Chapter 18: A Fair To Remember
JULY 1, 1000 AD
"Crono..." Darkness. "Crono..." Not this again... "All right, men, get the bucket!" What the-? Crono woke up sputtering as the soldiers doused him with a bucket of water. "Whu... what's going on here?" The lead soldier went and opened the window, then turned back, a grim frown on his face.
"The king has summoned you to the castle. Your stay of execution has been cancelled. I suggest you move quickly."
"Uh... okay." Crono mumbled, still groggy. He stumbled downstairs. "Uh... hi, mom. I need to go to the castle..."
"That's nice, dear." She said calmly over a cup of tea. "Be back in time for breakfast!"
"Uh... okay..." It was only after he had left the house that his wits returned to him. "HUH?!" What am I doing back here? I was fighting the Lavos Core! Why am I suddenly back home, sleeping in bed! And where are all the others? Does this mean they're all back in their houses too? But who could do this kind of thing? And why? And... ah... grr... bah...
"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!" The teen screamed at the sky. A nearby sparrow chirped, looked at him and resumed looking for seeds. Other than that, he got no response. "Agh... well, I'll go to the castle." He frowned. "Wait a sec... why wasn't mom surprised to see me here? Something stinks here, and it's not me. Oh well, I'll look into it when I get back. Wait... stay of execution cancelled?!" Crono froze. Oh, this is so NOT cool... I'm in deep shit here. ...If there's another Yakra behind this, I swear I'm gonna launch him into orbit. The teen went through the forest and entered the castle, where the guards immediately ushered him into the throne room. King Guardia looked down.
"Crono, I have summoned you because of one question. Where is my daughter?"
"Your majesty..." Crono faltered. "I... uh..." The king glared down at the sputtering young man imperiously, then turned to the Chancellor.
"I think that this is fairly obvious to see, wouldn't you, Chancellor?"
"Indeed!" The old man said gravely.
"FATHER!" Marle burst in suddenly behind Crono. "Listen! Crono didn't do anything! We were off-"
"Saving the world?" King Guardia finished for her. Crono's and Marle's jaws dropped to the floor, and the king and chancellor burst into peals of laughter. "As you young people say... gotcha! Bring 'em out, Lucca!" From the back halls, the scientest led a group.
"You ended the Mystic Wars and brought peace to a nation." King Guardia XV announced. Frog winked.
"You saved the world from destruction, and created a paradise in the future." Doan proclaimed. Robo nodded.
"Crono beat Reptites!" Kino yelled. Ayla bonked him on the head.
"You helped a small group of humans survive the destruction of a kingdom." The Elder of Algenny said softly. Magus said nothing, and Crono frowned.
"Okay, all of you. What's going on here? How did you get clearance from Gaspar and Spekkio, let alone whoever makes the rules for them?"
"It was their idea!" King Guardia XV smiled. "They brought all our ancestors and descendant from the times you visited together, and we decided that the performance of you all merited a party, at the least."
"Ancestors and descendant?" Marle gasped. "I knew about King Guardia from 600, but... you're saying Kino and the Elder of Algetty are ancestors and Doan's my descendant?"
"That's right." Came a familiar voice from behind. "And they're not all we brought!"
"Why am I suddenly getting the feeling I do NOT want to turn around?" Crono complained. He did anyway, though.
"WOOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!" The crowd cheered. Friends, family and colleagues from every time zone were there. Everybody from Johnny Turbo to the Terrible Trio (waving "Go Magus!" signs) were there. Silently, the other members of the group walked up and flanked him.
"Hope you like it." Robo smiled. "It is..."
"Hey, Prometheus! What's wrong with you? Can't you say hello to your family in public? I'm crushed! Wounded! Hurt to the quick!" Robo's eyes widened as he heard that voice.
"Icarus?" The crowd parted to reveal six blue robots and a pink one, all waving huge "Prometheus #1!" foam fingers. Atropos dashed over and grabbed him in a bear hug that would have killed a grizzly.
"You doof! When you made Lavos into roadkill, the future was changed! No Mother Brain! We're all alive, and the future is a paradise!" Robo's eyes were shining.
"It is all I could have hoped for.."
"You think that's good?" Icarus laughed. "Wait until we get you back there to our estates!"
"Estates?" Robo was confused.
"Yuuup! With everything hunky-dory, all the stuff we made brought in tons of money! The others insisted we name our mansion after you. 'Prometheus Manor' sounds a little ostentatious, I know, but waddayagonnado?"
"That's enough, Icarus." Orpheus smiled. "Give the guy a break before he has a heart attack. Or a processor freeze, whichever you prefer."
"This display of familial love is heartwarming. Truly." Magus said. "But we need to get moving if we want everything ready be sundown!"
"Everythng ready?" Crono was confused all over again.
