Chapter Nine - The Fall of Jesh
"H-H-Here's your drink, s-sir" said the small blue Imp as it held out a
mug of something in his quivering hand, a frightened expression on his
face.
"It's about time, runt" Jesh grumbled as he snatched the mug and leaned
back in his seat. He sipped it, then swished it around in his mouth,
as though deciding on something, while the Imp began to look more
anxious. Finally, Jesh swallowed. "I guess it's the best that I can
expect from this pathetic little hamlet." He then drained the mug
while the Imp breathed a sigh of relief. Jesh thrust the mug into the
Imp's hands. "Beat it" he said, simply. The Imp jumped before
attempting to stutter out, "Thank you, sir," "Goodbye, sir," and "I
apologize for my earlier failures" all at once and failing quite
miseribly.
Jesh waved his hand. "Just go," he said annoyed, as he closed his eyes
and massaged his temples. When he looked again, the Imp was gone. He
stood up and began pacing. After some time he sat down again, drummed
his figners on the nearby table, got up again, and repeated the process
several more times. Eventually, he tired of this. So, he began
sitting down and getting up WITHOUT drumming his fingers. He allowed
this to occupy his time for a brief period more, before he began to
consider actually making sure that there was no funny stuff, as he had
been ordered. Before he was able to act on this, one of Serus' Scouts
entered the building, seeming out of breath as it settled to the floor
in a heap. "Lord *huff* Jesh! *puff*"
"Yes...?" Jesh asked, hoping that he was making it very clear that it
would be wise to explain itself very quickly.
Fortunately for the Scout, it picked up on this, but acted a little too
accordingly.
"Intruderscomingthroughthecavescanusemagickilledkrawliewhaddawedo?!"
The Scout then lay there, panting.
Jesh blinked at it. "What are you going on about, now?"
****
All throughout the house, there was nothing but silence, save the
snoring of an old man in his bed. Had the people passing by his home
been about to stop by for a visit, this would be soon to change, so the
sleeping old man who shall remain nameless for the moment was lucky
there.
****
"Finally. I can see the village."
"Well, that's a relief," Crono responded to Marle.
"I know," Lucca added. "It felt like we'd been on our way there for
weeks."
Lucca surveyed the area from a raised earthen ledge several meters from
Medina. "Hmm..." She then added, sounding less happy to be out of the
caves and more concerned about what they would soon be facing. "That's
a pretty big crater..." She then looked around the village a little.
"... and I don't see any humans down there. Actually, I don't see any
Mystics down there, either."
Crono joined her on the ledge. "I guess that means they either left or
they're waiting around inside one of those houses."
"Only one way to find out for sure," Marle said as she took off for the
village. Crono and Lucca hopped down and joined her in her dash.
****
"Huh... So, three kids, one of which you know for sure can use magic,
are coming through the caves towards Medina right now?"
"That's *pant* right..." the Scout responded, exhausted from its swift
retelling.
Jesh looked out the door and saw three figures running towards Medina.
"Tell me... Do these kids include a red-haired guy in blue, a girl
with glasses in some wierd get-up and a blonde girl with a crossbow?"
The Scout, not paying much attention to what Jesh had done, responded,
"Yes... That's *huff* it exactly... *puff* How'd you *pant* guess?"
It then caught on and exclaimed in alarm, "They're here?! They're
here! No, no, no! They're here!"
"Shut up," Jesh snapped at him. "Even if they can all use magic,
there's no way they can stand up to me."
"Oh. You-You're right, Lord Jesh. I don't know why I doubted your
power." The Scout grinned, though, as one couldn't see its mouth, this
was a fairly pointless action. "Go get revenge on them for Sir
Krawlie!"
Jesh raised an eyebrow. "Was that Krawlie really your whole life? You
need to find better ways of existing than blind devotion. It's
pathetic." He then walked outside, leaving the Scout panting on the
floor.
****
The three teenagers skidded to a stop. "Well, I guess that answers the
question of, 'Are they still here'..." Lucca mumbled when they saw the
shrouded man walk out of one of the houses.
"So, you're the ones who were able to handle Serus' little slaves," the
man said while walking towards them. "I'm not impressed. Especially
since he made them from the bodies of those little fools who tried to
stand against us."
