The Fire When it Comes – Chapter 11: That which the Sea has Given – In which time is split and Glenn meets the cause.
A Crono-Trigger/Cross fanfic
By
Deborah J. Brown

Chrono-Trigger & Chrono-Cross and all associated characters belong to Squaresoft.

Monster after monster had fallen and child after child had been rescued, but none of them – as yet – had been Kid. Glenn knew he had to hurry, could feel Janus' urgency and building rage. Along with that rage, however, was growing weariness. The Flame was powerful, there was no doubt about that, but there was only so much it could handle. Between shielding the escaping children, protecting Glenn and adding his strength to the knight's attacks, Janus was spreading his Self pretty damned thin.

"Got to hurry" Janus' voice was desperately weak. "Find Kid, Glenn. Without her all this meaningless."

Glenn nodded, glancing around Lucca's bedroom. It was a wreck – and not the kind of wreck that a rather forgetful and neglectful housekeeper/mad scientist would leave. No, this was the wreck of a room that has been thoroughly and systematically searched. There was a purpose to this whole thing, he thought, a purpose that had Lucca and her research as its primary aim. "As soon as I find that ice gun Reiken mentioned," he answered, even as his eyes fell on a pistol locked in a case on the wall. "Thou'rt getting tired, Janus. I need something to help deal with these flames."

"Whatever! Grab it and go!"

A minute later Glenn was rushing down the hallway into the dormitory attached to the main house. One more creature stood in his path and he could feel Janus' gasp of exhaustion as he struggled to block the thing's flames. Even so, the heat seared Glenn's arm as the knight raised the ice gun and fired.

There was an explosive sound, a hissing crackling scream, then the monster fell, shattering into thousands of frost rimed pieces. Glenn ignored it, hurrying on into the play room and past, to the children's bedroom.

This room wasn't burning as badly as the others, though the small beds were beginning to smolder. At the center was a child, blonde and pretty, or she would have been but for the look of sheer hatred on her face as she glared down her home's destroyers, a knife in her hand.

Two stood at the window, turning to face Glenn as he broke through the final door. One was a girl, dressed in motley, with her childish face covered in white paint. The other was dressed equally strangely, a long black coat with gold embroidery and an angular cap on his inhuman head. The face of an animal, a large cat with huge golden eyes, gazed at Glenn. "Harle," he said, "Get rid of them. It is the woman we need, not some human fool with no power but a sword."

"It weel be ze pleazure," the girl said sweetly and Glenn could feel her gathering power together.

"JANUS!" Glenn gasped, sure that his friend was exhausted and beyond any hope of assisting, but a strange sound began in his ear. A shifting susurration that almost had meaning. He leaped forward, arms tightening around the girl he knew had to be Kid, even as that murmuring whisper twisted reality around him.

"Meester Lynx! HELP ME!" The warping twist to reality reached out to grasp Harle, throwing her to the ground. Another shift and the clownishly garbed girl was gone, with a wail that was cut short mid cry as she was twisted and shattered into nothingness.

For a moment golden eyes met Glenn. Then the beast man growled a curse under his breath and threw himself out the window, disappearing into the night beyond.

***

Kid sobbed in the arms of her rescuer, clutching the blonde man's shirt and soaking it with tears. "My brothers and sisters Everyone"

A gentle hand brushed Kid's face as the man set her down under a tree outside her burning home. "They art well. I believe we rescued them all."

"But big Sis That man said"

"Wilt do what we can, little one. Yet first we must get thee and the others to some safer place"

Kid raised her face, studying the kind features. "They're safe?"

"Aye," the stranger agreed and opened his mouth to say more, only to be interrupted by a huge blast somewhere to their north. He rose to his feet and the two stared off at a blazing glow where Guardia Castle had once stood. Usually one could see the castle's turrets rising above trees but there was nothing but that horrible white glow. Another blast, this one off to the north-east followed and Kid screamed.

Strong arms drew Kid close and the stranger stroked her hair. "We can do naught, I fear," he whispered, voice torn and agonized.

