May as well write a new chapter before I get sucked into Christmas break. Which will, inevitably, happen. So. Oh, yes. the threat is from Weird Al. God, people. I feel sad that you've never heard of a little something called "Albuquerque."

Dislaimer: If you think I own it, you're ugly and stupid.

Chapter 5: Greetings, Death Machine

"Mreow?"

Lucca moaned in her sleep. "Get the hell away from me, Crono. And if you put honey on my face again, I'll murder you."

Mr. Tinkles nudged Lucca with his wet nose. "MREOW!"

Lucca jerked up. "What the- how the hell did you get into my room!"

Mr. Tinkles purred and rubbed her kneecap. "Mrrrrrrr..."

Sighing, Lucca clambered out of bed and staggered to the window for no apparent reason. Staring at the pink and gold sky was peaceful... peaceful... peace-

"I've got it."

-XXX-

Giggling giddily, Marle and Crono staggered through the streets of Truce Village, each holding the other for support. Curious villagers watched the two underage drunks as Crono slurred out hellos to random people while waving the empty wine bottle.

"Hhhhhiiii." Grinning widely, Crono waved at a flagpole. "You... you is 'kinny. Yessssss you's is." He laughed boisterously. "Wha's yous sercert?" he added in a not-so-quiet whisper.

The flagpole, naturally, didn't respond. Crono took this as a personal offense, and threw the bottle at it. "'ake dat, ashoss..."

Finally, the villagers became worried that this drunk might endanger them all, and called for the village guards, who arrived quickly and pulled out swords.

"Young man, put the basket down," the lead guard warned. "We don't want any trouble."

Crono squinted at a bush about three feet away from the man. "Huh? Who's you's alls?"

"Are you... are you drunk, sir?"

Marle giggled. "He's thinkses we's drunk, Carl."

Crono waved the basket around, whamming an innocent bystander in the crotch. "No, occifer... I's swears to drunk I'm not god. Sobuh as dunk munckahs, we's is."

The guard cringed, and looked at his officers for assistance. One officer shrugged, and held out some extremely heavy looking chains. The guard nodded, and slapped them onto the wrists of the drunk teens. "Alright, we're going to court. Ah, hell, did I say court? I meant... the dungeons."

"Dare's wahn ad dis 'dungon', raht?" Marle slurred, her hands waving around erratically.

The guard shook his head. "I have no idea what the hell you're trying to say."

-XXX-

"Your majesty, we have... found... two young drunkards in the village," the guard said, bowing. "Your requests?"

Queen Leene sighed. Her husband usually took care of these matters, since they were so utterly stupid. Of course, he happened to be gone that day. Stupid meetings. Stupid Mystics.

Lucca came down the stairs just to hear the queen request the names of the two teenage drunks.

"Crono. And Marle."

That would explain why the cat was in my room, Lucca thought, rolling her eyes. And it would also explain why neither of them was at breakfast. Not to mention the lack of screaming.

"Sir Crono and Lady Marle were drunk?" Leene asked, raising an eyebrow. "You sure?"

The guard's eyes widened. "Very much so. In fact, Sir Crono nearly took my head off with a shattered glass wine bottle. And Lady Marle ran into a wall and passed out. Both of them had been slurring their words, and neither could stand straight. Not to mention the fact that Sir Crono was carrying on a conversation with a tree on the way here."

"He's fairly unstable," Leene pointed out. "He named his cat 'Mr. Tinkles'. Whose name he copy wrote, I'll have you know."

"The tree ate Lady Marle, apparently."

"Hell, screw the dungeons," Leene said, widening her eyes. "Put him in a psychiatric center."

Lucca sighed. "Your majesty, I... er... would like to request that he come with me."

Leene looked at Lucca. "He's nuts! He was talking to a goddamn TREE!"

"I'm sure it's merely the side effects of the alcohol, ma'am. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened, I'll tell you."

"Listen to your heeeeeeaaaaart!" a voice was singing loudly from outside the throne room. "Before you tell him good-byyyyyyye!"

Leene gave Lucca an odd look. "He's not drunk now, I assure you."

