Gamesharked Chrono Cross: A Study In Excess
Summary: Sometimes, we're given restraints for a reason. Time spent improving and growing stronger naturally always has a value. Serge and his many friends learn this the hard way.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these many, many, many characters. They all belong to Squaresoft.
Chapter 1: A Bad Start to a Worse Day
-------------------------------------
When Serge woke up that morning from a bizarre dream in which he had been running around a stone fortress with a beautiful blonde girl and a guy with an anvil on his head, been hit in the face by massive stone doors, and then somehow been standing over the body of the unconscious blonde, smiling slightly as drops of blood rolled down the end of his blade and fell to the ground, he knew that the day would be a strange one.
The dream aside, this was because one does not often wake up in one's own private bedroom, surrounded by forty-three strangers, one's girlfriend, and the village pink talking dog.
"Uh...hi, everyone," Serge greeted nervously, sliding slowly out of bed lest a quick, sudden movement warranted an attack. He definitely did not like the odds of one against forty-five.
"Good morning, Serge," a man in a white suit, accented in gold glitter, and accompanied by a gold-and-white face mask replied smoothly from his perch at the window sill, where he was casually sipping a glass of wine and chatting with a pirate and a purple-haired woman with a very pointy nose, a lab coat, a pair of glasses, and a collection of needles that made Serge cringe inwardly.
"Leena," he whispered, gripping the redheaded girl's arm tightly and steering her into what passed for an empty corner of the room. This was the corner occupied only by a seven-year old blonde cave-girl, a straw doll, a strange creature that might have been a flower if one had far too much imagination, and Poshul. "What the heck is going on?" Then he blinked. "And weren't we meeting at the dock this morning?"
"Oh, no," Leena sighed, even though her eyes seemed to be glimmering with laughter. "How do we explain this to you without snapping your mind right away?"
"Just start talking and I'll tell you if I need you to slow down," Serge replied a little testily, and feeling quite justified being so. After all, if Leena woke up with this many people in her bedroom, she'd be a lot more than a little peeved! He'd be surprised in any of them made it out without getting a frying pan to the head!
"Okay," Leena agreed doubtfully. "But don't say I didn't warn you. The truth is, Leena is waiting for you at the docks."
"Right," Serge said sarcastically. "You're just a figment of my over-tired imagination, like all of these people. Hey, that would be a relief, actually..."
"I'm afraid not, Serge," Leena giggled, exchanging a glance with the blonde girl from his dream, who had flopped down onto his bed the second he had vacated it, and was now having a wrestling match with the little cave-girl, a little blonde girl in a poufy sort of dress, and a tiny dragon. My money's on the dragon, Serge thought briefly. Then he shook his head to clear it and glared at this infuriating girlfriend of his who seemed to be incapable of giving him any clear answers.
"So, what you're saying is that there's two Leenas now," he said slowly.
Leena tilted her head to one side, considering this. Then she nodded cheerfully.
"Yup!"
Serge blinked, then grinned.
"Cool!"
This caught the attention of the blonde clad (although just barely) in red. She sat up, pushed the children and dragon off of her, and glared at him.
"I've read ahead in the script, mate," she informed him icily. "Yer gonna end up pinin' over ME!"
Serge considered this.
"Yeah, well, that's then, this is now. And having two of his girlfriend around is something a guy only dreams about!"
"Since when?!" Leena might have demanded in outrage. None of the other startled occupants of the room could hear this, though, since the words trailed off as Serge seized her by the wrist and bolted from the room.
Forty-four people (and various other creatures) then watched from the window of the bedroom in decided consternation as Serge and Leena appeared on the docks, where another Leena was waiting impatiently. After a few words were exchanged, forty-four people (and various other creatures) then watched in even more consternation as the three scampered from the dock.
"Where do you think they're going?" Glenn asked in honest confusion.
"Let's not think about that," Karsh suggested bitterly. "Damn lucky kid..."
"Yeah," Norris agreed, feeling as he did that there was something horribly, horribly wrong with the words. "She's awfully cute, isn't she? Both of her..."
"I didn't mean that," Karsh began to protest, but then thought better of it, and simply trailed off into a round of grumbling, which only increased in annoyance when Orlha, who apparently didn't believe that he 'didn't mean that', brought her heel down on his toes with all the strength a very formidable gladiator could.
"Never mind zat," Harle said through clenched teeth, for once in total agreement with Kid's annoyance. "What do we do until zey get back?"
"I could perform a song for everyone!" the very, very pretty young man in leather pants and leather straps suggested eagerly.
"No, Nikki," everyone else chorused flatly.
"Hi, everyone! We're back!" the Leena that had not been at the dock called out as the young man and the two young women – or rather, the two manifestations of the same young woman – re-entered the small house an hour later.
"Took ya long enough, pal!" Karsh laughed suggestively. "Guess ya had a good time, then. Looks like you're all in a good mood!"
"Hey, who wouldn't be?" Serge laughed wickedly.
"Mental images! They hurt! They hurt!" Orlha whimpered painfully.
Van nodded emphatically.
"I'm too young to hear about things like this!"
"ME, TOO," Zoah added matter-of-factly.
"I mean, the three of us made a LOT of money!" Serge was meanwhile continuing.
