Disclaimer: I do not hold any rights to Chrono Trigger in any form or fashion, nor do I make any profit out of writing this fic.
Reviews: Thank you, Merciful Ones, for your time and dedication!
SaiyanLegend1: Thank you and now I will shamelessly expect you to read it indeed! As mentioned in the chapter note, I have played Crono Cross, although I'll have to reply it now to refresh my memory. (On a side note, as nice as CC is, it cannot compare to CT...) As for Ayla, you can rest assured; I have no intentions of making her a dim-wit in any way. I've always found her to be much on the smart side, and quite a role model ;) I still don't know how to incorporate her into the story for good (too many characters to portray all equally), but I'll think of something.
zipis1: Hahaha, thank you and I'm glad to hear you liked it! I have always found it odd (to say the least) that Crono would have his sword. Clearly, the penitentiary system in Guardia is in a serious need of revision. Or new guards. As for the Gates, they don't lead to the same time and I'm basing the estimation (in this chapter) that the same amount of time passes on both sides on the fan agreement from the CT Encyclopedia page. Actually, I intend to play with it more later in the story ;) And go play the game! ;)
Idril: Thank you for keeping such a watchful eye on the story! I'm going to put up a note in my bio page with info on Youkai no Konseki, so I won't launch into any long rants here, since I don't even think you will come back to read it ;)
Note: Phew! Finally done with the preliminary parts. As clear from this chapter, I'm trying to incorporate some more advanced fan-theories on the mechanics of time-travel and Lavos. It's not perfectly logical, but that's to be expected – the game simply isn't...
Moreover, I'm also using the knowledge from Crono Cross, most notably on the future of Guardia and Porre. My general intention is to stretch this fic out beyond the game and into the information from the second game (but without any orphanages...). But I'm starting to think that maybe I should split it into two fics, once this becomes a Lu/Mag, just to make it easier on Lu/Mag shippers ;) The problem is, there's no clear boundary where to cut it. I know that some people start from the North Cape, but Magus is present in the game almost from the beginning, and I wanted to show what kind of expectations and whatnot Lucca had before meeting him. Plus, I intend to add some events to the Zeal part. Hmm... Oh, well, end of rant ;)
Oh, and this chapter is a bit more serious, at least without lame jokes, since I've always found this part to be the most serious. At least minus the ending parts.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Chapter 04 – Operation: Tinker with the Past
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"Geez," Marle sighed as she stepped into another pile of dust-covered rat feces, "don't they ever clean up?"
"I don't think that keeping the basement clean is their main concern, Marle," Crono replied from ahead of her, where he had just disposed of another rusted robot.
Lucca didn't join their hygiene-centered exchange, being too busy examining the remnants of the previous robot Crono had easily ran through with his sword and thus permanently incapacitated. They had entered the expansive underground area of the dome over half an hour prior, among energized whispers and hushes of the post-apocalyptic inhabitants of the facility. Almost instantly they had learnt that the area had indeed been inaccessible for quite a long time – an extremely thick layer of dust covered everything down here, starting from the rusted, metallic walls of the winding corridors, through the occasional heaps of corroded metal wreckage, to the odd lamps embedded into the walls.
And the guarding robots turned out mostly rusted over and only semi-functional, at least the ones they had encountered so far. They were so slow and damaged that there was no need for her to employ her weapons – Crono's somewhat archaic sword easily cut through the corroded casings of the once probably formidable sentinels. Lucca immediately began inspecting their inner circuitry, despite the impatient remarks the activity earned her from her companions. She had been tempering with simple robots herself, but so far only managed to create Gato, another attraction she and her father had prepared for the Millennial Fair. But Gato – a large, bulky machine of only quasi-human proportions – was nothing more than an automaton, a machine programmed to perform a simple task – battling those who wanted to 'test their might'. He was only programmed to play a cheesy song – her father's idea – then scan the surroundings for any moving objects, attack them – not too hard, of course – and then loose upon receiving a number of blows himself.
In short, Gato was nothing more than a flashy gizmo, capable of performing only the actions that he had been programmed to perform, much like the Dragon Tank. He did not possess artificial intelligence and that was what was interesting Lucca the most. As far as she knew, nobody on Zenan had been capable of creating an automaton with any semblance of artificial intelligence, although some of the military machines from the technologically advanced Porre had been rumored to have very sophisticated planning units. Unfortunately for her, the robots they ran into here – 3-foot tall chunks of once shiny metal – didn't seem to be capable of creative thought either. They had only been programmed to guard the underground and attack intruders, stopping only when – as she suspected – either being given a password or having the program terminated by a central signal. Still, they were much more advanced than any automata she had seen before, and thus couldn't resist the temptation of nicking a few parts out of them.
Having done so this time too, she got up and followed her two companions, who had been waiting for her impatiently. They followed the corridor they were currently in, hoping that this one – unlike the previous one they had taken – wouldn't lead to a dead end. The whole area was underground, but despite the lack of windows, it was only semi-dark inside. Placed in regular intervals along the walls were shining rectangles of yellow light, only slightly similar to the squares they had seen on the crested doors after exiting the Gate. Watching one as they were passing it by, Lucca felt her scientific passion itch again – whatever energy source was powering the lamps, as well as supplying power to the dome above, it had to be a mighty one, if it had lasted for so long after its creators expired.
"I hate rats," Marle grumbled dejectedly, narrowly avoiding stepping into some more droppings, while a scruffy looking grey rat nearby ran away from them with a terrified squeal. Lucca wondered briefly how the rats had managed to survive down here – did they have some rat version of the Enertron...?
"At least it's not frogs," Crono chuckled behind her and Lucca rolled her eyes. Ha, ha, very funny.
Although true, she appended as they took a turn at a corner, as long as they weren't attacked by robotic frogs, she had nothing to worry about. But as soon as they passed the bend of the corridor and entered a square room littered with a few shabby crates and darkish chunks of metal, her thoughts were proven wrong. One of the chunks to their right – a very large chunk to be exact - suddenly erupted in shrill buzzing, and twinkling lights that resembled eyes appeared on it.
"Alert! Alert!" it announced in a mechanical voice, "Intruders! Executing program!"
Without further warning it rammed into them, before they even had the time to react to its presence in any way.
"Marle!" Crono and Lucca exclaimed in unison. The Princess, having moved ahead of Crono and thus to the front, had been hit the most and was sent flying across the room. The robot moved to block their path, splitting the group in two.
