Elora landed the Wings of Time in front of her house. She dashed in to find the house quiet and empty. Prime pointed to a piece of paper prominently left on the table.
"Looks like my parents have gone to Porre for the day, visiting relatives no doubt. C'mon, Prime, we have the lab to ourselves," Elora explained reading the note.
Elora led her giant friend to the lab her father had built over the years. She opened the one tidy cabinet in the chaos of the rest of the room and retrieved an electronic chip.
"This little chip, I call it an illogic chip, will...well adjust your programming slightly, enabling you to understand absurdities and know contradictory things like Glenn the human becoming Alpha the frog without logic chip overloads," Elora explained lifting the chip up into the light.
"Indeed," Prime gently took the tiny thing from her, "...but...will I be...me...after you place it in me? Or will I become something else?"
"Prime...I don't think so. I designed it to augment you, not change or replace you, but I don't know for sure. I don't think it will hurt you but...I don't know exactly..." Elora looked at the chip sparkling in Prime's hand.
She looked up to her friend's face, the one she had always been able to read the subtlest of expressions on. It always surprised her that no one else seemed to be able to see that Prime had emotions, that Prime himself did not quite know that he did. In his mechanical, green eyes she could see the tiniest flicker of fear. She thought about the trust she was asking Prime to place in her abilities.
"...if you don't want it you don't have to..." she began.
Prime considered the tiny thing a moment longer.
"No, Elora, I trust your skills. I trust you. I'm just...apprehensive. You've helped me already grow beyond what I was designed to be. I don't want to reach for so much I lose what I already have," Prime admitted. In a much lower tone he continued, "Is it going to...hurt? Will I feel...different?"
"Prime, you know when Orion will do something completely illogical and we laugh about it?" Prime nodded. "You have asked me to explain it to you and I've tried. It's humorous sometimes when someone does or says something that is totally absurd. You know that Glenn and Alpha are the same being and yet you have to rewrite some of your programs in order to accept that fact. In effect you are erasing one aspect of Glenn in order to cope with the change in him. This chip should help you to understand humor, and make some of the concepts we come up against easier for you to deal with. I'd hate to see you fry your chips out trying to cope with something. You mean an awful lot to me," Elora explained.
"I know, Elora, and it is that, as well as your skill, that I trust in you," Prime stated calmly.
Elora heard a tiny click from her huge friend and the main access panel in his chest opened up.
"What should I do?" Prime asked simply.
"You've...done all you need to," Elora choked out as a fat tear rolled down her cheek.
"Why are you crying?" Prime asked as he gently wiped it away.
"I'm...happy that you trust me, and a little...frightened that you trust me so much," Elora admitted. "I know! I know! You don't understand! You will, you will, soon."
Elora peered into the chamber Prime's access panel had hidden. She traced the layout of the chips and found the empty slot she had remembered. She realized that the Mother Brain who had designed Prime had planned to upgrade him at some future time, or had at least left that option open. Prime had many slots all along his command chip pathways that were unused. Elora checked the connector and reassured herself that her memory had not let her down.
"This might tingle a little," she warned as she lined the chip up and pushed it firmly into the connector port.
Instantly Prime jerked as a jolt ran through him.
"Elora...what's hap-pen-ing...?" Prime spun completely about, shook violently for a minute and crashed to the floor on his back. His eyes dimmed, then went out.
"Prime!" Elora screamed as she rushed to his side. "What have I done to you?!"
She searched out his diagnostic readout screen and was relieved to see that it was still lit. She hadn't killed, deactivated, no, dammit, KILLED her friend.
"'Personality upgrade and overhaul in progress'?" she read. "No! No! 'Estimated time to completion 29 hours 7 minutes. Danger! Attempts to interrupt this process will cause memory erasure.'" Elora sank to her knees on the ground. "Prime, I'm sorry! 'Personality upgrade and overhaul'? What have I done? Have I destroyed all that made you...you?"
********
"Orion! What happened?" Alpha cried as he watched Orion descend the ladder painfully.
"Our resident mage is not as skilled as he would have us believe in using his magic, although the second attempt was...adequate," Orion explained as Magus followed him.
