Chrono Cross Second Journey

Fan Novelization

Book 2

3   Prelude to a Crisis

Kid dressed herself this evening in a blue blouse beneath a red overall. She saw to it that her long, blonde hair was tied up neatly, leaving little of the fringe that would ruffle and mess in the chill wind tonight. Even if no winds blew, she would still have it tied up for she disliked those loose ends that tickled at her neck and shoulders. She would have had all of it mercilessly snipped, if not for Sis who had always commented that she should try to behave like a girl, or at least look like one.

Sis had been notably troubled. Several days had gone by since the demi-human's first visit to the home. Since then, he had consistently been making uninvited appearances, each time terrorizing the entire family. As a result, Sis had become tensed and absent-minded. In the kitchen, pots fell, food spilled and kettles were left to boil dry. At the laundry, buckets tumbled, shirts littered the yard and water was left to run and flood the house. During meals, Sis stared blankly into the air and spoke little. Everyone followed suit. Soon, a word had become too much effort to speak, too much effort to hear. Unnerving silence triumphed. The house turned cold and felt as much as haunted these quiet moonlit nights. The slightest sound that broke the silence set the whole family's teeth on edge. Each was fearful of another visit. Each was concerned for Sis's well-being. Life had changed and it felt as if a thief had broken into the house and robbed it of its smiles and warmth.

This evening, before lights out, Sis busied herself in her own room with some work. On normal nights, she would be buried in her so-called research work, scribbling furiously away on a paper cluttered with complex diagrams and even more complex mathematical formulas. Instead, for the past several nights, Sis had been gazing blankly out into the star-studded heavens in sleepless solitude. It was a sight that was to Kid torment as it was probably to Sis. But tonight, her sudden retreat back to work was reason for concern. Kid planned to find out what Sis was doing, to find an opportunity to cheer her up if possible. Kid crept up to Sis from behind and saw none of the untidy scribbles that plagued every piece of her research work. Instead, she saw neat lines of writing that seemed to compose a letter. As she tried to steal a good read over Sis's shoulder out of curiosity, a creak on the wooden floor gave Kid's motion away. Kid was consequently shooed out of the room and asked sternly to return to bed.

Kid left Sis' room disappointedly; disappointed at her own failure at the attempt to cheer Sis, disappointed at Sis's coldness. She cast a glance at the clock on the living room wall and wondered how much more of such anguish Sis and the family would have to endure. As Kid walked back to her own room pondering over what she could have done better, she heard Sis mumble to herself. From her room, papers shuffled and a whole pile smacked hard onto the wooden floor, as if rain splashed and thunder ripped through a stormy sky. Deeply concerned for Sis's well-being, Kid tiptoed nervously back towards her room.

"Please, give this to her when she wakes," Sis mumbled.

Kid peeked nervously into Sis's room. Sis had turned pale and flustered, and had edged herself against the far wall with an ice gun gripped tightly in her quivering hands. Sis had her gaze focused at the center of her room, but focused on nothing Kid could see. Yet, those eyes of Sis spoke of sorrow more than they spoke of terror as they glittered against the flickering candlelight in her room. Kid almost found herself rushing to Sis, to hug her tight, to offer words of concern and console and most of all, to hear a word of reassurance that Sis hadn't lost her mind, for she looked truly as if she had. When Sis spotted Kid stealing the glance, however, Sis hurriedly shut the door to her room without a word.

Again, Kid left worriedly, disappointedly towards the living room. Thoughts and self-reproach filled her mind. Helplessness cuffed her limbs and stuffed her mouth. An ache pounded away at her heart. She no longer knew what Sis was thinking. She no longer knew how much more Sis could hold together the family was crumbling by the day.

A scream from one of her young friends jolted Kid, for this must be the siren that warned of the demi-human's coming. Perspiration oozed through Kid's forehead as her heart raced in terror. Her jellied legs brought to her bottoms.

Both the door to Sis's room and door at the main entrance to their house were thrown open. Sis stomped out of her room whilst the fearsome demi-human walked in silently, calmly through the main entrance.

"You again?" Sis accused frantically with a finger pointing. Tears had welled up in her eyes and gleaming against the living room lamp. "Have you not brought us enough anguish?"

"I need not speak more of my purpose," asked the demi-human coldly as his eyes scanned the room. Then, he pinned his stare on Sis and finished, "Do I?"

"The Frozen Flame spells only disaster," Sis insisted in defiance. "I will never accede to your demands. I will not let it fall into the wrong hands!"