Kid clutched at the stranger. "Lucca. Lucca was at the castle. She's dead isn't she?" At the blonde's silence, she stared up into his face. "Please you'll stay with us? Take care of us?"

"Aye. Wilt do all within my power to guard thee," the man said, somehow managing to smile gently at her. Kid felt a surge of relief at the thought. She leaned her head on the stranger's shoulder and began to cry in earnest.

"Come now, do not weep." The man stroked her cheek again and, strangely, she thought she felt another hand in her hair, though none was there to touch her so. "Thy sister ist strong. None shalt take Lucca Ashtear down so easily as all that."

"You know her?" Kid demanded, staring up at the man. "That's what she always says!"

"Aye. Wert a comrade of hers, once upon a time, though my form wast much different from this."

"Frog? You talk like she said Frog did. Are you Frog?" She reached out and touched his sword. "The Masamune?"

Another voice, hated and cruel, spoke – no, purred – then. "No, my dear. The Masamune is here."

Kid turned and saw that the cat-man had found reinforcements. Porre soldiers stood behind him, their rifles aimed at the two, while Lynx stood with a long black sword in his hands. Waves of hatred and anger flowed from that blade. "oh no" Kid gasped, terrified and furious all at once. Stunned and terrified, for the moment all she could do was stare.

The man who had once been Frog rose to his feet, sword in hand. Putting his other hand on the girl's shoulder he glared at the cat-man silently.

"Your toy destroyed Harle easily enough, but I think you will find me a more difficult proposition." Lynx moved like his namesake, prowling closer and closer with a sneer. "You have something I want, human. Something that has been denied my mistress for too long. I know not how you came by the Frozen Flame but I will have it from you."

Kid didn't know what Lynx was talking about, but she did know he meant to kill them. She tightened her hand on her knife and, as the cat-man started to cast a spell, she rushed him.

The sound of a gunshot filled the air, a moment of pain quickly fading, then a surge of another sound that surrounded and protected her. She felt herself falling, slowly, ever so slowly, until she found herself landing on a sunlit beach. Staring at a clear and brilliant sky, she heard the sounds of frantic splashing and a child's frightened cries.

***

Lynx stared for a moment at the empty space where the brat of Lucca's had been. The bullets had struck her, he was sure of it, yet instead of falling her body had faded into nothingness before his eyes. His opponent, the leanly muscular blonde who'd somehow gained access to a younger and more powerful Flame, was staring at the spot as well.

Without hesitation, Lynx took advantage of the stranger's apparent shock, rushing the blonde, the Masamune singing death and hatred in his ears. Somehow, though, the movement wasn't fast enough. The blonde might have been surprised by the brat's disappearance but it hadn't stunned him to the point of utter stupor. His sword, strangely similar in shape and style to the Masamune, swung upwards.

The two men glared into each other's eyes for a long moment, gold eyes meeting eyes so intensely blue they seemed to look straight into Lynx's soul. For a moment something inside the cat-man felt a sense of recognition. Other eyes had looked at him that way, once upon a time. Eyes that he'd given up all to protect. Then the moment shattered as the human stepped forwards, sword sweeping around in a single smooth circle that somehow twisted the Masamune right out of Lynx's hands.

As the sword flew through the air, the human grasped Lynx by the collar and twisted him around, shoving him towards the Porre shoulders. "JANUS!" the stranger shouted, "GET US OUT OF HERE!"

Before Lynx could recover and stand upright again, the stranger – like the girl before him – had disappeared. He glared around the clearing, eyes furious, daring his human allies to say a word. Then, silently, he picked up the Masamune and turned. "Never mind them," he said. "The woman we wanted was at the castle. With that destroyed, our secondary mission is over."

***

END OF TIME:
"Uh Janus? Where didst Kid go?"

"Wait" Janus sighed. He was tired, so very tired. It wasn't that he'd really used up all that much strength, but that he'd used it for so many different things. To exist in this world without shattering the time stream had meant binding his power to a solid form, had meant putting limits on how much he could do at once. Strange, though, I feel as if that wasn't all Something else was happening just then.

