The Fire When it Comes - Part 20: The Dragon God's Vengeance – In which Serge does a lot of climbing and learns an important truth.
A Crono-Trigger/Cross fanfic
By
Deborah J. Brown
Chrono-Trigger & Chrono-Cross and all associated characters belong to Squaresoft.

1020 A.D. - Another World:
Janus cursed himself for wasting so much time on dealing with FATE. One would think I'd have learned from her mistake and not waste my time gloating! He struggled against the mental cage that had been wrapped around him, testing the Dragon God's power. Joined, they were a hell of a lot stronger than they'd been separated and they exuded confidence and determination.

There's no arguing with them. No making them understand. They're just like Azala. Or perhaps worse, because Azala had a people to protect and all they want is vengeance. Janus stopped fighting, noting the Dragon God was carrying him back to Terra Tower – the structure that had once been Dinopolis. I'm a fine one to blame them for wanting that, but at least I got over myself.

::They can't hold you for long.:: Crono pointed out. ::And the longer they're busy trying to deal with you, the more time Serge has to do something about them.::

::And if that boy doesn't try to stop the Dragon God, I don't know my knights in shining armor,:: Marle added. ::Crono would. Glenn would. Serge will.::

::And when he does, we'll be ready to help,:: Lucca added, determinedly. ::It's time he was told things.::

::As long as he takes care of Kid, that's all I care about.:: Janus answered, and resumed his struggles – not so much to escape as to occupy the Dragon God's time and keep its attention. ::Kid and Schala::

***

Serge gazed around the Dragon Temple Falls with a sense of awe. In his hands were the two broken shards of the Dragon's Tear, one from each world. Before him stood two altars, gleaming in a strange diffuse light.

Steena said I should do this. I'm not sure what good it will do, but He walked forward, put the shards on the two altars and waited. For a moment nothing seemed to happen. Then a sound, a chord of such richness, and such power flowed around him that he thought he'd be thrown to his knees. As he stepped back, startled, the shards rose in the air. A final, ringing note that seemed to be formed of all the others rang out and suddenly he was holding something like, yet unlike the shattered Dragon's Tear. The shape, in fact, was almost like a Frozen Flame itself.

Something made him equip the thing, treating it like an element. He wasn't sure why he did so, but it seemed right, nonetheless. He wasn't sure what it would do if he used it, wasn't at all sure he should try, but at least it was there.

Turning to go, he found Norris hurrying up the path to find him. "Serge, I think we need you. Kid won't wake up!"

***

Kid floated in a nightmare. A memory half-forgotten, a dream of place and time too unbearable to remember, forced on her by all her pain and loss and by the use she'd been put to. The flames rose around her and she faced down her enemy again, knowing from his words that he meant harm to her Big Sis. Knowing she had no way in which to fight.

Then he was there. He flickered in her memory, sometimes blonde, sometimes black-haired, his face older, then younger, but always with those same kind blue eyes. The eyes of one who feared for her. The eyes of one who cared.

Rescued from the fire she clung to him, heard him promise to stay with her, only to fade away.

***

Sitting up sharply, Kid gasped. She was lying in a bed in an unfamiliar place, while well remembered blue eyes met hers. Nah, he can't be It was a coincidence, that was all. Her memory, as usual, was playing tricks, trying to make her think that Serge was the knight who'd rescued her from Lucca's burning home.

"Here I have this for you," Serge said, holding out an element. It was Lucca's work, a perfect fit to her power, and he smiled. "I'm not sure how I got it, but I think it belongs to you." His face turned serious. "And you may need it. We have to stop the dragons now, before they kill everyone."

***

It took much longer than Serge liked to make their way to Terra Tower. They'd had to find a device that could make a ship fly – a task only possible because of their strange alien friend – then Starky had had to install it. At last, however, there was only one decision left. Who was to go.

Norris and Grobyc – who had turned out to be Kid's former companions as the Radical Dreamers – had begged for the honor, but in the end Serge decided on himself, Kid and – for reasons he was at a loss to explain – Guile. There was something about the masked gambler that made Serge think that he, especially, should be there for the end.

The fight through Terra Tower was another long slog. Down and up and down and up, and sideways just for variety. Serge was becoming rather tired of the whole thing by the time he stepped through a doorway and onto a path that should not have been there.

Beneath the two moons, the western tower of Viper Manor, a place that should have been far away from there, gleamed. "What's going on?" Kid said. "This is but it can't be"

"Shall we find out?" Guile asked. "There doesn't seem to be anywhere else to go."