The three heros gritted their teeth and balled their fists at his
words.
He, on the other hand, smiled. "The only thing of interest about you
is that you can use magic. And all that means is that playing with you
will be a bit more fun."
He stopped walking as he finished speaking. A few Mystics peeked from
their doorways. They saw that both were about a meter to the side of
the crater that Jesh had created, about lined up with the outer edges
of it.
Crono stepped forward, obviously angered. "Who are you and why did you
and those others do this?!"
"Very well. My name is Jesh. The others' names aren't of much
importance to you, as you're not going to know them personally. And
why did I kill them, creating that lovely hole? Because they refused
to listen to their elder's orders and attacked us. I merely acted in
self-defense..." the man responded.
Marle stepped next to Crono, just as enraged as he was. "You say that
like you couldn't have spared them. You could definetly have held back
on that spell!"
Jesh smirked and shrugged. "That may be, but who's to say they
wouldn't have interfered with us after that? These monsters don't have
normal intelligence. If one tries to bite you and you smack it down,
but don't kill it, you can be sure that, after it's recovered, it'll
get right back up again and attack you. Killing them was necessary."
Lucca drew her Wondershot and took her place next to her friends. "You
call them monsters? All the Mystics I've ever met have been pretty
reasonable, unless they'd been exposed to lots of brainwashing by the
real bad guys. The only real monster I see around here is you."
Jesh glared at her a bit.
"And, since you think that it's necessary to kill any monsters that
might get in the way..." Crono continued before drawing his Shiva Edge.
"I've got to say I agree with you there."
"You're going to regret taking the life of every one of those Mystics."
Marle aimed her Siren at him before adding "Soon you'll know what they
felt."
Jesh took this in, then chuckled. "I really don't think that the three
of you have any idea who you're dealing with here."
"Oh, I know alright," Crono said, with a smile. "Marle, Lucca, Jess
sounds like more of a girl's name, doesn't it?"
"Oh yeah," Marle responded, playing along, "Definetly."
Jesh was steaming at this point, before Lucca decided to add something.
"Well, with that hood on, there's no way of knowing. She could just
have a really deep voice." She then smiled and waved at the Jesh she
was angering. "Hey, do you wanna go clothes shopping with Marle and me
later?"
"Oh, that's it!" Jesh shouted at her. "I was going to toy with you,
but now you all die! Starting with you, ya ugly little bitch!"
Lucca, from this, was twitching. "Ugly? Bitch!? How dare you!"
Crono whispered to Marle, "I know this guy did something really
horrible, but with Lucca going after him..."
"I know what you mean. It's hard not to feel sorry for him," was the
whispered response he recieved.
Lucca had been reaching into her bag while this exchange of dialogue
was going on and quickly found what she was looking for. She pulled
out two large, gray Mega Bombs.
"Here. Catch!" she shouted at him before lobbing them both towards
him. Jesh, not being a fool, attempted to distance himself from them.
They exploded, making two small holes near the large crater, but Jesh
was nowhere near them.
"Pathet--" Jesh began before he was cut off by the shock of seeing
another Mega Bomb hurtling through the smoke of the first two right at
him and the subsequent explosion. He was still unable to continue his
word, provided he survived (a fact which will not be revealed right
now), because of the several other explosions that followed that one.
After she felt she had thrown enough, Lucca breathed deeply for a
little while. "And THAT's what you get for messing with Lucca the
Great!" she said, looking very pleased with herself.
This expression vanished from her face when she heard Jesh's voice say,
"Not bad... Granted, it was mostly my carelessness, but those things
pack quite a punch."
The smoke cleared, revealing him to be standing on a house, which had
quite a lot of small craters before it. His cloak was partially on
fire, but he paid it no mind.
"This thing is slowing me down. Off it goes," he said before
discarding it. When he did so, looks of surprise crossed the faces of
Crono and the others.
"He-- He looks almost exactly like Magus..." Marle said.
"I'm glad you said that. I thought I was hallucinating..." Crono
responded.
The two of them were quite right to note a resemblance.