"Yeah, well... Still. If you allow him to come with me, I'll get him off your hands as quickly as I can."

Leene gestured wildly with her left hand. "If you can get him to shut up, I'm all for it."

"Closing tiiiiiiiime! One last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer! Closing tiiiiiiime! You don't have to go home, but you CAN'T STAY HERE!"

"Heard and acknowledged, your majesty," Lucca said immediately.

-XXX-

Crono didn't like the look on Lucca's face. Nor did he like the fact that she literally dragged him by the scruff of the neck out of the throne room, and dragged him in like manner up four sets of stairs to her bedroom - God, her bedroom! - just to glare at him.

She set her jaw. "You. Are. So. Dead."

"But I didn't DO anything!" Crono protested, much like a child caught cutting his little sister's hair would.

Lucca exhaled sharply. "You snuck out in the middle of the night, taking Marle with you, got so drunk you started hallucinating, and nearly got yourself put away for the rest of your life. Yeah. You did something. Something stupid, Crono. Real stupid."

Crono looked around. "Where IS Marle?"

Lucca scowled. "In bed. She passed out. Oh, and speaking of Marle. Why was there a ring on her finger? An engagement ring, I'll add?"

Crono frowned, and struggled to remember. "Let's see... we... had a snack. Some sort of cake, I think. Then..." He squinted at a white sheet that was covering up a lump in the corner of the room. "I think I proposed."

Lucca's mouth fell open.

"Yeah, that's right, 'cause we made out like drunk teenagers after she said yes."

"That might be because... you were goddamn drunk teenagers!" Lucca's face was inches from Crono's at this point. "Is there anything ELSE you did? Illegal, perhaps?"

She'd meant it as sarcasm. Really. But Crono missed the sarcasm and plowed on ahead.

"Well, there was that dead body floating in the pond. We thought it was dead, anyway. So I poked it with my sword, and it moved. It looked funny, though, so I poked it again, and accidently impaled it. So we walked down the bridge and saw some illegal gambling going on, so I beat them over the head with a yam I stole from a market. And then there was the incident with the farmer and nun-"

"Alright, stop. Just... stop," Lucca said, shaking her head and wringing her hands. "I do not EVER want to hear that again."

Crono pointed at the lump in the corner. "What's that?"

Lucca glowered at him for a few seconds longer for changing the subject. "A robot."

Crono bit his lip. "You're building a robot out of faulty middle-aged technology? You DO have a death wish."

"It's to help us get back to our own time," Lucca snapped. "Right now, I'm for anything to get us home. So you'll just have to deal with it." Sighing, she pulled the sheet off the robot. It was humanoid, rather slim and rusty, apparently black in color, and about six feet tall. Wires and an unidentifiable mess of random parts were sticking out of it at random angles. "I was going to ask you to run to a hardware store and pick up a few things for me, but after today's little escapade in the market, I'm doubting your reliability."

"Oh, come on, now, Lucca," Crono argued. "I get drunk once, and you're jumping me with the 'you're not reliable' gunk."

"Once my hat," Lucca spat. "Remember the time you got so drunk you thought you could fly off the roof of the school? Probably not, since you woke up and thought you'd just been ice skating and broke your ankle."

"I hadn't been ice skating?"

"See?" Lucca threw her hands in the air. "See? This is exactly why you're not leaving the castle until I finish the robot. Now, just... stay here. Don't leave this room until I get back. And don't mess with anything," she added warningly, closing the door behind her.

Crono glanced at the robot. "So. What's your name?"

-XXX-

"You know, a-a..." Lucca held her hands about six inches apart. "It's about this size. It's a... a goddamn battery! How fucking hard could that be to find?"

The merchant shrank back.

Lucca had walked to the market in Truce village, looking for a battery. None of the seven merchants she had spoken with had even the faintest clue what a battery was. After miserably failing to explain the concept of a battery to the first four, the last three were forced to listen to her screaming at them. how very upset she was, too.

"Listen very carefully. 12V. 12AH. Is that such a hard concept? It's a battery. Electrical and stuff. You know? This big... you have no idea what I'm saying, do you?"

