Chapter 3
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Notes: Once again, the obligatory apology for taking so long to get this bit out. But at last, I am blessedly free! Exams are over! Essays are over! I can fritter time away on fan fiction again! Yaay! ^_^
Well, see you at the end notes!
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"So, what do you think?"
Crono gave Marle a look that made it very clear that he didn't think much of the bright blue bodysuit with a white "C" emblazoned on the front, matched by a white utility belt, sword holster, and boots, and a cape of a darker blue.
Marle's forehead creased in a frown of hurt.
"Well, what's WRONG with it?!"
Crono rolled his eyes and gestured frantically. Marle turned away huffily, crossing her arms.
"I suppose you think it's "effeminate" or "showy," or something," she scoffed airily.
Crono nodded, already moving to take off the cape and hurl it to the floor of their sleeping quarters.
"Crono, it's a superhero costume! How is anyone going to know that you're a superhero if you don't dress like one?"
With that, Crono produced from behind his back a t-shirt and slipped it on over the costume. Marle read the slogan, and giggled.
"'Hi! I am a superhero,'" she read, shaking her head fondly. "Okay, so that gets the point across, but it's just not very...stylish. Now, take it off and put your cape back on. Our messenger came back last night and said that Lucca wasn't in, so I want to go see her and tell her what's happening."
Crono shook his head emphatically, glaring balefully at the white cape balled up on the ground.
"Crono, please put on the cape!"
He shook his head more emphatically.
"I'm wearing one, too," Marle pointed out, gesturing to her pink cape, draped gracefully over her shoulders, framing her tank top and hot pants of a paler pink, a large "M" of the darker pink emblazoned on the front. "See?"
Crono nodded, eyeing the expanse of slim white leg displayed by the shorts, a smile stretching across his previously sullen countenance.
"I'm glad you like it," she giggled. "Now, put on your cape so we can go!"
The smile disappeared, and Crono crossed his arms and shook his head defiantly 'no.'
"Crono!"
No reply.
"Crono, you got to design the super-secret superhero lair! We agreed that you would do the lair, and I would do the costumes!"
The redhead uncrossed his arms, but didn't turn around.
"You KNOW I'm right, Crono. It's only fair," Marle said, stooping to pick up his cape.
With a sigh of defeat, he accepted the unoffending garment, glaring icily at it one last time before slipping it on.
"Yaay! Thank-you!" Marle chirped, bouncing merrily up and down.
Eyes trained on an especially bouncy part (or two) of his young wife, slightly below the neck, a thin trail of drool made its way from the corner of his mouth, and he felt quite as though slight humiliation was worth it to get such a reaction.
Nonetheless, as they turned to leave the room, Crono muttered angrily to himself as he followed Marle,
"I feel like the biggest idiot ever."
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"So, what do you think?"
Lucca stared in horror at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the dressing room door. Gone were her typical and wonderfully comfortable black shorts, green shirt, and orange smock - Magus had even confiscated her helmet, the bastard! Instead, she was clad in what appeared to her to be a strapless bathing suit of black leather with a neckline that, although non- existent, still managed to be plunging, knee-high boots that added a rather unnecessary three inches in tapered heel to what she considered to be a perfectly reasonable five-foot-six. And as though this weren't enough humiliation, she reflected, glaring balefully at him in the mirror, Magus had insisted upon a cape. A long, hooded black cape, held on by a silver clasp decorated by a single purple stone, similar to the purple stone, also set in silver, decorating her black headband.
"What do I think?!" she finally managed to sputter. "I think I look like an idiot!"
Magus frowned, quite confused by this unexpected reaction.
"What's wrong with it? It suits your purpose very well."
"Who's going to respect and fear me dressed like THIS?" she demanded with a sweeping gesture.
"It isn't about respect with a villainess," the warlock replied snippily. "The villainess has a special obligation to play the temptress and dress accordingly. She is the sort of woman that every man wants, but must resist, as she seeks only to corrupt and absorb. She does not hesitate to use her sexuality to get what she wants. It is this that makes her so dangerous. She is as irresistible as she is ruthless."
"Are you done yet?" Lucca broke in.
Magus nodded imperiously, awaiting the compliance to his unquestionable logic that would doubtlessly come from her.
"Good," Lucca commented sweetly. "Because that is the STUPIDEST thing I've ever heard!"
"What do you mean," Magus demanded. "It's the way of the world."