"I'm okay!" Marle shouted bravely, collecting herself from the floor.
"Hide!" Crono shouted back while reaching for his sword, "Behind those crates back there!"
Marle did what she had been told, scrambling away quickly and ducking between one of the metallic crates and the wall. Crono focused on the robot in front of him, the sword firmly in his hands. Unlike the ones they had encountered before, this one was not short at all, reaching probably well over seven feet. It had a sleek corpus, a neckless head and two hand-like extremities. It moved on wheels, or at least that was the only possible conclusion. But just like the other robots, it looked quite run-down and corroded, so there was a chance his sword would cut through its casing and innards just as easily.
From behind him, Lucca fired a few shots at the machine, but to little effect – only managing to chip off some of the flaky metal of its chest. Without giving it any further thought, Crono jumped forward to pierce through the robot, never considering that it probably had other offence weapons than just ramming into an enemy. It only occurred to him when the large, red button on the robot's chest lit up and shot a beam of red into his right shoulder, painfully ripping through his skin and sending him back and down to the ground.
"Idiot!" Lucca huffed, while grabbing the scruff of his neck and pulling him back into the corridor from which they came, to hide behind the corner. Crono struggled to his feet and soon was standing propped against a wall while Lucca was examining the wound.
"What exactly were you thinking?" she admonished, reaching into her pocket for a tonic.
"Well," Crono replied, trying not to whimper when she poured the green goo on the bleeding wound, "it went along the lines of 'me save the day'?"
Lucca snorted lightly, but didn't have the time to reply.
"Guys!" Marle's alert voice reached them from the room she was still in, "It's coming after you!"
Crono peeked out quickly from behind the corner, only to see the robot but a foot away from the turn. This, he concluded worriedly, hiding away again, was bad. In the long, narrow corridor they were like sitting ducks for the red beam, and he doubted the robot would be averse to using it again.
"Eliminate intruders!" the robot beeped once more, rolling forward. The two behind the corner were watching the bend intently while frantically trying to come up with a plan, but so far, to no avail. Yet as soon as the bulky dark frame of the robot began emerging from behind the corner, a loud clang of metal against metal reached their ears.
"Stupid robot!" Marle's outraged voice rang through the room in the back while a piece of metal swooshed past the robot's head, "Leave them alone!"
Crono and Lucca exchanged incredulous glances, realizing what was going on. The Princess was battling the robot by flinging chunks of the wreckage that was lying around at it! Another projectile flew past the robot's head and it paused, as if calculating the trajectory of the object and thus the position of the attacker. After the momentary pause, it turned around, probably to attack Marle instead. Crono moved to shout to the Princess to hide again, or to distract the robot away from her, but his eyes instantly caught a shining patch on the robot's back. A part of its metallic casing must've corroded and had fallen off, exposing its inner circuitry.
"There!" Lucca pointed to the shining patch and Crono slapped his forehead mentally. Honestly, he not only wasn't five, he was actually three months older than her! And he knew he was supposed to take the opportunity! Where was her faith in her elders!
Letting it pass for now, he hurriedly moved to grab his sword from where he had left it on the floor, and jumped at the robot, jamming the blade squarely into the hole in the casing. Electrical crackling went off within the gap and he hastily pulled the sword out, before he was shocked. Lucca quickly reached for her gun and added a few shots to the insult of the sword. The robot wobbled slightly in its tracks.
"Eliminate... intru..." It never finished its imperative, instead shaking violently for a moment and then falling forward with a loud thud that reverberated through the corridors.
"Phew," Lucca put her gun away and pushed the glasses up her nose, "we really are lucky scoundrels! Are you all right, Marle?"
The Princess, who had been just walking up to them as they stood above the fallen robot, nodded lightly. "I'm fine and are you... Crono!" She noticed the red stains of blood on his blue short-sleeved shirt. "You're wounded!"
Crono waved dismissively while tucking the sword away behind his belt, "I'm alright. Lucca gave me a tonic and besides, I'm left-handed." He grinned at his companions, pleased that for once, being a 'lefty' proved to be an advantage. But the Princess didn't give up, insisting that she have a look at the wound. Crono had to admit that being thus fussed over by a cutie like Marle was actually a very enjoyable experience and did not raise any more objections.
Leaving the two to their entertainment, Lucca moved instead towards the door on the opposite end of the room. Surprisingly, this one still opened automatically when she pushed the small black button next to it, as she supposed all the other doors here were originally intended to. The moment the door slid open, a wave of horrid, rotten stench wafted out of there and hit her nostrils like garbage hitting the trashcan.
Marle, currently busy with tying up Crono's already healing wound with the orange bandana he wore around his neck, wrinkled her small nose. "Phew! Something reeks!"
"I assure you it's not me, at least not yet," Crono hastened to declare. Marle grinned at him and finished up her ministrations at his shoulder.
"Well," Lucca sighed as the other two approached her, "at least we found the food storage area."
They did indeed. The room was enormous and filled to the brim with metallic cases, piled up on tall shelves. The shelves stretched into a large number of rows, and the rows stretched from the entrance far beyond the semi-darkness of the room.
Lucca moved along a line of the shelves, noting that many of the containers had suspicious holes in them. Or not so suspicious, she countered mentally when a scared rat ran past her legs. It wasn't all that plausible that the rats would bite through metal, but it was still more likely than that the rodents had a mini Rat-Enertron.
Crouching down, she inspected the contents of a crate through a hole in its front. "Everything's completely rotten. The refrigeration must have failed..." Balancing on the balls of her feet, she glanced up to Crono, who had joined her down the isle. "Still, the cataclysm must've happened at least some decades ago if not longer... I wonder how could they expect the food to last that long."
"The grains might've lasted," Crono replied, cautiously poking through a hole in a crate on the middle shelf and at a greyish mass of what probably used to be rice.
"Still...," Lucca began, but Marle's voice interrupted her.
"Um, guys," the Princess called from a few isles down, "I don't think it's only the food that reeks in here..."
Getting up, Lucca followed Crono towards Marle, where they found that the husband of the woman from above had made it this far... but not any further. His body – or rather what remained of it – was propped up against one of the containers, as if he had just sat down there and accepted his fate. Dark rags of what used to be his clothes covered most of his body and his head was heavily inclined forward, but they could still see his hands and parts of his face. Both were mostly skeletal by that point, yet still with lumps of half-rotten, half-dried up meat attached to them. Large chunks were missing out of the flesh, probably having been eaten away by the rats.