Slowly, the merchant shook his head.

Lucca heaved a sigh. "Great. Now I just have to find an alternate source of elect...ricit...y..." She smacked her forehead. "Crono! Of course! He has lightning magic!"

She sprinted back to the castle.

-XXX-

He knew Lucca would be pissed. Just knew it. All he'd done was touch the robot. Just touched it. And it came to life. And... oh, God, Lucca was going to be pissed, he just knew it. So when she burst into the room, he made sure she knew what had really happened.

"It magically sprang to life! Spekkio! He's cursed us, and sent us all a warning, to repent of our unholy sins!"

Almost. He'd left out a few details, though. You know, important details.

"SWEET JESUS!"

Lucca wasn't angry. She was mortified.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?"

The robot looked at her. "What the hell are you?"

Lucca's eyes widened. "What the hell are you?"

"I am a robot. Dur. Humans, such a pitifully ignorant species."

Lucca wheeled on Crono. "Do you ever think before you act?"

Crono shrugged. "Well, yeah. I think about monkeys sometimes."

Lucca ran her fingers through the ends of her hair. "Oh, Jesus... Oh... what am I going to do now?"

Marle peeked into the room. "Am I missing something? Why are you... screaming... oh."

The robot looked at her. "And you must be a third squishy pink carbon-based life form."

"Uh, sure. What are you?"

"Are all squishy pink carbon-based life forms this ignorant?" the robot wondered. "Perhaps it is just idiocy."

Lucca grabbed Marle's arm. "Come out in the hall with me for a minute..." She closed the door behind her, ignoring the "Holy sh- AAAAUGH!" and loud thuds coming from the room. "See what your fiance did? He's going to kill us!"

Marle shrugged. "Well, you did build the robot. Where's its power supply?"

Lucca threw her hands up. "I don't know! I was going to put it in the robot's head, but God knows where it actually ended up! It could be in the robot's goddamn ASS for all we know!"

"Well, only way to know is to ask it."

Marle pushed the door back open, and saw Crono lying unconscious on the floor. "Oh, dear."

"What happened?" Lucca demanded shrilly.

"If I had to venture a guess, I would say he passed out from an overdose of retardism," the robot said.

Lucca hit her head on the door. "Why? WHY?"

Marle smiled awkwardly. "So. Um... you need a name, I guess."

"NO IT DOESN'T!" Lucca yelled.

Marle bent down next to a sobbing Lucca. "If we're nice to it, maybe it'll refrain from killing us."

"For now," the robot added helpfully.

Sniffling, Lucca stood up. "Alright, then. Hey, robot. What's your name?"

The robot looked at her. "Name? I do not understand. What is a name?"

"You know, a name. It's something that gives a person his or her uniqueness. And stuff... you know... a name... stuff..." Lucca faltered. How the hell were you supposed to explain something like that to a violent robot?

"Clearly, your human brain is suffering some sort of malfunction," the robot said.

"Ugh. Whatever." Lucca threw up her hands and glared at it. "You don't GET a name, then. We'll just call you 'Hey Shithead.'"

The robot jerked its head up and down. "Sounds acceptable. I am Hey Shithead."

Lucca smacked her forehead.

"Uggghh..." Crono sat up. "What the hell happened... I feel like someone hit me over the head with a wrench..."

"I did," Hey Shithead said.

"Oh... okay..."

"Well, humans, since you have outstayed your usefulness... time for you to die."

Lightning flashed through the room, followed by ear-splitting thunder. Hey Shithead picked up a rope, a wrench, and a sword.

"I would love to play a game. It is called hide and seek. I shall count to twenty. One... Two..." Hey Shithead began to count.

Lucca, Marle, and Crono took off. Not before Crono blamed the whole thing on Lucca, though.

"Four... Five..."

To be continued...

Yay! Humor! Take that, other chapters! Okay, well, next chapter will be funny. And it'll have the odd Scary Movie theme to it. XD Ah... yes. Funny. All sorts of scary movies put together in one twisted parody. And by twisted, I'm serious. TWISTED. Well, g'night, y'all.