"Magus," Lucca began wearily. "It's nine-thirty at night. These poor people- " She swept her hand about to indicate the sales assistants of The Rack, the official evil villain clothiers. "-want to close up and go home. I'm standing here, in front of a mirror, without pants! You have no idea what that's like. You're wearing pants, even if you're wearing underwear over top of them." She shook her head, as bewildered as ever by his typical clothing choice. Then, recalling that she had been trying to say something, she continued. "I'm tired, I'm cranky, I'm confused by this whole 'evil villain' thing. I just want to go home and pretend for a few hours that this whole thing was just a bad dream. And you blithely tell me to accept all this garbage because 'it's the way of the world'!"
Magus sighed, defeated.
"If I give you leather pants and a tube top, will you stop whining?"
"Make it a full tank-top, and we have a deal," she replied immediately, all trace of weariness and whininess evaporating from her tone.
"Fine," he grumbled. "Since you think you know best, we'll start you with black leather pants and top, with the cape, and you can learn for yourself that a woman must dress for sex appeal, to be taken seriously as an evil villain."
"Hey, that's a corrupt system, and we should all do all we can do to try to change it," Lucca called from behind the door, already busily wriggling into a pair of leather pants Magus had shoved at her. Seconds later, the flimsy wood door opened, and the inventor emerged. "I like this better. It's a lot more practical."
"Practical," Magus sniffed contemptuously. "You have no sense of style."
"Hey, let's see YOU work on a brilliant and evil invention in a leather bathing suit, and see how well YOU fare!"
As the image drifted through his mind of the young woman sprawled out on the floor, the top of the leather bodysuit gradually slipping lower and revealing more smooth skin by the second as she bent over the blueprints of the giant evil robots she had earlier announced her intention of beginning work on, the warlock shifted uncomfortably as his pants grew a little tighter than usual.
'Maybe it's just as well that we're not going with the first one,' he admitted, recalling that although it was indeed well for an evil villainess to have that sort of effect on a man, it was NOT well for an evil villainess - particularly this newly-made evil villainess - to have that sort of effect on him, who prided himself on keeping the upper hand at all times.
"Really, I feel almost...normal," Lucca was meanwhile announcing in surprise as she gazed critically at her reflection in the mirror. "The boots are still a little high, and I think the pants look pretty stupid - too tight - but anything's better than a leather bathing suit. All in all, not bad."
"Agreed," Magus said a little too emphatically, eyes glued on the young woman's posterior as she bent to retrieve her headband, which had come loose and fallen to the floor.
She straightened up and looked at him sharply.
"What?"
His blood red eyes registered only confused innocence.
"Hmm? What?"
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"Lucca?" Taban Ashtear repeated, scratching his head and frowning. "I don't know...I think she was here a couple days ago, but that might've just been Lara wandering around in an orange dress. Come to think of it," the burly, grease-spattered man continued, his frown deepening, "where was I this week?"
Crono and Marle exchanged uncertain glances. At least, Crono reflected, the fact that Taban seemed too preoccupied with his own depressingly poor memory ensured that his, Crono's, ridiculous getup would not be commented on. There was, as the old saying went, balm in Gilead.
Or so it seemed.
"Crono! Princess Nadia! What on earth ARE you wearing?" a shrill voice called, half horrified and half amused.
"Oh...hi, Mrs. Ashtear," Marle greeted the purple-haired woman swathed in an apron, with a cheery wave. "We're super-heroes! What do you think?"
With that, Marle gave a little giggle and spun about, delighting in the way her cape blew out behind her.
Perhaps any other woman would have been hesitant to give a royal princess her honest opinion on this. However, Lara Ashtear was not any other woman, nor was Marle what could be called a normal princess. There was nothing in the least bit regal or threatening about the girl. If she even knew that she could have someone executed for upsetting her, no one who conversed with her on a daily basis would have had any idea that she did. That aside, although she addressed her as Princess Nadia, Lara looked upon Marle as any delighted mother would upon her somewhat socially isolated daughter's first real girl-friend.
So it was that Lara had little problem with answering Marle's question with,
"I cannot believe your father let you two roam the countryside looking like that!"
"Oh, I didn't ask Father," Marle said easily. "Mrs. Ashtear, do you know where Lucca is?"
Lara thought about this for a long moment. Finally, she turned to her husband.
"Taban, where's Lucca?"
Taban turned from his in-depth of the shiny thing that had caught his full attention long enough to shrug absently.
Lara frowned.
"You mean, she wasn't tinkering away at some gadget all day with you?"
Taban laid down his wrench and the cloth he was using to shine it.