"Do you not remember, my good doctor?" said the tall demi-human, unfazed. "It belongs to me. I only ask what's mine to be returned to me."

"Man and machine can never mix. You are different from who you think you are. The Frozen Flame does not belong to you."

The demi-human drew a breath. "Your cryptic philosophy boggles me, doctor. I have always held you in high regard, nonetheless, for your contributions to the scientific community. And most of all, you are the only person on earth who understands Prometheus from within. That is why I have come to you to request for your assistance."

"By terrorizing my family? Why must you do this?" Sis shrilled. A tear rolled down her cheeks. "You are only using me to fulfill your foolish whimsies. You obviously are not aware of what the Frozen Flame entails! It is not a wish-granter, at least not for you. Unless you are the arb--"

"I appreciate your concern. But my patience wears thin. I shall only ask one more time. Tell me how to unlock it."

"In your dreams, Lynx."

"Very well," said Lynx.

Lynx's affixed his gaze upon Kid who looked up at those fearsome eyes in terror. She found her eyes arrested by his gaze, and caught within it, as if caught by an unseen hand that refused to let go. She tried to wrench her head away from his frozen gaze, but she found that her muscles and her will had departed. She even tried to close her eyes, but her lids only managed as much as a short blink. Exposed, defenseless and completely powerless, Kid sat on her bottoms petrified. Terror pounded furiously in her head, worse than the deafening drums of war. Each beat sent a hysterical shiver throughout each muscle, a violent chatter in her teeth, as if they were periodic convulsions that a malicious virus had subjected her to.

Kid counted slowly through the most fearful moment of her life, when everything slowed to a crawl. Sis's frantic call for desist dipped to a low hum, like the deep, booming bellow of a huge bear. Lynx's step took forever to move, just as the clock on the living room wall took eons to tick past a second. Lynx's menacing silhouette enlarged slowly as he approached. His paw moved and reached out slowly, as each strand of fur on it became clearer and each claw grew sharper, until a sensation, clammy and bitter cold, settled at her neck...

Kid drew her dagger, sat up and thrust it forward into thin air. She perspired profusely and panted furiously. When she saw the sun of the early morning streaming through the window, she was surprised that the morning that had come so soon saved her from Lynx's terror. But when she realized her bottoms rested on a comfortable, she realized that what she had just experienced was but memories that plagued her dreams for the past five years. Memories that she was loath to forget. A dream that she was loath to dream. She buried her head in her hands and yearned to relieve herself of the distressing, cumbersome burden of vengeance in the form of tears. But her eyes refused to even mist for they had gone dry of any sorrow as much her lips had gone parched.

Serge suddenly appeared by her bed on his knee, looking extremely worried. Kid startled.

"What's wrong?" he asked concernedly.

"Y-You've been h-here all night?" she asked, stammering. On the one hand, she chided herself of being careless of letting her guard down. On the other, she was moved by Serge's sudden display of concern.

"Yes," he said indifferently, "but what's wrong? I heard you scream."

"Oh nothing," she replied before taking a deep breathe to regain composure. "Just a dream."

"Just look at you," he said as he stumbled clumsily over to a cabinet, rinsed a wet cloth and stumbled back to the bedside. Very gently, he dabbed the warm cloth over her forehead and soaked up the perspiration.

As Serge tenderly nursed her, Kid admired his gentle eyes of blue that were intent on her forehead. She could not help admit that they were sensitive, alluring and exuded a beauty that raised the spirits of anyone who looked into it. Even the burden brought about by the recurring dream lifted itself off her mind and shoulders. Her shoulders sagged lazily and savored a short moment of rest, just as she savored a short moment of being showered with concern. But she shifted her gaze away for she soon became embarrassed that she had ogled at a man's eyes, something she considered taboo, promiscuous, and downright sickening.

"Oi!" she yelled, snatching over the cloth and wiping her forehead in one prompt sweep. "I can take care of myself."

She climbed out of bed and stretched her muscles, stiff from a whole day of inaction. But her movements were hindered by a restrictive, pink dress, which must have been forced onto her by the nurse while she was asleep. It was tight, uncomfortable, and making her itch. Worst of all, she looked awfully sissy in its pink. Nothing was better than the loose, unrestrictive red outfit that revealed her slender thighs, arms and a well-toned tummy. Designed for freedom of movement, cut to be aerodynamically superior (or so she felt), her thieving outfit was to her a personal statement of audacity and non-conformity. She earned, much to her delight, the queasiness of her fellow women, who often dismissed her style of dress as blasphemy compared to their conservative ones. She also earned, however, the gaping stares of deprived men, both the young and the very old, though she had long learned to live with it.