Realizing Glenn was patiently waiting for his answer, Janus forced himself to speak. "I don't know," he told the knight. "We'll have to look in the timestream."

"What happened?" Gaspar asked, coming over to where Glenn stood and peering at Janus. "Whatever it was, it was impressive. I've never seen time twist like that before. You're going to have to see it to believe it."

"Guardia ist gone," Glenn said tiredly. "And Kid hath disappeared." As he told the story, Janus took the moment to finish recovering himself. His rage at what had happened wasn't helping. He wanted hands and he wanted those hands around that bastard cat-man's neck. The surprise in the demi-human's eyes when Glenn had disarmed him so easily had been satisfying, but not as satisfying as personally using the creature's guts for violin strings. "I didn't want to waste time with him – whomever he was – so I told Janus to get us out of there."

"He's FATE's tool," Janus said grimly. "She's lost control of the rest of humanity through the Flame she once commanded, so she found a human to command. He must be looking for a way to break what we did with that boy."

"T'was most strange," Glenn said musingly, walking towards the stairs, Gaspar close behind. "He seemed – for the barest moment – to know me and to hesitate because of it. Yet I wouldst swear he wast not one of those on the island of Marbule, nor that I had e'er met him before."

Janus made the equivalent of a shrug. "Hell if I know," he admitted. "Let's worry about him after we find Kid."

***

Glenn leaned against the railing surrounding the room and watched the Flame hover around the image of the timestream at its center, rising and falling slowly, but with increasing speed as time went on. When Janus began to curse with an unsurprising eloquence, he knew the search had failed. Yet, "She canst not hath fallen out of time altogether"

"I'm sure she hasn't," Janus growled. "I just realized why I can't find her." His curses continued as he floated back over to the knight. "I can see little ripples where she's been but not where she is. And it's my own damned fault!"

"Eh?" Glenn blinked down at the necklace around his neck. "What dost thou mean?"

"Remember I said I gave her a protective device? It's what took her away when she got shot. It uses the death event as a trigger that carries her backwards and sideways to safety. Backwards in time, sideways in space to a safer spot. It also protects her from being found. She's invisible to any search I might do, as long as she wears that necklace."

"So even you can't find her," Glenn realized, "Perhaps if we followed the ripples you speak of."

"Possibly," Janus considered the matter. "It's worth a try." He sighed. "Though it may take several tries. Those ripples are tiny and hard to track."

"Before you do," Gaspar interrupted, deferentially, "I'd like you to tell me what you make of that" He walked over to the image of the time stream and pointed to an area that seemed to swirl strangely around. "You see? There are two branches here. They seem to rejoin later on, but the break is distinct, as distinct as the point where the timestream breaks off between the reptite and human world." He indicated the far past.

Glenn looked at newly broken area and had to agree. Its resemblance to the break back in Azala and Ayla's time was striking. "Janus?"

"It's a major incident," Janus sighed. "The time stream ought to be full of them. That it isn't is simply because it's been pulled together so tightly that hello, now that really is odd."

Glenn waited for a moment while Janus headed for the image again and examined it minutely. "There's something about this spot. Something familiar" His flames curled in on themselves pensively. "I have to think about this. Maybe."

"What is it?"

"I think I may have found a way to save our friends," Janus said softly. "But I need time to work it out. In the meantime, we have to make sure Kid is all right." He made a disgusted noise, glaring at the many tiny disturbances Kid had left behind her. "There are so many. What is that girl thinking of, getting herself killed so often?"

***

1010 A.D. Home World:
FATE considered Lynx's report on the last moments of Castle Guardia, trying to determine what exactly had happened and why. Everything seemed to have gone the way she'd planned it, despite her lack of contact with the Flame. She might not be able to control humanity the way she once could, but her knowledge of what made people tick was enough to manipulate it towards her ends thru the former human's lies and persuasions. Her planned battle between Porre and Zenan had had to wait. Some other force was playing with time, attempting to twist it to their ends and she feared those three had something to do with it. Too, she'd thought she might be able to use the Ashtear girl. Lucca might know what it was that prevented her from harming humanity. Know and be able to disable it.