"I deserved that," Magus admitted silently to himself. "Needling him when he is hurt."
Alpha flicked an inscrutable glance from Magus' grim visage to Orion's pained expression.
"Come," Alpha said. As he reached for Orion's hands he noticed the blisters and grasped his shoulder instead. He seated Orion at the table and pulled up a chair for himself. He looked searchingly in his friend's face.
"Hands, face, where else?" Alpha asked simply.
"All over a little," Orion replied. "Our mage may not have control but he does have power!"
"Full Slurp then. Art thou ready?"
"Please, Alpha, these burns hurt!" Orion pleaded.
"One...two...three!" Alpha counted.
Orion closed his eyes as Alpha hit him square in the face with his tongue. Orion stiffened as the warmth of the healing battled the heat of his burns and won. He grinned as he opened his eyes and noticed the concerned look on his friend's face.
"I'm fine. Thank you."
"That is the single most disgusting...ugh!" Magus interjected.
"Feels a lot better than your burns!" Orion retorted.
"I hath a vegetable stew for us for supper," Alpha stated diverting the subject.
Magus found it surprising savory though he refused to admit that to Alpha. Orion tried to keep an easy, free-flowing conversation going but Magus was uncomfortable with small talk and Alpha seemed wrapped up in a private world.
"Orion, I regret that I am not better company for thee tonight. Mayhap we should simply retire for the night?" Alpha asked finally.
********
Melchior opened his door to the frantic knocking that had interrupted his 'nap'. He had actually been communicating with Gaspar. He barely recognized Elora. He had never seen her so distraught before.
"Come in! Child, what is it? What happened?" Melchior herded her to a seat before her legs collapsed under her.
"Guru...I've done..." Elora sniffled. "I've done a terrible thing. I've killed...I've killed Prime!" she wailed out.
"Elora. Elora!" Melchior shouted. "Calm down! Shh. Tell me what you did."
Elora got up suddenly and paced about the room. "I arrogantly decided I was going to help Prime. I designed a chip to fit a port I had seen when I repaired him..."
In between fits of tears Elora explained everything to the Guru of Life. He listened quietly to her explanation along with her self-recriminations.
"Elora," Melchior smiled suddenly. "There is so much about you that reminds me of...me. You like to tinker, to figure out how things work, how to make them work better. I've always been that way. My tools, as you know, were living beings, Masa and Mune. I had many fears when I enclosed them within the Red Knife of Dreamstone. What if I were wrong and the Mammon Machine would not work with the Dreamstone as I thought it would? What if it would kill them? You know the end of my story and how baseless my fears were."
He stood up, walked to Elora and grasped her shoulders. "What you do not know yet, little maker, is what happened to your friend. It does not surprise me that a being as complex as Prime could not integrate something as vast as illogic in just a moment or two. His shut down could be a fail-safe to enable his systems to deal with this concept without having to also deal with things like seeing and walking and talking at the same time. You could be right. Prime, as you know him, could be no more. But equally possible, I could be right and he will recover and revive, and your chip will function as you designed it to."
"Melchior..." Elora began.
"No. No more talk, no more blame. Go to your friend. Be there when he wakes up. Learn the truth, then come and talk with me," Melchior commanded.
"I...I will, Melchior. Thank you," Elora gasped as she dashed from the hut.
"I think I need to take her on as a student," Melchior mused. "Now what were Gaspar and I talking about?"
********
The next week found Orion and Magus fumbling toward cooperative magic. Orion took several more hits of Fire, Ice and even Shadow, and Magus developed a grudging respect for Orion as he took them in silence. Magus discovered he could provoke a bristling reaction, but Orion of himself would let mistakes go without comment.
More puzzling to Magus was the frog. Alpha remained quiet and subdued, speaking little and initiating nothing, healing Orion when required with a light, delicate touch and honest sympathy.
"Your turn, Magus," Orion announced as they were attacked by narcotoads. "I'll channel Lightning to your scythe, see how many you can hit!"