Walking over to the clothesline, she grabbed her outfit and tossed it on the bed like she tossed the memories of her dream aside.

"So what plans do you have, Serge?" she asked as she walked to a full-length mirror and tied a ponytail. "You've already found a way back to your world. You can just return home and live a peaceful life, pretending that nothing ever happened. But can you really forget everything you've seen here?"

"I've given it a lot of thought," said Serge.

"So? What've you decided to do?"

"I've decided that I am not returning yet." Serge stood to his feet.

Kid managed to hide a smile that was about to peek through.

"I doubt Lynx will give up," he continued. "Besides, I need to know what exactly happened that brought me into this world."

"I see," she replied as she screamed joy in her heart. Maintaining an indifferent expression, however, she continued, "Then I'll stick around with you a little longer. I don't know what happened ten years ago, but it looks like Viper's mob has got something to do with it."

"I realize that."

"So let's hunt them down together!" She smacked an elated slap on Serge's arm. "Besides, I need to bash up that Lynx bastard and get me hands on the Frozen Flame!"

Kid surprised herself for not getting agitated at the mere mention of Lynx, like she would have under normal circumstances. She even put on a smile as she walked to her bed and picked up her clothes.

Kid turned to glare at Serge who returned a hopelessly baffled stare.

Surrendering with a sigh, she asked, "You're not watching me change, are you?"

His face flushed an instant rosy red. His eyes fell upon Kid's clothes, scanned Kid from head to toe and then shot aimless, embarrassed glances about the room. With no word of apology, he bolted towards the door but tripped over a stubbornly misaligned wooden plank on the floor, much to Kid's surprise and delight. As Kid raised an eyebrow and awaited more comedy to unfold, Serge staggered several steps before he slammed clumsily against the door frame and brought dust that had gathered atop the door frame sprinkling down on his bandana. Serge grimaced, coughed and screamed beneath his breath as he trampled out of the room.

"And go get Leena!" she yelled out at him. "I'll meet you two at the village tavern!"

Kid shook her head in surrender at the daft teammate. But she smiled at his innocence and noted the reason that she could stand upright this morning was thanks to this daft teammate of hers.

Orlha's Bar prided itself as the only tavern in Guldove. It offered its customers a wide variety of local delicacies as well as a fine, but limited selection of wine. It boasted no specialties or famous chefs, but it earned its reputation offering affordable, clean lodging as part of its wide range of services. Admittedly, one of the compelling reasons for the bar's success was the owner herself. Run by a strong, stout but attractive young lady named Orlha, one of the humans living in harmony with the demi-humans in the village, she was the boss, the cook, the waitress, the cleaner, the men's dreams and the troublemakers' worst nightmares.

The tavern's customers came from all over the archipelago--demi-humans from Marbule, villagers from Arni, explorers, adventurers and very occasionally fairies from the Water Dragon Isle and the Beebas from the Hydra Marshes. With some insistent and shameless advertising from shrewd ferrymen at Termina desperate for taxi business, the bar did get customers from the mainland of Zenan. Most of the customers didn't mean to feast their stomachs as much as they did to feast their eyes. And the common advertising gimmick used, was not the food, the drinks or the lodging, but the promise of "being waited on by a beautiful lady." Those who realized they fell for the twist of words came to enjoy the food nonetheless, but others who earnestly came hoping for more came disappointed.

Like any other structure in this village, canvas sheets of gray, fastened to wooden poles, wrapped the tavern and formed its walls and roof. Large wooden wheels served as tables and crates as seats was all of the simple design for the tavern's interiors. On any day, the seats nearest to the counter were those most quickly snapped up by those eager to catch a glimpse at the charismatic owner.

Kid entered the crowded tavern. As she walked to the table where her friends waited, her thieving eyes inspected all things moving, standing and especially those sitting quietly alone and trying to look inconspicuous. A demi-human drunk. A Beeba sipping at his ale and humming a low tune. A man griping about his woes. A woman laughing noisily at the top of her voice. When she felt comfortable that it was a friendly ambience, Kid sat, one knee folded to her chest.

Orlha came over to take orders.

"Good afternoon," the waitress greeted Kid. "Your friends decided to wait for you before making orders. What might the three of you like to have?"

"Give us three lunches and rations for two days," Kid replied rowdily.

"Lunch will be served in a while," the all-in-one waitress said. She walked back to the counter and started preparing the meal.

