Sorry. That's all I have to say. Look, don't complain, at least I haven't gone three months without updating like SOME people I know. Here ya go, don't forget to read, review, all that jazz. I've got 19 reviews and over a hundred hits, so SOME PEOPLE are not reviewing. For God's sake, just do it. It hardly takes twenty seconds to click the "submit review" box, type out how retarded I am, and submit the review. Honestly, it wouldn't kill you. Anyway, I don't own any of the random things I swipe in this chapter, I don't own Chrono Trigger, and you can kiss my big toe if you think I do.
Chapter Six: Real Original
Crono, Marle, and Lucca sprinted through the castle as Hey Shithead calmly counted to twenty.
"I - haven't - mentioned - just - how - much - I - hate - you -Lucca-" Crono wheezed as they ran through the throne room.
"No, only... a few hundred times..." Lucca panted.
"What in the name of the king are you three doing?" Leene asked, standing up.
"Robot! Kill it us we run, Lucca EEK! Hey my name robot is killing Shithead us we! Ruuuun!" Crono screamed, flying out the front doors and into the thunderstorm ensuing outside.
"What the-"
"No time to talk, Leene!" Lucca called out, having finally caught her breath. "We've got a problem if he's running around the village screaming incoherent gibberish, so we really can't-"
"TWENTY! READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!"
"What was that?" Leene wondered.
"SHIT!" Lucca yelled. "Run, Marle!"
The two girls ran out after the swordsman and into the freezing rain, leaving a confused queen to encounter the homicidal robot.
"Good evening, fleshy pink meat bag," Hey Shithead said pleasantly.
"What the- what the hell are you?" Leene stammered, jumping back off the throne.
"I am a robot," Hey Shithead said after a brief pause. "I would assume your knowledge of my species is unknown to you?"
Leene merely mouthed "God, God, God" over again, her eyes wide and her face pale.
"I take this stunned silence as an affirmative," Hey Shithead responded. "My memory chip had processed the data thoroughly, and came upon the reasoning that you are even more primitive than the one called 'Lucca'. Might I politely ask where the other three fleshy meat bags went? Or might I be forced to exert large amounts of force upon the back of your 'skull'? I understand that a skull wound is often fatal in fleshy creatures."
"They-they-" Leene pointed with a shaky finger toward the door. "They left."
"Processing data... affirmative. I will spare your puny life for the time being."
Hey Shithead walked smoothly out the doors to the rain, leaving Leene to pass out.
"It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down, I had the radio on, I was drivin', trees flew by, me and Del were singin' little Runaway.
I was flyin'. Yeah. Runnin' down a dream," he sang in his monotonous voice as he walked into the forest. "Processing probability that the fleshy meat bags are hiding in the trees... processing data... twenty-three point eight-four-three percent. Negative, they would not be there, percentile must be approximately forty-two point three percent. Processing probability that the fleshy meat bags are hiding in the ominous cave on the opposite side of the forest... processing data... seventy-nine point six percent. Affirmative, they are hiding in the cave." He paused. "Artificial memory card states that the ominous cave in the dark forest while there is an abundance of precipitation and reverberating thunder is a highly cliched scene. Yet, it will be oddly satisfying."
With artificial cheeriness, he ripped a sign that said "Warninge, noe Trespassinge on thine Castle Guardia" out of the ground, and proceeded toward the cave.
Inside the cave, Marle, Lucca, and Crono were trying to figure out what to do.
"I implanted probability chips in him," Lucca said with frustration. "And I just know he'll wind up coming to this cave because of how goddamned cliched it is."
"And whose fault is that, Lucca dear?" Crono said nastily.
"I told you not to touch it!" Lucca all but yelled.
"Shh!"
"And she's climbing the stairway to heaven," Hey Shithead was droning as he walked even closer to the cave.
"Sweet Spekkio, we just cornered ourselves," Crono murmured with a grimace.
"We're going to have to fight our way out," Lucca said, pulling her Wondershot out.
"What, fight that thing?" Crono wailed. "It's more homicidal than Ayla!"
"Come out, come out wherever you are..." Hey Shithead said. "Time to come out and play, Charlie."
He approached the cave. "Heat sensors indicate three fleshy meat bags. Oh, Chaaaaaarliiiiieeee..."
"Aim for his head," Lucca was instructing. "I put the memory chips there. I think. Well, Crono's lightning might have rearranged some of the chips. Just aim for the head. And pray that your weapon goes through the entirely too durable titanium alloy that the robot is built from."
"Oh, yeah," Crono said sarcastically. "That's just a slight problem. Where'd you get titanium anyway?"
Lucca didn't have time to reply.
"Heeeere's Shithead!"
Crono ducked as the wooden sign narrowly missed his head, and the sign splintered into several large pieces against the wall of the cave, much to Hey Shithead's artificial delight.
"My artificial mind suggests that terminating you meat bags individually would be highly preferred and more enjoyable to terminating you primitive creatures all at once," Hey Shithead suggested. "Apparently, you creatures do not like termination."
"Well, my fleshy brain thinks that you are mean," Crono said.
