The Fire When it Comes – Part 10: Something's Burning – In
which Glenn is called upon to perform a rescue.
A Crono-Trigger/Cross
fanfic
By Deborah J. Brown
Chrono-Trigger & Chrono-Cross and all associated characters belong to Squaresoft.
END OF TIME:
Janus listened to Glenn as he recounted the Master of
War's riddles. "Worlds that are broken apart at the beginning will be drawn
together into a single stream, only to shatter again when that which came from
the sea is returned to it," he repeated. "When the sea gives up its dead, two
worlds will become one and when what was twice broken is rejoined once more,
the elements will sing a song to heal all things and restore the balance." If
he had a head he would have been shaking it. "Could he get any more vague
or wordy?"
Glenn shook his head. "Tis more than my poor understanding of things can handle," he said finally. "Dost thou have any ideas?"
"Not a damned clue," Janus muttered and wondered what the point of being a god was if he couldn't fix the most important thing ever. "Why in the hell can't anyone just tell me the answer straight? Not even my other self would"
Gaspar's voice broke into their conversation and Janus realized that – for the first time since they'd met the old man in this lonely place – he'd left his lamppost and come up the stairs. "Tell me, Janus," he asked softly, "Have you ever done anything the way you're told to?"
It was Glenn who seemed to understand before Janus could. "Oh! Ye mean that if we wert told what to do, we might not because we either didn't think it of import or because we didn't want to be ordered around?"
Shrugging, the old man leaned against the wall. "That could be it. Or it could be something else."
The glare Janus gave Gaspar would have thrown the old man straight back into time if the former mage hadn't forced himself to hold his power in. "What?"
"To hand the answer to you may be to ensure no other answers are found. That may have been our mistake. We kept thinking that a change in time would simply lead to other paths. That we could pick and choose. Whereas, if time is a stream, then making a change only affects things partially and the stream flows back into its bed when the disturbance is past."
"Either that or you're all a bunch of assholes who take pleasure in watching the lot of us flailing around trying to fix something that you broke! You stupid" Glenn's hand came up and covered Janus, stopping his tirade. The newborn Flame could have talked past the young knight's hand easily enough, but he realized suddenly that he was accomplishing little by haranguing the old man.
"Stupid" Gaspar mused. "Yes, indeed. I think what we have done was terribly stupid. But I can assure you, we have never watched this mess with pleasure."
For a moment Janus was quiet. Then, softly, he said, "I know." He did, too. It was frustration and anger and his own feeling of inadequacy that had spoken.
"If I might suggest?" Glenn said, lowering his hand. "Tis high time we decided what to do. No plans can be made if we look only backwards."
***
1001 A.D.
Somewhere in the middle of the Sea of Eden, FATE brooded.
Her companion and power source had been silent for what seemed forever and the
machines and ghosts with which her stronghold was populated were poor
companions. Someday she would find a way around the seals that contained her
and enforced her good behavior, but that day was not yet. Until then she would
have to wait, wait for the time when she could repopulate the world with her
own and be rid of these foolish flesh creatures, with their tainted blood and
ever so short lives.
A sensor flashed within her, sending a signal that showed her the islands that she'd created so many centuries ago. Something had happened there. She could feel the shift of power, the growth of something new and fierce and yet strangely familiar at the center of her domain. To her irritation, however, it disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared. Before she could even marshal her forces it had gone, fled outside her time. But not before she'd recognized its nature.
"Sooooo," she whispered to her pet. "Now I understand better where you came from." She prodded it, nudged it into action. "Where did you go?"
"I don't know," the Flame answered. "Was that me?" Its voice was confused and lost, the voice of a petulant child. "You know I forget things. Leave me alone."
FATE would have liked to say she knew nothing of the sort, but she herself had ordered some of that forgetting. After all, only one could command the Flame and that one was Her. Had she still lips with which to smile, she would have. As it was she left her pet alone, saving its power for when it was needed. Even though she could command the Flame, her control was not perfect and she knew better than to push its temper for little things.
