By Exile
Disclaimer: All of the characters used in this fanfic, except for Ryen who makes a short appearance in chapter 5, are property of Square. Any references to other stories, except mine, are purely coincidental. If you insist it's otherwise, I'll let Lavos' evil pet porcupine loose on you.
Some words beforehand:
I updated the previous chapter of this fanfic a long time ago. Time passed quickly I guess, since
my writing skills have improved quite a lot since then. So I decided to try and pick
this story up again, despite the fact that the first few chapters are horribly written.
While re-reading those chapters in order to get a bearing on where this story was going (call it
amnesia or whatever) my right hand smacked onto my forehead numerous times. Ah well, we all have to
start somewhere.
Still, my writing skills need to improve a lot (in order to make writing more fun that is), which
gives me more reason to pick up this piece of... well... fill in the blanks yourself. There should
be a noticeable difference in both style, grammar and general word-usage. But remember of course,
English isn't my native language and I'm only so-so old (real age hidden in a frail attempt to
avoid shame). So enjoy, as long as you want to.
Oh, and those two reviews I got while this story was buried way down in the depths of FanFiction.net's
Chrono Trigger list also helped me get some more motivation for it, especially since I don't
want it to seem that this story ends with the previous chapter. That would be a rather tragic
ending now wouldn't it?
So there ya go. Make the best out of it.
Chapter 6: Do you remember me?
"This rain is just insane! We've had nothing but heavy rain since we buried the
guy."
"Stop complaining Lucca. And he's got a name you know." answered Marle.
Lucca sighed, and went back to work. They were repairing the castle, after it had been 'attacked' by Janus and Slash.
"Hey, where'd Mick go?"
"What are you talking about Lucca?" asked Marle.
"There was this servant in the bathroom, changing the towels or something. He
followed me to the fight, but now he's gone. I haven't seen him come back."
"He probably just went home." said Crono.
"Servants live in the castle, you dummy."
"Oh. Never mind then."
"Hey Gaspar! Wake up!"
Spekkio had returned to his home, the End of Time, to inform Gaspar of the bad news.
"What is it?" the Guru of Time muttered.
"You said Magus would eventually become... well you know, what you said last
time."
"Yes. So?"
"He can't be if he's dead, right?"
"You're saying he's dead?"
"Exactly. Slash killed him in 1000 AD."
Gaspar looked up, his eyes somewhat larger than normal.
"Strange..." the Guru pondered. "Something's wrong with the time-axis."
Gaspar walked over to the place where the pillars of light used to be, and pulled out a device from his coat. He pushed a few buttons and large pillar of light appeared.
"You stay here Spekkio, I'm taking a look for myself."
"Right Gasp."
"And don't call me Gasp."
The Guru entered the pillar and vanished into it.
A few moments later he exited from a gate in Guardia forest. After the gate
had closed again, the Guru walked over to the open field in the north-east of the
forest. He immediately saw the grave in a corner of the field.
"So he's right."
He walked closer to the grave and inspected it closely. The lines Marle had
written on the cross confirmed his grim thoughts. He turned around and walked off to
the castle.
Author's note: Here I picked up on writing again, see if you can notice any style differences ;)
Arriving there, he saw some guy without any clothes on dance with a woman he recognized
to be Ayla. Ignoring them, he continued to walk into the castle, passing the rubble
and trying not to bump into the servants frantically running around. He headed for
the Knights Quarters.
"Well now kids, would anyone care to tell me what happened here?"
The odd bunch off teenagers turned around.
"G... Gaspar? Is that you? ...In sun-light?" Lucca said.
"Uhm... yes I am. Now, I'm not here for a nice chat, but I saw something I didn't
like outside."
"Oh, you mean Janus' grave..." Marle said, her head down.
"Yes exactly. I take it he got... killed somehow?"
"Yeah. Somehow, Slash, Flea and Ozzie managed to make their way in this time, and Janus
also. They probably hunted him down and fought with him..." Marle grimly said.
"Well well..." pondered Gaspar.
The Guru of Time sat down on a chair next to Crono and started thinking, without saying
or muttering a single word like he usually did.
"Why did you come here?" Crono finally asked the guru, after several moments of silence.
