DISCLAIMER: I do not own Crono Thrigger or
the characters, just the plot in this
story.
The
Black Wind
Part IV
Chapter VIII
BY
D A R T H V A D E
R
"Well done," a voice whispered.
"Eeeek!!" Marle yelped. "What's going on??"
"Where are we?" asked Schala.
"These surroundings are unfamiliar to anything in my memory
banks," said Robo.
"Ayla no scare! What happen?"
"This doesn't look good..." said Lucca.
"What hath brought us here?" asked Frog.
"That's a good question," said Cyrus. He looked at Frog and
squinted hard. "What are you...?" he asked.
Frog freaked when he saw Cyrus. "Cyrus!! 'Tis me, Glenn! Magus
transformed me into the form you see today! Now, why art thou here?"
"I believe I can offer somewhat of an explanation," said Magus.
Cyrus turned to look at him.
"Magus!!!! What are you doing alive?! I thought I killed you
already!" he shouted.
Magus was already shaking his head. "No, no, no. There's no time for
bickering. For now we have to work together to defeat the Black Wind!"
"You believe you can defeat us," a voice whispered.
"What was that?" asked Crono.
"That," said Magus, "Was the Black Wind."
"Black Wind....my memory banks tell me that you mentioned the Black
Wind at two separate occasions during the time we've known you," said
Robo.
"Yes, that's correct. Once when I was a boy in Enhasa, and once in
my castle. However, I seriously doubt that any of you know what the Black Wind
is. I didn't even know up until not too long ago," said Magus.
"What Black Wind? Ayla eat for breakfast!" said Ayla.
"Magus, what is this Black Wind which thou speakest of?" asked
Frog.
"The Black Wind is a sentient being, made up of many other sentient
beings. It's a purely evil force that seeks to devour everything it can.
Whatever and whoever it devours is added to its collective consciousness and
adds to its already-surpeme power. Now what we must do is defeat it before it
overcomes the counterbalancing force created to stop it when it entered this
world in the year 12,014 BC," said Magus.
Everyone stared at him in silence. "Wow....even I don't understand
all that," said Lucca.
Magus sighed. "Ok, let me put it in terms that even Ayla can
understand. Black Wind, baaaaad. Must stop Black Wind. Everyone got that?"
Everyone nodded, and to Magus's dismay, no one seemed to notice the
extreme sarcasm in his voice.
"Oh we noticed it, alright," said Schala. "We just chose
not to say anything."
Magus looked at her funny.
"I can read minds, Bro," said Schala, smirking.
"Enough small talk," a voice whispered, "It is time to
fight."
And then Cyrus and Schala vanished.
"Ack!!
Schala!" Magus yelped. He looked up. "Why did you do that?! What did
she ever do to you??"
"She does not exist," the whispering voice replied. "She
ceased to exist ever since the Ocean Palace incident."
"And what of Cyrus?" asked Frog. He was pretty shaken up too.
"He ceased to exist when Magus defeated him in the Denadoro Mountains,
590 AD. Those two were simply illusions, just like the synthetic realities we
threw Magus into. Though they were real and not simply a figment of someone's
imagination, they were created--and then destroyed--by me."
"And who are you?" asked Marle.
"I believe I have already answered that," said the voice. Then,
"Enough!! Let the battle begin!"
And the blackness of the surroundings shrank and gathered itself in one
place, and now they were in what appeared to be,
"Hey, this looks like temporal limbo!!" said Lucca.
"You mean the place we go to whenever we're in between two time
periods?" asked Crono.
"Yes, this is precisely that place," said a shape that had just
been formed from all the blackness. It was as if they were in a glass bubble and
up until now, ink had been completely covering the inside glass of the bubble.
"Now, have at you!" and it raised its arms. Everyone else got lifted
into the air by an imaginary force.
"My sensors are detecting an impossibly high energy reading--!"
said Robo. "Almost a thousand times that of the Black Omen..."
"Ayla no scared! Ayla fight! Fight, or die!!"
The featureless silhouette squeezed its hands together like it was
grasping something, and everyone felt as though they were being crushed.
Things looked bleak. No one could even get a chance to make an attack.
Finally, Magus thought of something. It'd be a longshot, but he didn't have
much of a choice.
He managed to hold his scythe and concentrate enough to imbue it with
some shadow magic power, remembering Melchior's words:
"There is only one way to defeat the Black Wind. I've done alot of
research on it, and I've found that Lunar magic cannot and will not destroy it.
It can only balance it out. The only way to defeat the Black Wind is to use its
own power against it. And Magus, given that you are the ultimate Shadow Wizard,
you would be the ideal opponent."
Summing up all the strength he had left, he hurled the empowered weapon
straight at the entity that was the Black Wind. It tore into the entity and
stopped halfway through, so that half of the curved blade was sticking out.
It howled in pain and dropped its arms. Everyone dropped to the invisible
floor and the crushing pressure was gone.
"Quick, everyone let loose on it as much as you can! It's the only
way to defeat it!" said Magus.