"What are the plans after lunch?" Leena asked. "Are we returning to... Termina?"

"Let us first pay our thanks to the village shaman," suggested Serge. "She stood by Kid for the whole of yesterday."

"The shaman?" Kid asked, surprised. She recalled nothing of a shaman.

"She prayed and healed you with magic," Serge explained.

Kid grunted. "Now I'm indebted again," she sulked.

"It is only--"

"Yes, I know," Kid interrupted Serge. "It's only polite. But after that, we have a whole day ahead of us. We must return to Termina." Then, she bent towards their center of the table and hissed, "But since we've flipped Viper Manor's arse's side up, that bloke would sure be on his feet right now. Just need to watch out sixes."

While Serge's eyes rolled up in thought, Leena nodded.

"There are now two worlds," Serge wondered, his shoulders sagging. "Do you both think there is a Lynx in my world?"

"Have you seen him before?" asked Kid.

"No."

"That bastard hounds you. If you've never met him, then obviously he's bloody dead as hell," Kid explained quickly.

Serge nodded his head at what Kid thought was an obvious logical deduction. Lynx was after Serge in this world. That meant that he had to be after Serge in his world. If not, he had to be dead. The smartsness of the deduction she conjured up brought a conceited smile to her face.

"But until Lynx in this world is dead, I am not giving up on taking his wretched life!" Kid continued.

"It is confusing, isn't it?" Leena said.

"What about?" Kid asked, eager to throw light onto any more difficult questions.

"We keep talking about this world, that world; my world, your world."

"I suggest we name them," said Serge. "I call my world the Home World, and this world Another World."

Kid's brows furrowed. "Why can we not call this world Home, and yours Another? This world is belongs to Leena and me you bloke!" Kid stood up and smacked Serge on his head.

Serge grimaced.

Leena giggled, before she straightened and said, "But I have to agree with Serge. Besides, all this that is happening--the split worlds, Lynx, everything--revolves around Serge. It seems as if we are all fated to meet him. Even Serge could use your Astral Amulet to journey across the two worlds..."

"Two against one," said Serge with a smile. "But it is a chilling thought. Do you really know nothing of the Amulet's power, Kid?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," she replied truthfully. "Sis gave it to me some time ago. She never told me what good it was for, except good luck."

"But it's settled then," said Serge. "Home World and Another World."

"Whatever," Kid resigned with a fling of her arm.

Orlha walked over, served the sweet-smelling lunch in bowls, and served the rations wrapped in leaves on the table. As soon as they settled the bill, Kid began shoving food into her mouth. She hadn't had a bite for two days and the constant growl in her tummy had become unbearable at the sight of the mouth-watering delight. She groaned in satisfaction as the salted peas and salted grilled meat tantalized her taste buds. The simple pleasure of munching at food erupted within her a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling that she had always relished after she had been in the wild for too long.

"Enjoy yourselves," Orlha said politely before she walked back to her counter.

Serge's and Leena's eyes flicked around the tavern embarrassingly, while Kid's mannerism and unrestrained groans invited the stares of the customers in the tavern.

But to Kid, lunch was marvelous. She gobbled up the baked potatoes, stewed meat and the perfectly fried omelets and left not even a drop of oil behind. If there was anything better to go with these heavenly delicacies, it would be a bottle's worth of cold beer flushing down her throat. But alas, cash was limited and time was crucial now to be indulging in alcoholic pleasures. At this moment, a mug of cold water sufficed.

"What is it about this Lavos?" Serge asked with a tone serious, as Kid finished up the last slice of meat from her bowl. "A god of darkness that knows only of consuming, devouring and destruction?"

Kid chewed, swallowed, drew a breath and exhaled. She stared Serge at his eyes that looked serious but anxious. His brows were furrowed and his young forehead wrinkled in fret. His hands were on the table, his fingers interlocked. He had the bearing of a criminal interrogator who tried to pry open his prisoner's mind for answers, even if he didn't have the looks. And he hadn't had a bite, Kid noticed.

"You sure you want to hear?" she said, picking her teeth with a finger.

"I'm ready," said Serge.

"Are you so very sure?"

"Yes, I am."

"Okay."

As Serge and Leena waited, Kid began to feel nervous, perhaps more than Serge was. She had never told stories before and had never attempted to. A story is worth a thousand words, perhaps more. Unlike girls of her age who loved to chatter and prattle, she rarely went beyond a few hundred in a day. In her line of work as a thief, she refrained from speaking more than was needed, for another word spoken was another part of her—feelings, personality and even secrets--put under the light, put under scrutiny. To tell a story to someone was to her equivalent to stripping herself bare and leaving her defenseless to vicious stabs.