"Hmm?" Jesh asked, caught offguard by comments and expressions, which
implied the impossible: that these people knew Magus personally.
The man had very long blue hair, somewhat pale skin, and wore a brown
and purple outfit that was very similar to the kind Magus had worn.
Before long, though, Jesh's astonishment faded as he came up with a
logical explanation for their comments.
"Ahh. So you've seen pictures of Magus in books or seen the statue of
him somewhere. But yes, the similarity is quite striking if I do say
so myself," Jesh told them.
"Trust me. You're way off," Lucca responded.
"Well, whatever it is, I'm sure it's not that important. You couldn't
have known him personally, so let's move on, shall we?" Jesh said as he
jumped high from the roof and the heros saw a small red energy orb,
apparentally forming in his hands.
Lucca recognized it immediately. "Move it! I don't know how, but he's
casting Fire Blast without the incantation!" This surprised Crono and
Marle, but the three of them nevertheless scrambled to get far away
from Jesh. Lucca turned out to have been absolutely right. The area
that they had occupied was incinerated a few seconds later.
Crono swung his blade in the direction of Jesh, realeasing the Shock
wave he had known for so long. Jesh merely smirked and parried with
his own weapon. Crono jumped towards him and began to go melee with
him.
Marle and Lucca looked at each other, nodded, and then began chanting.
Marle chanted:
"Essence of water...
that lies in the world...
solidify yourself..."
As she did, a small crystalline object began forming before her.
Meanwhile Lucca spoke the words:
"Essence of fire...
that lies in the world...
burn onwards..."
As Lucca did so, she spun around, with a growing ball of fire in her
hand.
The two girls made a momentary glance at each other, to ensure that
they were both in sync. Then, in perfect unison, they chanted:
"May the powers of fire and ice unite...
to demonstrate their combined forces...
and our combined wills..."
They both thrust their collected energy towards Jesh.
"ANTIPODE!"
Crono heard this and pushed away from Jesh, while the two powers of ice
and fire hurtled towards their target. They hit head on, Jesh not
having enough reaction time to evade them. A large chunk of very hot
ice formed around him and quickly disipated.
He was obviously hurt, but not very seriously at all.
"I guess this guy's loaded for bear," Marle said.
"Nice Dual Tech. I didn't know you'd be capable of that," Jesh said,
sounding impressed, but not very frightened, if he was at all.
He then leaped at Crono and slashed him, while he was unawares.
"Gah!" Crono shouted, as he hopped backwards, hand on his wound. He
knew it was too deep for his liking. He really must be out of it to be
so careless. If he hadn't moved out of the way, that attack could have
very easily killed him.
Fortunately for him, Marle was nearby adn walked forwards. A whitish
light emanated from her. Moments later, the wound began to close up,
leaving no scar. He was still hurt, but would be fine.
"That was way too close. We've got to finish this soon," Crono said
after Marle was done.
"I think I know what you're getting at," Lucca responded with a smile.
"Me too," Marle added. "So, let's get into our proper places."
The three of them then surrounded Jesh.
Jesh smiled at them. "So, you've seen that nothing you've got really
works against me, and if I feel like it, I can very easily kill you
all. So what are you to do? You obviously can't win."
The three of them said not a word and merely smiled at him.
Crono began his incantation:
"Forces of electricity...
that lie imbedded in the cosmos...
gather yourself before me...
to be released on my command..."
As he did so, small sparkles of electricity gathered into a small orb
in his hands.
Marle spoke her words:
"Forces of frost...
that lie imbedded in the cosmos...
gather yourself before me...
to be released on my command..."
As she did so, a small crystalline collection of ice began to gather
before her.
And Lucca chanted:
"Forces of blaze...
that lie imbedded in the cosmos...
gather yourself before me...
to be released on my command..."
While she chanted, she spun around, with a rapidly growing ball of fire
within her hand.
The three then looked to their sides, catching each others' eyes. When
they were all sure, they nodded. Jesh merely stood there, certain that
whatever they tried would fail, but unable to ignore a nagging
sensation that he should catch on to something here.
The three heros spoke the same incantation, simultaneously:
"Now unite the powers...
of fire, ice and lightning...
to create this beam of power...
that will extend from earth into the heavens..."
