Chapter Two
"Hey Dad," Lucca greeted Taban as she walked past him to fetch some stuff.
"Hey Lucca!" was his warm reply. "What are you doing?"
"Just inventing... stuff. You know. The usual."
"How's Crono?"
"Oh, he's... good. He's breathing. That's always a good sign." She looked over a bench, trying to find a particular spanner.
"So it is," agreed Taban, tightening a bolt on his latest machine. "What about... everyone else?"
"They're... good too. Yep. Absolutely. Have you seen that pretty shiny spanner?"
"You mean the newest one?" Taban held it up.
"Yep, that's the one."
"I've finished with it; you can have it." He threw it to her.
She caught it easily. "Thanks, Dad!"
She had almost made it out of the door when Taban queried, "And what about your friend Janus?"
Lucca stopped dead. "What about him?" she asked carefully and did not turn.
"That's the thing. Lately I've been hearing rumours about you and someone calling himself Magus. Rumours I don't really like."
"Magus, Janus, what's the connection?"
"They describe him as having blue hair. And Janus is the only person I know around here who not only fits that description, but has been with you when the... rumours were set."
"They're just rumours, Dad," she shrugged nonchalantly. "You can't believe a thing you hear."
"That's what I'd like to believe. I know there's something about him that you're not telling me. Who is he, really?"
"Trust me, if I told you, you would accuse me of spreading rumours. I really have to go..."
"Don't you think your father has a right to know about these things?"
"Well... I haven't heard any of the rumours myself, so I can't exactly change what you think right now. I really do have something else that needs to be done-"
"You never talk to us any more," remarked Taban sadly. "Honestly, what's the world coming to when a girl can't even talk to her parents before rushing into things..."
"I have not rushed into anything!" Lucca snapped angrily and walked out.
The others were chatting about something. Crono glanced up as she approached, noted her expression, and queried, "Is something wrong?"
"I suppose you've heard the rumours?" Lucca asked bluntly.
"Um..." He exchanged a desperate glance with Marle. "Maybe."
Lucca glared at Marle as if it were all her fault. "So you're in on it too. Wait, now I'm jumping to conclusions! Okay, let's think about this. Rumours apparently everyone has heard about... Crono! Tell me one!"
Crono blurted out one he could remember overhearing. Magus looked up and raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember doing that..."
"Okay, so they started back at the Fair," Lucca said to herself. "Who could possibly have started them... Arlen. Oh, I'm going to have to kill her!"
"What's this?" demanded Magus. "Who's killing who?"
Marle, seeing this as a chance to find out what had happened, asked, "So you can prove that they're just rumours?"
"I should think so. I was there," Lucca answered, sitting next to the Epoch and staring at it as if it would miraculously become able to travel through universes without her having to touch it.
There was a long silence. "Well...?" prompted Frog, who had not heard any of the rumours but was curious to discover what had happened.
Either completely absorbed in her task or plain ignoring them, Lucca leant forwards to start working on the Epoch. The others turned to Magus.
"Don't look at me," the good evil wizard protested. "I didn't do anything. Honest."
"Well, what happened, then?" Crono challenged.
"She cut my hair? I don't remember! What is this, the Zeal Inquisition?"
"Well," began Marle. "You came back to the End of Time wearing different clothes, Lucca's clothes were all messed up, she had grass in her hair, you both looked slightly damp. Forgive us if that makes us doubt that all she did was cut your hair."
"She threw me in the sea," Magus volunteered. He shuddered at the memory. "It was cold."
Crono and Marle exchanged glances. Crono said, "Well, that's a start. What happened after that?"
"She jumped in after me."
"Okay, okay, let's backtrack," said Marle hurriedly. "Why did she throw you in?"
"Because she wanted to cut my hair?"
"That maketh no logical sense," Frog remarked.
"It's Lucca," Magus pointed out. "She may be incredibly scientific, but her actions need no logic. It wasn't my fault. I mean, why would I throw myself in?"
Crono sighed. "Right, let's go back to the very beginning. When you left for the End of Time, where did you go?"