That last had turned out to be impossible to fulfill. The girl hadn't been at her stupid little orphanage and questioning the children there had revealed she'd been called to Guardia Castle not long before the Porre army had arrived. Lynx had set fire to the place, expecting that to draw the Ashtear girl out, but instead a stranger had arrived. A stranger who had been accompanied by that younger Frozen Flame that FATE had felt being birthed on Zenan. She had the oddest feeling she ought to know who that stranger was. That there was a memory missing from her databanks. But that's impossible. My system is perfect.

Setting that thought aside, FATE continued examining the report. Lynx's thoughts seemed strained. Something had happened in his meeting with that stranger, something that had tested the bonds she held over him. Still, he'd done his duty and made sure that Guardia and all its people were destroyed.

And why am I disturbed by this, none the less? Admittedly, those three fools had allies, and apparently that young Flame does as well, but it comes to me in the end. Once more she looked at the images Lynx's mind had sent her, craters that had once been a castle and a town, blown up by Porre's new weaponry, weaponry that – ironically – had been based on weapons invented by Lucca Ashtear herself. All that was left were the few charred and shattered bodies of those few soldiers who'd resisted. Ahhh. That's it. Why so few bodies? Guardia was not so ill-defended as all that, surely?

::Sister-Self Hear me::

The thought that impinged on FATE's consciousness both was and was not her own. "What?"

::I am freed. My power over the Flame is once more mine alone. All that remains would be the destruction of the lock.:: Images formed in her mind, a moment when time had been forced to branch, to form another world. One life had hung in the balance and in that other world the balance had not been in his favor. In that world, at least, the Arbiter was dead. ::Aid me in this and we shall be rejoined and our mastery over all will be as it was always meant to be.::

FATE smiled in joyful anticipation. ::Lynx, my pet, I have work for you.::

***

1019 A.D. Another World:
Harle dropped down through the hole in the universe, grumbling under her breath. "Zat brat. She was a great trouble." Her memories of the last few moments were confused. She and Master Lynx awaiting Lucca Ashtear's hurried return to her home. The seemingly harmless girl whose necklace Harle had taken a liking to suddenly turning out to have fangs. She frowned, feeling again the blade burying itself in her eye. Hearing the little girl scream as Lynx ran her through, just before Harle had fallen and should have died as well.

Looking at the brat's necklace in her hand, Harle realized it was the cause of her salvation. Somehow it had rewound time for her and transported her to a place of safety. By some quirk, or perhaps by natural magnetism, she was back in the world where she'd grown up. Zo, to tell zee truth, moi would heseetate to call that place a world. Things that didn't quite fit into reality in more could get lost there, swirling around in a tiny little whirlpool of non-existence where one had to work to keep a sense of identity. Still, it had been easy enough to leave, since she knew the right path.

Landing in the center of a swamp again didn't make Harle any happier. If anything, it made her sour mood all the worse. "Stupeed girl. Stupeed Flame. Une day I take zat zilly zing and I blow eet out myself!" Stalking through the swamp, she wondered if she could convince FATE to do something unpleasant to the wretched place. After all, who would miss something so pathetic?

At last the girl left the dank, smelly and disgusting place behind. A trip up to the Dragon Falls was in order. After all, she had a report to make and it was easiest to mind contact her true masters at the Shrine where their power had once been supreme. Besides, it had been at the Shrine where she'd met Lynx for the first time and she rather suspected it would be the first place the big mad cat-man would look for her. There, where he had first found the Masamune and claimed it for his own.

***

1010 A.D. Home World:
Glenn stepped out onto a beach and glanced around. "So where is this?" he asked.

Janus focused his thoughts and formed a map of the area in his friend's mind. "I don't know the name of the place," he told the knight. "You'll have to ask around."

A few minutes later they were entering a small, pretty, fishing village that, to Janus' surprise, turned out to be the same one where he'd left that boy some years before. Arni, he thought to himself and wondered if it was a coincidence.