Jesh finally seemed to figure it out and his eyes widened. It was, of
course, far too late, however.
As they chanted, the accumulated powers of each moved between all three
of them and back to the original producer of that elemental power,
where it vanished, tracing a triangle amongst the three of them.
They shouted the final two words:
"DELTA FORCE!"
An enormous surge of power shot up within the triangle, from the ground
and into the sky, where Jesh stood, incapable of escape. It launched
in waves: first fire, then ice, and finally lightning.
Afterwards, the three observed Jesh falling to the ground, writhing in
pain. "Such... power... Phen--" He paused as he coughed up a small
amount of blood. "Phenomenal... Who... are you people?" He then fell
unconscious.
Meanwhile, a large eye peeked from a door, widened in astonishment.
****
"Serus... What's wrong now?" Mezuna asked as she stared at her very
wide-eyed companion with some concern.
"Th- They've--" he began.
"They've beaten Jesh, haven't they?" the speaker asked, calmly.
Surprised, Serus replied, "Y-Yes. They totally took him out. I know
they could have killed him if they wanted to. And with Delta Force..."
Mezuna's eyes widened at this point. "Those people can use Delta
Force!? Please tell me you're kidding."
"Now, Mezuna. Why would he kid about something this important?" the
speaker asked. "Granted, I never would have expected it and am quite
impressed, but nevertheless... No matter how powerful they are, they
can't be as great as our combined power."
"I- You're right, brother. There's nothing to worry about," Mezuna
responded, calming down.
"And Serus? Does one of those people have a pendant?" the speaker
asked the young man.
"Umm... Yes. The blonde girl has one," was Serus' reply. "It has a
strange glow about it and-- Wait... You mean... That's THE
pendant!?"
The speaker smiled. "Of course. Now, Mezuna, land us in the forest
near Guardia castle. We're going to confront these three when they get
back."
"Right," Mezuna replied. She turned back towards where Palidor's head
was looking, to see that they were just now over the coast near Truce
Village. The great bird dipped downwards and settled into the forest
before it became no more.
"H-H-Here's your drink, s-sir" said the small blue Imp as it held out a
mug of something in his quivering hand, a frightened expression on his
face.
"It's about time, runt" Jesh grumbled as he snatched the mug and leaned
back in his seat. He sipped it, then swished it around in his mouth,
as though deciding on something, while the Imp began to look more
anxious. Finally, Jesh swallowed. "I guess it's the best that I can
expect from this pathetic little hamlet." He then drained the mug
while the Imp breathed a sigh of relief. Jesh thrust the mug into the
Imp's hands. "Beat it" he said, simply. The Imp jumped before
attempting to stutter out, "Thank you, sir," "Goodbye, sir," and "I
apologize for my earlier failures" all at once and failing quite
miseribly.
Jesh waved his hand. "Just go," he said annoyed, as he closed his eyes
and massaged his temples. When he looked again, the Imp was gone. He
stood up and began pacing. After some time he sat down again, drummed
his figners on the nearby table, got up again, and repeated the process
several more times. Eventually, he tired of this. So, he began
sitting down and getting up WITHOUT drumming his fingers. He allowed
this to occupy his time for a brief period more, before he began to
consider actually making sure that there was no funny stuff, as he had
been ordered. Before he was able to act on this, one of Serus' Scouts
entered the building, seeming out of breath as it settled to the floor
in a heap. "Lord *huff* Jesh! *puff*"
"Yes...?" Jesh asked, hoping that he was making it very clear that it
would be wise to explain itself very quickly.
Fortunately for the Scout, it picked up on this, but acted a little too
accordingly.
"Intruderscomingthroughthecavescanusemagickilledkrawliewhaddawedo?!"
The Scout then lay there, panting.
Jesh blinked at it. "What are you going on about, now?"
****
All throughout the house, there was nothing but silence, save the
snoring of an old man in his bed. Had the people passing by his home
been about to stop by for a visit, this would be soon to change, so the
sleeping old man who shall remain nameless for the moment was lucky
there.
****
"Finally. I can see the village."
"Well, that's a relief," Crono responded to Marle.