Gaspar looked up.
"What do you think? Janus died, can't have that happening."
"But how do you know he died?"
"He stays at the End of Time you goofhead. He can see every timeline from there with his uhm...
Guru-abilities." Lucca said.
"That is correct Lucca." Gaspar supported. "And as it is, Janus is not allowed to die in this
timeline. The time-axis has gone out of control, it happens some times."
"So we are given the task to fix it?" Robo said.
"Correct again. But, just you three." Gaspar said while he pointed at Crono, Lucca and then Marle.
*Huff... puff...*
"Come on now Ozzie, can't let them catch up with us!" Flea said while he kicked Ozzie in his back
again to get him moving forwards.
"I... just... don't..."
"...have the smooth body lines for it?" Slash grinned.
"Why... you... rotten... festering..."
"Give it up lardball. You can't make an insult." Slash smirked at the panting lizard.
Ozzie stopped his levitation spell and dropped to the ground, tumbling forward while still panting.
"Hey you! Get up and get moving!"
Flea kicked Ozzie again, this time in his exposed rear. He didn't budge.
"Oh great. He's out of it."
Flea sat down under a tree and started sulking.
"Oh come on now, he'll wake up sometime soon. Besides, those pesky kids haven't even tried to chase us.
They're long gone."
They rested for a while, letting Ozzie lie flat on his face in a pool of mud.
"Say Slash..."
"Hmm?"
"Didn't you notice anything strange about this?"
"About what? This forest?"
"Yeah that too. But not only this forest is odd, the entire world is. Did you saw the clothes those people
at Guardia Castle wore? That was just far ahead of time. I should know."
"Wait a minute... are you saying...?"
"I'm afraid so."
They heard some bubbling noises coming over from Ozzie's face. He was starting to wake up.
"Oh good. He's coming by."
"What the hell did you two do to me?!" Ozzie spouted while noticing the awkward position he was in.
"Nothing. You just passed out in that pool of mud. That's all." Slash smirked.
Ozzie casted a cleaning spell on himself. Wherever that came from nobody knows though.
"I'm hungry."
"Again? What does it take to stuff your face?" Slash retorted.
Ignoring the comment, Ozzie summoned a yellow object with holes in it. It was a big
piece of cheese.
"Haha! Here's to the ways of life -- death, decay and cheese!" he said, while
starting to munch away on the dairy product.
"Disgusting..." Flea said while turning his face away.
Crono put the last object, a flashlight, into his backpack and closed it. He swung the
object around and onto his back, then turned to the rest.
"Well guys, guess this is it. Again." he said.
Gaspar raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.
"Yeah, time for another crazy adventure. That's all we need right now." Lucca said, sarcastically.
The group of three waved their goodbyes and walked out of the Castle's half-rebuilt front gate
together. After several meters though, Crono abruptly stopped, turned around and ran back
over to Gaspar.
"I ehm... was kinda wondering... where do we go anyway?" he sheepishly grinned.
Gaspar sighed. "Kids these days, so hasty..."
Lucca and Marle also came back to hear what Gaspar had to say.
"What did you need last time when you wanted to revive a deceased person?" Gaspar asked.
"We used that weird egg-like thing, the Chrono Trigger." Marle said.
"Exactly." Gaspar continued. "But what else did you need to use it?"
Lucca thought for a second. "We needed a Crono clone, right?"
"Almost. You needed a clone of the deceased person, and the person must be important to the
space-time-continuum. And since Janus already is that important, all you need for now is
a clone of him."
"Okay then. Let's go and find that Norstein Bekkler guy who makes those clones." Crono suggested.
Once more, they said their goodbyes and walked into the forest.
The weather had become quite a lot better now. The sun shone bright, little clouds in the sky,
birds singing their tunes... All in all, too sappy to be real.
While the group travelled through the forest, Lucca raised another one of her questions.
"Hey guys, do you know why Janus is so important to the space-time-continuum?" she asked the rest.
"Why, he's the only one with long, blue, flowing hair of course!" Marle pronounced happily.
Crono raised an eyebrow at that remark, but soon came with a somewhat better answer.