"The Millennial Fair," Magus replied instantly.
"What happened there?"
Magus winced. "I kicked a robot."
Crono and Marle exchanged glances again, also trading amused looks with Schala and Frog. "Why," commented Schala softly, "am I not surprised?"
"What happened after that?" Robo asked curiously.
"Um... there was a really irritating girl named Arlen who was rude. Oh, wait, that was before the painful robot. She was pretty painful herself... I don't think she liked me. Then Lucca showed me her transporting thing, and that was pretty, and some little brat demanded to know the importance of winning a war against some stupid wizard four hundred years ago." Magus sniffed and brushed a speck of dust from his cloak. "It was important to me."
"So why did the rumours say that you were hugging her then?" asked Marle.
"Well, I kicked the robot."
They exchanged glances again, this time including Robo and Ayla. "What does that have to do with anything?" asked Crono.
Magus shrugged. "It hurt. My foot, I mean. Metal is hard. And it hurts. When you kick it." Having established that point, he patted Alfador and started to ignore them.
"Magus!" Marle whined. "You have to keep going!"
"What?" Magus glanced up, annoyed. "Okay, then. After kicking the robot, I was in incredible pain and couldn't walk a step, so Lucca very graciously helped me. I was not hugging her," he declared. "I do not hug. I'm an evil wizard. Damn it, no I'm not. Well, I was back then."
Schala ruined his fun. "Janus, I know you would remember. Cut short the storytelling and please tell us exactly what happened."
Magus sighed. "Spoilsport. None of you ever let me have any fun. Honestly, I hurt my foot. Briefly. After that someone told us there was no-one who would cut hair in Truce so we ditched the fair and came back here. Lucca complained that my hair was dirty so she threw me in the sea and washed it. After that she cut it, and we went back to the End of Time. That's it."
"Then what about the grass?" demanded Crono suspiciously.
Magus looked blank, then his confusion cleared. "Oh, that. Nothing really happened. I raced her back to the house but I cheated, so she nastily pulled me down and we both fell over. She made me change my clothes because I was wet. And dirty. That is it. See? Nothing? Understand?"
Crono and Marle exchanged glances again, then nodded. "I'm satisfied," Crono declared.
"Good to hear it. While we're on this topic... Lucca! Lucca! Notice me notice me!"
Lucca came slowly out of her inventing trace and when she glanced at Magus there was a distant look in her eyes. "What?"
"I'm sick of your father's clothes," Magus complained. "I want my own. Where are they?"
"In the house. Somewhere." Lucca shook herself completely out of her daze to warn, "But I wouldn't go in there. My father heard about the rumours and I don't think he trusts me much any more. He certainly wouldn't react well to you showing up."
"But I want my clothes back."
"You'd be warmer in my father's. No wonder you always complain of being cold, you leave your arms bare."
"I'm sorry, I still live in the past and try to keep up with the fashion in Zeal."
"We've been to Zeal, everyone wore pretty robes."
"Yeah, but it's really hard to get hold of a robe in 600 AD. I had to settle with getting as close as possible," Magus shrugged. "He wouldn't really kill me, would he?"
"I don't know. I've never had these kinds of rumours spread about me before."
He hesitated but asked anyway. "You mean, you have had rumours spread about you before this?"
Lucca shrugged. "Not really. Just some. You know, 'She only cares about her inventions', 'Of course she doesn't have any friends', 'It was her fault that her mother-' well, you know. Just... things like that." She focussed all her attention on the Epoch.
"What happened to her mother?" Magus whispered to Crono.
Crono shrugged. "I don't know. She never talks about it. An accident with an invention, I think."
"Well, I want my clothes, and I'll brave Taban to get them," Magus declared. He walked somewhat nervously into the house.
Taban was reading, but he looked up. "Oh, hello, Janus. Are you here for any particular reason?"
"Um... I want my clothes back," Magus answered.
"I think they're in Lucca's room. Be careful when you go in there, she hasn't cleaned it for about ten years."