"Passed away long ago, I suppose...," Marle said quietly, trying to keep the meager leftovers of her dinner inside her stomach. "He's holding something... What do you suppose this is?" She turned to Crono, as if expecting him to be 'manly' and pick the object up, and Crono felt his eyebrows rise in incredulity. She had got to be kidding! There was no way he was going to touch the corpse, he was already having problems with not barfing up the paltry meal he had been given in the prison!
Lucca sighed and shook her head. "Fine, fine, I'll do it." Squatting down next to the body, she carefully pried the man's still clutched fingers open with the tip of her gun, trying to avoid contact with the flesh. It wasn't that she was repulsed – apart from the smell that is – but corpses were hatcheries for diseases and she'd rather avoid picking up some futuristic mutation of cholera.
"It looks like some kind of seeds," she announced when the brown objects the man had been holding finally changed owners.
"Seeds?" Marle questioned, leaning over to have a better look. "Do you suppose they could grow in a place like this?"
"Even if not," Crono spoke up next to her, "they must've been important to him if he kept holding on to them like that."
Lucca got up and automatically dusted off her shorts and pocketed the seeds. "We'll take them back to the others above then. But first, we need to find the terminal Doan told us about."
And since her companions agreed, they left the depressing room and retraced their steps to the last 'cross-roads' in the maze of corridors. Leaving the poor guy in there didn't really seem all that right to them, but they had come here with a very specific purpose and, after all, he could wait. Not to mention that since the large robot that had rammed into them had probably been the most dangerous thing down here, the people from above could now come for the fallen man themselves. They probably could've done it before too, but just didn't know how corroded the sentries down here were. Or just no longer knew how to fight at all.
They found the terminal after a half an hour of searching the dimly-lit corridors. It was in a large room not all that far from the food storage area, and the terminal itself looked very much like the ones above, apart from not being broken or used as a table.
"Let's get to it then!" Lucca chirped excitedly and promptly sat down on the unbelievably dusty revolving chair in front of it. To be perfectly honest, she hadn't been familiar with the notions of either 'computer' or 'terminal' before, but fortunately, before they had ventured down here, Doan had kindly elucidated the concepts to them, at least to the extent that he understood them himself. Once thus enlightened, Lucca found the idea both incredibly practical and immensely appealing, and was actually amazed that there were no computers yet in their time. The technology was there already – at least for a very simple one – but the idea just... wasn't. Needless to say, she would give a lot to be able to get her hands on the technical specifications of the apparatus, or preferably – on an entire library on the technological and scientific knowledge of this time.
But as it was she could only test various buttons in attempt to find her way around all the information stored within the computer and enjoy her time with the machine.
Behind her, Crono and Marle sat down against a wall, raising a cloud of dust in the process. They couldn't really help Lucca with her task – not that she would accept any help – so all there was for them to do, was to wait patiently until the purple-headed wonder girl completed her technical hocus-pocus.
As they sat in the silence of the room, interrupted only by nearly continuous clicks of the machine's buttons, the buzzing of the screen on the wall and random muttered remarks from Lucca, Crono's thoughts wandered into contemplating this future world. The way it was before the cataclysm, not the way it was now, a barren wasteland. It had been clearly very advanced and full of technology that Crono would never understand no matter how hard he tried. It had to be very convenient, he mused, thinking about the Enertron, the sliding doors and the robots that could probably be very useful when not set to kill anything that moved.
But on the other hand, he couldn't help feeling that this futuristic world also seemed somehow... cold and impersonal. The metallic houses and appliances had nothing of the warmth and natural charm Truce, and Guardia in general, had in abundance. However, he countered, reclining his head against the wall behind him, it could've seemed so only to his eyes, since he was as much of a traditionalist as most inhabitants of the Kingdom.
Guardia simply cherished its long history and tradition and did not pursue technological advancement. Electricity, for example, had been introduced almost a hundred years ago, yet although now even the most remote villages had their own windmills and generators, that was all there was to it. It did not bring forth computers such as the one Lucca was battling with at the moment, only a few simple improvements, such as refrigeration. And the people of Guardia still liked a warm fireplace better than any artificial sources of heat, and even went as far as to shape their lamps as sconces and torches. Clearly though, somewhere along the centuries the attitude must've changed. Or Guardia ceased to exist, he appended morbidly.
"I wish I had a weapon," Marle interrupted his thoughts suddenly. Crono turned to the Princess, who was biting on one of her nails with a very determined look on her face.
"I don't want to be a burden," she added, turning her blond head to him, "you know, like when you were fighting that robot and all I could do was hide and throw trash at him."
"That's not true," Crono countered honestly, "if it hadn't been for you, we would've gotten massacred there."
"Really...?" she glanced to him expectantly and Crono laughed inwardly. He had been right, she was nothing like some sugar-coated princess, even if appearances said so at first. No shallow pretty-face would attack a menacing robot with the bravery and ferocity the Princess had displayed.
"Yes, you saved our sorry behinds," he replied, smiling at her.
She smiled back, glad to hear a confirmation. "I still would like to have a weapon though," she added pensively, "but I don't think a sword would be my kind of thing."
"Then maybe you should get a gun, like Lucca," Crono suggested, mentally deciding that an image of Marle with a weapon seemed somehow... appealing.
But before she could ponder the option, and he entertain the image further, Lucca turned to them on the dusty revolving chair. "Well, I found it. The data on the cataclysm, I mean."
"And...?" Crono prompted, raising to his feet and offering Marle a helping hand up.
"And...," Lucca seemed to hesitate while they joined her in front of the console, "well, it didn't happen a few decades ago, but rather 300 years ago, in 1999."
Marle blinked at her in disbelief. "You mean that the world here has been like this for 300 years! That those people haven't seen food in 300 years!"
Lucca nodded pensively. "Yes. It does explain why they expected the food supplies to last – they just don't know much about food storage anymore, it's more like a legend to them, I guess."
"Plus, I've also found why there was such a large food storage here in the first place." Pushing her glasses up, she reclined in the chair and launched into a synthesis of what she had learnt. "The cataclysm decimated the population, literally, and mutilated the face of the continent. After some time, when the survivors began organizing themselves again and discovered that vegetation was simply impossible here anymore, at least at the time, they decided to set out to other lands, hoping that other areas, which hadn't been hit directly, were more hospitable."