***

Belthazar waited in the false seeming of his library in Viper Manor, a place created temporarily by the Flame, to await Serge and his companions. Three young children waited as well, watching the doorway with ill-concealed anticipation.

When Serge and the others entered, Belthazar couldn't help but smile with relief. They'd made it this far, he had to believe they'd make it the rest of the way. More, Serge carried the Chrono Cross, the once broken shards of Janus' missing power, made whole again.

Coming forward, he looked into Serge's eyes and saw the determination that not even transformation, not even rebirth, could take away. Now he truly believed they had hope. "Hello Serge. I know you're surprised to find me here, but I have much I need to tell you."

Slowly, carefully, Belthazar worked through the story of how FATE had come to be and who the Dragon Gods were. The rest would have to wait until Serge had faced the Dragon God and regained the Flame. When he was done, Crono spoke up, telling Serge about the thing he carried, "By using it as an Element, it has the power to draw on the sounds of the six colored Elements to produce a healing harmony... It has the power to combine the sounds of the world into one melody..."

***

Janus had ended turning his power on the Dragon God. His own power had grown immensely in the last few hours, for time, combined with his freedom from FATE's machines, had granted him a respite he'd not had for what seemed forever. He listened, hearing the howls of pain and anger from the Dragon Gods, holding back their attack, and he waited.

::Shut the hell up.:: Janus growled at the six minds screaming at him. ::If you'd ever bothered to listen to any path other than your own narrow one you'd know why this has to be.:: It had been that lack of adaptability that had ensured the reptite's deaths in this timeline. Only in a universe where things didn't change so fast, where the environment didn't turn on its inhabitants occasionally, could such a species survive. Here, in this world, their ways simply didn't and couldn't work.

At last he could feel Serge approach and with the boy, he recognized something else, something vital to his very being and to his plan. He smiled to himself. At last their chance had come.

As the three figures stepped onto the platform high atop Terra Tower and approached him he took a deep breath. It was time. He spoke, not bothering to conceal his voice behind a guise of humanity, gazing directly at the three with every one of his myriad 'eyes'. "Welcome humans... Those who know the torment and joy of creation know also the pleasure and pain of destruction. Therefore, all that pass through here must be prepared to share the burden that I carry..."

"Strewth! So this is the Frozen Flame!" Kid's voice was awed, and a little bit frightened.

It was Serge who stepped forward, reaching out confidently, despite Kid's warning cry. But it wasn't time yet. Janus still needed to keep the Dragon God from getting its full power and he sent a small wave of power at the three, knocking them down, even as he released his hold on the Dragon God.

***

There was a flash of light and Serge was thrown backwards to the ground. After a stunned moment, he sat up slowly, barely attending the Dragon God's ranting or Kid's ranting back. Instead he listened to some inner voice. At last. It's almost time He wasn't sure what the voice meant. He wasn't sure why the Flame had pushed him back, but some inner confidence told him that it would not desert him.

Then it was there, an immense dragon like creature that howled rage and anger at him. A creature that seemed to blame humanity for every wrong done in the universe. He wanted to scream at it, to tell it that it was wrong, but he'd seen enough to know it was – at least in part – right. It was Kid who reminded him of the other truth, shouting at the Dragon God, "Whether there's meanin' to our lives or not... we still go on livin', you know! You've got no right to deny that!"

Ist not a matter of right or wrong. Ist not a matter of sin or innocence. All of us, each and every one, liveth as best they can in a world that ist not always kind, not always fair. The thought wasn't his and yet it was. His voice and yet not. We art what things that our lives hath given us. Ist not fair, but ist the way things are. Though put in words he would not have used, the sentiment was very much his own.

Another thought touched his mind and he knew it for the Flame. Fairness is a concept we impose upon the world, not the other way around. The world simply is what it is. No accolades and no blame. Now, enough with the philosophy, ware the beast.

***

Kid felt a strange connection to the creature before them. Somehow something inside it was trying to reach her, to tell her something. She couldn't hear the words, but something made her pay close attention to the fight, to note every attack it chose. There was a sense of agreement, an awareness that – somehow – that part of the Dragon God that had once been Harle was giving her a very important clue.

So she fought, seeing how the attacks changed, how the beast seemed to be transforming itself from one element to the next. Yellow to red to green to blue to black and, at last, to white. More, with every attack, every spell they or the beast cast, she seemed to hear the notes of a song. A melody that was not quite right, interfered with by the many spells they'd had to cast. Yet it was there, singing in her mind, quivering through her soul and filling her with a longing to hear it and hear it played through.

Then the battle was over and the beast lay quivering on the platform. As she prepared to strike it with a final blow, however, it lifted itself with one last effort. "Now I shall truly awaken again... This too is destiny..." it gasped, then disappeared.