"I know," Lucca added. "It felt like we'd been on our way there for
weeks."
Lucca surveyed the area from a raised earthen ledge several meters from
Medina. "Hmm..." She then added, sounding less happy to be out of the
caves and more concerned about what they would soon be facing. "That's
a pretty big crater..." She then looked around the village a little.
"... and I don't see any humans down there. Actually, I don't see any
Mystics down there, either."
Crono joined her on the ledge. "I guess that means they either left or
they're waiting around inside one of those houses."
"Only one way to find out for sure," Marle said as she took off for the
village. Crono and Lucca hopped down and joined her in her dash.
****
"Huh... So, three kids, one of which you know for sure can use magic,
are coming through the caves towards Medina right now?"
"That's *pant* right..." the Scout responded, exhausted from its swift
retelling.
Jesh looked out the door and saw three figures running towards Medina.
"Tell me... Do these kids include a red-haired guy in blue, a girl
with glasses in some wierd get-up and a blonde girl with a crossbow?"
The Scout, not paying much attention to what Jesh had done, responded,
"Yes... That's *huff* it exactly... *puff* How'd you *pant* guess?"
It then caught on and exclaimed in alarm, "They're here?! They're
here! No, no, no! They're here!"
"Shut up," Jesh snapped at him. "Even if they can all use magic,
there's no way they can stand up to me."
"Oh. You-You're right, Lord Jesh. I don't know why I doubted your
power." The Scout grinned, though, as one couldn't see its mouth, this
was a fairly pointless action. "Go get revenge on them for Sir
Krawlie!"
Jesh raised an eyebrow. "Was that Krawlie really your whole life? You
need to find better ways of existing than blind devotion. It's
pathetic." He then walked outside, leaving the Scout panting on the
floor.
****
The three teenagers skidded to a stop. "Well, I guess that answers the
question of, 'Are they still here'..." Lucca mumbled when they saw the
shrouded man walk out of one of the houses.
"So, you're the ones who were able to handle Serus' little slaves," the
man said while walking towards them. "I'm not impressed. Especially
since he made them from the bodies of those little fools who tried to
stand against us."
The three heros gritted their teeth and balled their fists at his
words.
He, on the other hand, smiled. "The only thing of interest about you
is that you can use magic. And all that means is that playing with you
will be a bit more fun."
He stopped walking as he finished speaking. A few Mystics peeked from
their doorways. They saw that both were about a meter to the side of
the crater that Jesh had created, about lined up with the outer edges
of it.
Crono stepped forward, obviously angered. "Who are you and why did you
and those others do this?!"
"Very well. My name is Jesh. The others' names aren't of much
importance to you, as you're not going to know them personally. And
why did I kill them, creating that lovely hole? Because they refused
to listen to their elder's orders and attacked us. I merely acted in
self-defense..." the man responded.
Marle stepped next to Crono, just as enraged as he was. "You say that
like you couldn't have spared them. You could definetly have held back
on that spell!"
Jesh smirked and shrugged. "That may be, but who's to say they
wouldn't have interfered with us after that? These monsters don't have
normal intelligence. If one tries to bite you and you smack it down,
but don't kill it, you can be sure that, after it's recovered, it'll
get right back up again and attack you. Killing them was necessary."
Lucca drew her Wondershot and took her place next to her friends. "You
call them monsters? All the Mystics I've ever met have been pretty
reasonable, unless they'd been exposed to lots of brainwashing by the
real bad guys. The only real monster I see around here is you."
Jesh glared at her a bit.
"And, since you think that it's necessary to kill any monsters that
might get in the way..." Crono continued before drawing his Shiva Edge.
"I've got to say I agree with you there."
"You're going to regret taking the life of every one of those Mystics."
Marle aimed her Siren at him before adding "Soon you'll know what they
felt."
Jesh took this in, then chuckled. "I really don't think that the three
of you have any idea who you're dealing with here."
"Oh, I know alright," Crono said, with a smile. "Marle, Lucca, Jess
sounds like more of a girl's name, doesn't it?"
"Oh yeah," Marle responded, playing along, "Definetly."