"Okay... thanks." Magus found Lucca's room, located his clothes folded neatly on one of the rare clean spaces of the floor and changed into them. Someone had very nicely washed them since he'd last seen them. He went back down the stairs, put Taban's clothes on a chair, and wandered over to Taban to ask curiously, "What are you reading?"
"A history book," announced Taban proudly. He liked reading and he really liked his collection of books.
"History? What year?"
"Oh, it's an abbreviated history of the world for as long as we can work it out."
"Is it, now? Does it have pictures, perchance?" Magus queried cautiously.
"Yep. Of important people."
"Um... I have to go now," Magus blurted and bolted out.
Taban nodded absently, flicked a page, and came face-to-face with a picture of Magus, the evil wizard of 600 AD. He looked up, but Janus had already gone. He looked down at the picture again. It was Janus, with longer hair. So Janus was Magus. Or Magus was Janus... Taban turned back to 12000 BC. There were no pictures, but Schala was mentioned more than once and there was a sentence or two on her younger brother, Janus. Schala, and Janus. So... Janus from 12000 BC was Magus from 600 AD was Janus from 1000 AD. (So his daughter was keeping the company of an evil wizard, he thought suspiciously but forgot that in this mystery.) And how had he gone through all of those ages? Well, the answer was all too obvious.
Taban put the book down and went outside to check his suspicions.
"Help!" Magus shrieked the instant he was outside. "Lucca, your father has a history book! With pictures! He'll work out who I am! Hide me, hide me!" He scurried behind the Epoch and threw himself to the ground. "Don't let him get me!"
Taban wandered outside and said, "Time travel?"
Lucca squeaked. She cleared her throat, tried again. "Time travel? That's not possible! Not just yet."
"Then how did Janus get from 12000 BC to 1000 AD, with a stop in 600 AD?" Taban queried.
From behind the Epoch, Magus wailed. "He knows everything! Damn these smart people!"
"Twelve thousand BC?" Crono demanded with a forced laugh. "What makes you think Magus started there?"
"So he really is Magus," Taban mused. "Thought so. You see, in the history book it mentions Schala, heir to the throne of Zeal, who apparently had fantastical magic powers, and her step-brother Janus."
"Is that all I got?" demanded Magus, annoyed, as he rose to his feet with some indignation.
"Fantastical magic powers," Schala mused, neatening her robe. "I kind of like it."
Meanwhile, the others were looking from Schala to Magus and back again. It was Marle who demanded, "Step-brother?"
"Now that," said Schala with a sigh, "is a rumour which definitely became out of control. It's not true. At least I don't think so. You see? You never can really believe what you hear..."
Taban nodded. "Right. Lucca, how did you manage to travel through time?"
"I don't know, we didn't do it, maybe it was Schala's fantastical magic powers that zapped them both here," said Lucca with an obviously forced laugh, rising and leaning over the Epoch. "Time travel? As if..."
"They just showed up," Crono told him, wandering over to Lucca.
"Yeah, we just... arrived," Schala agreed, making her journey over to the Epoch look very casual indeed.
All of them muttering about how Schala and Magus had just appeared and that Schala had done it using magic, the eight of them and Alfador wandered over to the Epoch to stand in front of it, trying to hide it from view. Judging by Taban's expression, it was actually quite disturbing.
"Um... okay," he said finally and got the hell out of there.
Lucca sighed and slid down the Epoch to sit on the grass. "Thank God. If there is one."
"Maybe we should thank the Entity," Magus remarked, running a hand absently over the Epoch's smooth surface.
Schala shook her head. "No need to thank the Entity. Lucca, what are you planning to do with the Epoch?"
"I don't know," Lucca answered. "I wanted to adapt it to travel between universes, but I don't know how. Maybe we'll need my father... we'll have to tell him about the time travel, and Lavos, and everything. Crono..." She looked at him pleadingly.
"Does that look mean you want me to tell him, you don't want me to tell him, you want me to not want to tell him... I'm getting confused!" Crono admitted. "Please, give me something to work on here!"
"If we want to go and defeat Kelke, we'll need my father," Lucca sighed. "I'll go and get him."