"Do you remember the laboratories to the west Doan mentioned?" The other two nodded slowly, recalling the old man's words. "That was simply a large center for scientific research, on the outskirts of one of the largest towns of this continent. Numerous scientists worked there, many from other parts of the world, and those lived here, so naturally, they had to have food supplies. So when the survivors decided to leave this area, they gathered up all the food they could find and couldn't take with them, added it to the remaining supplies here – for any possible later use – and set up the security system."
"The data ends at that point, which was less than a year after the cataclysm, but I'm guessing that they found the rest of the world to be just as inhospitable and returned here. Only that it probably was years later, many years perhaps, and they found they could no longer operate the security system. In time, since the Enertrons were in constant use, the idea of material sustenance had grown into a legend and the general technological and scientific level of the people degenerated to a point where they could hardly even operate the machines around them, forgetting a lot of what are basic concepts to us."
Crono and Marle listened to the story in silence, imagining the agonizing journey of the survivors, many of whom had probably lost not only their previous lifestyle, but also their entire families.
"And what caused the cataclysm?" Crono asked finally, still incapable of imagining anything that could bring forth such mass destruction.
Lucca pushed herself back up in the chair, since she had been steadily sliding down the seat. "That is actually another surprising thing. You see, I thought it might've been a natural disaster, like a meteor strike or something similar, but it wasn't so. It had been caused by a living organism, a giant living organism called Lavos, which appeared suddenly and – as unbelievable as it sounds – started bombarding the earth with magma. I've even found footage–"
"Footage...?' Marle frowned questioningly, not knowing the word.
"Apparently, it's like photos, only moving," Lucca explained promptly and her companions nodded slowly. They were familiar with photography, but moving photos...?
"Here," Lucca added, turning back to the console and running her fingers swiftly over the controls. "Look for yourselves."
With a faint buzz, the screen on the wall, which had been full of letters and diagrams, switched to what they assumed was 'footage'. They watched in silence, both too shocked by the scenes of destruction to be amazed at seeing moving representations of the world. The footage lacked sound and the images seemed shaky, but what they saw was enough. Most scenes showed images of large, sometimes enormous, whirling balls of fire hitting a town full of mind-numbingly tall buildings and objects they had never seen before. In one scene, a man was as if talking to them, his eyes full of fear, while one of the fiery missiles was heading right at him behind his back. It ended before he was hit but they doubted he had made it.
The last scene was the most astounding. It showed the ground from above, as if somebody was flying, and in the midst of explosions and fire they saw and enormous spiky creature that looked somehow like a mammoth reddish hedgehog or a porcupine. It would've been funny, wasn't it for the fact that the fire balls destroying the world were originating somehow both from and around the creature, shooting off in all directions.
The scenes ended there and the group remained silent for a few moments, trying to accommodate the knowledge into their minds.
"This...," Marle began finally, raising a weak hand to her forehead, "...this can't be the way the world ends..."
Crono didn't know what to say to that, especially since it really was the way the world had ended, at least the kind of world they knew. Lucca, having made herself familiar with the data before, only waited for them to collect themselves from under the weight of the information.
Suddenly, the Princess let go of her forehead, her eyes full of determination and resolve. "There's only one thing we can do! We must change history!"
Her companions blinked in reply.
"You know," she continued unwaveringly, gesturing to Crono, "Just like Crono did when he saved me! Okay!"
"Theoretically," Lucca replied, pushing her glasses up, "that shouldn't be possible."
Marle bristled up slightly. "We know about it in advance! I mean, when we go back into our times, we will know about it in advance! So why not?"
"You didn't let me finish," Lucca admonished the idealistic princess and Crono hid a smile. She really didn't like it when people interrupted a technical lecture of hers. "It shouldn't be possible, because if we did somehow change history, then when we came here, we wouldn't have learnt about the cataclysm, since it would've never happened."
Crono frowned, feeling both that she was making his head spin and that there was something wrong with what she said.
"But," Lucca countered herself pensively, "the same should've applied to when 'we' saved you, Marle," she did have a hand in it after all. "Since you would've never existed, then we shouldn't have had any memories of you after you disappeared, since we would've never had known you."
"But you did remember me, right?" Marle frowned, unsure where Lucca was going with that.
"Yes, which is why I'm beginning to think that perhaps when a person is misplaced in time – is time-traveling, I mean – then their actions in the past, and the subsequent changes to the flow of history, don't affect their knowledge of their time from before the change. Only their existence, or maybe crucial events in their lives, I don't know yet, can be affected by their actions in the past."
"Or maybe," she added again, clearly floating away into her own world of scientific exploration, "the change creates a paradox – like the fact that if you had never existed, you couldn't have been mistaken for the Queen, meaning that you couldn't have caused yourself to cease to exist – and time alters itself to return to a state of balance, reaching the same final point via altered intermediary events, meaning that you were only temporarily misplaced and would've returned either way, or that the Queen would've died in some other way."
Her companions stared at her as if she had suddenly sprouted wings.
"So," Marle sighed, once more raising her slim hand to her suddenly aching head, "is it possible or impossible to change history?"
"It is possible that it is possible," Lucca replied thoughtfully, evidently not seeing anything wrong with her answer.
"Then why did you tell us about all this...?" Marle asked, blinking in confusion.
Lucca pushed her glasses up and looked at the Princess in equal confusion. She thought it rather important to know what you can and cannot do, and where you stand in general, before you set out on a heroic escapade of changing history!
Crono decided to cut in, seeing that they would not reach any productive conclusions if they kept following the current line of discussion. "The real question is, what can we do to change history? Assuming that it is possible."
"We have to somehow stop Lavos," Marle replied firmly.
"But how...?"
"Actually," Lucca cut in, "we should first do more research on Lavos and his origin and only then look for a way to stop him... it, whatever. As it is, we don't know much about 'him', so there's little we can do."
Marle considered it for a moment and then jumped up suddenly. "Then let's go back home and check if anyone knows anything about Lavos. It's the closest to this time before the cataclysm we can get, right?"
"There's another option," Lucca glanced up to them pensively from her chair, "when I was looking through this computer, I found also something else. You see, there used to be a lot of sensors placed in the whole area. They were used for various purposes, from checking the weather conditions to monitoring something called 'traffic'. Surprisingly, many of them still work fine and they were actually so accurate and advanced that they picked up even our Gate."
"But," she pushed her glasses up again, "they also picked up another Gate, some ten miles to the west. According to the map – it's from before the cataclysm, so I don't know how accurate it is now – that other Gate is in 'Proto Dome'."