"And my artificial mind suggests that you are a 'douchebag'."
"Let's not get nasty here," Crono pouted.
While the two had been conversing, Lucca and Marle had snuck behind the robot and were headed toward the entrance before the robot's sensors picked up on them.
"Meat bags, I advise against your pitiful attempts to escape."
"Listen," Lucca said in exasperation. "This is ridiculous. Why are you trying to kill us? I programmed you to help us get back to our time, not to chase us all in a deadly game of 'hide-and-seek'."
"You programmed me to terminate," the robot replied. "And terminate I must. I am, in essence, the Terminator."
"This has 'lawsuit' written all over it," Crono muttered.
"Dude, I programmed you to help us. I wouldn't have you terminate," Lucca said.
"Negative. I was programmed to destroy."
"Isn't there some sort of universal law all robots have to follow?" Crono demanded of Lucca.
"Well, yeah," Lucca replied. "Three of them, actually."
"Would 'thou shalt not harm humans' be one of them?"
Lucca snorted. "No. One: Do what you're programmed to do, no matter what it is. Two: Humans are always inferior. Three: Don't fuck up the first two laws."
Crono threw up his hands. "Why would humans create things that are required, by law, to be not inferior?"
"Translation: Why would fleshy pink meat bags program robots to be superior in every way," the robot said. "Your answer, puny human: Robots are, lightly put, cooler than humans."
"Why are we all standing in this dirty cave discussing this?" Marle demanded. "Shouldn't we be having a race through the castle, some sort of cage death match, anything better than this?"
"I vote for the cage death match," Crono announced before Lucca whacked him in the back of the head with her hand.
"The probability of your inevitable demise would be higher in the death match," Hey Shithead agreed. "The alternate suggestion of moving through the human breeding ground for government at rapid paces would be more enjoyable to my artificial emotions center, and your probability of survival is a rather high twenty-eight point six percent, as opposed to the point three-six-four percent probability of survival in the death match."
"Stop talking smart!" Crono wailed.
"I shall give you meat bags one millisecond multiplied by-"
"RUN!" Crono yelled, grabbing Marle's arm and sprinting out of the cave, with a frantic Lucca running right behind.
"My artificial emotions are truly enjoying this," Hey Shithead mused as he processed numbers of such a minute state that the human mind would implode if it even attempted to process them.
---
The trio had split up upon reaching the castle. Lucca's reasoning behind this was, in simpler terms:
"If we split up, the robot'll have to travel all over the castle to kill us, so if one of us dies, the other two can figure out how to stop it."
Crono, being the pessimist, decided to point out the flaw in the plan.
"What if he gets tired of walking all over the place and decides to blow the whole place up?"
Lucca really didn't have much of an answer, but she did mumble something that sounded suspiciously like "I knew I shouldn't have given the robot an automatic grenade launcher..."
Ignoring Crono's half-gurgled response to that, Lucca pointed to the knight's quarters. "There. Go down there."
She rushed off to the kitchens, and Marle headed to the top floor of the castle.
The front doors crashed open, and the shadow of Hey Shithead was outlined by the lightning in the background. You know, the typical cliched scene. The other one, at any rate.
"Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get married..."
Scanning around the perimeter, the robot immediately discovered where the three were: one in the knight's quarters, one in the kitchen, and one in the upper levels, in one of the guest bedrooms. "They make this too simple."
He headed off in the direction of the knight's quarters.
---
Crono cowered in the corner, behind a bed. The basement. The goddamn basement. The only thing that gave him any comfort was that Lucca would be dead within an hour.
Of course, so would he. A twenty-eight percent chance of survival was not a very high percentage.
"I feel pretty, oh so pretty. I feel pretty and witty and gaaaaaay..."
The robot was coming closer. It was so very close. Maybe it would take pity on Crono and just kill him quickly. But no, it's a robot. Robots have no real emotions. Well, Robo, yeah, but not any of Lucca's own handmade homicide machines.
"I seeeeeee you..."
The robot blasted the bed with a laser. "Boo."
Crono whimpered, threw his hands over his head, and started sobbing like a baby. "Pity me!"
"This is unfortunate," Hey Shithead said, staring at the whimpering swordsman. "I was rather hoping for you to attempt to destroy me. Ah, my probability chip suggests a ten percent increase in your survival rate provided I state where my central harddrive is located. Affirmative or negative?"
Crono stopped his whimpering long enough to say "I get to run away after that, right?"
"That would increase your survival rate by only one point four times ten to the negative thirty-first power in percentile, meat bag."
"That's better than zero," Crono said. "Right? I was never good at scientific notation."
"It is lower than the probability of yourself and Lucca becoming passionate lovers."
"Dear God, that IS low."
"Affirmative. I will allow you to run, however, you will only last a few seconds longer."
That few seconds was all Crono needed. "Sounds great. Give me five seconds to run like a ninny?"
"Agreed. Would you like to know where my hard drive is?"
"Yup."
Hey Shithead pointed at his left foot. "Now. One. Two..."
Crono lunged across the room, rushed out the door, and sprinted to Lucca's room.
