Lesson 4: Unexpected Guest Stars are Rarely Helpful
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The wind whipped and howled about the three travellers at a speed that was slightly less than what it had been before. Thus, it could have perhaps rippled the flesh on one's bones, rather than tearing the flesh completely away from said bones, and did not result in any reverses in progress that the party had made.
Still, Lucca noted with a good deal of annoyance, it was damned cold. Personally, she thought that the weather might have shown a little consideration for the epic battle they had just gone through with that disgusting pulsating thingy living in that spiky shell, and toned it down a bit. Or up, rather. "Up" meaning "warmer", of course.
She was jolted from these ponderings by Frog's urgent beckoning from inside a nearby cave.
"What's up, Frog?" she asked, sauntering into the cave and over to where he knelt, first taking a quick moment to thank whatever deities might be looking down and laughing maliciously at them that Frog had gotten over his earlier annoyance with her outright mockery of his uncomfortable situation, and the length of time it took her to get his tongue unstuck from Robo. If she hadn't spent ten minutes on the ground laughing hysterically, he had observed testily, he probably would have been freed much sooner, and his tongue would have been much less sore. Still, as long as he seemed to have gotten over it, she wasn't going to bring it up again. After all, he hadn't taken kindly to her sigh of mock-disappointment when he had grumbled that he wouldn't be able to use his tongue properly for a good two days. Perhaps, if she left the issue alone, he would be able to take a simple joke again soon…
"It doth be a Brave Sword," he replied, admiring the weapon in his hands. "A high-quality weapon, indeed. Dare I say, it exceeds the quality of even the Masamune! Dost thou think I ought to use it?"
"No, I think you should just leave it there to rust and keep using a weaker weapon," she shot back sarcastically. "Of course you should use it! Anything to make this easier."
"Perhaps thou art right," Frog agreed slowly. "And we did find that new arm for Robo."
"And I am grateful for that," Robo assured him from behind them.
"Yeah, it's best to be prepared for whatever's coming, guys," Lucca said seriously. "Even though nothing could possibly be worse than that Lavos spawn."
"Dost thou not think that perhaps these words put us under a curse, Lucca?" Frog asked nervously.
"Don't be silly, Frog," she said briskly. "Let's move on."
With a reluctant nod, Frog moved toward the mouth of the cave. Lucca stayed where she was, gazing into space thoughtfully as she leaned against the cave wall.
"Lucca?" Robo called. "Is something wrong?"
"What? Oh, no, I'm fine, Robo," she assured him, pushing off from the wall and brushing the dirt from the back of her long coat. "I was just wondering why we're finding all these treasure chests scattered around Death Peak, of all places."
"I believe that the most probable answer is that the tourism board had something to do with them," Robo said.
"Yeah, but why would they leave weapons? And that's another thing; did you see the size of that sword? How the heck did it fit in a chest no higher than my knee and no longer than two feet?"
"It is a puzzling mystery, Lucca, but perhaps we should ask Gaspar later."
"Yeah. I guess right now, we should go after Frog before the guy gets himself into some kind of trouble," she laughed as the two left the cave, hurrying to catch up with their comrade.
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"What dost thou think this is?" Frog asked two minutes later, staring intently at the rock in front of him.
"Off the top of my head, Frog, I'd say it's a rock," Lucca replied cheerfully. "Now, let's move on, okay?"
"I did not mean simply the rock," Frog pouted. "T'was this shining blue…object that I meant."
"Oh! Well, that's different," Lucca admitted. "It's a rock with a shiny blue thing on it. Now, let's go."
"I think Lucca doth miss the point," Frog informed Robo, who nodded sadly as the girl wandered off to try to find the way further up the mountain.
"Everyone knows that shiny blue things always have relevance to the plot," he said.
"So, what shalt we do?"
"Try poking it," Robo suggested.
Frog tried.
Nothing.
"Try kicking it," Robo suggested.
Frog tried.
Nothing happened, save that his foot became very sore very quickly.
"Try punching it," Robo suggested.
