Ollen70: And so we're here! The last chapter. For the last time, none of these characters belong to me. Whoever does own them is probably very rich, because they're very cool creations, and the people who invented them should be proud.
Chapter Five -- The Loneliest Places...
Magus had been many places in his lifetime, seen many things, but the landscape before him was a different thing. The death peak incline had a stunning grade. Even with his particular skills, he knew better than to deny how difficult this endeavor was going to be. Belthasar had warned them as much when he told them that the time had come for them to attempt the peak of Life and Death. Upon it, they might find the means to right one of Lavos's wrongs. Three figures had been laid before them as they'd approached the Nu, but they had vanished in a crackle of power before Magus could discover anything about them. Long ago, in the keeps of Kajar, in the magical kingdom of Zeal when it had sill floated in the sky, Magus kept a childhood memory of a similar figure, perched in one of Belthasar's many secret rooms. The difference was that it was placed there by the true Belthasar, not this imitation. Whether the figures could help them, he did not know. Skepticism was too much a part of him to leave him be now.
"And so I risk myself anyway, over the mere fate of a boy." Whispering it, even to the mementos of the daylight in this forsaken place made him feel much more like himself. If that was a good thing, he wasn't sure.
So much had changed in nine simple days. His entire world, as small as it was, seemed on the verge of shattering once more. Lucca, the first person to see into his world now wouldn't look at him. Perhaps once Crono was restored, she might forget him all at once.
"What nonsense, losing myself because of a girl." He muttered under the roar of the wind. "I, the most powerful mage still living? I have business with the remnants of the old world, with the creature that took Schala from me." It wasn't lost on him that this new sense of purpose was derived almost solely on the woman he had alienated with one simple sentence. A single snowflake out of the swirling blizzard around them landed on his vest, near the shoulder. Usually, when the force of the wind was so strong, the individual flakes didn't retain their shape. This one was perfect still, unmelting under his even gaze.
'Sometimes the most beautiful things last only for a second.' If Lucca's affection for him was one of those brief articles, it indeed was a shame. He had regained a very small, almost insignificant piece of his humanity. It was new, untried, and he wasn't willing to part with it. And yet, he knew that even if it were the case, she had given him all he needed to recover once again. Lavos would die, whether or not Crono could be found again. He could make that his goal again, without fear that his soul would be lost once more. Janus, if only a minuscule part of him, was alive again. Eyes on the obstacles before him, he took his first shuffling steps up the slope, feeling like an infant.
He knew, at last, why he stepped forward. It wasn't for Crono. It wasn't even for Lucca, much as he might have liked it to be. He had a great deal to do penance for. If he could never find Schala, at least he could give something back to her memory. He could become human for her, once more.
'And if I cannot overcome the blackness of this darkest night, at least shall I endure it.' It was an old quote his mother used to repeat to him every night before he went to sleep, so he wouldn't be afraid of the dark and cry out for her. In the following days, after the Mammon machine had taken the love out of her, his sister had carried on the tradition, adding only that 'Night, in all it's terror, is only terrible because we believe we must face it alone.' He didn't know if it was actually part of the quote. He told himself often that it wasn't that those words were hers only, given to him like the amulet he wore about his neck.
Taking a deep breath, he felt his magic fill his veins again reassuringly, an ebony tide to flood through him whenever he might need it. It had come at no easy price. Unlike all the inhabitants of Zeal, he was not born with magic. The Black Wind, the invisible force of prophecy surrounded him so thickly that even the Gurus had been wary of him, but all of his more evident powers had been born out of the Old Tomes, in the darkness of the middle ages when loneliness so goaded him that revenge on the beast known as Lavos became his only goal. How fitting that his anguish would bring about the genesis of such fearsome power. Kindness and peace certainly wouldn't have yielded such results.
Sometimes he wondered what Schala might think if she could see him now. She was such a gentle soul... Did she know the truth, that he had been the disguised prophet? Could she feel the Black Wind about him? He knew she had that ability, though while he was there in the past, she hadn't said anything to make him suspect that she knew.
Even in the past, shadow was easily equated with evil. Darkness, doom, and despair went hand in hand. The wielders of shadow were impossibly powerful, able to manipulate a force that was far from virtuous. And yet here he was, using his strength to save life instead. Indeed the world was full of odd twists.
Standing next to Magus, Lucca felt instead as if she were more than a lifetime away. His eyes, at first unequivocal, frozen spheres of fire, had taken on an ephemeral, dreamy appearance. She considered speaking to him, dismissing it when the dreaminess grew deeper. It wasn't likely he'd hear her anyway. Wherever he was, her company was apparently not something he coveted. All at once he was dangerous again, more so to her than to anyone else.