"You will come to me in Time," she murmured to the presence she'd just lost track of. "I will ensure that. Until then, your future self is mine. For all eternity." She turned her thoughts back on Porre. On what would have to be done to ensure that she would be created. Those foolish humans thought they were in charge, but one day, one day she would show them, break past the geas they'd placed on her. Destroy the dragons whose binding had taken up so much of her pet's strength "And then this world will be mine as well."
***
END OF TIME:
Glenn considered the images Janus was projecting in
front of him. A stream of light flowing through an endless void. At one point
something glowed brilliantly. "That," Janus said in his ear, "is when
Chronopolis was created."
"The plan," Gaspar told him, "was to build a super-computer capable of controlling time in order to create the time warps you and the others needed to prevent Lavos from destroying the world."
"Which she didst, or rather wilt, do?" Glenn asked, frowning. At Gaspar's nod, he continued, "After which – I presume – she transported herself and the whole island backwards in time. Wast that part of the plan too?"
"It certainly wasn't part of ours. There was an experiment planned that would create islands in the Southern Ocean, but as far as I know, there was no need for Chronopolis to go backwards in time as well. To be honest, I'm not sure how she managed to bring it about." Gaspar shook his head. "Let alone find a power source strong enough to effect such a transfer."
Looking down at his necklace, Glenn thought he could make a good guess. The Frozen Flame was Janus' future self and it was almost certainly what gave FATE her power. He got a sense of being very deliberately ignored and suspected that Janus didn't want to discuss the matter with Gaspar. Still, he wondered exactly what had brought that future Janus to serve FATE in such a way. Not willingly, I think. Never willingly. And he's scared of that truth too.
"Janus?" Glenn said after a moment of silence, "What else hath ye discovered?"
***
Janus considered the time stream. "Do you see the little whirlpools?" he asked, gesturing with one of his flames. Both humans nodded and he continued, "They're located in the time periods that we visited."
"A long time ago," Gaspar said softly, "they were points where reality branched." He pointed at one towards the center. "This one, for instance, created a world where humanity lost the battle with the demi-humans."
"T'was my time, wast it not?" Glenn asked.
"Exactly," Gaspar agreed. "Though – at that time – Janus had nothing to do with the matter, since he hadn't existed in the timestream yet."
Reflecting that talking about time travel was about as convoluted as some his plots, back when he'd been the Magus, Janus pointed to another whorl. "This one would be the destruction of the floating islands, then, and this the defeat of humanity by machines." His flames twisted into the equivalent of a frown. "And that's where it's headed again. FATE Lavos."
"Janus?" Glenn's voice was questioning.
"'Only one thing stands between FATE and Lavos, and that one thing is you,'" Janus whispered the words he'd told himself before. "Glenn, what if I'm wrong? What if everything we've done so far, my becoming this What if it just means something worse?" He'd never doubted himself so. Never felt so conflicted. So many possibilities lay ahead of him and picking and choosing his way seemed impossible. "I've chosen this path because I told myself to. What if I was wrong to do so? What if FATE is manipulating even me towards her path? Worse, what if it's Lavos."
"Stop that!" Glenn's voice was sharp and angry. "Of course we couldst be making the worst mistakes possible. That risk we all taketh, every time we step out our doors. Everytime we rise from our beds and move into a new day. For all that, tis' no less necessary to try."
Janus blinked. "Glenn?"