"Now that you mention it, Lar," he began, using the absurd diminutive that usually clued his wife into the fact that he had been taking a little whiskey with his tea that night, "she was with me until she left. Said she was going to visit a friend. Janet, I think. Strange name for a young man, in my opinion. Said she and he had a lot of work to do."
Marle blinked as an inkling of Crono's earlier revelation finally descended upon her. Beside her, Crono's shoulders sagged as this earlier revelation gained just a little more evidence that pointed to its truth.
"Mr. Ashtear, was the young man's name Janus?"
"That might've been it..."
Marle abruptly seized Crono's arm and dragged him to the door.
"Er, thank-you, Mr. Ashtear, Mrs. Ashtear. Goodnight!"
"What a nice young pair," Lara commented fondly, watching them go, their capes flapping merrily behind them. "Although sometimes I get the feeling that Crono isn't all there."
"Don't be silly, Lara," Taban rumbled. "He's just the strong, silent type. Sure, he's not the smooth talker that the frog-man who came around for a while last year to see Lucca was, but he's a smart boy in his own right."
"I'm sure you're right," Lara agreed with a warm smile. "The strong, silent type. Just like someone I know."
Taban frowned.
"Who are we talking about? One of your brothers? I haven't met them all, have I?"
Lara sighed. Strong and silent, perhaps, but dense as a lead brick at times.
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End Notes: Hee! I do hope this chapter wasn't too clichéd. I don't think it was. Just clichéd enough! Which, considering the goal of this story, is a lot. ^_^ Ah, well. It was a lot of fun to do, and I hope it's a lot of fun to read. Really, this whole story is oodles of fun. I think I'm almost having an easier time keeping everyone closer to character than I can in my quasi-serious stuff. There's more room to play, and because of that playing, I can make them act more like themselves. If I need a bizarre plot- twist, I don't have to rely on the slightly OOC actions of this character or that; I can just unabashedly shatter the fourth wall to smithereens and make a guest appearance to change it myself. ^_^
Still, this was a particularly plotless chapter, even for this story. I just couldn't resist all the obligatory costume gags. Hee! Magus checking out Lucca's leather-clad posterior! ^________________^
Anyway, thanks for reading! More 'shippiness to come later!
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Notes: Once again, the obligatory apology for taking so long to get this bit out. But at last, I am blessedly free! Exams are over! Essays are over! I can fritter time away on fan fiction again! Yaay! ^_^
Well, see you at the end notes!
-----------------------------------------
"So, what do you think?"
Crono gave Marle a look that made it very clear that he didn't think much of the bright blue bodysuit with a white "C" emblazoned on the front, matched by a white utility belt, sword holster, and boots, and a cape of a darker blue.
Marle's forehead creased in a frown of hurt.
"Well, what's WRONG with it?!"
Crono rolled his eyes and gestured frantically. Marle turned away huffily, crossing her arms.
"I suppose you think it's "effeminate" or "showy," or something," she scoffed airily.
Crono nodded, already moving to take off the cape and hurl it to the floor of their sleeping quarters.
"Crono, it's a superhero costume! How is anyone going to know that you're a superhero if you don't dress like one?"
With that, Crono produced from behind his back a t-shirt and slipped it on over the costume. Marle read the slogan, and giggled.
"'Hi! I am a superhero,'" she read, shaking her head fondly. "Okay, so that gets the point across, but it's just not very...stylish. Now, take it off and put your cape back on. Our messenger came back last night and said that Lucca wasn't in, so I want to go see her and tell her what's happening."
Crono shook his head emphatically, glaring balefully at the white cape balled up on the ground.
"Crono, please put on the cape!"
He shook his head more emphatically.
"I'm wearing one, too," Marle pointed out, gesturing to her pink cape, draped gracefully over her shoulders, framing her tank top and hot pants of a paler pink, a large "M" of the darker pink emblazoned on the front. "See?"
Crono nodded, eyeing the expanse of slim white leg displayed by the shorts, a smile stretching across his previously sullen countenance.
"I'm glad you like it," she giggled. "Now, put on your cape so we can go!"
The smile disappeared, and Crono crossed his arms and shook his head defiantly 'no.'
"Crono!"
No reply.
"Crono, you got to design the super-secret superhero lair! We agreed that you would do the lair, and I would do the costumes!"
The redhead uncrossed his arms, but didn't turn around.
"You KNOW I'm right, Crono. It's only fair," Marle said, stooping to pick up his cape.
