CHAPTER TWELVE

"Where are we going?" asked Magus.

"Truce," Lucca replied, setting the controls for 1000 AD.

"Why? I don't want to go to Truce!"

"Suffer. It's Truce, or I cut your hair."

"Right, Truce, let's go!"

They went to Truce and drove around in the Epoch for a while. "I've lost it," said Lucca finally.

"Oh well, let's go home," was Magus' response.

"We'll get there! Maybe it's at the fair."

"Oooh, the fair! I haven't been there."

"Well, we'll have a look."

They had a look at the fair. One of Lucca's friends, Arlen, wandered over to talk to her. "I saw your invention. What does it do?"

"Hi, Arlen. It's meant to just transport people from one pod to the other, but, well."

"Can I have a go?"

"Oh, you'd better not," Lucca frowned. "I have to fix it first, do some tests, you know. Um... my friend needs a haircut, and we don't really have time for this now, so-"

Arlen eyed Magus cautiously. "Who's he?"

"Magus," answered Lucca without thinking.

"Really? Why would his parents name him that?"

"Why would your parents name you Arlen?" Magus shot back. "Lucca, this rude person isn't worth our time. Come along now. I want to see your invention too."

He walked off and she followed. "Speaking of rude..."

"I don't like her," announced Magus. "She was extremely irritating. Where is your invention?"

"Which one? I have two here. One is the telepod and you get to beat the other one up."

"Oh, can I see that one?"

"I should have known! You do realise it won't give you any trouble," she informed him. "Oh, wait- you can't use magic. That should be slightly interesting, then. And you can't even hold that sickle thing. Are you sure about this?"

Magus nodded confidently. "Never underestimate the power of an evil wizard."

"If you say so." She led him to where Gato waited.

The rather large robot sang, "They call me Gato, I have metal joints. Beat me up and earn fifteen silver points."

Lucca backed off to let Magus take control. With a cry of, "Hiyah!" the wizard kicked it. "Ow! That hurt!"

It may have hurt, but it was also all it took to defeat Gato. "I lost, you won, here's fifteen points, now wasn't that fun?" sang the robot and gave him fifteen silver points.

"No! That was pathetic!" snarled Magus. "Lucca, your robot is pathetic! Hurts, though."

"Well it is made of metal," she pointed out. "I even programmed it to say so. And I couldn't make it too powerful, or it would have killed everyone who came in here and then everyone would say my inventions never worked."

"You should design a smaller one and stick it in the End of Time so we could have something to practice on. My foot really does hurt."

"That's your problem."

He gave her a slightly miserable look and she sighed. "What, you want my help to walk around?" When he nodded she walked over to him and let him put an arm around her shoulders. With Lucca taking some of his weight off his foot they wandered out to see her other invention.

"Your foot can't really hurt that much," she muttered.

"How do you know? Have you ever kicked a metal robot?" he shot back.

"No... I don't tend to kick metal things, on account that I know it would probably hurt. I'd still be able to walk on it, though..."

"It's my foot, okay? Maybe I have delicate feet, or something, I don't know!"

"You? Delicate?"

"You wouldn't kick it hard enough," he informed her a bit coldly. "Where's this teleporting thing?"

"Over here. I must say, no-one has ever kicked Gato before."

"Have any evil wizards who can't use their hands given it a go before?"

"Not to my knowledge. See, this is the telepod. The original idea was my father's. I worked out how it could be done and we built it together. Took us over a year. We tested it on our pets."

"But I didn't see any pets at your house," he pointed out.

"Well... one of them came back, but he ran away straight afterwards," she admitted uncomfortably. "So, what do you think?"

He studied it. "Yay," he said finally. "It's pretty, I suppose. Hey, can I have a demonstration? Bring that Arlen girl, we'll try it on her. If it doesn't work, well... one less person to annoy us."

"That would be cruel! Arlen is... um... to be brutally honest, a nasty, back-stabbing bitch if you get to know her. But it would still be cruel."

They looked at the invention in silence for a while. "Let's get out of here and find something more interesting to do," Magus suggested.

"We have to cut your hair first. I'm sure there's someone out here who'll do it for you."

They wandered aimlessly. Lucca stopped to talk to a little girl, who wailed, "Waaah! Where's my cat?!"

"You're not getting mine!" Magus snarled, and pulled Lucca away. His foot seemed to have miraculously healed. "Where are we?"

"The Millennial Fair?" she suggested.

He gave her a dirty look. "Not funny."

"Look, your foot has obviously stopped hurting. Why are you still leaning on me?"

"I'm cold," he said by way of an explanation. "Hey, you. What do you want?"

"What's all the fuss?" grumbled the child he had spoken to. "So what if we won a war against a wizard four hundred years ago?"

"You only won because Crono cheated!" Magus snarled. "Um... that's what I've heard, anyway. It hardly matters now anyway! Is there anyone in this hole who can cut hair?"

"No sir!" answered the boy.

"Okay, I'll do it myself," decided Lucca. "Follow me."

"Lead the way. Wait, no! What am I doing?! Oh well."

"I have plenty of experience," insisted Lucca as she led him out of the Fair. "You've noticed Crono's hair, right?"

"Aaaargh!"

"Oh, stop complaining. You should have seen it before I got to it."

Arlen, who had followed from a distance, waited until they had gone. Her eyes gleamed maliciously. She located one of her other friends and started the rumour she had thought up as revenge, one she knew would quickly become exaggerated. "You know Lucca and her so-called 'friend'..."