AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry about the late chapter! I won't be updating for the next week or so because I have exams at school and I'll be too busy stressing... this is a short chapter too, but it's the best I can do for now! Sorry!

Chapter Five

Magus was too angry to complain about being cold and wet. "I'll kill him!" he vowed. "I'll kill him before he gets his hands on Schala!"

"I'll kill myself before he gets his hands on me," Schala agreed fervently.

"How are your hands?" Lucca asked Magus.

"Healing. They're fine," Magus shot back. "Well, Mr. I Am The Leader How Can You Miss Me I Have Red Hair Three Miles High, where do we go now?"

Crono thought about saying, "Would you like to lead?" in return to this but he decided that Magus might take him up on his offer. "We try to find a town and hope that someone can tell us how to get to Kelke's castle," he shrugged.

"Where is... where's Alfador?" Magus demanded.

It was Marle who heard the pitiful little "Meow..." down by her feet. Alfador, half hidden in snow, looked thoroughly miserable. She scooped up the cat. "Magus? I found him."

"Oh, thank you!" Magus cried and snatched the cat away from her.

"Did you just say 'thank you'?" Marle asked him suspiciously.

"No, I asked you to go jump in a lake," Magus snarled back and, cuddling Alfador close to his chest, stroked the animal gently. "Hey Alfador, I'm sorry... I know it's cold, but everything's going to be fine. Well, it had better be!"

"May I enquire for what reason we stand and talk when we ought to have embarked on our quest some minutes ago?" Frog broke in.

"Oh, of course!" Crono exclaimed. "What am I thinking of, just standing here? Let's go!"

"I hate to risk being a voice of reason," began Lucca, "but what are we going to do with the Epoch? If we just leave it here we could very well lose it under snow if this weather keeps up. Or it could be stolen, or it might... just explode."

"Do mechanical things you touch tend to just... explode?" asked Crono suspiciously.

Lucca shrugged cheerfully. "At times."

Wordlessly everyone eyed Robo, who began to buzz in a somewhat disturbed manner.

"Oh, don't be silly, Robo won't explode," Lucca assured them, absently rubbing her eyes. "The technology in the future is just too advanced for me to really screw up. I'll get it one day, trust me."

"Please don't," Marle requested. "Okay, in which direction to we go?"

"I have a good feeling about that way!" Crono responded and pointed in a direction.

"You mean the one that has a great big cliff at the end?" asked Magus sarcastically. "Let's go that way," he decided, indicating some other direction.

"No, I like this one," Schala argued, pointing somewhere else.

"Excuse me-" Lucca tried to break into what was going to be an argument but found herself ignored.

"No! I chose a direction before you!" Magus complained. "We always have to go your way!"

"I'm older, and therefore I'm always right," Schala responded primly, folding her arms. "Anyway, your way is stupid. Everyone knows that north is better than west."

"I like west," Magus sulked.

"You would. We're going north!"

"Hah! You can follow those mammoth things north, but I am going west! Who's with me?" Magus appealed to the others.

"I don't want to go north or west," Crono announced.

"You don't count!" Schala and Magus replied in unison.

"Right, that's it!" Marle exclaimed. "How can we expect to defeat Kelke, or even find him, if we just argue all the time? We should have one person who chooses a direction. I think it should be Crono, and the rest of you had better choose Crono too!"

"You would," muttered Magus darkly.

"Magus! Let Crono make the decisions!" Lucca ordered.

"Yes, Lucca. Sorry, Lucca," was the timid reply.

Crono smiled at all of his friends, sending an especially warm smile Marle's way. He was lucky, he decided, to have both Lucca and Marle in the group. With that princess authority Marle could control everyone when things became really out of control and Crono couldn't be bothered, and Lucca had a strange ability to control Magus. He was still a little concerned about that.

"Okay, quit it with all the lovey-dovey pathetic gazing into each other's eyes thing," Magus snarled. "Where are we going?"

"And what are we doing with the Epoch?" Lucca added.

Crono realised he'd been smiling at Marle just a little too long and averted his gaze. "Um. Well. I guess we go east and try to find a town, then ask around to see if anyone knows where Kelke might be. About the Epoch... Lucca, I really don't know. Can't we just leave it here? No-one will steal a bright yellow damaged flying thing, will they? No-one ever has before."

"In our universe," Frog added. "No-one has stolen the Epoch in our own universe but we cannot speak for the inhabitants of this one. Especially considering that from this place Kelke originates."

"Let's just leave it here," Lucca decided with a sigh. "If it gets stolen, just don't blame me for it."

They wandered around aimlessly for a while before they found a village. They asked for directions to get to the inn and while Schala checked them in Crono asked the man behind the counter about Kelke's castle, but that led to problems of its own.