While only half-listening to Glenn ask about Kid, Janus scanned the area, trying to find the child who would one day be the only thing blocking FATE from using him. ::There he is.::

::Eh? What art thou talking about?:: Glenn thought back at him and Janus realized that he'd thought the words louder than he'd intended. ::He?::

::Remember what I told you about my visit to the Flame? That boy, the one with black hair. That's him.:: Janus indicated the child, a leggy child with a thick mop of black hair and a strangely innocent air about him. For a moment blue eyes turned to the stranger with curiosity, but the red-haired girl he was romping with distracted him, dragging him off towards the docks.

::Strange. He doth not have the look of the others. There ist something northern about his appearance.:: Glenn shrugged. ::Well, tis no great matter in any case. Shalt I speak with him?::

::Let's keep looking for Kid, first. That boy's just a child right now. Even if he turns out to be important later on, he's not going to be any use to us right now.::

***

Glenn had to wonder why that boy's presence seemed to disturb – or was it excite? – his companion. Strangely, he too felt something odd when watching the boy. Something felt familiar about him. As if he ought to have known the child. Which is ridiculous.

Shaking off the thought, Glenn started asking questions. Within minutes he learned that a little blonde girl had passed through the village some weeks earlier, after having rescued one of the village children from a near drowning on Opassa Beach. Directed to the boy's mother on the docks, he was surprised to find her busily scolding and drying off the very boy Janus had noticed.

"Serge, you are such a little hooligan. Didn't I tell you it was almost suppertime?" The boy nodded, big blue eyes wide, and his mother continued, "Then what are you doing swimming, especially fully dressed?"

Big blue eyes blinked and the boy rubbed at the back of his head embarrassedly. Somehow Glenn was reminded of certain childish escapades, especially when the child said sorrowfully, "Didn't MEAN to!"

"Auntie Marge! It's my fault. I pushed Serge." It was the red-headed girl, her expression not much less embarrassed than the boy's.

The boy's mother started to say something, only to stop when she noticed Glenn standing there, obviously waiting to talk with her. When her eyes met Glenn's, her expression shifted, becoming strangely wary. Standing, she turned her son towards the village and gave him a little nudge. "Both of you go on. I'll be along in a moment."

As the two children ran off, Marge looked at Glenn with a worried expression. "Sir? You seem to wish to speak with me." Her shoulders were stiff and there was something about the way she stood that suggested she was expecting some unwelcome news.

"Yes, I hath some questions I must ask of thee. The others said ye might know."

"We found him on the beach. He was just a baby! How dare you wait seven YEARS to look for him?" The angry outburst was accompanied by a tightening of Marge's fists as she stepped towards the young knight.

Glenn stared at the woman. "Er what?"

"Serge! You abandon a child to the ocean, then" Marge blinked. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" Her expression turned embarrassed. "Oh dear. It was your eyes. I thought you were the boy's father, come to take him from me." She bit her lip. "He's all I have left. My gift from the sea I lost my husband some years ago."

Reaching out to touch the woman's shoulder sympathetically, Glenn smiled ruefully. "Ma'am, I swear to thee, I hath not come for that child, but seeking another I have lost. You met her a few days ago. A blonde girl wearing a bluestone necklace?"

The woman's eyes went sad. "I tried to get her to stay. She was so young. So vulnerable. But she ran off in the middle of the night and though we tried to find her, I'm afraid" Her eyes met Glenn's with look of sympathy. "I'm afraid she was killed passing through Dragon Valley to Termina. We found traces of blood, but nothing else."

To Be Continued

Author's Notes: Before anyone starts worrying that it was Serge that rescued Kid from the fire, don't forget that the MasterMune was guiding him through Kid's memories, not necessarily the physical event.

Oh, and Skahducky, nice guesses, but I'm afraid you'll have to try again. Lynx is Wazuki and no one else. Oh, and I did forget to answer your question from Chapter 9. Yes, that's how the Elemental powers came to the people of ChronoCross.

(rubs hands together in anticipation as the plot begins to move.) I am having so much fun with this! Next part in another couple of days!