Chapter 3

Making Friends 101

He circled his enemy; a careful eye took in every detail available. It worked to the best of its ability to fulfill its master's wish of finding a weak point in the monster. With nothing more than a slight grunt, Michael suddenly ran and made a flying leap into the air.

SHH-THWACK!

The satisfying sound of metal slicing through wood and straw told he all needed to know. He already knew that the hit would be flawless, but it was all part of the game. In a real battle, your enemies are not made of straw and hung on a pole. You can never be sure of a perfect hit. Listening for the sound of a blade penetrating is your best defense against being caught off guard. The last thing you would want is to think you have won the battle while your 'dead' enemy gets up and stabs you in the back.

Michael turned around to survey the damage done to his training dummy. The best description he could find was utter destruction. Melchior's new Swallow was defiantly one of his better works. He had the disturbing thought that if this is just one of his good swords, he would really hate to be on the receiving end of one of his best ones.

He looked down at the slate-blue blade, "I see Melchior hasn't lost his touch one bit."

"You know, it really isn't healthy to talk to yourself like that. I doubt the sword really wishes to have a conversation with you either."

He whirled around and saw Gina walking towards him with Crono following behind. Even though he had been doing it for months, it still amazed Michael every time he saw Crono walking. Walking for a three year old isn't odd, but Crono had a certain poise and stability about his movements that most other young children lacked. It had occurred to him that Crono would be a great swordsman one day.

"Especially after that incident with Lucca last night." He thought. "It was completely instinctual, I don't think he even realized what he had done."

"And how do you know that? At least the sword listens to me and doesn't give me grief all of the time. I'm a great conversationalist!"

"I would laugh at the thought of you trying to actually converse, but I don't want Crono to get an even worse perception of his father."

Michael fell onto the ground "Oh! OW! My aching heart! It feels as if its been torn out of my chest! My family has forsaken me! I'm...dying."

Gina walked over and nudged her now immobile husband with her foot. He responded by letting his tongue loll out of his mouth.

"Fine example you set for your child. With a role model like you, I'll be the one with a heart attack! The last things I need in my life are for both of you to end up acting the same way!" She turned to her son, "Crono, when Daddy wakes up, tell him I ate all of the food and he'll have to fend for himself." She smiled at him and turned to walk off.

Crono looked down at his dad and saw a wink. He looked back up at his mother's retreating back, put his hand to his stomach, then ran off to get some lunch before his mother made good on her promise. Since everyone had decided to desert him, Michael sat up, grabbed the Swallow, and followed the other two into the house. When it came to inanimate objects speaking to him, his stomach was always the loudest.

"Hey, what are we having for lunch anyway?" He asked as he walked through the back door and stored the Swallow safely in a locked cabinet.

"Well, well, well, so you decided to rejoin the living. We're hav-" Her reply was interrupted by a knock at the front door. "Honey, go see who that is. I need to finish making these sandwiches."

Michael got up and opened the thick oak front door. He was quite surprised to see Taban and Lucca standing on the other side. Out of any visitor, he had least expected to see the person that almost ended up being his personal pancake and the aforementioned person's father.

"I hope that he hasn't come here to yell at me. That would really ruin my day."

"Uh... Hi Taban, Lucca." He backed away from the door, "It's nice to see you, come on in."

"Thank you Michael."

"We, eh, were about to have lunch, would you two like to join us."

"Thank's for the offer, but we aren't going to be here long. Actually, we came here to talk to Crono, or rather Lucca here wanted to talk to him." Taban leaned towards Michael and added out of the side of his mouth, "I think she wanted to thank him for pushing her out of the way last night."

"Sure. Crono, come in here for a minute!" He turned back to Taban and in a lowered tone, "Hey... a, um. Look Taban, I want to say that I'm really sorry about that. I should have been watching where I was going."

"Don't worry about it. Seriously, I of all people know that accidents happen. I'm quite sure someone in town has been keeping a running count of the number of explosions at my place. In all actuality, I'm surprised Lucca hasn't had her eyebrows singed off. I guess it's a good thing that she takes after her mother and leaves the machine work up to me."

"Still, I feel pretty bad about it." Michael always hated this part, he and Taban got along, but didn't have much I common. Outside of idle chit-chat, their conversations were mostly made up of awkward silences. "Sooo...Lucca really isn't interested in your machines? As intelligent as she is I would have figured that she would want to be right in the midst of it."

Crono swallowed the last of his sandwich as he walked up to the three. He looked over each person in turn and calmly waited. His father and the other man were talking in hushed tones and the maroon haired girl from last night kept looking between him and her shuffling feet. He gave her a mildly quizzical look has he tried to figure out why she was so nervous.

Michael noticed Crono and looked down at him, "Crono, this is Taban, a friend of your mother's, and Lucca's father. I think you remember them from last night. Um, Lucca wanted to say something, I think..."

Taban gave Lucca a push forward and whispered, "Go ahead, I'm fairly sure he isn't going to bite you. Besides, you are the one that wanted to come out here."

She continued to shuffle her feet and started to talk to the ground. "I...uhh. I wanted to thank you for pushing me out of the way last night." She looked up at Crono as he gave her a smile and nodded his head.

Crono didn't really understand why they were making such a fuss about everything. Why would no one have done that? She would have been hurt badly if he had not. It made sense.

"Well, thanks for your time Michael, I best take Lucca back home and let you go back to your lunch." Taban started to direct Lucca to the door but was stopped by her small voice.

"Wait dad." She looked back at Crono and pulled something white from one of her pockets. She held the object out to Crono, "Here, I would like you to have this, it's a thank you present."

Crono took the piece of fabric and looked at it. Lucca looked a little disappointed when Crono didn't do anything but stare at it. He was unsure what is was and looked up to his father. His father was still wearing a white headband from his workout, and it suddenly hit Crono what the white thing was for. He took the fabric in both of his hands, pulled it tight around his head, and tied it in a knot in the back.

Crono was thrilled to receive this gift, it was obvious that giving it to him meant a lot to her. He looked back up at her and smiled, "Thanks."

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Thank you for the reviews. I am very pleased to see that everyone is enjoying the story.

Xyn: I am glad that you like Michael. He is my first stab at an original character, well; actually, this whole thing is a first stab... I'm rather worried about what I'm going to do to him as well, I have an idea on what is going to happen, but I'm really starting to like him, a lot. In answer to your question, yes, I did get the name from the OC remix. It is one of my favorites and I thought that it was a rather fitting title.