"We hath gotten so far and hath – as yet – seen nothing that can point a sure path. So we must choose, not knowing where we will be led. Mayhap we will end back at the beginning. Mayhap those we leave behind, this one and his brothers," Glenn pointed at Gaspar, "wilt be all that is left to restore a balance and salvage something good from what we have done. Yet still, we must try. We Must Try"
***
1006 A.D.
The storm raged over the Sea of Eden, its force
incapacitating Chronopolis and – for a brief hour – granting those
bound by its power the freedom to act. For some, that freedom meant little, for
others, a great deal more. A girl whose destiny was to remain tied to the
chains of a dead-end job waiting tables in a tiny village dreamed and hoped and
strove to turn her dreams to words that would touch those who read them. A man
whose destiny demanded he leave the sea and cling to a superstitious faith
threw away the straw man he'd found floating in the sea in favor of bigger and
better fish.
Six others found a moment of freedom as well. Six beings who could be called dragons, though the term was inadequate to describe their true nature. Trapped and held both by FATE's will and the six elements that had formed to replace them in this World, they sensed their ancient enemy's weakness and they reached out to each other.
::The time?::
::Not yet here.::
::We must act. Attack?::
::That one's proto-self stands at its side and its power is doubled in the doing.::
::They are distracted. Busy with their tiny little plans, they forget us. Destroy them!::
::Nay. Too little time remains. Seek another. Seek one to be our tool.::
Six minds flowed through the eddies and currents of the world, searching for aid among their own kind and finding none. None of dragon blood still walked. None of dragon blood still lived. It was intolerable and it had to be avenged.
::Look. That one. She carries power.::
::She is close to that one. Too close. It will defend her.::
::No, wait. She lives twice in this time. See?:: An image formed in their minds of a small human girl playing on the beach. In one hand she clutched a jewel, a human artifact whose power she did not understand, even though it was now and empty shell.
::If we interfere too obviously that one will notice.::
::Then take a piece of her. She is a copy herself. Let another copy be taken to be reared with our power, in a place outside of place. Thus she will become our tool against her other Self, against that one and against Her.::
::Yes. It is agreed.::
Six minds reached out. Six minds grasped the child for just a moment. Just long enough to take a part of her and make it theirs. Lucca never knew what had happened, for she assumed her little 'sister' had simply worn herself out playing on the beach and curled up to sleep for a bit. As for Kid, a two year old's memory is a marvelously lacking in focus and she never really remembered the incident when she was old enough to mention it.
***
FATE felt the change as soon as she came back on-line. Her connection to the Flame was broken, her control over it shattered. "NOOOOOO" she screamed, struggling to reach the thing at her center, struggling to re-establish her mastery and failing. Someone, somehow, had managed to transfer the power of Arbiter to a human host once more. "WHO HAS DONE THIS THING?"
Somewhere in the depths of her physical self she sensed humans. Two, no, three human males. A female of a species long since vanished, or rather absorbed, into humanity. Along with that her sensors showed the Flame itself and – strangely enough – something that echoed with the Flame and seemed terribly familiar. Him? How did he get to this time? Once more he interferes!
Reaching out with what powers were left her, FATE commanded her machines to capture all within the Flame's chamber. As the metallic tentacles stretched out, capturing the two humans, she saw her enemy raise ruby bright eyes towards one of her cameras. She knew those eyes too well and suddenly knew whom he was, whom he had been before. Janus But how? She could feel the time energy focusing around him and heard the Flame talking urgently and rapidly in a low voice. "HURRY!" it shouted, as he disappeared into the timestream, carrying two small children in his arms.
FATE's roar of impotent fury echoed throughout the Sea of Eden and - somewhere in Frozen Time – three small children cocked their heads and smiled at each other to the sonorous ringing of Nadia's Bell.
***
1010 A.D.
The sound of shouting filled the air. Swords and shields
clashed against each other. Every so often another sound, a sharp retort,
echoed over the other noises. The smell of smoke and flame and blood was thick.
To Glenn, stepping from the silence of the End Of Time onto the soil of
Guardia, it was a shock of terrible familiarity that – for a moment –
thrust his thoughts back to another place and time. To battles and war and
death. His hand went to his sword.
"What the hell is going on?" Janus asked. "This isn't supposed to be happening." His voice sent another memory through Glenn's mind. Standing high on a cliff-side while his friend died. Being transformed. "Glenn? What is it?"