It all seemed so strange. Had there ever been any care for her inside of him? If there was, did she destroy it already, when it had scarce emerged from the snows of the past? Could there be anything between them now, after what had happened? How stupid! she berated herself. How stupid to let something so small, so foolish ruin what they could have had. Magus spent his life wondering what might have been, had he acted differently, and now she supposed she would do the same.
In a second, the warm, caring man she'd begun to uncover was gone. it was a dream that she might be with him, and little more. Now, there were more pressing matters at hand. A little ways up the incline, a small furry doll sat silently amidst the vengeful storm. It was white with pointed ears, large, compelling eyes, and a faint blue glow that surrounded it completely.
"Walk when the wind dies down..." A tiny, child-like voice called happily. "Hide behind trees when it blows..."
"But there ARE no trees on the slope!" Marle called, frustrated. "What do you mean?!"
"Have faith..." The little voice replied. "Without it, you should not attempt the peak. Without it, everything will be in vain..." With that it vanished, and the eerie glow pierced the sanguine darkness. From out of the air, three trees appeared, stretching from the ground as if decades of growth were suddenly compounded into a single instant. Behind Lucca, Magus stooped for a moment, rising when the gale began to abate. Not daring to turn and pay attention to what he was doing, she kept her eyes on where the furry creature had been. "This will be the simplest of your trials. Not for nothing is it called Death Peak."
"Now!!" He called, charging forward recklessly. Lucca did her best to stay in step with him, but to no avail. No sooner had she reached the second tree than the wind renewed itself, blasting her with icy fury. Shielding her face with her arms, she unwittingly broke her grip on the tree branch, sliding back down the slope helplessly. Gripped by a strong hand, she squinted at Magus. Marle, with both legs wrapped around the tree, leaned over backwards and held Magus desperately by his ankles. He in turn had wrapped himself in his cloak and slid across the icy turf to her, throwing his arms about her waist.
"Don't worry..." He said softly, resolute. "I have you. You're safe." When the wind showed signs of slackening, he released his hold so quickly one would think her touch had burned him.
"No time to lose..."
After the initial climb came obstacles of a more arduous sort. The bluffs they glanced up at now were narrow and coated with snow, approachable only by small chinks in the rock faces barely large enough to serve as hand and foot holds. Monsters lurked just out of sight above each bluff, waiting for a new victim to begin the climb before attacking. For this reason, Magus led the way forward. His magic, he reasoned, was superior to the power of the other two. He had proven in the few monster encounters they'd had before starting the climb that he could cast spells both faster and more effectively than either Marle or Lucca. Ice, Fire, and Lightning gave him a versatility that the other two lacked.
"I'm sorry I wasn't kinder to him." Marle whispered sheepishly after Magus had reduced two egg-like monsters to ash. "We wouldn't have been able to accomplish any of this without him. Maybe he isn't so bad after all."
"I'll remind you that you said that."
Whirling around, Marle faced the Sorcerer.
"Huh?" Lucca couldn't help but smile at the princess's abashed expression. "I...uh, hadn't we better get going?"
"Agreed." Came his reply. "We can't afford to waste daylight here." Neither found reason to argue with this remark. Snow was falling more quickly, adding to the treachery of the peak. The surroundings were beautiful in the way a sword is beautiful. One can't forget its nature, no matter how they admire it.
Two hours and much toil later, they stood before the yawning mouth of a cavern, eaten by wind and rain into the living rock. Into this abyss the three went slowly, Magus first. Both his hands glowed with magic, illuminating a small circle around them but keeping the rest of their surroundings in darkness. Magus walked forward confidently, jolted from his concentration by an arm. The light flickering, he rounded on Lucca, the one responsible.
"What in the name of..!!" Before he could finish, she clamped her hand to his lips and held it there tightly.
"Don't you hear that?" Her breath was so slight he could barely hear her. "It sounds like...like some sort of ..." She didn't need to say another word. He knew that sound, and it chilled his blood more the sight of his sister in the dying Ocean palace.
"It's...Lavos..."
"NO!!" Throwing her arms open, Lucca's magic surged in one bright flash. The fire she possessed filled all corners in one second, revealing a hideous creature only feet away. Like the dreaded Lavos, it was a mass of long quills that were each a meter long or more. A clicking beak opened underneath, shining sickeningly in the now-blinding light. This was not the great Lavos, however. Whatever it was, it was much too small.