"I get the feeling there's a lot Gaspar isn't telling us. He seems to know that Janus can suddenly
travel through time but never found it odd that he learned that seemingly impossible thing so quick.
He also managed to get here while the gates to the End of Time are closed."
It went quiet in the group. The sun started to go down below the horizon, which lit the forest in
a dark, but moody way.
They walked on for another half an hour, until they reached the end of the forest.
"May I suggest we sleep at our place? It's still quite a while until we reach Truce and it's
pretty much night already." Lucca suggested.
"Sure thing. I take it your parents aren't back yet?" Crono asked.
"Nah, don't think so. They'll be spending the night over in Porre."
"What in hell's damnation happened here!?" an astonished Taban shouted.
"We ran into a little snag, Taban. Some magus attacked the castle and thrashed the front
gate." a bypassing servant, recognizing Taban as the famous scientist, replied.
"That's not what I meant, I saw that happening from a distance. But what in the name of
Saint Pete's brother is that naked guy dancing with the cavewoman doing out there?" Taban
said while pointing outside.
"Oh, that's just some guy who first was a frog then got transformed back into human again, then
out of pure joy started dancing with the first being to cross his sight. It happened an hour ago
I believe." said the servant.
Taban shrugged the amazement off of himself and returned to what he was originally doing there,
trying to locate his daughter Lucca. Wandering through the castle, he ended up in the Knight's
Quarters.
Gaspar was the only one left there. He turned around towards Taban.
"Looking for miss Lucca?" he asked.
"Wha..?" Taban tried to speak. "How do you know about that?"
Gaspar examined Taban for a second. He then picked up a chess-board from under the table.
"Feel like playing a game? I'll explain it all during it." he suggested.
Hesitantly, Taban sat down on the chair in front of Gaspar. While the Guru set up the
pieces, he began talking.
Spekkio tried to climb up into the tree, but to no avail.
"Blast this human form! Why did evolution get rid of their tail anyway? Don't they realise
the neat things you can do with it?"
As a final resort, he shape-shifted into a little bird and flew onto a branch
on top of the tree. He peeked inside the house to see what its residents where doing.
"Put that part over there Crono." Lucca said.
Crono obeyed and picked up the metal box.
"No! Don't touch that side!"
The bottom of the box fell onto the floor and various electrical gadgets fell along with it.
"Oh that's just great! Now look what you've done you muscle-brain!"
"Hey relax, how was I supposed to know what it's bottom was?"
"It says this side up right there!" Lucca said while she pointed at a big red
sticker on the top of the box.
Crono didn't say a word, but yawned instead.
"Whatever. I think I'll just sleep right here." he said while curling up into a little ball
of human.
Lucca however didn't like his rebellious behaviour. She aimed with her right foot,
kicked, and hit Crono right onto his shin.
Spekkio just watched the spectacle for another while in his bird-like form. He then flew onto
a higher branch to peek through another window, where he saw Marle sleeping in Lucca's bed.
All the books and scientific trinkets were still sprayed out onto the floor. He noticed Crono
coming into the room, jumping on one foot while holding on to his other. The commotion woke
Marle up from her sleep.
"What happened to you?" she asked.
"Lucca kicked me out of the living room. Now I don't have any place to sleep anymore!"
Noticing what Crono was getting at, she stared for another second at him, then curled
back up into the bed.
"Well there's no room in here either." she said, and closed her eyes.
Seeing where this was going, Spekkio positioned himself more in front of the window and shape-shifted back into his regular form, a Nu, right in front of Crono's eyes.
Crono looked through the window to see a grinning Nu waving at him. Surprised, he casted another glance at
Marle, and then walked back down the stairs.
"Where do you think you're going?" Lucca asked. She had already wrapped herself into a blanket
and was lying on the couch in the living room.
"I er.. I'm gonna go for a little walk okay?"
Lucca didn't reply but just closed her eyes. Crono sighed. He walked over to the door and opened
it. But just as he was about to step through...
"And don't break anything outside, or you'll be sorry for the rest of your life!" Lucca shouted
at him.
Crono quickly stepped outside and closed the door behind him. What was wrong with those two? Better yet,
what was Spekkio doing outside Lucca's house hanging around in a tree?