"Can those sensors determine where does the Gate lead to?" Crono frowned in thought.
"No, only going through it can do that, I think," Lucca replied musingly. "But who knows, it might lead to a time closer to the cataclysm than our times. So maybe we should take the chance or at least check it out."
Crono considered it for a moment. "Since we can always come back here and go through the first Gate to our times, I'm for checking out the new Gate."
Seeing that her companions were finally beginning to see things her way, Marle beamed at them. "Then let's go change history!"
And with that optimistic accent, and one last longing look at the computer from Lucca, they left the premises and the basement altogether.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"You're back!" Doan exclaimed, with surprising vigor for somebody his age, when they emerged from the door leading to the underground area.
"What did you find?" he asked, while the crowd of equally amazed inhabitants of the dome – they clearly expected them never to return – gathered around them.
"We found that the cataclysm was caused by Lavos," Crono replied, unsure whether they should mention anything about their resolve to change time.
Doan frowned questioningly, but before he could reply, a man from the crowd cut in. "Who cares, where's the food!"
Marle sighed woefully. That was the bad news. "I'm sorry, all the food has rotten."
"Don't try to eat it," Lucca added, remembering that they had little knowledge of food. "You'd probably give yourself food poisoning."
"These seeds," she reached into her pocket, "are all we could find."
"'Seeds'...?" Doan repeated slowly, as if trying to recall all that he knew about 'seeds'.
"You should plant them," Lucca added, wondering if they would ever manage and handing the seeds to him. "You don't know how long the Enertron will hold out. These seeds might be your only hope."
Doan kept looking down onto his wrinkled hand, where the brownish seeds were resting. He had only a vague idea of what one was supposed to so with seeds, even though he had always been the one to gather and pass on the stories of the life before the cataclysm. But those young ones from the past were right; they had to at least try.
"What're those?" asked his little granddaughter, pulling on his sleeve so that he'd let her have a better look.
"They just might be our future...," he replied pensively, regretting that he couldn't live long enough to see earth be green again. But maybe she could.
"And what are you three going to do now?" he asked finally, shaking the grim thoughts away.
Crono and Marle glanced to Lucca meaningfully and she pondered the question for a moment. They couldn't really tell Doan and the people here that they wanted to change the past. Not only it might mean offering them false hope, but more importantly, if they managed, many of those people might never come to be. It was a necessary sacrifice if they wanted to save the world as a whole, but still...
"There's another Gate to the west, in Proto Dome," she replied finally, deciding to think about it later. "We are planning to go there."
Doan nodded to himself slowly, considering the information. "Then you should stay here for tonight. It's already dark outside and Proto Dome is close to the robots' territory. It's dangerous to go there, especially after dark."
"Robots' territory...?" Crono prompted questioningly.
"Yes," Doan replied, heading back towards his comfy though somewhat moldy chair. "That whole area is under the control of the robots. The ones further to the west are very bloodthirsty; they are somehow convinced that it's their prerogative to kill all humans. Needles to say," he sank back into the armchair, "you don't want to go there."
The three time-hoppers sat back onto the bench, taking in this new gruesome fact about the world of 2300 A.D.
"But some are rather benign, like the band that controls the old laboratories. They are led by a robot that calls himself 'Johnny'."
"Johnny...?" Marle repeated incredulously.
Doan nodded, smiling under his white moustache. "But the other robots call him... what was it?" He turned to a teenage boy nearby.
"'The man'," replied the brown-haired boy who looked surprisingly vivacious, especially in the context of his generally depressing surroundings. "They're not that bad, Johnny only wants to race anyone who wanders in there and calls everyone 'babe'. It's actually fun. You can race him, if you want to get to the Proto Dome faster."
The trio looked at him in continuous incredulity while Doan chuckled to himself. "Yes, I used to race there when I was young too. But enough about that. You need some rest now so let me find you a place to stay for the night." With that, he got up once more from his chair and motioned for the three to follow him.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"I'm starting to think that we should've raced Johnny," Marle announced as they trudged on through the storm of red dust under the dark skies. But since they knew very little about 'racing', the group had decided to take the biped route to Proto Dome and had been walking for hours.
They had spent the night in Arris Dome, in one of the numerous rooms up on the gallery. Centuries ago, when Arris Dome was still an info center and the home of the scientists, the room had been undoubtedly very appealing, with rounded walls and doors, and a long, narrow window that probably used to offer a great view. But now it was just like the rest of Arris Dome – decrepit, rusted and dirty. Still, a bed was a bed and they tried to get as much sleep as possible while simultaneously trying not to think about when was the last time the blankets had been washed.
They had even had a go in the Enertron, learning that although it was not much of an experience – just a minute of a nap inside the cabin – it did indeed restore their energy. Unfortunately – like Doan had told them – still leaving them feeling hungry. When morning came, they set out on their way, quickly learning that there were only two stages of day here – darkish and dark. Currently, it was 'darkish', meaning that they could see their surroundings clearly enough to notice the massive amounts of wreckage and ruins to their left.
It was the laboratories, at least they assumed so, and beyond it – the town the destruction of which they had seen in the footage. The ruins seemed to stretch as far as they could see, in mounds, knolls and outright mountains of crumbled buildings and general wreckage. Some of the buildings had collapsed only partially, the tips of the once nearly sky scraping constructions still proudly erect, although most at very unorthodox angles. It must've been quite a sight to see when the town had been intact, and all felt that they would've enjoyed a trip to before Lavos destroyed it. That is, if they didn't know what would be about to happen.
"And I'm starting to think," Crono replied to Marle, while the wind struggled to rip a few spikes out of his hair, "that I should've told my mum about the whole time-traveling thing. She must be worried sick right now."
"That reminds me," Lucca spoke up, her hand over her glasses in a desperately futile attempt to keep the dust from smudging them, "don't you find it odd that time seems to flow with pretty much the same speed on both sides of a Gate?"
The heads of the other two turned to her in puzzlement. No, not really.
"Erm, could you be a little bit more clear on what you mean?" Crono proposed finally.
"Well, when we went back to the Middle Ages, we spent an entire day there. We had left our time in the morning, yet when we came back, it was already evening, just as it was when we were leaving the Middle Ages."
"And it's not supposed to be like that?" Marle asked, glancing to Lucca questioningly around Crono, who was walking in the middle.