"What th" Guile shook his head. "This is getting confusing." His eyes were troubled, as if something about the Flame bothered him immensely.

Movement from behind a pillar made the three spin around. Belthazar stood there, smiling wryly and began to explain further. By the time he was done Kid thought her head was going to explode with the information. The name Lavos sent chills through her and made her tremble. The knowledge that the Dragon God was somehow part of that force terrified her. Yet something had to be done. She didn't know how, or why, but something had to be done.

The Flame spoke then, directing its attention on Serge in a way that seemed nearly possessive, as if there was something between him and the thing that could never be comprehended and never destroyed. "Now, go to the place where time became divided and weave the threads of time together again... Chrono Trigger!" With a flash of light, the Flame was gone.

***

TIME'S HEART:
"Are you sure you don't want us to tell him" Lucca asked.

"What good would it do? I am a piece of Lavos, a thing of dire and uncontrollable power. What I want may not be trustworthy, ought not be, in fact, lest one who follows thinks to use me to make their futures brighter still." Janus looked at the three and smiled inwardly.

They looked doubtful and Janus laughed, wryly and not a little sadly. "Besides, though transformed and reborn, Serge's soul is still Glenn's, and Glenn was a knight, a True Knight. A Perfect Knight, without peer and beyond reproach." His smile broadened, until the blazing blue and red fire within the false reality filled the entire sky, "And what True Knight would refuse to storm the dark tower, face down the foulest beast, and rescue the stolen Princess from her Durance Vile?"

***

1020 A.D. - Another World:
Serge didn't have to think hard to know where the Flame meant for him to go. Opassa Beach, the place where he'd nearly drowned. The place where he'd been sucked off into this other world. His fingers slid across the surface of the Time Egg Belthazar had given them, worry tightening his grip.

Among his elements, the Chrono Cross seemed to hum softly to itself. Something had changed about it. Something deep and central to its very being. There appeared to be a reddish note to its light. He knew what it was, too, or at least he was fairly sure. The Flame had merged with it, in a binding that seemed to him to be both right and necessary. He didn't know why, but he trusted it, trusted its presence and its purpose. He remembered what Kid had said about what she'd learned in their last fight, about the song she'd heard, and began to understand what was expected of him, if not quite why.

"Hey" Guile's voice was startled as they stepped onto the beach and found themselves staring at three familiar figures. Those kids, the ones Serge had met in Time's Heart. The ones who'd been with Belthazar in the Tower. Ghosts and yet not, they watched him and waited for his approach. At the center of their group a vortex had formed and he knew where it led and to what.

The dark haired girl stepped forward and began to speak. "So you finally made it, Serge..." she said and the three began to tell a story. He'd come to understand much of it already, understood how he'd become Arbiter, and why. The story of Schala, however, of her entrapment by Lavos and her hopes and fears and dreams of freedom, was new. That part startled and moved him and he felt a deep need to do something about it.

That Kid was Schala's clone was an unpleasant surprise for Kid, who didn't seem to much like the idea. It didn't bother Serge as much, in fact it seemed somehow right, some circle coming back in upon itself.

At last it was the boy who spoke, and his words were the hardest for Serge to bear. He was very glad he hadn't known before, hadn't been told. To know that the person who wanted him dead, who wanted him removed from the timeline entirely had been his father, transformed and reshaped into a soul of purest hatred, was a searing agony. "Humans are such fragile, disjointed, imperfect things," the boy said at last, "Love and hate... Life and death... Perhaps even FATE itself dreamed of using the Flame to some day reincarnate itself into a new species." His voice softened, seemed to merge with the others as they faded. "It is quite sad, really... It's like when you gaze into the Flame, the Flame gazes back into you." Then they were gone.

Serge glanced at the others, silent and waiting for their decision. When they nodded, he walked forward the vortex.

To Be Concluded

Author's Notes:

Skahducky: I'm just glad you were able to look at it. I think your comments helped a lot!

Alexiel: So that's where that particular reaction of Guile's was supposed to have happened. In the process of looking up info on Cross for playing I'd found a list of everyone's reaction to the Flame and Guile's reaction had been part of what inspired me to make Janus be the Flame and his human remains become Guile. After which, I never could find the dang FAQ with that info again. *sigh* Anyway, he (Guile) is currently a very scared little human right now. Maybe I will find a reason to write an side-story for him.

So, I'm pretty much done with the story. One more chapter to go and I can't think of a good reason not to post it at the same time I post this one. In other words What are you doing reading this silly blabber? GO AND READ THE END!