With a sigh of defeat, he accepted the unoffending garment, glaring icily at it one last time before slipping it on.
"Yaay! Thank-you!" Marle chirped, bouncing merrily up and down.
Eyes trained on an especially bouncy part (or two) of his young wife, slightly below the neck, a thin trail of drool made its way from the corner of his mouth, and he felt quite as though slight humiliation was worth it to get such a reaction.
Nonetheless, as they turned to leave the room, Crono muttered angrily to himself as he followed Marle,
"I feel like the biggest idiot ever."
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------------------------------------------
"So, what do you think?"
Lucca stared in horror at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the dressing room door. Gone were her typical and wonderfully comfortable black shorts, green shirt, and orange smock - Magus had even confiscated her helmet, the bastard! Instead, she was clad in what appeared to her to be a strapless bathing suit of black leather with a neckline that, although non- existent, still managed to be plunging, knee-high boots that added a rather unnecessary three inches in tapered heel to what she considered to be a perfectly reasonable five-foot-six. And as though this weren't enough humiliation, she reflected, glaring balefully at him in the mirror, Magus had insisted upon a cape. A long, hooded black cape, held on by a silver clasp decorated by a single purple stone, similar to the purple stone, also set in silver, decorating her black headband.
"What do I think?!" she finally managed to sputter. "I think I look like an idiot!"
Magus frowned, quite confused by this unexpected reaction.
"What's wrong with it? It suits your purpose very well."
"Who's going to respect and fear me dressed like THIS?" she demanded with a sweeping gesture.
"It isn't about respect with a villainess," the warlock replied snippily. "The villainess has a special obligation to play the temptress and dress accordingly. She is the sort of woman that every man wants, but must resist, as she seeks only to corrupt and absorb. She does not hesitate to use her sexuality to get what she wants. It is this that makes her so dangerous. She is as irresistible as she is ruthless."
"Are you done yet?" Lucca broke in.
Magus nodded imperiously, awaiting the compliance to his unquestionable logic that would doubtlessly come from her.
"Good," Lucca commented sweetly. "Because that is the STUPIDEST thing I've ever heard!"
"What do you mean," Magus demanded. "It's the way of the world."
"Magus," Lucca began wearily. "It's nine-thirty at night. These poor people- " She swept her hand about to indicate the sales assistants of The Rack, the official evil villain clothiers. "-want to close up and go home. I'm standing here, in front of a mirror, without pants! You have no idea what that's like. You're wearing pants, even if you're wearing underwear over top of them." She shook her head, as bewildered as ever by his typical clothing choice. Then, recalling that she had been trying to say something, she continued. "I'm tired, I'm cranky, I'm confused by this whole 'evil villain' thing. I just want to go home and pretend for a few hours that this whole thing was just a bad dream. And you blithely tell me to accept all this garbage because 'it's the way of the world'!"
Magus sighed, defeated.
"If I give you leather pants and a tube top, will you stop whining?"
"Make it a full tank-top, and we have a deal," she replied immediately, all trace of weariness and whininess evaporating from her tone.
"Fine," he grumbled. "Since you think you know best, we'll start you with black leather pants and top, with the cape, and you can learn for yourself that a woman must dress for sex appeal, to be taken seriously as an evil villain."
"Hey, that's a corrupt system, and we should all do all we can do to try to change it," Lucca called from behind the door, already busily wriggling into a pair of leather pants Magus had shoved at her. Seconds later, the flimsy wood door opened, and the inventor emerged. "I like this better. It's a lot more practical."
"Practical," Magus sniffed contemptuously. "You have no sense of style."
"Hey, let's see YOU work on a brilliant and evil invention in a leather bathing suit, and see how well YOU fare!"
As the image drifted through his mind of the young woman sprawled out on the floor, the top of the leather bodysuit gradually slipping lower and revealing more smooth skin by the second as she bent over the blueprints of the giant evil robots she had earlier announced her intention of beginning work on, the warlock shifted uncomfortably as his pants grew a little tighter than usual.
'Maybe it's just as well that we're not going with the first one,' he admitted, recalling that although it was indeed well for an evil villainess to have that sort of effect on a man, it was NOT well for an evil villainess - particularly this newly-made evil villainess - to have that sort of effect on him, who prided himself on keeping the upper hand at all times.
"Really, I feel almost...normal," Lucca was meanwhile announcing in surprise as she gazed critically at her reflection in the mirror. "The boots are still a little high, and I think the pants look pretty stupid - too tight - but anything's better than a leather bathing suit. All in all, not bad."