"That's right!" King Guardia XXXV smiled. "It's the last night of the Millenial Fair, and tonight we celebrate... you!"
***
The last rays of the sun disappeared, and moonlight shone over the plaza. The Mayor of Medina walked to the front of the square with some dancers.
"The world is saved! The evil from below is destroyed! Come, walk along with our heroes. It's a Moonlight Parade!" Bright lights appeared all around as the imp led everybody in a ring around the plaza. After one lap, people began breaking off.
"Hey, Crono." Marle tapped the hero on his shoulder.
"Yeah?"
"Let's go walk around together like we did at the start of this." He smiled.
"Sounds good to me." The two strolled around idly, taking in the sights as different people celebrated.
"Damn thing..." Icarus growled as he wrestled with the strength tester. Kino smiled and took the hammer.
"KIIIIIINOOOO!!!" The caveman yelled as he slammed the tool into the tester... and broke it. Icarus blinked.
"How many points is that?" Crono shook his head and moved on.
"Hey, look! It's the races!" Marle pointed. Crono took a look and began laughing uncontrollably. The normal racers had been replaced by both King Guardias and the Algetty Elder.
"I should do this more often!" Guardia XV laughed. "Oh, drat!" This had come when Johnny Turbo had passed him and sped across the finish line.
"I'm still the MAN!"
"I don't fell like betting tonght. I wonder what Norstein Bekkler's... oh, geez..." Marle suddenly moaned, pointing to Norstein Bekkler's Tent. Crono peered in and groaned as well. Spekkio, Bekkler, Toma, Doan, the Gurus, Taban and the Trio were in there, drinking everything in sight. Crono counted at least fifteen different kinds of alcoholic beverages. Lara shoved her way in past the drunk fools and grabbed her husband.
"Taban, don't just lie around like a sack of potatoes! Dance with me!" Taban smiled.
"Anything for my lovely wife!" As he walked out, the inventor looked at Crono. "Here, have a drink! You're the hero tonight, Crono!" The two took to the dance floor. Crono smiled as she saw Lucca sitting on the bench, watching her parents without a word.
"Why isn't Lucca partying?" Marle wondered.
"She has more important things to do." Crono told her. "Look. For ten years, Lucca's parents have been steadily drifting apart. For the last year, Lucca was the only thing that kept them together. But when she stopped her mom's legs from being maimed, it looks like she stopped all that from happening too. For the first time in a long time, she has a perfect family, and I think she just wants to enjoy that for a while."
"Oh..." Marle said softly. "Let's go to another area, Crono, or I'm going to start crying..." The two moved up to the secondary plaza, where Leene's Bell hung. Marle smiled at the sight of it.
"Remember, Crono? This was where we met!"
"Oh, yeah... my hip still aches in damp weather." The teen joked. He suddenly began laughing. "Oh, boy... this won't end well." Marle followed his gaze to where Ayla was attempting to conduct a conversation with Gato, Lucca's robotic battle trainer.
"...You might be right. Let's go watch the drinking contest before the explosions begin, shall we?"
"Good idea." Crono agreed. "I don't want to be around for the climax of that conversation." The drinking contest was among Robo, his six family members (Besides Icarus, who was still debating the strength tester with Kino) and Frog. Atropos was in the lead currently, with the knight a close second. Underneath Leene's Bell, the Queen for which it had been named was chatting with Crono's Mom. The latter looked up as her son and the princess approached.
"Crono... I still find this all so hard to believe! My son, saving the world! Well, try to stay home more often from now on! It's a real problem when the person who's supposed to feed the cat is away! It even ran away for a few days a while back!"
"Ah heh heh..." Crono chuckled nervously, remembering Ozzie's fall as he moved away. "So... now, what do we do, Marle?" Crono wondered as they left. Marle smiled a little evilly.
"Is that Gato robot still up there? And does it still sing?"
"Yeeeeaaahh... it's a bit battered and bruised, thanks to Ayla, but it works..."
"And are Spekkio and his pals still getting drunk?"
"Yeeeeaaahh..."
"And we still have Spekkio's lucky disco record..." The grin spread to Crono's face.
"Yeah..." Snickering, they inserted the record into the slot in Gato's back, then pushed him into Bekkler's Tent. The screams could be heard throughout the entire fair. Laughing wildly, the two ran out and headed for the music stage. Robo and Icarus where in the rafters, casting bright spotlights onto Ayla, who was doing a wild spinning dance. It went well for several minutes until she went out of control, flew off the stage and crashed into Magus. Screaming curses in some vile foreign language, the mage chased her around the fair.
***
"Okay, everyone." Magus yelled across the fair. "It's 11:00. Party's over." The Gurus and Spekkio exited Bekkler's tent and helped him shepherd everybody.