He could hear Hey Shithead walking calmly down the hall, and knew that time was short. He grabbed the very same wrench with which Hey Shithead had bashed Crono over the head earlier. He then clambered under the bed, and held the wrench ready.
His plan was to wait until Hey Shithead approached the bed, then drive the wrench through the robot's left foot. It was ingenious, really, and he was quite proud of himself for his intelligent decision.
Hey Shithead approached the bed. "I am incapable of bending over, meat bag. It would be easier on yourself to just climb out before I set my weapons system on a thick, poisonous gas that will suffocate you."
Crono jerked his arm out and brought the wrench down as hard as he could on the robot's foot. The wrench went through cleanly, and electricity crackled. For a second, Crono really thought he'd destroyed the robot.
The robot glanced down. "Wrong foot, douchebag."
"Dammit."
Crono rolled out of the way as the robot shot a laser at him. He unsheathed his sword swiftly, and aimed a blow at the robot's head. The robot used its hand to block the blow, and the hand came off with sparks flying everywhere. Grabbing the nightstand next to the bed, Hey Shithead managed to nail Crono on the side of the head, sending Crono sprawling across the room. With the accuracy of a blind sniper, Crono chucked a book on periodicals at the robot, who merely watched it fly by five feet away.
"You're not very good at this, meat bag."
"Yeah, well..." Crono could feel blood spilling from his nose, and he couldn't see things very clearly. The robot grabbed a metal pipe of some sort off the heap in the corner, and slowly approached the swordsman.
"Preparing target for termination."
Where the hell were Marle and Lucca?
Meanwhile...
Lucca dug through the pantry in desperation. The robot seemed to be acting the opposite of how it should. She had a theory, and she hoped Crono and Marle would figure it out before the robot got them.
If the robot is acting oppositely, there could be a chance that the harddrive had been switched to the chips in the robot's feet when Crono touched it. She wasn't sure how the idiot could have managed it, but she intended to make sure it didn't become a deadly game of tag that this robot was trying to suck them into.
"Where the hell are you - ah. There you are."
She found what she was looking for, and hesitated. Where would Crono be...? She doubted he was in the knight's quarters anymore. Probably...
"MY LIVER!" someone screamed.
She ran off toward her room.
Back to Crono...
The robot had nailed him in the gut with the pipe, and it had hurt, hell yes, it had hurt. About the only other time he was in that much pain was when Lavos had been kicking their asses.
"There's gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight, I know," Hey Shithead sang monotonously as he swung again.
"There's gonna be a hell of alot more than a heartache tonight," Crono grunted, rolling away and gripping his sword tightly. "And what's with you and classic rock tod-"
The robot nailed the ground next to Crono's head.
"Pity, my accuracy system is malfunctioning," Hey Shithead mused. "By all accounts, you should be terminated by now."
Crono staggered up, leaning on his sword for support. "This is getting tedious."
"Agreed."
Crono lunged at the robot's left foot, missed, and ended up slashing Lucca's bedsheets. The robot used this advantage to strike Crono in the back with the pipe. Crono fell forward, caught himself by sticking his sword in the wall, and yanked his sword back out.
"Eat blade, suckah."
The robot attempted to fire a laser at Crono, but missed as Crono kicked off the wall, flew through the air, and brought the blade through the robot's left foot.
Lucca threw the door open just as the robot dropped to the ground. She was cradling a bottle of wine in her arms, and Marle was right behind her.
"You-" Lucca was in shock. Crono had defeated the robot? Crono? "You beat it?"
Crono wiped blood off his face. "Yeah. I ache. I need alcohol, and lots of it." He dragged himself over to Lucca, snagged the bottle, popped the cork, took a long draft of it, and walked into his room across the hall without another word, still carrying the wine.
Marle finally spoke. "Wow. He really trashed your room."
That was an understatement. The bed was nearly in tatters, there were books strewn everywhere, there were huge holes in the walls that were letting the freezing rain in, there were huge holes in the floor and ceiling, and the nightstand had been splintered. There really wasn't much of a room left to be trashed. So much for a twenty-eight percent chance of Crono dying, Marle thought, eying the room. Crono had sure put up one hell of a fight.
Lucca shook her head. "I was going to use this wine to temporarily disable Hey Shithead, then rip its foot off myself. He totally trashed my robot. Look, it's missing an arm, both its feet are totaled, and it's dented all over."
"Lucca, the thing tried to kill us," Marle said, frowning. "You're not sad that Crono trashed this thing, are you?"
Truthfully, yes. "No, not really. I was hoping to use it to get us back to our time. Guess I'll have to build something else. And keep it far, far away from Crono. And I think I'll have to stay in a different room tonight."
Marle nodded. "I'm going to bed. That was enough excitement for one day."
Lucca agreed. "Now let's get out of here."
The two headed off down the hall to go to bed, Lucca smirking. Crono was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning.
-To be continued-
Alright, so I lied last chapter. Not much "scary movie" material. Mainly just the "Hide and Seek" stuff. Although there were numerous references to classic rock songs. Brownie points go to the people who know who sang the songs. And review. Pretty please?