She hesitated for a moment. Then she poured. "This story tells the journey Sis made with two of her good friends, so I hope she won't mind me retelling it. It seems that the goal of Sis's journey was to defeat Lavos and bring peace to the world. As I grew up, the story began to sound so unbelievable that I began to imagine it as a children's story that Sis made up. I never told Sis about how I really felt, because Sis told the story over and over again only to me. She treated me special, so I couldn't bear to tell her. Not to mention each time she told the story, she told it with tears. For many years, I was sure the story ain't true; not until two days ago, when the sage mentioned Lavos."

That was the longest uninterrupted speech she had made in the last five years.

"This story is about your sister?" Serge asked.

"Sis," Kid corrected. "And her two other friends whom she mentioned were the princess of Guardia, and her best friend who lived in Truce."

"Truce?" Leena asked. "Where is that?"

"It is a small village on the mainland," Kid explained. "In the story, the three of them were moving back and forth through time, changing the flow of history."

"Time journeying?" asked Serge. "Wasn't that how the sage arrived at Viper's library?"

"Time traveling," said Kid. "Although Sis and her friends traveled to various eras in time, their story began before the turn of the millenium, in 1000AD, five years before Guardia fell to Porre. When Sis first told me the story, Guardia had already fallen and Porre was in power. The story goes like this."

Kid cleared her throat as Serge adjusted himself on his seat and listened attentively.

"Once upon a time..."

"Once upon a time?" Leena giggled.

"Oi!" Kid joked. "That's how they always start, don't they?"

"Yes, right," Leena teased with a chuckle. "A long, long time ago, in a far, far away land, you could even begin. How appropriate that would be!"

Kid smiled.

"Let's get on with story," urged Serge who now seemed tense and impatient.

Kid shook her head in surrender.

"Right, then," she said. "This is how the story goes..."

The three Heroes of Time, who least expected themselves to be, were but three teenagers chosen by destiny. Before the turn of the millennium in the year 1000AD, the three teenagers stumbled upon a portal that led from a time period of theirs to another time period. An encounter in that age led to another, and they found themselves journeying back and forth through the river of time.

They found their way to the year 2300AD and found that a post-apocalyptic future awaited their awe. The earth was a barren wasteland of crumbled structures, of swampy muck and of pungent skeletons of humans and animals. The sky had no azure blue to speak of, and was constantly cloaked in the darkness of dust, ash and clouds. Lightning that ripped through the heavens in sheets of ashen white provided no more life to the lifeless earth than would the enduring darkness. Rains that beat on the lands and one's skin were like gale, cold and painful. Chill winds dragged toxic through the air, as currents washed the same through the vast seas and crashed them up onto shores.

In that same year, the three Heroes came across several archives of the future recorded in a format they called 'videos.' The videos revealed the chilling truth of an event that had set the course of the planet to everlasting death. Recorded in the peak of human civilization in 1999AD, it replayed moving images of an unidentified being that spanned several continents wide surfaced on the face of the earth, ripping a large hole on the planet that swallowed the seas. The massive, unearthly beast was of a crimson red shell, spiky like that of a porcupine, but fiery like that of the flaming sun. Upon the being's ascent into full view, it discharged trickles and threads of flames from its monolithic shell that together formed fountains of searing fire over the earth's surface. The huge discharges fell onto earth, and their flames licked and consumed the lands. In no less than two years, ash wrapped the earth and cast its lands into darkness. Rains fell and the fires that had burned off the fuel from the earth were doused, leaving behind an immense spectacle of devastation. The earth was doomed to the darkness and was left to wither and rot in its own destruction for the next three hundred years and perhaps countless of years to come.

Determined to avert that future, the three Heroes sought to defeat the creature that would bring destruction onto their home planet. They knew they had been gifted what the average man had not--the ability to move back and forth through time, and the ability to change and redirect, at will, the delicate flow of history. They understood that if they defeated the creature before it woke, the future as they knew would be altered. Thus, the three Heroes journeyed to the epochs in time to learn of this mighty creature that must be destroyed.