"I don't really know since that's actually the first time I'm time-hopping," Lucca replied pensively, as if it was somehow unexpected that it was her first time. Which, considering how many other inventions as crazy as the Telepod she had cooked up before, in a way was. "But from what I read, I would've expected that such a time Gate would bring us back to the exact same time we had left. It's just... strange." She frowned, slightly annoyed at not having enough data to decipher the exact workings of the Gates they had taken.
Her companions didn't really have anything to say to that; if she didn't know, then they most certainly didn't know either. And they were delivered from the exertion of thinking about the matter by a new sight coming into their view. A cloud of the red dust had dispersed and in a distance to their right they saw a range of mountains, ragged and uninviting. One of the peaks stood out so prominently and sharply against their surroundings that they instinctively paused in their tracks, all experiencing an irrational shiver running down their spines.
"Do you think that this is the Death Peak Doan told us about?" Marle asked quietly, her eyes still fixed on the sight of the mountain.
"Probably," Crono agreed, observing the mountain as well.
Before they left Arris Dome, Doan had given them directions on how to get to Proto Dome, mentioning that on the way they would pass by 'Death Peak' and that they should not attempt to climb it. He had not offered them a description of the peak, saying only that they would know it once they saw it, and now they could perfectly well understand what he meant. The peak was overwhelmingly tall; it seemed to nearly pierce through the dark clouds that forever shrouded the skies of this world. The top half of the mountain was covered by snow, and in the context of the dark, sullen scenery around, it stood out as so blindingly and bedazzlingly white that it seemed somehow unnatural and ominous.
"Not that I want to climb it," Lucca commented, watching the peak with her hand still shielding her glasses, "but do you remember the old 'crackpot' one of the men from Arris Dome mentioned?"
Her companions nodded in confirmation. When Doan had been telling them about Death Peak, one of the men around joined the conversation. He said that near the foot of the mountain lived an old man, a 'crackpot', as he had put it. The man had suddenly appeared in the area some twenty years prior and ever since then had been living in what came to be known as the Keeper's Dome. It was called so – and the man as the 'Keeper' – because unlike the rest of them, he still possessed very high technical skills and scientific knowledge. Unfortunately, he was also rather antisocial and focused solely on some work he deemed the most important thing in his life.
"Well," Lucca continued, "when somebody is into science and is called a 'crackpot' that usually means they know things others don't." She should know, having been called a crackpot many a time herself. "So maybe we should pay him a visit? He might know more about Lavos."
Crono considered it briefly. "I see your point, but it looks like a long walk, while we're already tired and still have more walking ahead."
"Yea," Marle agreed, "I don't think I could make it all the way there and then back again."
Lucca sighed, agreeing with them despite feeling that the trek might prove worth the effort. But they had no food – nor a pocket Enertron – and didn't even know what they would find there. "Alright, alright, let's just carry on to the Proto Dome then."
They walked on for another hour, until finally a dome appeared from behind the red dust not far ahead of them. It was nearly as large as Arris Dome, but they knew that unlike Arris Dome, it was currently unoccupied. Doan told them that there were other human settlements beyond the ruins of the city, but nobody lived in Proto Dome because it was too close to the robots' territory.
Cautiously, they approached the dome, hoping that the robots hadn't decided to expand their territory to incorporate the building. With equal caution, Crono opened the door, or at least tried to. Unlike the doors in Arris Dome, this one was resistant to his manipulations and opened only when all three of them pushed against it, power full on.
"At least it means that probably there's nobody inside," Marle observed, pushing a few sweaty and dust covered bangs away from her eyes once the door screeched open.
"Let's hope so," Crono agreed, entering the dome.
The girls followed him and they walked on through a short, dark corridor and into a spacious room. In the semi-darkness, dispersed only by the feeble sunlight from the narrow and dirty window nearby, they could see glass panels, computer terminals and a few overturned desks and chairs, all covered by the customary thick layer of dust.
"I wonder what this building used to be," Lucca surveyed the surroundings, having cleaned her glasses once more. "It looks like another info center, or maybe a research center."
"Hey, look!" Marle pointed towards the far end of the room, where in the shadows they could see a sturdy-looking metal door leading further into the dome. Next to door sat a heap of run-down metal, rags, dust and rats. The rodents blinked their red eyes confusedly and scampered away the moment the group approached the pitifully derelict pile.
"What is it?" Marle frowned, titling her head to the side.
"Incredible!" Lucca murmured excitedly, crouching down next to the large object. "It appears to be a humanoid robot!"
Quickly, she pushed away the rat feces covered rags and some of the dust from the machine. It truly was a humanoid robot; it had a large, bulky corpus, originally of golden color; a round quasi-human head and very humanoid limbs, legs included. Lucca swiftly scanned the state of the robot, easily finding the removable parts of the casing that allowed her to peak into the machine's internal workings. Its circuitry was very complex, even beyond her understanding, and her hopes of finding artificial intelligence in this post-apocalyptic yet futuristic world rose higher. They had been high ever since Doan told them about the robots forming bands, for whatever purpose, and now it seemed that she might have a chance to lay her hands on what she wanted.
"It's in bad shape...," she muttered mostly to herself, "but I think I can fix it." Apart from the edge of time, the robot didn't seem to have sustained any damage. It was unbelievably dirty and somewhat rusted, and the rats have bitten through a few wires, but that was all the harm she could see.
"What!" Marle jumped up upon hearing Lucca's declaration. "It might attack us!"
Lucca glanced up to her briefly before reaching out to start cleaning away the filth that covered the robot. "Machines aren't capable of evil... Humans make them that way. Even the ones Doan told us about, the ones wanting to kill all humans, either had to be programmed that way or their artificial intelligence must've incorporated an error that led them into such a state."
Marle looked down to the purple-haired scientist, catching the softness in her voice. "Lucca, you... pity them, don't you?"
Lucca didn't reply directly to the question, being as ever unwilling to discuss her emotions with others. Instead, she reached into her pocket for the trusty screwdriver she never left home without. "Let me get to work now, okay?"
"You might just as well," Crono joined the conversation next to them. "This door here won't open no matter what I do, and since the Gate must be somewhere deeper in the dome, we could use the help of this metal guy here."
"I'll double my efforts then," Lucca grinned to him briefly and focused on the robot.
While she worked, Crono and Marle inspected the remaining parts of the room, but without success. The door next to the robot was the only one leading further inside, and the overturned desks contained nothing of interest. Only crumbling pieces of paper, rat feces and rats themselves. Giving up, they sat down on two of the rusted metal chairs and waited patiently while their friend toiled at her task.