"Agreed," Magus said a little too emphatically, eyes glued on the young woman's posterior as she bent to retrieve her headband, which had come loose and fallen to the floor.
She straightened up and looked at him sharply.
"What?"
His blood red eyes registered only confused innocence.
"Hmm? What?"
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"Lucca?" Taban Ashtear repeated, scratching his head and frowning. "I don't know...I think she was here a couple days ago, but that might've just been Lara wandering around in an orange dress. Come to think of it," the burly, grease-spattered man continued, his frown deepening, "where was I this week?"
Crono and Marle exchanged uncertain glances. At least, Crono reflected, the fact that Taban seemed too preoccupied with his own depressingly poor memory ensured that his, Crono's, ridiculous getup would not be commented on. There was, as the old saying went, balm in Gilead.
Or so it seemed.
"Crono! Princess Nadia! What on earth ARE you wearing?" a shrill voice called, half horrified and half amused.
"Oh...hi, Mrs. Ashtear," Marle greeted the purple-haired woman swathed in an apron, with a cheery wave. "We're super-heroes! What do you think?"
With that, Marle gave a little giggle and spun about, delighting in the way her cape blew out behind her.
Perhaps any other woman would have been hesitant to give a royal princess her honest opinion on this. However, Lara Ashtear was not any other woman, nor was Marle what could be called a normal princess. There was nothing in the least bit regal or threatening about the girl. If she even knew that she could have someone executed for upsetting her, no one who conversed with her on a daily basis would have had any idea that she did. That aside, although she addressed her as Princess Nadia, Lara looked upon Marle as any delighted mother would upon her somewhat socially isolated daughter's first real girl-friend.
So it was that Lara had little problem with answering Marle's question with,
"I cannot believe your father let you two roam the countryside looking like that!"
"Oh, I didn't ask Father," Marle said easily. "Mrs. Ashtear, do you know where Lucca is?"
Lara thought about this for a long moment. Finally, she turned to her husband.
"Taban, where's Lucca?"
Taban turned from his in-depth of the shiny thing that had caught his full attention long enough to shrug absently.
Lara frowned.
"You mean, she wasn't tinkering away at some gadget all day with you?"
Taban laid down his wrench and the cloth he was using to shine it.
"Now that you mention it, Lar," he began, using the absurd diminutive that usually clued his wife into the fact that he had been taking a little whiskey with his tea that night, "she was with me until she left. Said she was going to visit a friend. Janet, I think. Strange name for a young man, in my opinion. Said she and he had a lot of work to do."
Marle blinked as an inkling of Crono's earlier revelation finally descended upon her. Beside her, Crono's shoulders sagged as this earlier revelation gained just a little more evidence that pointed to its truth.
"Mr. Ashtear, was the young man's name Janus?"
"That might've been it..."
Marle abruptly seized Crono's arm and dragged him to the door.
"Er, thank-you, Mr. Ashtear, Mrs. Ashtear. Goodnight!"
"What a nice young pair," Lara commented fondly, watching them go, their capes flapping merrily behind them. "Although sometimes I get the feeling that Crono isn't all there."
"Don't be silly, Lara," Taban rumbled. "He's just the strong, silent type. Sure, he's not the smooth talker that the frog-man who came around for a while last year to see Lucca was, but he's a smart boy in his own right."
"I'm sure you're right," Lara agreed with a warm smile. "The strong, silent type. Just like someone I know."
Taban frowned.
"Who are we talking about? One of your brothers? I haven't met them all, have I?"
Lara sighed. Strong and silent, perhaps, but dense as a lead brick at times.
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End Notes: Hee! I do hope this chapter wasn't too clichéd. I don't think it was. Just clichéd enough! Which, considering the goal of this story, is a lot. ^_^ Ah, well. It was a lot of fun to do, and I hope it's a lot of fun to read. Really, this whole story is oodles of fun. I think I'm almost having an easier time keeping everyone closer to character than I can in my quasi-serious stuff. There's more room to play, and because of that playing, I can make them act more like themselves. If I need a bizarre plot- twist, I don't have to rely on the slightly OOC actions of this character or that; I can just unabashedly shatter the fourth wall to smithereens and make a guest appearance to change it myself. ^_^
Still, this was a particularly plotless chapter, even for this story. I just couldn't resist all the obligatory costume gags. Hee! Magus checking out Lucca's leather-clad posterior! ^________________^
Anyway, thanks for reading! More 'shippiness to come later!