"Please, don't tell us about it," the hitherto unnoticed Lynx requested from the shadows, causing widespread panic, and the mass exodus of forty-five people from the tiny bedroom. Lynx shrugged as the makeshift mosh pit gradually dwindled. "What?"
"What's he doing here?!" Fargo exclaimed.
With one eyebrow raised, General Viper chuckled.
"You might want to ask yourself what you're doing here."
Kid shook her head impatiently.
"Stay on topic, mates! Whatever he's doin' here, Lynx is right," she told Serge darkly once the panic had subsided and the very, very large party had reassembled outside the house under the eyes of several watchful and very curious villagers. "We don't wanna hear about what perverted things you three were doin'."
"Perverted?" Home World Leena repeated with a frown, readjusting the tee shirt with a giant 'H' drawn on it that some well-meaning soul had suggested she wear in order to allay some of the inevitable confusion until this whole mess was over. "What could possibly be perverted about trying to make a little extra money?"
Kid snorted in disbelief.
"Nothin', if ya can do it without tappin' into yer exhibitionist urges!"
"Exhibitionist?" Another World Leena repeated with the same confusion as her Home World counterpart.
"I just don't believe you, mate," Kid told Serge, shaking her head in disappointment and disgust.
"Hey, leave Serge alone!" Home World Leena protested, jumping to the defense of her by-now-very-bewildered boyfriend. "Can you really blame him for wanting to have a little fun?"
"A little..." Kid sputtered in disbelief. "And what about you? Doin'...things with yerself? That's like a really complicated sort of mas-"
"THANK-you, Kid," Radius interjected. "Remember, if you will, that there are children present."
"Hey, what does everyone think we were doing, anyway?" Serge asked, regaining his powers of speech finally.
Nikki cleared his throat delicately, and then whispered something in Serge's ear. Serge's eyes grew wide, horrified, and just a tiny bit curious.
"You think we were WHAT? C'mon, guys! Leena hit me with a frying pan when I kissed her last week!"
"And why don't you tell them exactly where your hand was going at the time, Mr. Serge?" that same redhead suggested, glaring as viciously as she could at him as her cheeks grew red.
"Uh...anyway, no, we were just having a little game with the villagers. We set up a booth, and for ten gold pieces, we gave them the chance to guess which Leena was the real Leena-"
"As much as I don't care for that description," Another World Leena interjected slightly sulkily, only to be hushed by Macha.
"-and win great prizes!"
"What prizes?" Kid asked suspiciously. "Ye'd better not've gambled away all our Key Items, mate."
Serge frowned, and scratched his head. He was not alone in this manifestation of confusion.
"Key...what?"
"Er, never mind," Kid said quickly.
"No, we bought a bunch of Fireball elements. For some reason, we seemed to have a ton of gold! It was weird; every time I took some out of my pouch, there just seemed to be more than there was before!"
"Then why were you trying to win more at the expense of the poor villagers?" Steena asked sternly, but hiding a smile.
Serge shrugged.
"Just for kicks."
"Oh, by the way, Serge," the H-bearing Leena spoke up thoughtfully. "I know it might not be the best time, but are you still going to Lizard Rock to find me those Komodo Scales?"
"You're not coming with me?"
She smiled sheepishly.
"Well, I would, but I have to go baby-sit. As it is, that fisherman is going to wonder where I went off to. We told him I'd be back in a couple of minutes."
"Oh...right," Serge agreed. "Sure, I'll find you some. I'll just go get my stuff, and do it now."
"Great! When you're done, come meet me on Opassa Beah, okay?"
"Sure," Serge nodded, darting back into the house.
Kid watched him go with narrowed eyes.
"Oi!" she called to the rest of the group once he was out of earshot. "We gonna let 'im take off like that?"
-------------------------------------
Meanwhile, in his bedroom, Serge was staring in bewilderment at the place where he was certain his trusty old Sea Swallow had been propped up just last night.
"What in the hell is THIS?" he demanded of no one in particular, examining the massive, intricately designed, and very deadly looking new oar leaning against his wall.
He shook his head.
"Mom?" he called out the door.
"Yes, Serge, dear?" Marge called back.
"Did you take my oar during the night and replace it with a way, way, way better one?"
Marge's laughter drifted through the door.
"Serge, you weird boy! Why would I do something like that?"
"Uh...right. Never mind, mom. Oh, well," he continued to himself. "I guess it would be stupid to complain about this. What could be so bad about getting a way better weapon out of nowhere?"
He reached for the handle of the oar and picked it up. Or tried to, at any rate.
"Geez," Serge grunted, trying to lift. "This thing's heavy!"
With one mighty heave, he got the oar up off the ground, and held it triumphantly above his head.
And then he began to tip.
"WAAAH!" he howled as he fell backwards to the ground under the weight of the Mastermune.
Wriggling out from beneath the weapon where it fell on top of him, Serge stood up dizzily, rubbing his sore head.
"Why do I get the feeling this day can only get weirder?" he whimpered.
---------------------------------------
End Notes: Okay; now, I'm sure you can already tell, but my intent here is to write an insanely silly story. It starts out ridiculous, and will not gain seriousness any time in the future. At this point, it feels a little incoherent, but that may be just as much a result of the material as of my writing. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed it so far.
Tune in next instalment to see forty-five people (and other various creatures) hunt Komodo Dragons! A doomed mission from the start? You, the reader, decide!