It didn't take Lucca long to finish repairing the robot. There wasn't that much to repair except for rejoining as many of the torn wires as she could and removing the grime from the main processing units. All in all, less than half an hour of work.
"All right, that's it," she informed her companions, turning on the robot's power supply unit.
Stepping back a few paces, she waited for the results of her manipulations, while Crono and Marle joined her side. At first, nothing happened, but after a moment a faint buzzing sound began spreading from the robot. And after a few crackling electrical noises, its round, artificial eyes lit up with bluish light.
"Good morning!" Marle smiled, deciding that a first good impression was an important factor, even when dealing with a robot. Or maybe especially when dealing with a robot.
To their surprise, the robot struggled to its feet, whereupon it performed a polite bow. "Good morning, mistress." Its voice was mechanical and somewhat coarse, but clearly of male quality. Instantly, their classification of the new acquaintance changed from 'it' to 'he'. "What is your command?"
Marle laughed lightly, her previous fears wholly obliterated in view of the robot's outstanding politeness. "I'm not your 'mistress'. I'm Marle! And this is Crono," she gestured to her spiky-haired companion, who nodded, experiencing a slight sensation of misplacement, "and here is Lucca. She fixed you!"
"Understood," the robot buzzed mechanically, "Madam Lucca fixed me."
Lucca laughed too, in satisfied excitement. It seemed that the robot was indeed capable of artificial intelligence, as suggested by his complex, multi-centered circuitry. Now she wanted to test how advanced his programming was and how much room for more development it had. "Just Lucca will do."
"Impossible," the robot replied, "that would be rude." Somehow, he failed to notice that such blatant disagreement was equally rude.
"Look," Lucca waved her hand, "I hate formal titles. Don't you, Marle?"
"Hate 'em!" the run-away princess agreed vigorously.
The robot processed it for a moment. "I understand, Lucca." Apparently, the imperative of obedience won over the imperative of politeness.
"So what's your name?" Lucca asked, pushing her glasses up.
"Name?" he questioned mechanically, "Ah, my serial number. It's R-66Y."
"R-66Y?" Lucca repeated in consideration. "Cool!"
"No!" Marle shook her head at once. "That won't do at all. Come on, Crono, let's give him a better name!"
Crono, who had been satisfied to be but a silent participant of the exchange, glanced to her in mild amusement. She was the one to object to the idea of fixing the robot, but now that it was evident he posed no threat, she seemed to have instantly accepted him as a sentient entity.
"Robo?" he suggested finally, feeling that he was sloshing near the bottom of the originality pool.
"Robo...," Marle considered pensively. "That's perfect! Your new name is Robo, okay?"
"I am... Robo," the robot newly christened as 'Robo' buzzed in reply. "Data storage complete."
Yet although he claimed 'data storage' as complete, it seemed that 'analysis of the current surroundings' was only starting. Robo turned his round head around, and they could somehow swear he was confused. Or would've been, were he human. Or was, being a simulation of a human. Oh, who knew.
"What happened here?" he asked finally. "There were many humans and others of my kind in this dome."
Lucca pushed the glasses up her nose. It was hard to say whether Robo was referring to times before or after the cataclysm, but it seemed safe to assume that he had been either turned off or otherwise disabled even before Lavos destroyed the future. The thick layer of filth that had been covering him when they found him confirmed the assumption. "There was a large cataclysm, over 300 years ago, which decimated the population and nearly leveled all buildings and constructions."
She paused for a moment, offering Robo the time to process the data before she continued. "We've come here through a time warp from the year 1000. While exploring Arris Dome we learned there was a Gate here and we found you when we came looking for it. But the door to the inner rooms of this dome is locked and we cannot reach it. Can you help us with the task?"
Robo seemed to consider the information carefully and then turned to the impenetrable door to inspect it in detail. "This door will open only if the power is supplied to this facility. Currently, the power is off. If we go to the factory up north, I can pass through security and activate this dome's generator. But the generator won't run for long, so someone must stay behind to open the door while the power's on."
The three time-hoppers glanced to each other. The idea was doable, even though chances were they might run into some of the human-hating robots if they went up north. But they've made it this far, so neither was averse to the idea. However, it meant that weapons were a necessity in the mission, and that left Marle as the designated door-opener.
"All right," Marle agreed when her companions fixed her with questioning glances, "I'll stay."
"Great!" Lucca wasn't all that eager to go fight robots, but she was very much looking forward to spending more time with Robo and assessing his programming. "Then we'll be back as soon as we can and you keep an eye on the door!"
Marle flashed her a smile. "Of course I will. And you three watch out for yourselves!"
With that, her three companions left Proto Dome and headed north, to the abandoned factory Robo mentioned. Sighing, Marle pulled a chair closer to the door and sat down, prepared for the long wait. Truth be told, she was glad to stay, since she was beginning to discover that not all adventures were necessarily fun. She was cold, hungry, tired and most of all – dirty. Not to mention ill-prepared for adventuring. She didn't have any weapons and her white clothes of a tube-top and loose trousers were the last thing she should be wearing. Currently, her clothes were white only by name. The long trek – and the night in Arris Dome – left them crumpled and stained all over. Her hair was not much better either – the red dust had settled into it so firmly that it was now more reddish than ever. And sweaty, slightly greasy and sticking to her face.
Sighing once more, she attempted to brush away some of the dust from her trousers. Hopefully, Crono could see past the dirty surface... As soon as the thought crossed her mind, a faint blush blossomed on her face. This was not the time to think about the fact that she was beginning to like Crono. ...Even if it was a very pleasurable thought, she appended with an even deeper blush.
Sighing yet again, she reclined in the chair and focused on her current situation instead. The adventure didn't bother her, quite to the contrary, it was what she had always wanted, to be able to learn of the world on her own. But father... Frowning, she instinctively crossed her arms on her chest. Father, and everybody else in the castle for that matter, from the Chancellor down to the servants, never let her go anywhere, or do anything on her own, always wanting her to 'be a good princess'.
It was obvious to her why it was so, she wasn't stupid. She was the King's only daughter and since her mother was dead, she was also the only successor to the throne. Which meant that if anything happened to her, the throne of Guardia would fall into the hands of her distant cousin, whom neither father nor the Chancellor considered worthy. He wasn't worthy, because he supported technical advancements, and agreed with Porre's policy – that tradition was a thing of the past and that Guardia should drop those anachronistic ideals. So instead, they wanted her to be the puppet-queen, who would be nothing more than a symbolic guardian of tradition, under the control of her advisors.
