At breakfast, when everyone was finally downstairs, Lucca got up in front of everyone and gave the little speech she had ready.

"Everyone, using my superior computer knowledge and hacking skills, I have found out the Entity's plan for what will happen to us next."

"So what do we have to eat this time?" asked Ozzie, smiling.

Lucca continued, unfazed. "Today, around noon, we will have to fight a horde of some type of powerful monster. According to the latest updates to the plan he made this morning, we have no chance to survive. The only thing we can do is train and get ready for our battle."

"Why should we believe you?" asked Magus.

"Okay, don't believe me. Get slaughtered," said Lucca.

The knowledge that they were facing their impending doom kind of spoiled breakfast. After breakfast, everyone paired off and started sparring as training for the coming battle. While there were no serious injuries, it seemed like Magus "accidentally" nearly beheaded Ozzie with the Reaper quite a few times. Around twelve, Jimmy's face appeared on the huge TV again.

"Hello. It's time for your first reward challenge. You will be facing a horde of extremely dangerous and bloodthirsty..."

"Mmm, blood. The other red drink," Ozzie mumbled.

Jimmy went on. "...monsters called Cactaurs."

"Ooh, real dangerous sounding," Ozzie commented.

Jimmy continued. "The person who remains standing the longest wins..."

"A brand new car!" Ozzie said in an overly dramatic voice.

"The big green tub of lard will refrain from MSTing my description of the challenge before I annihilate him."

Ozzie blinked, then backed away from the TV.

"That's better. As I was saying, the person who wins the challenge gets their choice of three prizes: a Chrono Trigger, a Power Tab, or a Poyozo doll. The battle begins in three minutes. Please step outside."

Not wanting to get annihilated, everyone filed out of the front door. Suddenly, out of nowhere, five cacti shaped vaguely like people appeared.

"These look like no problem," said Magus, charging up a Dark Matter spell to do them in quickly.

All of a sudden, a thousand needles shot out of one of the cacti, knocking Ozzie unconscious and nearly killing him. Everyone jumped except for Magus, who was happy the monsters did his work for him. He cast Dark Matter, and the huge black mass of energy that struck the cacti caused them to disintegrate.

"Some horde of monsters," scoffed Magus.

Suddenly, fifty more of the cacti jumped out of the trees. They fired their needles as all the people tried to scurry out of the way. Marle, Schala, Robo, and Melchior were all hit. Lucca cast her flare spell from behind a tree, incinerating about twelve cacti, before one finally spotted her and gave her the needle treatment. Alfador bravely jumped into the midst of the cacti and dug his claws into the cacti he landed on, killing it. However, the other cacti fired their needles at him, taking out not only Alfador, but six other cacti by friendly fire.

Magus, Crono, Ayla, and Frog stayed hidden behind trees. Ayla wasn't about to hide and wait for them to find her, so she jumped out from behind her tree and roared "Me Ayla! Not scared of plants!" Then she was struck by a thousand needles and collapsed.

Crono and Magus decided to combined their most powerful spells to finish off the cacti. They shouted their spells and watched the resulting chaos.

It turns out Luminaire and Dark Matter don't combine like fire and ice magic do. When the waves of dark energy hit the bright light, there was a huge explosion. The next thing the three fighters knew, they were lying on the ground where the forest used to be. Magus, Crono, and Frog slowly got up. In the barren wastelands around them lay the unconscious bodies of their comrades and the smoldering remains of the cacti.

"The battle is over. We hath won," said Frog slowly.

"Not quite!" boomed a Mysterious Voice. "You have on more opponent to face!"

"Who are you?" demanded Magus.

"That is not of your concern. Ji... I mean, the Entity, asked for a worthy opponent for you to face. Here she is."

A Gate of some type opened, then a woman wearing a pink dress walked out. She looked around, then pulled out a huge quarterstaff.

"Who are you, lass?" asked Frog politely.

The woman replied coldly. "I am Sirea. I am evil. You all must die! The Planet demands so!"

Crono started to cast Luminaire on her, but before he could, a flame shot up out of the ground and caused severe burns to appear on him. He fell over in pain.

Magus held the Reaper steady, then charged right toward her. Before he could get close enough to hit her, she threw her staff at him. It hit him right between the eyes, knocking him out cold.

Frog saw it was up to him. He gripped the Masamune as hard as could, then jumped five feet in the air. The evil woman was still laughing at Magus, so she didn't see him. Frog aimed himself at Sirea, then started fall toward her with incredible force. As he approached her, he readied the Masamune. Then, Frog landed right on target, driving the Masamune right through her back. She slumped over, then Frog pulled the Masamune out of her body. No blood. She must not even have been human...

Jimmy's voice started booming again. "Frog, you have won the challenge. What do you want, the Chrono Trigger, the Power Tab, or the Poyozo doll?" Frog pondered this. He had no use for a stuffed doll, and a Power Tab was only a decent prize, not great. With the Chrono Trigger, however, he could bring the dead back to life. With that, he could bring back Cyrus...

"I shall choose the Chrono Trigger, Entity."

"A fine choice. Just a moment."

At the End of Time, Gaspar faced two Poyozos. "You want another Chrono Trigger? That's too bad. I spenty ages making the first one. You're out of luck."

"Well, Sir Frog, it appears this gift is currnetly unavailable. However, in its place, you can have..." Jimmy looked around his room frantically searching for a prize. He spotted a cheap plastic necklace and ordered the Poyozo to take it to Frog. The Poyozo did so, and Frog examined the trinket. "That! It's, um, a Necklace of Protection from Evil +1!"

"Plus one of what, Entity?"

"One degree of protection, of course. It's from, um, the ancient kingdom to the north of Guardia, Canadia."

"I knowth not of this Canadia."

"Of course. Canadia was burnt to the ground by the Mystics in 231 A.D. and the Guardians forgot all about them."

That ancient kingdom story sounded kind of fishy to Frog, but he was sure the Entity knew what he was talking about. Frog watched as, one by one, the Poyozo sprinkled red feathers all over his fallen companions and they got up unhurt, like they had just woke up from a nap. Everyone except for Magus and Ozzie congratulated Frog on his victory.

It was Lucca's turn to cook supper, so she went inside and just thawed out all the leftovers. Everyone seemed to like supper anyway, though. Maybe they were just tired. Everyone went to their bedrooms early that night.

Nothing happened with Crono and Marle, as usual. Maybe she was still mad at him about last night with Ayla. Still, Jimmy hated the fact that the one pre-made couple he had wouldn't even touch each other.

Frog and Ayla still wouldn't even pay attention to each other. What a failure as a couple. The best that happened was when Ayla tired to kill Frog. Oh well. Jimmy made a note to reassign bedrooms soon. Maybe Ayla and Melchior...

Lucca was sure the Entity was watching the two of them somehow, so she decided to see how much she could fool this so-called all-knowing Entity. After Lucca was sure Schala was asleep, Lucca turned on the overhead projector she built earlier that day to project a huge picture of (of all people) Magus. Lucca smiled a huge, obviously fake smile, then closed her eyes. See if this threw him for a loop...

Magus lay in bed, plotting the death of Ozzie. Tonight was too risky, Ozzie was probably still paranoid from the battle and set up a few new traps around the room. Besides, Ozzie would probably be voted off tomorrow anyway.

Nu was revising his evil plan for tomorrow. Who would he vote out of existence? That cat was most definitely getting in the way of his plans to take over, but did he want the old man out of the way first? It wasn't going to be an easy choice.