"Okay! Prehistoric over here, Zeal over here, Medieval over here and Future over here... hey, you! Nice try! Get back where you belong!" Grumbling, the Terrible Trio exited the 2300 group and walked back to the Medieval section. When everybody was ordered up, Gaspar took center stage.
"Awright! We're gonna go up here for a moment, so stay in your groups and come when we call you!" The three Gurus, Spekkio and the Seven heroes walked back to the Telepod, where it had all began.
"What's this?" Marle asked. "Why does everybody have to leave now?" The others in the group looked at each other for several moments until Gaspar stood up.
"...This is it, Marle." Gaspar announced. "Time to go back home. The Gates are weakening... at midnight, they will close forever."
"What?" Crono yelled. "But why? We already figured out the Gates don't really come from Lavos!"
"Because their job is done." Spekkio answered. "The Gates have done what they were supposed to, and now the Entities, as you call them, are cleaning up. They are always very methodical about these things..."
"That brings something else to mind." Lucca frowned. "Spekkio, how did you manage to convince the Entities to allow this? You know, bringing all these people here for the party? They wouldn't do this for just anybody... to hear you tell it, they're very, very strict." The pink Nu looked down.
"Well... I have a certain... relationship with them, you could say." He suddenly smiled. "What kind of people can't do a favor for their little brother, eh?" All seven group members simultaneously faceplanted. Magus was the first to recover.
"Their BROTHER?! You're... you're..."
"Yuuuuup." Spekkio laughed. "Where did you THINK I came from? Texas?"
"That does explain a lot..." Robo mused.
"This conversation is absolutely fascinating, everybody." Gaspar growled. "But we don't exactly have time to waste. If you want to say goodbye, do it now."
"Goodbye..." Marle murmured. "So this is it.... I'll never see you all again... everybody's going back to their own times. Ayla's going back to the prehistoric to lead her people through the ice age... Frog's returning to the medieval era to serve his rulers... Robo's going to explore his new Future... and Magus..."
"It was a tough call for me." The dark mage admitted. "I kinda wanted to go back to 600 AD and whack those three yahoos around some more. But I decided on 12000. I'm going to look for Schala... she wasn't at the Lavos fight or the party."
"We couldn't find her. Sorry, magic man." Spekkio apologized. Magus waved him down.
"Sa'right. I got nothing else to do. And I know she's not dead."
"How?" Marle wonderd. Magus just smiled and pointed at her Pendant.
"That's how. What, you thought it was just a coincidence that yours and her Pendant looked exactly alike? She's your ancestor, princess. I'm you're great-great-about-a-million-greats-uncle."
"But dad told me the Algetty Elder was my ancestor!" Marle protested. Magus blew a raspberry.
"Well, DUH. He's MY uncle. He's not a direct ancestor, but he's part of the family tree."
"That explains a lot." Robo observed. "Such as how he and Doan resemble each other so much."
"Yeah." Magus looked at them all. "So anyways, don't cry for me. My life could've been a lot better, but I'm happy with it."
"Uwaaaooo!" Ayla howled. "Ayla sad! Me miss people!" She shook her head. "Chief must be strong... chief must not cry... chief must... AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!" With a howl, she began beating her head against the floor for several minutes. When she stopped, she looked much calmer. "Ayla okay now. See all again someday!"
"Parting be such sweet sorrow..." Frog intoned. "We hath had a truly grand adventure, which must eventually give way to mundane reality, and thusfore, we art required to bid fond farewell to dear friends and return to our own home time zones, although fear not and be of good cheer, for like lady Ayla, I doth see a joyous reunion in the future for all here."
"Did he say all that in one sentence?!" Marle choked. Lucca nodded wearily.
"Yes." The scientest stood up. "Sigh... look, everybody. We had fun, but now we have to say goodbye. Don't make this any worse for us... if one person starts crying, we all will. Be good... take care of yourselves... and don't any of you blow yourselves up, okay?" With that, the scientest sat back down and Robo took the stand.
"I believe I am returning to the greatest change. My entire time has been changed radically for the better with Lavos's destruction. I look forward to exploring the new world with my family, and to work on new projects." He smiled. "I must confess, I was worried if Lavos's destruction would erase my existence, but the appearance of the others has confirmed it. The future has a place for me."
"Well, I hope you all enjoy yourselves." Gaspar grunted. "Me and the fruit..."
"HEY!" Spekkio interrupted. "I'm a lot of things... more than even YOU know, Gaspy... but I am NOT gay!"
"I meant fruit as in bananas." He retorted.
"Oh."
"Can I finish now? Anyways, we're returning to the End of Time, and we're taking Melchior and Belthasar back with us."
"Huh?!" Crono gasped.
"Yuuup." Melchior nodded. "There's not gonna be much need for weapons from now on... but I like it that way. So I'm retiring. As for Belthasar... he needs a few centuries to work off the "bad" future's effects on him. You don't just go insanse every day." The blue-robed Guru next to him nodded a bit nervously. Finally, Crono stood up.