Jesh was steaming at this point, before Lucca decided to add something.
"Well, with that hood on, there's no way of knowing. She could just
have a really deep voice." She then smiled and waved at the Jesh she
was angering. "Hey, do you wanna go clothes shopping with Marle and me
later?"
"Oh, that's it!" Jesh shouted at her. "I was going to toy with you,
but now you all die! Starting with you, ya ugly little bitch!"
Lucca, from this, was twitching. "Ugly? Bitch!? How dare you!"
Crono whispered to Marle, "I know this guy did something really
horrible, but with Lucca going after him..."
"I know what you mean. It's hard not to feel sorry for him," was the
whispered response he recieved.
Lucca had been reaching into her bag while this exchange of dialogue
was going on and quickly found what she was looking for. She pulled
out two large, gray Mega Bombs.
"Here. Catch!" she shouted at him before lobbing them both towards
him. Jesh, not being a fool, attempted to distance himself from them.
They exploded, making two small holes near the large crater, but Jesh
was nowhere near them.
"Pathet--" Jesh began before he was cut off by the shock of seeing
another Mega Bomb hurtling through the smoke of the first two right at
him and the subsequent explosion. He was still unable to continue his
word, provided he survived (a fact which will not be revealed right
now), because of the several other explosions that followed that one.
After she felt she had thrown enough, Lucca breathed deeply for a
little while. "And THAT's what you get for messing with Lucca the
Great!" she said, looking very pleased with herself.
This expression vanished from her face when she heard Jesh's voice say,
"Not bad... Granted, it was mostly my carelessness, but those things
pack quite a punch."
The smoke cleared, revealing him to be standing on a house, which had
quite a lot of small craters before it. His cloak was partially on
fire, but he paid it no mind.
"This thing is slowing me down. Off it goes," he said before
discarding it. When he did so, looks of surprise crossed the faces of
Crono and the others.
"He-- He looks almost exactly like Magus..." Marle said.
"I'm glad you said that. I thought I was hallucinating..." Crono
responded.
The two of them were quite right to note a resemblance.
"Hmm?" Jesh asked, caught offguard by comments and expressions, which
implied the impossible: that these people knew Magus personally.
The man had very long blue hair, somewhat pale skin, and wore a brown
and purple outfit that was very similar to the kind Magus had worn.
Before long, though, Jesh's astonishment faded as he came up with a
logical explanation for their comments.
"Ahh. So you've seen pictures of Magus in books or seen the statue of
him somewhere. But yes, the similarity is quite striking if I do say
so myself," Jesh told them.
"Trust me. You're way off," Lucca responded.
"Well, whatever it is, I'm sure it's not that important. You couldn't
have known him personally, so let's move on, shall we?" Jesh said as he
jumped high from the roof and the heros saw a small red energy orb,
apparentally forming in his hands.
Lucca recognized it immediately. "Move it! I don't know how, but he's
casting Fire Blast without the incantation!" This surprised Crono and
Marle, but the three of them nevertheless scrambled to get far away
from Jesh. Lucca turned out to have been absolutely right. The area
that they had occupied was incinerated a few seconds later.
Crono swung his blade in the direction of Jesh, realeasing the Shock
wave he had known for so long. Jesh merely smirked and parried with
his own weapon. Crono jumped towards him and began to go melee with
him.
Marle and Lucca looked at each other, nodded, and then began chanting.
Marle chanted:
"Essence of water...
that lies in the world...
solidify yourself..."
As she did, a small crystalline object began forming before her.
Meanwhile Lucca spoke the words:
"Essence of fire...
that lies in the world...
burn onwards..."
As Lucca did so, she spun around, with a growing ball of fire in her
hand.
The two girls made a momentary glance at each other, to ensure that
they were both in sync. Then, in perfect unison, they chanted:
"May the powers of fire and ice unite...
to demonstrate their combined forces...
and our combined wills..."
They both thrust their collected energy towards Jesh.
"ANTIPODE!"
Crono heard this and pushed away from Jesh, while the two powers of ice
and fire hurtled towards their target. They hit head on, Jesh not
having enough reaction time to evade them. A large chunk of very hot
ice formed around him and quickly disipated.