'La' was the ancient word for fire and 'vos' the word for huge. Lavos first descended from the heavens unto earth sixty-five million years ago, when the kingdoms of cold-blooded reptilian creatures ruled the earth in vast numbers, and when humans still existed as mere apes, humans' evolutionary ancestors. Lavos descent caused catastrophe and destruction on a global scale, and sent the lands of the earth blanketed in ash, cloud and soon the cold of the arctic. The ash that refused to settle sent temperatures plunging over the next millennium and wiped out the cold-blooded reptilians rulers from the face of the earth. The global climatic change was the dawn of a bitter ice age that was to last for the next sixty-five million years, as Lavos silently hibernated within earth and slowly consumed its resources.

Some three million years ago, the timid apes came into first contact with Lavos. This contact sparked a mutation in the genetic composition of the apes that spread like a malignant disease down the following generations of apes. Over the next three million years, as the size of their brains ballooned to three times their original, and so did their intelligence.

In the ice age twelve thousand years ago, in 12000BC, when man reached his evolutionary peak, so did his civilization. He worshipped the mighty Lavos as if he worshipped a god. But he tapped into and harnessed the power of Lavos that was to him unlimited source of magic. With magic of such at his disposable, he dreamed and built machines of the extraordinary, machines that floated defiantly against the forces of nature, machines that brought light in times of darkness and machines that provided warmth in such bitter cold. The great floating kingdom of Zeal was soon envisioned and then realized. Its leaders, however, was not content. They yearned for more power, for more magic, and they thus constructed the Ocean Palace, just so that they could reach closer to Lavos.

In the Ocean Palace, the leaders of Zeal ambitiously constructed the Mammon Machine, the largest machine ever built then to tap more from their unlimited source of power. The machine failed. It disturbed and woke Lavos from its restful sleep. As if displeased, the mammoth creature rose from beneath the grounds and shot forth the burning flames from its crimson shell. The flames that tore through Zeal sent the floating kingdom crashing down onto the earth. And the flames that fried the lands melted the ice. Lavos' first awakening brought about the end of the long-lasting ice age, just as it sent the humans plunging back down to humble beginnings.

Four hundred years ago, in 600AD, after the kingdom of Zeal had been written into the pages of innumerable baseless legends, humans had recovered from their fall but found themselves locked in war with the race of the demi-humans. The leader of the demi-humans was, ironically, a human who sought to defeat Lavos with his own hands. He attempted to summon the mighty Lavos to his presence but his attempt failed.

The course of the planet's history inevitably led to 1999AD, the second peak of human civilization, and also the second awakening of Lavos. After it rained fire onto the planet, Lavos left and departed into the heavens beyond, in search of another planet to consume, to devour and to destroy. As the Heroes had witnessed in 2300AD, the attack left the earth scorched and dying.

Lending the strength of their friends across the epochs of time, the three Heroes faced the mighty Lavos in battle in the year 1999AD, at the precise moment before it unleashed its devastation. After a long arduous battle, they defeated Lavos as they had set out to do. As a result, that which had come to pass no longer did. The future in 2300AD that once bleakly manifested the ugly face of Lavo's devastation was altered to a future that saw the light of day. The civilization of humans continued on the new temporal vector of time unimpeded, blissfully unaware of what their home should have become but did not.

The Heroes' undying resolve had saved humanity from Lavos, the bringer of darkness. But their meddling with history was like the hand of an untrained tailor who had ripped the fabric of time and entangled its delicate threads. Their heroic actions that had ended one crisis were only the prelude to another.

Kid breathed relief. She had tripped over syllables, over words and over sentences, like how an untrained thief had tripped over objects during a raid in the night. She scraped through the entire story nonetheless and praised herself for having told it in a way understandable. But the story that had taken half of an hour and several thousand words to compose had left Kid dry at her lips as much as it did in her mind. Perspiration soaked her blouse and dripped from her forehead. Even her jaws felt sore, like untrained muscles that strained after vigorous exertion. As a reward to herself, she grabbed Serge's mug on the table and gulped the cold water.

"A prelude to a crisis," Serge mumbled, as he offered Kid a hanky from his pocket.

"That is what Sis always said," Kid said, wiping her neck with Serge's hanky delightfully. "By changing the future, they could have changed even the past."

"But how is it that Lynx carry the burden of Lavos? How is it that even I carry the burden of such a creature? As a duty to mankind, must I defeat it? Or am I just made to know what it has done and sit around and wait for your Sis to defeat it in 1999AD?" grumbled Serge resentfully. His neck muscles clearly stiffened as he uttered each word. His eyes were distant and unfocused. "Why me?" he ended with a strained tone.

"Oi," said Kid. "Nothing we can do about Lavos's story now. Best not to think too much about it."

