Yay! Thirty reviews for "The End?"! Now, just as I promised, I am making a sequel. If you haven't read "The End?" you should read it first. I think the last three chapters of it are my favorite. Anyway, thanks so, so much!

I think, due to a few... disagreements... I'm changing the names of two characters. "Marlee" will return to "Marle" and "Chrono" will return to "Crono".

Well, here you have it! The first installment of "Violence is Golden". Enjoy!

Chapter One: Cows Go "Moo"

It was early morning. Crono awoke, not to the incredibly harsh sunlight pouring through his window, but from a familiar, yet annoying, sound.

"Mreow?"

Groaning, Crono sat up. The unfamiliar surroundings confused him for a brief moment before he remembered what happened and why he was there in the first place.

"Damn you, Mr. Tinkles..."

The yellow cat purred and rubbed against Crono affectionately.

"Oh no, you don't," Crono snapped, shoving the cat off him. "I'm mad at you. Traitor."

Mr. Tinkles cocked his head and meowed loudly. Scowling, Crono tried to climb out of bed - before a shooting pain jerked him to life.

"Sweet mother of Spekkio!" he moaned. "Lucca, I swear, one of these days... You'll get what's coming to you..."

If you remember the ending of the prequel, you'll remember that Crono had been staring at Marle - presumably with not-so-decent thoughts running through his mind. Well, it didn't take Lucca the Great very long to spot his expression, and she opened her Great Mouth and blabbered to Marle that Crono liked her bottom.

Needless to say, Marle was not as amused. Crono was certainly not walking upright after she was finished beating the snot out of him.

With that incident of the previous day still fresh in his mind, Crono managed (after much trial) to clamber out of bed. His cat, whom he had once loved so dearly, trotted after him innocently.

Upon reaching the dining area, Crono saw a groggy (and clearly upset) Marle poking her breakfast with a dubious expression on her face. Lucca was nowhere in sight (much to Crono's relief - he was certain that murder wasn't taken lightly in the Middle Ages).

"Morning," he grunted, pulling a bowl and a pot of some unidentifiable substance in a pot toward him.

Marle ignored him, and continued prodding her breakfast.

"Oh, come on," Crono said with a slight grin. "You're not mad at me still, are you?"

No response.

"It's that male hormone thing," Crono went on. "You see, guys are automatically attracted to butts. Unless it belongs to a really ugly person. But that's not the point. See, it's actually a compliment-"

His sentence was cut short when a blob of Marle's breakfast hit him straight in the face.

Lucca walked in just then, and brightened immediately when she saw Crono's face dripping with the stuff. "Wow!" she laughed. "Maybe I'll like this place after all!"

"YOU shut up," Crono snapped, rubbing the food out of his eyes.

A shadow of a grin flitted across Marle's face as she stood up. "I'm going to find some edible food in this castle," she declared, leaving.

Lucca plopped down in Marle's newly vacated seat. "She likes you."

Crono rolled his eyes. "What was your first clue, the catapulted gruel or the silent treatment?"

"Gruel?" Lucca pondered. "Is that what this is?"

Crono took a big bite of it. "Tastes better than that fungus pie I found at your house. Hey, you think I could have sold the fungus? Then again, I might have gotten caught... The guards might have arrested me for illegal substances. Maybe it's best I got rid of the evidence."

Lucca's response was a simple sweep of the hand - straight into the back of Crono's head.

Crono choked on his gruel. Lucca merely smiled. "My hand slipped."

Crono kicked her. "My foot slipped, too," he managed to choke out, bits of gruel flying out of his mouth and landing on Lucca's shirt.

Lucca winced slightly, then grinned again. "You're such a gentleman. Well, when you're finished eating, Frog wants to see us at Zenan Bridge for some reason he wouldn't discuss."

"I hope it's to have you assassinated," Crono muttered under his breath.

Lucca smacked him again, and left.

"Well, that wasn't very nice!" Crono called after her. "You left your gruel uneaten!"

-XXX-

"Thou art here to enlist in the army of the honorable Queen Leene and King Guardia," Frog began.