Filled only with the blinding rage he had ever carried for the horrible beast that had cursed his life, Magus gripped his scythe in white hands. Flinging both Marle and Lucca to the side, he swung ferociously at the armored hide of the monstrosity, bracing himself for a rush of blood and some sort of retaliation. Instead, the blade rebounded in his hand harmlessly. Rounding on him, the quills fired at him like cannon shells, tearing into his shoulder.
He fell heavily, not certain whether he'd screamed. Panic welled inside of him. Instead of living to exact the retribution his loved ones demanded, he would die here, in a lonely cave in a forgotten corner of the future. His eyes began to cloud. There were indistinct noises around him, but he paid them little mind.
'My dear Schala...I...I'm...s..so..sorry....'
How long he lay in this near-death, he didn't know. Time was punishing him once more, drawing out his suffering as much as possible. His death was inevitable, but instead of being delivered quickly and mercifully, he was to languish in it. When he thought he could endure no more, he was aware of a bottle at his lips. Swallowing instinctively, he made to brush it aside, disturbed by a sudden chill that threatened to swallow him.
A rain-streaked window flying open, his vision was immediately clear. What he saw before him, however, gave him considerable pause. A giant block of ice was suspended in the air. Marle stood defending him, her hair streaming out behind her by the currents of air her spell created. There was something odd here. He must have underestimated her skill, if she could muster the concentration to hold the glacier so effortlessly in the sky, allowing it to absorb the needles that the Lavos-like incarnation rained down upon them.
'Lucca, hurry..!" The urgency in Marle's voice forced him to reconsider his previous thoughts. Blanching, for the first time he saw the girl in her cap and glasses kneeling at his side.
"Magus..? Are you okay? Please be alright..!"
"I..." Had it not been so urgent that he regain his feet, he would have marveled at the concern with which she spoke his name. 'She...was I wrong, after all?'
"Magus? Magus! You need this..!" Into his open hands, bruised now from the blade of his own scythe when it rebounded, she pressed a shining rock of jet black.
"What..?"
"All I know, is that you need it."
It wasn't necessary for her to say any more. The rock, or whatever it was, pulsed with a veritable plethora of magic. Before any other thoughts could form, he threw his arms wide on impulse.
"Out of the far reaches of both time and space, may my enemies be made powerless." The voice wasn't his. It came from his throat, but it didn't belong to him. Whatever had caused him to speak now began to flood him with magic. Beside him, both girls pulsed with light. Marle, surrounded in the twinkle of sunlight through ice to his left, and Lucca, flashing like torchlight to his right. Both took his outstretched hands.
"From us, may we drive out all of the Dark, Eternal!!"
The second Poyozo doll blinked at them when the approached.
"You faced the spawn of Lavos." It said simply, in its innocent voice. "There are more of them, but now that you know how to fight what you face, victory is a more simple matter. To this Magus frowned, glancing at his bloodied tunic and quailing slightly. If not for the bottled elixir Lucca had forced him to take, it was quite likely the battle would have ended for him then and there. He cast a sidelong glance at her. Somehow during the course of the battle, something had managed to score into her cheek, just below her eye. An angry trail of red reached across her face, dripping her essence into the snow. She didn't notice him yet. It troubled him that she bled. Not sure what he could accomplish, he held his fingers close to the wound. He had no healing powers. 'This was simply an exercise in futility,' he thought. 'She'll think I'm a fool...'
'I know why you meant to do it. Just because you can't, it doesn't make the thought any less important.' Where he'd heard the words before, he couldn't say.
As a tickle crossed Lucca's cheek, she brushed it with her hand absentmindedly. Far below them, across the land bridge that they stood on, a sad relic that must have once been a great city stood, marked with broken spires and piles of wreckage. This future was definitely a bleak, uncaring place. More than ever, she knew they had no choice but to try and fix this, to destroy Lavos before he could obliterate any bright ambition humanity might engineer.
Her hand came back clean. It must have been a snowflake, she told herself. Magus stood beside her, fingers pointing at her, his eyes incredibly wide.
"Is something the matter?" She asked him, perplexed.
"N..no..."
"Be careful here." The child's voice broke in. "The ground is slippery here. Fall," below they could see the cave they'd entered, "and you'll have to start again." In a flicker, it was gone as well.