"Kid is right," said Leena. With a deep breath, she said, "But one thing is for certain. Both your stories are more intertwined than I--we could have imagined."

"Why do you say that?" Kid asked, sensing a wistful tone.

Leena smiled. "Oh, no reason in particular. I just felt the implications of the time traveling and the split worlds are aplenty; so much so it becomes rather confusing, don't you think? And I wonder, is there a Kid in Serge's Home World?"

"Oh, there will be," Kid responded with thought.

"How can you be so sure?" asked Leena, puzzled.

"I just know it," Kid replied. "But it hell ain't important. Lynx in Serge's Home World is likely to be dead. If he's dead, Home Kid will have no reason to travel south to El Nido and bump into you, unless you look for her intentionally. But then again, there's really no need to look for her, is there?" Kid added as a quick afterthought.

Kid was thankful that the Home Kid had not met up with Serge before she did, and that there was little chance Home Kid would come close to him at all. Yet, she felt a tense bitterness chewing away at her skin and making her feel uncomfortable, even hurtful. The uncertainty seemed like a rigged dice thrown but one that still had the chance of landing with the number 'two' face-up and not the number 'one,' if she were careless. She didn't know why she felt that way, as if she were jealous of her other self who she seemed to have deemed her enemy. She asked herself question after another that she realized soon piled into a heap. But she had the knack for organizing stray thoughts in her mind, packaging the less important into neat boxes and shipping them away from view. Quickly, she cleared her mind for crucial matters.

"We can't rush answers," said Kid composedly. "We'll look for them, and they'll come to us, I'm pretty sure. I'll bet you a roast snail on that."

Leena made a face and regarded her food with disgust.

"How about a roast Beachbum?" Kid joked, wiping sweat from her forehead with Serge's hanky.

"But you are right, Kid," Serge conceded out of the blue. "Let us finish up our lunch and head over to the shaman's."

Leena pointed a thumb at Serge and said to Kid with a giggle, "No need to bet. There's one here already."

Kid had felt uncomfortable long before she entered the canvas shrine set up at the end of the village. These places of religion never irked her as much as the people who dwelled within did. They loved to preach grand philosophies of life, death and destiny. She detested the double-standard often taken by these people who insisted destiny controlled their lives, and who also insisted that destiny may be made to bend to one's will, should they so desire. All these were to her heaps of rubbish made up and glorified by the religious leaders who didn't count the number of people their granted salvation, but the chests of gold pieces they got in return. There were the charitable temples and churches that gave away donations and the loot she stole from the rich to the poor. But such organizations that she had a great deal of respect for were far and few between.

This Divine Dragon Shrine irked her not because of the people who lived within, but the presentation of its interiors. The overdone display of faith packed into the little canvas tent gave her the shudders. The acrid smell of burning incense and the reddish ambience were too much of a discomfort for her. A raised circular pedestal supported the six, small statues of dragons aligned at the corners of a hexagon; an alignment that was to her absurd configurations made up in the past by some religious fanatic who had too much time to spare. Lit candles circled the pedestal, casting more gloom than they did cast relief. As if the sweltering heat of the noon sun weren't enough, these candles cooked the shrine's interiors, stuffing the room with stale, stinging air.

And if not for the help the shaman rendered to her during her illness, she would be wondering what was with the two ladies who sat with their eyes closed, idling their time away in the heat when they could have just slept, or get up on their feet and do some useful work.

"Thank you for your assistance yesterday," Serge said to the young shaman Steena, respectfully.

"Well, thank you, shaman Steena," Kid said in courtesy.

Steena, a young shaman in her twenties dressed in red, torn and stitched robes, opened her eyes and regarded Kid with a warm smile. The other shaman, the religious chief Direa of Guldove, who seemed at least sixty years of age, opened her weary eyes and glanced at the visitors. Unlike the younger shaman, she wore a frayed robe of gray and a face blemished by the many lines of age.

"I see that you have saved your friend," the chief said, her voice guttural and barely audible. "I apologize for not being able to attend to you personally, young lady," the chief said slowly to Kid.

Kid remained silent to control an oncoming sneeze. The smell of the burning incense tickled her nose.

"We have something of importance recently stolen from us," the chief continued. "I have been busy conducting investigations, none of which have led to anything fruitful."

"Stolen?" Leena asked.

"To be honest, the Dragon Tear has been taken away by an assailant," the young lady shaman reported. "From what we have gathered, it is likely that the Dragon Tear has been shipped out of Guldove. Beyond that, we know nothing."