Crono raised his hand.

Frog sighed. "What is it now?"

"Exactly who are we supposed to be warring with?" Crono asked loudly. "Isn't this a time of peace?"

"Yes," Frog said.

"Then why do we need an army?" Crono inquired.

Frog rolled his eyes. "Thine ignorance is appalling."

"I've been telling him that for years," Lucca piped up. "He doesn't seem to get it."

"Maybe it's because your exact words were 'your benightedness is excessively harrowing'," Crono snapped. "Not all of us happen to be word wizards. Plus, is benightedness even a word? You made that word up, didn't you?"

Marle hit him in the back of the head.

"Thank you," Lucca said.

"As I was saying," Frog interrupted, "the army I am assembling is for the sole purpose of protection - in the instance this castle is attacked."

"But the chances of this castle being attacked are slim, right?" Crono said loudly.

"Oh, shut up," Lucca snarled. "Your benightedness is excessively harrowing."

"See?"

"In response to thine inquiry, Crono, yes, the chances are most minute. But one must not underestimate his enemies," Frog said.

After this conversation continued to go downhill at an impeccably quick rate, Frog gave up and sent the trio back to the castle, insisting that they needed to practice humility before they could succeed at anything in life.

"But we killed Lavos!" Crono hollered as Lucca and Marle dragged him by his arms. "Doesn't that count for anything?"

"Apparently not," Marle said through gritted teeth.

They stopped by the market to buy some food, and passed by a farm right near the Guardia forest.

"Never saw that farm before," Crono commented. "And that's one big dog!"

Lucca rolled her eyes again. "That's a cow, you idiot."

"You sure?" Crono asked, squinting at it. "I thought cows were black and white, not brown."

"Just because they always show black and white cows in picture books doesn't mean they're all black and white," Lucca said through gritted teeth. "And do you even know what sound cows make?"

"Cows go 'moo'," Crono said, apparently pleased with himself. And to agree with Crono's remark, the cow mooed.

"Yeah. Dogs bark. That animal just mooed. Therefore, it must be..." Lucca paused.

Crono thought for a few seconds. "A... cow?"

"THERE you go," Lucca said. "And that's it - this conversation is officially over."

-XXX-

Leene waited impatiently. Frog had estimated that the trio would be back very shortly, and yet, they weren't. She had a dangerous mission for them, and it needed to be done right away, or the kingdom's alliance with Porre would be terminated. Which would, undoubtedly, suck.

So you can imagine her eagerness to shove them back out the front door when they finally arrived around mid-afternoon.

"Hello, how are things? Great, really great. Listen, can you go to Porre and give this extremely important piece of paper to the extremely important mayor? It would be absolutely marvelous if you could do that for me. Thank you!"

Beaming, she thrust a piece of paper into Crono's chest and shut the door to the throne room in their faces.

Crono stared at the ground for a moment, then turned to Marle. "Am I the only one that has no idea what she just told us to do?"

Marle shook her head. "All I heard was 'important' and 'Porre', so I'm assuming we're some kind of messengers?"

Lucca nodded. "That's what I gathered from it. Well, I guess we should hurry, then. There's an opera later tonight, and I don't want to miss it."

Crono snickered. "You like operas? Lucca, how come I never knew that about you?"

"You never asked," Lucca said coolly. "Just like I never asked what your cat's name was."

"We can leave that animal out of this," Crono scowled.

Marle sighed as Lucca and Crono continued their bickering all the way to Porre.

Guess I'll have to learn to live with them... and maybe I can... get Crono to like, like me? I like him, but does he like me? Was he serious when he said guys stare at butts on impulse? Or does he LIKE me? Grah... Men are so hard to understand...

-XXX-

They reached Porre about a day later, having spent the night at an inn. As soon as they saw the town, they realized why Leene had wanted them to get there so quickly.

"Holy chocolate fudgemuffins!" Crono exclaimed upon sight of the small town.

Oh, yes. They did.

---

Well, there you go! First chapter! I hope you enjoyed, and PLEASE leave a review! I would be extremely grateful!

-Ladyvella42