As the figure had promised, another of the so-called Lavos spawn appeared after they'd crossed the Isthmus. Again, the strange spell made possible by the black rock Magus still clutched took care of it in short order. A hint by the third of the Poyozo dolls helped them dispatch another, much stronger spawn near the summit of Death Peak. Now, the three of them huddled on a small ledge from the wind while they rebuilt their strength. Whatever waited for them up one final rise, it was in their very best interest to be prepared.
"Magus..." Lucca called to him quietly. He turned, trying not to disturb Marle, who dozed on his shoulder. She felt her head slump forward beyond her control. She hadn't counted on the cold to bite into her so deeply. That, coupled with the weariness she felt from the previous battle nearly caused her to fall. Her body was leaden, so hard to maneuver correctly. Even looking up toward him took all the strength she could muster.
"Everything's so...so hard..." She sighed, dropping to the ledge.
"Lucca?" His figure whirled and twisted in front of her eyes. She closed them on impulse. Just that fast, she was back in Kajar, the magic city in the Kingdom of Zeal. In a small room lit by a candelabra and one impossible window that channeled sunlight from somewhere, even though the room was in the center of the city, cut off from any source of natural light.
This was a memory, true enough. Nothing about it was real. Outside of herself, she drifted freely while she watched a ghostly representation of herself kneel before a small, white doll on the tiles of the floor. Its big, button eyes smiled hopefully at her other self. In her hands, it melted away to become a black rock, rimmed in gold. The treasure of the Guru of reason...
Light flashed through her body. In a horribly painful jolt, she found herself sprawled uncomfortably on the ledge, still lost in the reeling storm. Magus held his hand at her face. In her mouth a glimmering item lingered, spreading a delicious feeling of repose through her deadened limbs. In a disenchanted moment, she remembered where she was and what had happened.
"A power tab." Magus told her, sounding vaguely self-satisfied. "I found it when we began the climb. It should give you enough of a boost, for now. It seems, combined with a bit of magic, that you're on the mend."
"Magic?" She asked, still a little disoriented. "Since when do you have that kind of magic?" Kajar hadn't been real, even when it had been a physical place. The peace there was too transient to have any place in her life. The only thing that was right in this place was that he was there, even if things were different now. But the look in his eyes gave her the impression that the past was just the past. If Magus had learned that much in the last few days, it was a powerful lesson. One that she was beginning to learn herself.
He shook his head, obviously as confused as she was.
"However it happened, I'm certainly glad to have it. After what happened earlier, it seems I owed you."
"Magus..."
"Don't." He replied. "There isn't any need." Instead of sorrow, he spoke with kindness. "Are we so broken by hardships that we let a few feeble words drive us apart? My dear, there is something within you, something that I've only seen in one other person in the years I've walked the Earth. If..if you care for me, even but a little.."
Her fingers on his lips stopped whatever he had meant to say. The ardent flame within her eyes, the approach of her lips drove all intentions from him. He leaned forward to meet her, content. Even if what lay before them meant death or worse, he was ready to face it. Lucca was worth dying for. She was worth everything he could give her, and more than that. The kiss continued for a period of time interminable to him. Maybe this was time's way of telling him that they weren't enemies after all. Be patient, it whispered reassuringly to his heart. Whatever is taken away is given back in due course, though usually not in the same form. You come here to ask a great favor of time. And you have paid for it well. The last step lies before you. Are you loath to embrace your fate?
'Yes, of course I am.' He woke Marle carefully, helping her to her feet. 'But fear isn't an excuse for me anymore. I'm coming for you, Lavos.'
The summit of Death Peak stretched before them with the perfection of a landscape taken straight from heaven. Above them, an orange glow from a half-dead sun bathed the ruins of the world in a pale light. No snow fell here. A tall, twisted tree grew from the rocks and ice, its buds frozen forever, never to bear the promise of a spring. It was toward this tree the three now faced. Marle stood ahead with the Chrono Trigger cupped lovingly in her hands. Magus took it as she offered it to him, holding it high above him in one hand while the other squeezed Lucca's.
"From the Angels who guard throughout the night and stand fast against the coming darkness, I ask temperance, fortitude, and mercy. May we be strong." And there, chilled by the wind of time itself, the Earth waited.
Ollen70: Not a clean, tidy ending, by any means, but somehow it feels better that way. If you don't agree, I always welcome pointers. I'll start a new fic sometime soon. It'll probably be based around Tactics Ogre; The Knight of Lodis. Don't worry if you've never heard of it before. I'll write it in a way that takes that into account. Hope you've had as much fun reading this as much as I did writing it. Thanks again.