"Well... this is it." He looked at them all, smiling. "We sure had some good times, didn't we? I like to think they outweighed the bad ones, and that's all we can really hope for, isn't it? We were only together for six months, but it seems more like six years. It's been fun, all of you. And just remember... no matter how far apart we are, we'll always be a team. And I couldn't ask for a better one."
With that, they began shepherding people through the Gate, which apparently connected to all times. As Ayla and Kino prepared to go, Marle stopped them.
"Hey... Kino, make sure you have strong kids, or I'll be in trouble!"
"No worry!" Kino guffawed. "Ayla VERY strong!"
"Huh?" Marle was confused. "But I sa... wait... are you saying... Ayla?"
"Kino dummy!" Ayla shook her head, blushing. "We go now!" She threw the caveman in, the turned, blew them all a kiss and disappeared. Magus walked up next; his uncle had already gone. As he was about to enter, he suddenly turned around and looked at them all.
"Look. For the record, I still think you're all a bunch of insane idiots. But listen... if you ever decided to take off on another one of these wild, crazy adventures..."
"We'll be sure to invite you along." Crono finished. Magus nodded and turned to the Gate.
"Magus!" Frog called. The mage turned around again and looked silently at the knight. Frog looked back calmly, then slowly raised his sword in salute. Magus raised his scythe in the same way. They both stood there for several moments, just looking at each other.
"They're not saying anything." Marle whispered to Crono.
"They don't need to." He responded. "It's one of those 'guy things.'" Finally, the mage lowered his scythe, and looked at them all one last time. Then he actually winked, then turned and left. Frog stepped up.
"It be time for me to leave." He smiled. "Goodbye, all of ye." They nodded, and he began to enter.
"Wait!" Marle called. He turned back.
"Long farewells never were neccessary..." Marle went over and kissed him on the cheek. Frog yelped and jumped backward, disappearing into the Gate.
"Well, these things DO end with the princess kissing the frog!" Robo joked. "I'd better go... I have a lot of work to do!"
"Do you already know what your first project is?" Lucca asked him. The robot nodded.
"Of course. My first project is to discover the secret of time travel!" Laughing, he disappeared. Wordlessly, the Gurus and Spekkio walked into the Gate, one at a time. Before going in, Spekkio turned and winked.
"Hey, guys. Don't stress. I managed to negotiate a loophole. It's up to you to find it, though. See ya around!" He vanished. Lucca looked at her watch.
"11:59. One minute. We made it just in time..." She sighed. "We should probably dismantle the Epoch. Its work is done as well."
"What are you, brain-dead?!" Marle yelled. "We can't dismantle Epoch! It was as much a part of this as any of us!"
"Hey, get back here!" Crono's mom yelled as the teen's cat ran between them. Crono blinked as his mother ran up as well. "Crono, look at this! Your cat's running away because you didn't feed it!" Suddenly, the furry animal jumped into the Gate! "Gracious! Come here, you!" The three heroes almost had collective apoplexy as Crono's Mom jumped in, and a moment later, the Gate exploded!
"OH, THAT'S JUST GREAT!!!" Marle shrieked. "That Gate will never open again, Crono!"
"Well... shit." The teen voiced his opinion.
"Heh heh heh..." Both of them turned to Lucca, who was laughing. "I'd say I'm not the brain-dead one... did both of you foget? We may not have the Gates, but we still have a time machine!"
"Spekkio's loophole!" Crono grinned. "Epoch!"
"Well, what are we just standing around here for?" Marle inquired. "Since she's from this time, there's no telling where she went! We've got no choice but to go after her! Let's move!"
"And if we happen to run into a few old friends on the way... nya ha ha!" Lucca laughed.
"Oh, Nadia!" The King was waiting for them under the place where Leene's Bell normally hung. Strangely, it was gone now. "We have a present for you!" He walked into a tent, and a moment later, came out hauling a huge, brand-new bell with Taban and Norstein Bekkler. "Nadia's Bell!" The three men began hanging it up, but Lucca tapped her dad on the shoulder and made an obscure hand motion. Taban grinned and looked at Bekkler, who grinned back, and the two of them let go and walked back into the tent, leaving the King alone.
"Wha-? What happened... Taban? Bekkler? Ooof... this thing's heavy..."
"Sorry, dad!" Marle giggled. "I gotta go again!" The three heroes ran out as Taban and Bekkler returned with a bag labeled "Heatworks".
"Shall I light one up?" Taban asked. The King groaned.
"Uh... no, Taban. Actually, I could use your help here... I think my back's going out..."
"Here we go!"
A moment later, the sky was filled with brightly colored explosions of light, as a strange flying vehicle flew around the world at incredible speeds, then vanished in a flash.