind too terribly if I came along with you? I've only recently managed to pry this artifact away from your prehistoric friend," - Magus had a smooth, blue rock in the palm of his hand – "and as it turns out, it has a magical resonance between fire and darkness that only seems to show up in your machine's presence. It requires further study; I believe it may form a sort of link between your power and mine."

"What? Oh - uh, yeah, I could use the extra firepower," Lucca replied somewhat hastily. "I guess I'm flying, then?"

"You are," Magus affirmed, not even looking over his shoulder as he boarded Epoch in a graceful arc. Lucca hopped into the pilot's seat and set her course for Robo's post-apocalyptic future.

"This must be the place," said Lucca as she landed Epoch on a large island. At the island's center stood a mostly-intact and partially lit factory, surrounded by the shattered remains of a glass dome. Lucca turned to Robo. "Look familiar to you?"

"Negative. It is unusual for a machine to have memory of its factory of origin."

"Well, there's something going on in there. It's lit up." The doors slid open as she approached, and she, Robo, and Magus entered the brightly-lit and surprisingly clean facility. Lucca automatically approached the computer panel next to the locked inner door. She flipped it on. The screen flickered for a moment, then shut itself off just as Robo spoke.

"Analysis complete," he said. "Please follow me." He walked up to the computer panel. "Excuse me."

Lucca moved aside to allow Robo better access. Finding a socket, he plugged himself directly into the console.

"Who enters here unbidden?" asked a pleasant, but clearly not human, female voice. "Oh... welcome home, R-66Y. Or should I say... Prometheus? You dare defile this place with humans?" There was a short pause. "I haven't seen them in ages," said the voice from the console. "Let me... welcome them. Come closer..."

With that, the outer doors closed, and the inner door opened. Magus and Lucca looked at each other and nodded. Each already had a hand on their weapon.

"Let's see just what you can do," said the computer's voice as the two humans and the robot stepped through the inner door, onto a conveyor belt. Several robots, both the quadruped variety and the type that moved about on treads, approached with their weapons visibly charged. Lucca threw fire at them, destroying several, but more moved in to fill the hole. She was about to do it again when the universe opened up beneath and around the machines, twisting their bodies into useless wrecks all at once and leaving them scattered, broken, on the floor. Lucca turned slowly - Magus straightened his glove, looking more than a little smug.

"How do you do that?" Lucca whispered.

"Would you like me to teach you to do something similar? I can see the potential in -"

"Not bad... for humans," the voice interrupted. "But can you find your way to me?"

And with that, Magus decided that whoever this she-machine on the loudspeaker was, she needed to die.

The voice spoke again as Robo led the way further into Geno Dome. "300 years ago, the Lavos disaster greatly changed this planet. At this rate, the humans will die out from pure despair," it said.

Lucca and Magus were not listening. "Take out those two machines," Magus instructed as a pair of robot guards sprang to life. "Hit them with everything you have, so I can evaluate how far you have to go."

Lucca nodded, and concentrated. A hot wind blew through her hair, and fiery explosions left the two robots broken, with streaks of carbon scoring decorating them. The wind settled down, and Lucca looked up.

"Not bad," Magus told her with a nod. "I won't lie and say it was excellent, but it definitely wasn't bad. You're sure you weren't holding back at all?"

"I'm sure," Lucca replied.

"You can do better with a little instruction. It's a damn shame you never had a teacher."

"I'd like to learn."

Magus gave a smile of satisfaction. "Then I will teach you."

It was a day of blasting through laser turrets, destroying robot guards, and hacking before Lucca and Magus were too tired to focus. With Magus around, setting up a shelter (to hide their heat signature rather than to protect from weather indoors) was a one-person job; the tent practically set itself up. Lucca and Magus sat inside it as Robo stood watch outside.

"Conjure a flame to light this darkness," Magus instructed. Lucca did so. "You can feel the magic, can't you?"

She nodded by way of a reply.

"Good - and you can feel where it's coming from, right?"

"From right behind my eyes," she answered. "It goes from my eyes, through my head, down my arm, and into the fire in my hand."

Magus nodded. "Now, tell me what precisely you are doing here."

"Conjuring fire," Lucca answered simply.

"Try again, with more detail."

"I'm not sure how else to put it," Lucca said, brow furrowed. "I mean, this is the easiest way for me to use my magic. It wants to be fire."

"Of course it does," Magus replied. "Fire is your natural gift, as the void is mine. You have not learned the fine control I have, though, and to release your full potential, you must learn deeper understanding of what you are doing."

"Well, what am I doing, then? Spekkio just said 'You're fire' and pointed at me; he didn't go into any deep explanation of how it'd work," said Lucca, extinguishing her flame and lightning a lamp. "And he's a god or something, so I just figured that was all there is to it."

"Spekkio is the Master of War, not the Master of Arcana," Magus said dismissively. "He admitted himself that I know more of magic than he does. Conjure that flame again. You're going to learn to meditate."

Lucca did so.

"Good. Now, fit yourself into the flame," Magus instructed. "Empty your mind of all thoughts, save those that make you fire."

It was more difficult than it sounded. Lucca struggled with keeping herself focused on herself; first the hard metal floor was too uncomfortable, then the back of her neck itched. "Force all distractions from your mind," said Magus's voice. Brow furrowed in concentration, Lucca thought of relentless determination, of passion, of warmth, of the forge. I guess that's what it is, she thought, then shoved even that thought from her mind. It was immediately replaced by Damn it, this floor is cold. She opened her eyes. "That's hard to do," she said.