But what about her? Her as a person? Didn't it mean anything to them what she wanted? Didn't father... care about her...?
Her perturbed thoughts were interrupted by a sudden buzz and a flash of light. The rectangular lamps on the walls lit up, and even though they were covered by dust and grime, the room was suddenly much less dim than before. A slight frown creased her forehead again. Wasn't she supposed to do something...?
"The door!" Jumping up a foot in the air, she recalled her door-duty with full clarity and quickly moved to press the button next to them. The door jerked slightly open with a hiss, and she hurriedly pushed the heavy slab of metal fully open. After a moment of consideration, she grabbed another chair and set it against the door frame, just in case.
Her duty over and a sense of fulfillment firmly in her mind, she returned to her own chair. Now she just had to wait for the others to come back and they could continue on their journey. But as the thought of the journey and its purpose crossed her mind, her brow wrinkled again. They couldn't let Lavos do that to the world! There had to be a way to stop him before it was too late! But... how?
Biting slightly on one of her nails, she spent the time before her companions returned on intensive thinking. There was a vague memory at the back of her head, one telling her that she had heard the name Lavos before, but just couldn't recall it for the life of her. It was a very faint feeling of having forgotten something, something somehow related to her personal history teacher and watching a bird on the windowsill behind her window...
But the memory wouldn't come back no matter how hard she tried to will it so, and she was on the verge of giving up anyway when the others returned.
Yet what she saw when they entered the dome was the last thing she was expecting. Crono and Lucca were dragging a very roughed up looking Robo behind them, while both looking very roughed up themselves.
"What happened!" Marle hurried to ask at one while they dragged Robo to the center of the room.
Crono straightened up, wiping away some sweat mixed with blood from his forehead. "We ran into Robo's buddies. I mean, robots just like him but with a very different attitude towards humans. They called him a defect who has forgotten his true objective of 'eliminating all intruders' and then beat him up."
"Of course," he added, collapsing into the chair Marle had been sitting on before, "once they were done with him, we were next on the menu. And let me tell you, you don't want to fight a gang of human-hungry robots, ever."
Marle's eyes widened as she took in the numerous bruises and cuts on her companions. They had come out victorious, but it was clearly a victory with a painful price tag on it.
"Can you repair him, Lucca?" Crono asked, reaching into his pocket for the tonic Lucca had given him earlier. Marle quickly offered to help him apply it – who said she couldn't enjoy it...? – while Lucca frowned as she was checking the damage Robo had sustained.
"He is in bad shape... but maybe," she replied finally, the screwdriver already in her hand. "Good thing I took out those parts from the other robots." She had been collecting various interesting parts during their entire stay here in the future, but after Robo had been trashed, she nearly dismantled one of his fallen 'brothers', taking as many parts as she could carry.
This repair was much more complex than the first one. Robo not only had many indents in his casing – she couldn't do anything about that at the moment – but also many of his multiple AI centers had been damaged. Luckily, the memory bank survived, meaning that he would retain his memories and wouldn't have to start from the scratch.
She worked long after Crono's wounds had been tended to, and long after her two companions had fallen asleep. Even long after the generator stopped working and the light in the room returned to the state of being rather shadowy. Fortunately, she managed to repair Robo's power supply and the main AI units before the sunset, so now she could turn him on and use the light of his artificial eyes to repair the rest.
As soon as she switched him on, Robo expressed his foremost worry.
"I'm a defect..."
Lucca sighed to herself. That was what seemed to bother him the most in their encounter with his metallic brothers. That, and learning that his purpose was to kill humans, even if only intruders. She hoped he wouldn't decide to follow that objective. But...
"That's not true," she told him firmly, pausing in her work to look into his bluish, round eyes. "A toaster can be a defect, but not a sentient being. And you are a sentient being. So whatever path you may take, even if it's killing humans, you won't be a defect. Nobody is."
"Whatever path I may take...?" Robo questioned after processing her reply.
"You know," she gestured vaguely with the screwdriver, "what you decide to do in the future. After all, it's up to you what you decide to do."
Robo remained silent for a moment. "No one has ever told me so before..."
Yea, she figured, Lucca thought, frowning slightly. It was clear to her that the engineers of this future world perceived their intelligent creations as machines, free source of labor. But in her opinion the line between automatic machines and sentient beings was very clear, and if you decided to create a sentient being, you had to take responsibility for it. Much like with having children.
"What is your path, Lucca?" Robo interrupted her thoughts.
Lucca laughed lightly. "Right now it's preventing the cataclysm that destroyed this world."
"You... are trying to save our world?"
"I don't know how far we'll get, but that's the plan." Robo didn't reply, perhaps processing the information in detail and she returned to her work.
It took her two more hours to repair the basics of his automotive functions. It was a fixer-upper repair, but it should hold out even longer than Robo needed to complete the repairs himself, as she inferred he was programmed to.
Getting up, she moved to wake up the other two. The door was open and Robo was repaired, so there was no need for them to stay in this inhospitable world any longer.
"Whaaa...?" Marle questioned sleepily, rubbing her eyes.
"I finished," Lucca replied simply and moved to shake Crono awake. As always, it took him a while to re-grasp where – and most importantly who – he was, but he finally managed to reconnect the loose links in his mind and struggled to his feet.
"Good morning," Robo greeted them with a bow.
"Robo!" Marle exclaimed in surprise, "You're all right! Lucca, you are amazing!"
Lucca laughed in reply. "I hope I'll never have to do that again..."
"Lucca," Robo turned to her suddenly, "I have made up my mind. I want to go with you..."
Marle blinked in surprise, not having witnessed their conversation. "Pardon?"
"There is nothing left for me here. Together, maybe we can give this planet of ours a chance."
Lucca pushed her glasses up, experiencing an odd feeling of pride. She knew he wouldn't decide to kill humans! "That's a great plan. So let's go! The Gate is just up ahead!"
Pulling a still very groggy and reluctant Crono behind them, they entered deeper into the dome and quickly found the Gate. Without further delay, Lucca pulled out the Gate Key and the newly formed party of four entered the blue whirl, all hopeful for the future. Except Crono, who still wasn't entirely sure why on earth he was entering a blue hole he was sure he had never seen before instead of being in his bed.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
I hereby cast Review spell on all of you. ...It works.