Crono opened up the attack with Luminaire, and the lunar-like properties
of the spell weakened the Black Wind because of the counterbalancing
properties.
Frog followed up with a flying leap-slash attack and Lucca accompanied it
with Flare. Marle saw to it that everyone got totally healed from all the
damage done to them while Robo fired a concentrated laser beam at the entity.
Since Robo's laser beam's energy patterns are similar to the energy patterns of
Shadow magic, they hurt the Black Wind twice as much.
Ayla ran to the monster and kicked the crap out of it with her bare fists
and fast kicks while it struggled to remove the scythe from its chest. Finally,
he got the thing out and slashed Ayla with it. She reeled back to where
everyone else was and Marle healed her.
Magus responded to his recovery with his strongest spell, Dark Matter.
Shadow energy materialized in the form of a huge, two-dimensional triangle and
converged on the Black Wind. That hurt it almost as much as the shadow-imbued
scythe had.
"Insolent wimps," the entity whispered, "You cannot kill
me. I am completely invulnerable to anything you have to dish out. Your efforts
are useless."
"My scythe certainly looked like it caused you some pain," said
Magus. "Don't listen to it," he continued to the others, "It's
trying to trick us into giving up. We can beat this thing!"
"Of course! We can beat anything!" said Lucca. She fired her
newly developed proton cannon at the entity. It seemed unaffected and in return
it shot seven balls of pure black shadow energy, one at each of his opponents.
Magus was the only one able to dodge it by using teleportation. He threw a Dark
Bomb at the enemy and ran over to help Marle.
Once Marle was a bit better, she used her magic to cure everyone else and
soon everyone was all better again.
"You...you're just delaying the inevitable!" said the Black
Wind. "I'll defeat you eventually. You can't keep fighting forever!"
"Don't hesitate! Hit him with all you have!" Magus coached.
Crono leapt up to the beast and swung his sword repeatedly at it
non-stop. Magus cast a spell on the sword so it had some properties of shadow
magic in it, and by the time his arms got tired and he jumped back, the entity
was severely hurt. It was stumbling all over the invisible floor, trying to
regain its balance.
"Now! Here's our chance! Everyone join hands and act like you're
about to do your strongest magic attacks! If we all combine our powers we'll be
fine!"
"What about Ayla? Ayla no have magic power."
"And I am unable to perform magic due to the fact that my soul is
only artificial," said Robo.
"You two can physically attack it while we're onslaughting it with
magic," said Lucca. "Y'know, punch it, kick it, ram it, that sorta
stuff."
"Yeah!! Kick the crap out of it!" said Marle.
Everyone but Robo and Ayla joined hands and acted like they were about to
cast their strongest spells. Magus chanted, "Neuga, Zie--"
"No!!" a voice shouted. Magus opened his eyes to see who said
it. It didn't appear to be anyone.
He was quickly brought back on track by a glance at the Black Wind sort
of regaining its balance. He was about to start the chant again, and then
realized something.
Instead of the normal chant, he said, "Cornum, martis, zengil,
zive....The Time of Light, has arrived....Give the Gift of....um....Give the
gift of Destruction!"
And all at once, everyone's magical energy gathered up on Magus, and from
him fired a huge beam of pure black energy, laced with a hint of yellow light.
This laser beam slammed into the Black Wind and it gave a shriek of
extreme pain and terror. Robo and Ayla followed up with a swift beating, and
the Black Wind was lifeless on the invisible floor inside a minute.
"I....." was the Black Wind's last word, and then it dissipated
into nothing.
Just like that, everyone wound up in Leene Square, 1000 AD, and this time
it was the right reality.
"Whoa!! What a rush!" said Lucca.
"That kicked....butt!" said Marle.
"Ayla happy! We win!"
"Magus, what was that all about?" asked Frog.
"That, my friend, is a long story. Very long, in fact," said
Magus. He stood up on the cobblestones and took in his surroundings. The soft,
green grass was moving gently with the cool breeze and the sun was shining
brightly from the blue sky above. He took a big whiff of the nice, pure air and
was finally satisfied that this was definitely where he was supposed to be.
"Would you mind telling us exactly what has just occurred?"
asked Robo.
"Of course. But not here, not right now. Is there somewhere nice and
homey that we could go and maybe get a meal from?"
"Sure, we'll go to my house," said Crono. "My mom's a
great cook."
Magus thought about something in one of the realities. He asked,
"What year is this? Is it 1000 or 1001?"
"It's 1000," said Marle. "Why?"
Magus looked back and forth Crono and Marle, standing side by side. He
remembered the reality where the two of them were married, the one that they'd
saved Schala from Lavos in. He grinned. "Are you two...what's the
term....Going out?" he asked.
"Magus...? Art thou feeling alright?" asked Frog.
"I'm fine," said Magus, still expecting someone to answer.
"Well....yeah, we've been on a few dates. Why?" said Crono.
"Good. Very good. Now come, let's go. I'll tell you why I asked that
while I explain all that just happened."