"The Dragon Tear?" asked Serge.

"It is a one-of-a-kind orb that our ancestors received from the Dragonians," explained the shaman, "before the last of them were driven to extinction by the mainland humans in Termina. We have been instructed not to let the Dragon Tear fall into evil hands. And we are currently pursuing the matter with great urgency."

"An orb?" Serge asked as he cast curious glances at Kid and Leena, who both returned a puzzled look. "I think we might have seen it before. Is it a blue glimmering orb that rests in a flame-like shell?"

"Where have you have seen it?" asked the young shaman, her lips parted in surprise. "A man named Lynx and another named General Viper have it in their hands."

The young shaman and the chief exchanged glances.

"What is it they desire with the Dragon Tear?" the young shaman wondered aloud.

"If they plan to activate the ancient ruin..." the chief frowned. "The Sacrament of the Souls. If they plan to activate the Sacrament of the Souls in Fort Dragonia, I dread to think what will happen."

The young shaman furrowed her brows in deep thought. "But they cannot enter. Mount Pyre--the Ring of Death--encircles Fort Dragonia. They cannot possibly approach Mount Pyre, let alone get past the fiery lava within!"

"If they can steal the Dragon Tear from us, they might have already determined how to reach Fort Dragonia safely," the chief said grimly,

"What is this Sacrament of the Souls?" Serge asked.

The young shaman shook her head. "We regret to say that not even we know. We only know that as the name suggests, the Sacrament of the Souls is a ritual on the living spirit once held by the Dragonians. Its powers are beyond our comprehension. If this man, Lynx, desires to exploit the powers for his own evil gains..."

Unable to control any longer, Kid sneezed and stole attention to her. Then, she spoke, snuffling, "Bastard! What in the blazes is he up to? First, he wants the Frozen Flame, now he takes the Dragon Tear."

"Did you say the Frozen Flame, young lady?" the chief asked in startle. "This Lynx is even after the Frozen Flame?"

"Well, you heard me right, mom," said Kid, sniffing. "This bastard's after everything darned thing."

Again, the young shaman and the chief exchanged glances. Then, the young shaman began to hum verses with her sweet voice, verses that seemed to sound like an ancient oral lore:

Be very careful when

You stare into the flame...

For the flame will also

Stare back at you.

It will either

Transform you into a different being...

Or burn you into ashes.

"There is also a phrase that refers to the evil sealed away by the Six Dragons. This phrase follows, 'the evil flame that sought to engulf the world.' The evil Flame must not be in the hands of any humans," the shaman ended grimly.

"Would you know how to get past Mount Pyre to Fort Dragonia?" asked Serge.

"No living race in El Nido has ever tried," the young shaman said dryly, "except for a few select Dragonians. Only their thick scales were able to withstand its fiery blazes. No man can approach its entrance without melting in its heat."

Kid rubbed her nose incessantly while she pondered over the pieces laid before her, and over the best move to take. She charted scenarios and stringed sequence of events. And as the shaman and the chief continued with all the unimpressive rhetoric and none of the concrete action, she studied in her mind the best possibility of sneaking into Viper's ships and entering Fort Dragonia disguised as his guards, undetected. That would save them from melting in the heat of Mount Pyre if Lynx could transport them in safely with his magic or his tricks up his sleeves. That was only possible, however, if the Viper had not yet departed.

Kid interrupted the seemingly endless conversation, "Chief, shaman, I am grateful for the help and all, but we have to get going. Serge, this is no longer just our problem. If we don't stop these buggers now, they're going to blow some major hell around here!"

"What do you plan to do?" Leena asked.

"We'll take a ride to Termina. If Viper hasn't left for Fort Dragonia, we'll hitch a ride from there. Otherwise, we will sail down to Mount Pyre on our own and investigate the situation there."

"Then, we shall take our leave now, chief, shaman," said Serge.

"Before you leave, I have a favor to ask of you," said the shaman.

"What may it be?" asked Serge.

"If you ever find the Dragon Tear, we would like to ask that it be returned to us."

"I will," said Serge with a nod.

"Please be careful," said the chief, as Kid left the shrine eagerly. "I pray that your journey be blessed by the guidance of the Six Dragon Gods."

Kid groaned in disgust and disdain. She had probably seen more than these sheltered nuns. In any case, she was sure she could handle danger, vice and treachery more than they could. She had no doubt she would sail smoothly to Termina and to the end of her journey.

Kid did not need even one god, let alone all six of them.