"Why dost not thou try punching it?" Frog returned, rubbing his foot and looking sulky.
After considering this amongst many beeps and boops, Robo did try.
Nothing happened, aside from a loud clang, which sent a pile of snow crashing down from an overhanging cliff.
"What in the hell are you two doing?" Lucca exclaimed, jogging over and hastening to drag both out from beneath the snow.
"Frog believes there's some secret to that blue thing," Robo replied.
Lucca pondered this for a moment.
"Y'know, I hadn't thought of that," she admitted.
"But sadly, I believe I was wrong," Frog sighed.
She was silent for another moment.
"Did you try poking it?" she asked.
Frog and Robo nodded.
"Did you try kicking it?"
Frog and Robo nodded, Frog looking very annoyed about this.
"Did you try punching it?"
Frog and Robo nodded, Robo brushing a bit of snow from his shoulder.
"Well…did you try examining it?"
Frog looked at Robo. Robo looked at Frog. Both looked at Lucca.
"Art that an important step?" Frog asked.
"Of course it is!" Lucca exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "You can't expect mysterious glowing blue things to do anything if you don't even examine them! Move," she concluded, shoving Frog out of the way and peering closely at the shining blue thing.
The sound of tearing rock filled the air, and moments later, the three found themselves staring at a new cave entrance.
"That's how it's done," Lucca gloated, starting toward the entrance.
"Hey, kid," an angry, very curmudgeoney voice called.
The three travellers wheeled about to behold a youngish man, his dark hair peppered with bits of grey, clad in a red robe that Lucca thought immediately looked rather silly, one hand tucked inside the robe, which, she decided, looked even sillier, a whitish jug hanging at his side from a string of beads, and a gigantic, ornate sword slung over his shoulder. A palpable air of badass ronin-ness hung about him.
"Yeah?" Lucca called absently, inwardly rolling her eyes at this delay.
"I guess you think it's funny to steal someone else's catch-phrase," he said, presumably frowning down at her, although no one could tell with that silly neck-guard, which came up to cover the bottom half of his face, in the way.
"Hilarious," she agreed cheerfully. "See ya."
"I'm not done with you yet!" the man said angrily as she continued on, dismissing him with the act of turning away.
However, it was quite apparent from the swiftness with which the party entered the cave, that they were quite done with him.
"You expect to take on Sin that way?" he called sternly.
This caught the attention of the group.
"Sin?" Lucca repeated, turning slowly. "You're not one of those…creepy people who hand out pamphlets on how to get into Heaven, are you?"
He snorted.
"Do I look like a door-to-door religion salesman to you?"
Lucca peered at him closely for a minute.
"Hmm…"
"The correct answer," the man bit out, "is 'no'."
"If you knew the answer already, wasn't it a waste of time to ask?" Robo, who had noticed Lucca's sudden halt, and had turned around.
"Where hast everyone gone?" Frog, who had not, called from deeper inside the cave.
"We've got a bit of a situation, Frog," Lucca called back to him. "This idiot's telling us that we're not strong enough to fight our sin, or something."
"No, no, not sin, Sin," the man corrected, annoyed.
Lucca sighed.
"So, who is 'this idiot', anyway?"
"If you're trying to ask for my name, kid, try being a little more polite."\ "Polite's not my thing," Lucca informed him.
"Fine," he grumbled. "I'm Auron."
"Great, Auron. And why are you here?"
"I told you! Because of Sin! I woke up in a cave, next to the corpse of a Sin spawn. I figure either Sin himself or another one of his spawn, is up ahead. I thought we'd taken care of him, but I also thought I'd be in the Far Plane by now."
"That thing wasn't this 'Sin spawn' you're talking about," Lucca said slowly. "It was a Lavos spawn."
"Lavos spawn?" Auron scoffed. "What the hell is that?"
"It's the thing we fought back there," Lucca shot back. "The thing that left the corpse you woke up beside."
"Ridiculous. That was a Sin spawn."