Taking a deep breath, Glenn forced the memory back. Yes, as the Magus, Janus had been his enemy. As the Magus he'd done some terrible things. There could be no denying the harm Magus had caused in his effort to avenge himself on Lavos. Yet despite all this, the mage turned Flame was his friend now and needed him. "My apologies, Janus. Twas an unhappy memory brought back to me. As for what is happening, we must go and see.
Hurrying through the trees, Glenn stepped out onto a battlefield. In the evening darkness, lit only by fires and half-obscured by smoke, it was almost impossible to see who was fighting whom. Still, he recognized the landscape, an area just south of Guardia castle.
A man in dark blue armor stumbled towards Glenn, holding a weapon similar to the one the knight recalled Lucca carrying. The sound of something splitting the air caused the knight to dive sideways, even as a flare of energy from Janus stopped the bullet flying at him. "My thanks," Glenn muttered, rushing the soldier and striking him on the jaw. "This armor is strange, not like that the people of Guardia wore in this time," he added. "But doth not the sigil on his shoulder resemble that of Porre?"
"Yeah," Janus agreed. "But Porre wasn't a military power. It has never been a military power."
"Aye," Glenn murmured, "Yet that wast in a time that we knew. There hath been other mysterious changes, hath there not?" He glanced upwards significantly at the second moon that hovered in the evening sky, its bloody surface fitting companion to the scene below. "And what of our friends? This war can bode no good for them" He paused, remembering what Janus had told him he'd done with Schala's copied self. "and for"
"KID!" Before Glenn could say another word he found himself whisked off, this time not through time, but carried up into the air to fly rapidly towards a small island to their south. Glenn swallowed and hissed a curse, partially in response to the height but more because of what he saw below him. He'd visited Lucca's homes once or twice during their travels together and even from the air he recognized it. Recognized it and despaired, because it was burning out of control.
***
Janus would have screamed his utter fury, would have thrown a tantrum more destructively devastating than any he had ever thrown in his human life, had it not been for Glenn's calming voice. "Quickly, get me down there. Someone may be alive inside."
Dropping downwards rapidly, Janus could only gasp, "I should have come here in an earlier time. I should have taken Lucca and Kid and the others to a safer place"
Glenn's answer was fierce. "Is there any time that is safe?" he demanded as his feet touched ground and he raced up the pathway to the front door, bursting it open with a kick from a heavily booted foot. The room beyond was ablaze and – at its center – was the cause. Standing a good three times the height of a man, the size of a large tank, its body burned red hot. Throwing balls of fire through the room, it stood over the broken and melted body of Lucca's largest robot.
Janus wrapped power around his companion, protecting him as much as possible from the flames that licked at him through the doorway. "There," he gasped, noticing a small child quivering under the table. Above, on the balcony, he saw another dodging a second monster. "Hurry!"
Sword flashing, Glenn called on his magic, water turning to steam as it struck the fiery creature. Janus used his own water magics as well, though he was forced to concentrate most of his power on keeping Glenn from getting burned.
As the creature fell, the child under the table jumped out and grasped Glenn's arm. "There are others!" he gasped, emerald eyes gazing up pleadingly at the knight. "Please, can you help them?"
"I wilt try," Glenn agreed. "Now, get thee hence."
"Wait!" Janus interrupted. "Boy... Eike, right?"
Eyes wide at being addressed by a necklace, the boy nodded. Janus continued. "Where is Lucca and Kid?"
"Big sis? She went to the castle for a visit Kid She's in bed."
"Right. Get out then," Janus shifted his energies and put a shield around the boy to keep the fires at the door from burning him. "NOW!"
As the child ran out into the night, Glenn turned and rushed further into the burning building.
To Be Continued
Author's Notes: An oddly familiar sequence for players of Cross, but at least it gives Glenn a chance to be the hero for a bit.