He was obviously hurt, but not very seriously at all.
"I guess this guy's loaded for bear," Marle said.
"Nice Dual Tech. I didn't know you'd be capable of that," Jesh said,
sounding impressed, but not very frightened, if he was at all.
He then leaped at Crono and slashed him, while he was unawares.
"Gah!" Crono shouted, as he hopped backwards, hand on his wound. He
knew it was too deep for his liking. He really must be out of it to be
so careless. If he hadn't moved out of the way, that attack could have
very easily killed him.
Fortunately for him, Marle was nearby adn walked forwards. A whitish
light emanated from her. Moments later, the wound began to close up,
leaving no scar. He was still hurt, but would be fine.
"That was way too close. We've got to finish this soon," Crono said
after Marle was done.
"I think I know what you're getting at," Lucca responded with a smile.
"Me too," Marle added. "So, let's get into our proper places."
The three of them then surrounded Jesh.
Jesh smiled at them. "So, you've seen that nothing you've got really
works against me, and if I feel like it, I can very easily kill you
all. So what are you to do? You obviously can't win."
The three of them said not a word and merely smiled at him.
Crono began his incantation:
"Forces of electricity...
that lie imbedded in the cosmos...
gather yourself before me...
to be released on my command..."
As he did so, small sparkles of electricity gathered into a small orb
in his hands.
Marle spoke her words:
"Forces of frost...
that lie imbedded in the cosmos...
gather yourself before me...
to be released on my command..."
As she did so, a small crystalline collection of ice began to gather
before her.
And Lucca chanted:
"Forces of blaze...
that lie imbedded in the cosmos...
gather yourself before me...
to be released on my command..."
While she chanted, she spun around, with a rapidly growing ball of fire
within her hand.
The three then looked to their sides, catching each others' eyes. When
they were all sure, they nodded. Jesh merely stood there, certain that
whatever they tried would fail, but unable to ignore a nagging
sensation that he should catch on to something here.
The three heros spoke the same incantation, simultaneously:
"Now unite the powers...
of fire, ice and lightning...
to create this beam of power...
that will extend from earth into the heavens..."
Jesh finally seemed to figure it out and his eyes widened. It was, of
course, far too late, however.
As they chanted, the accumulated powers of each moved between all three
of them and back to the original producer of that elemental power,
where it vanished, tracing a triangle amongst the three of them.
They shouted the final two words:
"DELTA FORCE!"
An enormous surge of power shot up within the triangle, from the ground
and into the sky, where Jesh stood, incapable of escape. It launched
in waves: first fire, then ice, and finally lightning.
Afterwards, the three observed Jesh falling to the ground, writhing in
pain. "Such... power... Phen--" He paused as he coughed up a small
amount of blood. "Phenomenal... Who... are you people?" He then fell
unconscious.
Meanwhile, a large eye peeked from a door, widened in astonishment.
****
"Serus... What's wrong now?" Mezuna asked as she stared at her very
wide-eyed companion with some concern.
"Th- They've--" he began.
"They've beaten Jesh, haven't they?" the speaker asked, calmly.
Surprised, Serus replied, "Y-Yes. They totally took him out. I know
they could have killed him if they wanted to. And with Delta Force..."
Mezuna's eyes widened at this point. "Those people can use Delta
Force!? Please tell me you're kidding."
"Now, Mezuna. Why would he kid about something this important?" the
speaker asked. "Granted, I never would have expected it and am quite
impressed, but nevertheless... No matter how powerful they are, they
can't be as great as our combined power."
"I- You're right, brother. There's nothing to worry about," Mezuna
responded, calming down.
"And Serus? Does one of those people have a pendant?" the speaker
asked the young man.
"Umm... Yes. The blonde girl has one," was Serus' reply. "It has a
strange glow about it and-- Wait... You mean... That's THE
pendant!?"
The speaker smiled. "Of course. Now, Mezuna, land us in the forest
near Guardia castle. We're going to confront these three when they get
back."
"Right," Mezuna replied. She turned back towards where Palidor's head
was looking, to see that they were just now over the coast near Truce
Village. The great bird dipped downwards and settled into the forest
before it became no more.