"Look, pal, Lavos is rampaging all over 1999 – "
"Uh…what?" Auron asked, possibly frowning in confusion, the effect of which was hidden by the absurdly big neck guard obscuring his mouth.
"- and therefore, it makes sense to assume that the spiky thing in the cave is a Lavos spawn!"
"Hey, I know what a Sin spawn looks like!"
"And I know what a Lavos spawn looks like," Lucca rejoined airily.
"Dost it truly matter what demon beast the creature was spawned from?" Frog demanded severely. "The matter of reviving Crono hath far more importance than quibbling!"
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Lucca admitted, rubbing her eyes wearily. Then she turned to Auron. "So, are you coming with us, or not?"
"No, I'm not," Auron replied. "I'm going to find the rest of the SIN spawns lurking around here."
"Y'know, I'm almost glad," Lucca muttered, glaring after him as he stalked off in the opposite direction. "Except, replace 'almost' with 'really, really, really'."
Snorting with laughter, Frog made his way into the cave, Robo and Lucca close behind him.
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"Hey, Lucca, I found something," Robo called from his position, crouched over another of the mysterious treasure boxes.
"What is it?" Lucca asked, batting away several of the flying fish that were trying to gnaw off her hair, and peering over his right shoulder at the scythe, decorated liberally with glittering silvery stars, he was pulling from the chest, which seemed to be much deeper than it looked from the outside.
"It dost appear to be a weapon," Frog observed, looking over Robo's left shoulder.
"But…who the heck would be dumb enough to use that to fight?" Lucca wondered with a snicker.
Frog, hiding a smile, cleared his throat.
"Er…methinks thou ought to pay more attention to thy comrades during battle. Not to mention to thy enemies. Magus wouldst, as thou sayst, "be dumb enough" to equip himself with such a thing."
"Oh, right," Lucca said thoughtfully. "I wondered why it made me want to bring in the harvest and then go into the cozy kitchen of a quaint little farmhouse for a meal of freshly baked bread and apple preserves."
Frog and Robo exchanged worried glances. Finally, Frog spoke up hesitantly.
"Er, Lucca, art thou feeling well?"
"Sure," she shrugged. "If you don't count the fact that I'm freezing my ass off."
The swordsman – or swordsfrog, as it were – shook his head sadly.
"Art thou sure that this trip has not been too much for thee?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she snapped. "Quit mothering me."
Frog pouted as she stalked toward the entrance of a cave, to the north, the rather garishly decorated scythe in her hand.
"First she calls me 'Dad', and then accuses me of 'mothering' her?"
Robo patted him comfortingly on the shoulder.
Then, drawing himself up in the most dignified manner his ninety-seven pounds of winter clothes would let him, Frog strode toward the cave, a bemused Robo following him.
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"So we meet again, kid," a familiar gruff, crusty, curmudgeoney voice called from the mouth of the cave.
"Oh, great," Lucca said in something between a mutter and a whine. "It's Moron again. So, any luck finding the rest of the LAVOS spawns, Moron?"
"As a matter of fact, it's Auron, and yes, there's another SIN spawn waiting for you, just beyond this cave."
"Good to know, Moron," Lucca cackled. "Well, see ya."
"Hmph!" he grunted before promptly disappearing.
Frog, Robo, and Lucca all blinked startled eyes at the spot where Auron had previously been.
"Uh…" Lucca began. "Do you think there's really another spawn up ahead?"
"Honestly, Lucca, I think we ought not to worry. I believe that our new acquaintance is little more than a harmless lunatic."
"Yeah, you're probably right," she shrugged. "Let's go, guys!"
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"That's right," Auron chuckled from the shadows cast by an overhanging cliff as he watched the three disappear into the cave. "I'm just a harmless lunatic. That Sin spawn waiting to chew you up and spit you out is just a figment of my overactive imagination. Remember that when you're all lying in the snow, bleeding. Poor bastards," he concluded.
Then, as he was filled with the unpleasant sensation of being watched, he turned slowly and glared at the fish hovering at about his eye level.
"What do you want, kid?"