"Of course it is," Magus told her. "Nobody said magic was easy. Do you want to be a proper sorceress or not?"

"I didn't say I was giving up!" Lucca said irritably. "I slipped for a little, that's all. Shut up and let me try again." She shut her eyes again and took a deep breath. Magus watched her. Lucca took one deep breath at a time, her face serene except for her eyebrows, which converged ever so slightly. "Bring yourself into the flame in your hand," Magus told her. "Become part of it. Know it by being it."

Lucca offered no response to Magus's directions, and continued her rhythmic breathing. She opened her eyes, but remained in her meditative state, gazing into her fire.

"That's enough," Magus told her after a short time. Lucca looked up, and her flame vanished. "Where did you learn to breathe like that?" Magus asked her.

"You'll laugh if I tell you," Lucca warned.

"Tell me anyway."

"Fine," said Lucca, knowing he'd get it out of her eventually. "When I was a kid, I heard you could learn how to hover by doing that, so I tried... it never worked."

"Fair enough," said Magus. "Now, tell me what it is to be a fire."

"Well, heat is a lot of it," said Lucca. "It needs something to fuel it, and that's the magic I put into it. And when I start it, I have to use magic to make the heat in the first place. But the heat is what makes the light, and what lets the fire find more fuel."

"Good. Tell me, what happens if you don't use your magic as fuel, and only use it as heat?"

"I never tried that," Lucca admitted. "The heat is hard to control – it's much easier to use just a little at the beginning and let the fire do the work once it's started."

"Naturally," said Magus. "But those who focus on what is easy and give their power free rein can never match those who master their power and control it fully. Draw the heat from your fire without letting the fire out of you. The fire is much stronger inside your body than out." Magus closed his eyes for a moment, and a candle appeared in his hand. He placed it in midair, where it floated unaided. "Melt it without lighting it," he instructed.

Lucca stared at the candle, her brow furrowed. It began to drip, slowly. Within twenty seconds, the candle was a puddle of wax beneath a floating wick.

"Do it faster next time," Magus instructed. "For now, we both need rest." He plucked the wick from the air and made a pulling motion with his other hand. The wax reapplied itself to the wick, forming a perfect cylinder.

The bluntness that had once bothered Lucca now made her smile. "I'll practice on something moving tomorrow," she said as she pulled off her boots. "Keep me warm on this metal floor?"

"You know you have blankets for that, but I'm not about to refuse." He stripped off his armor, boots, and cape as Lucca did the same of her own upper layer of clothing and extinguished her lamp, and lay down next to her. "Goodnight, little fire mage. I'll see to it that you become great."

--------------------------------------

The concept of morning and night had no meaning inside the factory, so Robo roused the two humans eight hours later. Since there was no way to easily contain a campfire indoors, breakfast was jerky. Lucca chewed as Magus continued to instruct her on how best to use her magic. She melted a second candle, this one in a few seconds less time, and set a third on fire by mistake, vaporizing it completely in less than five. "Focus," Magus had said to her at her mistake. "You could have done that with less expenditure of energy if you'd controlled the fire."

Lucca nodded. "Enough candles for now, though," she said. "I want to hit something bigger with this."

Magus nodded. "Shall we head on, then?"

"I think so."

As they packed up their tent, the voice on the loudspeaker spoke again. "Don't you understand? This planet would be peaceful if there were no humans around. And yet you still want to fight? Why?"

"That computer lady doesn't quite grasp the concept of having a will to live," Lucca mused. "Up ahead. Look, I see a couple of defense turrets. Should I try and overheat them?"

Magus nodded. "If they catch fire, just be sure it's as a secondary effect of overheating and not because you conjured any flames."

"Right." Lucca concentrated on one of the turrets, stretching out with the power from behind her eyes to funnel heat into the turret's circuits. A siren started to go off, but she blocked it out of her head. Metal was harder to heat than wax, but in a short while, the turret powered down as it started emitting smoke. "I'm pretty sure I didn't slip that time," she told Magus. "At least, I don't think that smoke is mine."

"Good. Get the other one, but melt it outright this time." He placed his hand on Lucca's shoulder as she began again to heat the metal. "It comes from behind your eyes. Concentrate... control the heat. You are a conduit, let the heat come rushing out... don't let anything else get in its way... good! You can feel it, I know. Let it come..."

Lucca took a deep breath and did her best to follow Magus's instructions. The turret didn't melt, but it began smoking almost instantly as the wires inside glowed a dull red. She exhaled. "That felt... really good."

"Magic in its purest form does," Magus replied. "The more you can channel at once, the better it'll end up feeling. It's the reason some people take up magic - to feel it all at once, that ecstatic pleasure that sweeps you up, surrounds you, courses through your body and leaves you reveling in arcane power -"

"All right, I get it!" Lucca interrupted. "You sound like... damn, I don't even know what you sound like. What will you teach me next, Sensei?"

"Don't call me Sensei" was Magus's response. "I don't need to teach you anything else. You just need practice - you've already proven you can do it and you're learning fast. Meditate on your magic before you go to sleep. As you hone your concentration, you will be able to channel more and more heat at once. Work until you can flash-melt solid steel, everything in as big a radius as you can. You'll learn that."

And so began another day of blasting through laser turrets, destroying robot guards, and hacking.