By Exile
Disclaimer: THERE IS NO DISCLAIMER*.
10th July 2003: A little update. I never knew 'Asraƫl' was the Angel of Death, so I renamed him so the name sounds a bit more 'cute'. After all it is a little fluffball of a cat. Thanks for pointing this out Ollen70. I also did some minor changes, but its nothing relevant to the story so don't bother reading it again if you've already read it before.
Chapter 1: Can you spell "brain"?
65,000,000 BC: Jungle forest
He slowly peeked around the corner, waiting for the pack of frogs to leave. Noticing that Lucca wanted to peek also, he held up his hand to stop her.
"Shhh! If they notice us, we're done for. You know we don't have enough
rations left to withstand another battle." Crono whispered to the ones
behind him.
"Crono not be wussy! We fight! You know what Ayla say! Ayla say..."
"Shhhhh!"
Crono put his hand over Ayla's in an attempt to silence her. She bit Crono, quite painful at that too. The victim yelled out in pain, immediately alerting the frogs. They scurried over to the bushes where Crono, Lucca and Ayla were hiding and at the first sight of them they jumped at their faces.
"Aaah! Get it off of me!" Lucca yelled, trying to scrape off the frog now attached to her face. Ayla was already punching the other amphibians into the ground, while Crono was still nursing his precious hand.
After Lucca managed to get the frog off from her face and onto the ground, she started jumping on top of it until it moved no more.
"Ahw great, now there's green frog-goop all over my boots1"
Ayla had taken care of the remaining frogs by now. "Crono see? You fight,
you live!"
Crono looked at Ayla and raised an eyebrow. "And you're sure this was
necessary?" Crono said while pointing at his injured hand.
"Ayla cannot guarantee success in every way, every time." the cavewoman
stated matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, well Ayla also needs to watch less TV."
He turned to Lucca. "You allright?"
Lucca was cleaning her boots in a little puddle of water.
"Yeah, I'm fine.". She looked up towards the sky. "I'd say we take a
shelter here though. It's gonna be night soon."
"You think so?" Crono wondered.
As some sort of a reply, a bat fell out of it's hiding place in the tree they were standing under and landed in front of Crono's feet.
"I'll take that as a profound yes." Crono said, and started to pitch up his tent.
A few hours and many bruises from wrongly guided tent-sticks later, they had set camp in a small clearing in the jungle. The group was sitting around a small campfire Lucca had provided with her ever-so-handy fire magic. The night had long since set in, which made the jungle environment look pretty much impenetrable. All sitting on a big log which they had moved over to their camp spot, the scene looked quite like the ones you see in movies or cartoons. Maybe that's why it looks like that in this story too.
"So ehm..." Lucca started. "Any ghost stories, fairy tales, bedtime stories
or whatever?" she asked while looking at the other two.
"Ayla ever tell story when Ayla went hunting and Ayla came back with Big
Giant Dipper?"
"As I recall, two times at the prehistoric party you threw for us when we
met, over six times when we were traveling around, and another five times
at the End of Time." Lucca answered dry.
"But you sure you not want to hear again? It good story!"
"It was. The first time."
Ayla continued to rack her brain for more stories, while Crono opened up a package of marshmallows from his backpack. Putting a few on a wooden stick he found, he suddenly felt something sharp poke him in his back.
"What's wrong Crono? You look surprised." Lucca asked. Crono, his eyes as wide as melons, slowly pointed to whatever was poking something in his back.
"This is a hold-up! Tee-heee..." a sluggish voice came from behind Crono.
He reacted by dropping the stick with marshmallows and putting both his
arms in the air, with his eyes still as wide.
"Who are you?" Lucca asked to the attacker.
"Me?"
Crono felt the pointy object being removed. He immediately dropped his arms and turned around. Out of the dark emerged a big, blue object, with rather tiny arms and legs, completely absent of any muscles to keep the giant torso up. It was a Nu.
"I'm Creto."
"What the..." Crono muttered. Nus were rather common in his time, but they
were rare sightings in the prehistoric era.
"What seems to be the problem?" the Nu asked.
"You're... a Nu..." Lucca said, with as much surprise as Crono.
Slowly, Ayla started to wake up from all the commotion. Seeing the Nu towering over Crono, her hunting instincts kicked in. She jumped up and yelled a strange war-cry.
"Aieeeeeeeeeaaaah!"
Ayla jumped on top of the Nu, but the blue creature was smart enough not to let her stay there for long. He quickly took a few steps backwards and knocked her against a tree. Ayla fell off, unconscious.
"Oh great, what did she do that for?" Lucca said.
"Leave her be." the Nu said. "I overheard your request for a little story.
I'm willing to tell you one, provided she stays out of this." it said while
pointing at the unconscious female.
"Why's that?"
"She would not understand. Your intellect is far superior to hers, since
you are from the future. You would not believe how lonely it is around
here, with little conversation partners."
"Uhm..." Lucca thought it over.
"Go ahead." Crono said while he motioned to Ayla's now empty log. "Take a
seat."
"Very well then." the Nu said. It walked over to the log and sat down on
it. It looked rather silly, since his feet didn't even touch the ground.
"I will tell you of a little tale, not many have heard before. The origin
of us, the Nus."
Lucca's eyes widened. "Say what? But..."
Crono shot a glare at Lucca. "Shh. Be quiet and listen. Or would you rather
listen to the tale of Ayla and the Big Giant Dipper again?"
Lucca remained silent. They both turned their eyes to the Nu, who was obviously anxious to get started. While Crono picked up his marshmallows again and held them above the fire, the Nu named Creto began.
* Actually, there is a disclaimer. I don't own any of the characters in this story, Squaresoft does.