Orion incanted his mid-level Lightning spell and sent the energy arcing toward Magus. Despite his best intentions and his just now discovered tendency to trust Orion, Magus dodged...right into the path of the bolt.
"Dammit, Magus!" Orion shouted as the bolt dropped Magus to one knee and made a static halo of his hair. "You've got to trust me! I'm not gonna hurt you!"
Orion drew his sword and slashed a toad attempting to bite the disoriented Magus. Orion put himself between the rest of the toads and the stunned mage. Magus shook off the effect of the Lightning and recovered enough to wade in with his scythe.
Orion cleaned and sheathed his sword absently after the battle was over and assessed Magus with a concerned gaze.
"Your right arm took the brunt of that hit, didn't it?" At Magus' nod he continued. "We'd better get Alpha to heal you."
"Not that damned disgusting Slurp of his!" Magus exclaimed, unaware that Alpha was approaching from behind him. "Orion, that is the grossest...how can you stand it? There has to be a better way..."
"Magus, Ariel's been kidnapped, I hope by the same villains who have your sister or we may never find her...and Prime is with Elora. Alpha is the only healing we have among the three of us. I want to reserve his more conventional and powerful healing spells for the more serious injuries. You're gonna have to tolerate the Slurp," Orion explained.
"Just the thought of the frog's tongue touching me..." Magus shuddered.
Orion saw the hurt look that flashed across Alpha's face.
"I hath thee to thank that I have the skill at all, Magus. It is fitting thou recieveth the full benefit of it!" Alpha declared from behind Magus.
Magus whirled. Orion watched as Alpha worked his throat for a moment and stood amazed as abruptly Alpha's tongue shot out glistening wet and surprisingly fast to smack Magus in the center of the face spraying slime everywhere.
Magus recoiled in surprise and horror. "That burns! Oh..." he exclaimed as the intense heat of the healing passed.
"It's polite to thank someone who's just healed you," Orion noted laconically, winking to Alpha.
Magus gaped at him, healed and whole, but dripping with frog slime.
"Thank him? I'm not going...this is so odious!" Magus stalked off muttering.
"I didn't know you could do that," Orion noted quietly.
"I knew it not also. He maketh me so angry; all I desireth to do wast to help and he...he refuseth...Orion," Alpha raised vulnerable eyes to his friend. "The Healing Slurp is not disgusting to thee, is it?"
"Alpha, your Slurp as you've always used it on me and the others is...strange, but not disgusting. I'll take your healing tongue over injuries any day! What you just did to Magus...now, that was disgusting!" Orion laughed.
Alpha smiled slightly. "He upset'eth me so much!"
"Remind me to stay on your good side!" Orion directed between chortles.
"He doth look so humorous, striving for dignity with all that slime dripping from his hair!" Alpha laughingly admitted.
********
Elora lifted her head from her arms as a soft whirring sound woke her. She realized she had fallen asleep at her workbench and hissed as she straightened the kinks out of her back. She tried to figure out why she had stayed down here instead of going to her room, then she remembered Prime.
Elora glanced at the clock on the wall and realized that the 29 hours, 7 minutes were almost up. The soft hum coming from Prime's inert form was undoubtedly his main power generator coming on line.
She walked over to her friend and felt deep apprehension. She hoped with all her might that he would be okay, that he would still be Prime. She heard small clicks and hums, the almost musical machine song that Prime's systems played as each system restarted. Mentally she traced the path of energy flowing through his circuits and felt relief when the sound she expected to hear next followed on schedule. She realized the next system to activate would be his consciousness. She swallowed hard.
"Oh, Prime, please be all right! Please...don't let me have hurt you!" Elora pleaded in a whisper.
The final click Elora anticipated sounded, then unexpectedly sounded again. Abruptly Prime's photoelectric eyes flashed, his front panel closed, and he vaulted upright in a surprisingly fluid move.
He spun tightly on one heel for no reason that Elora could fathom and stopped, facing her. His huge hands closed about her shoulders and he picked her up roughly.
"Gwee-no-nwi-dip-da-da?" he asked her intently.
"What?" Elora's eyes filled with tears. "Prime, I can't understand you...and you're hurting me! Oh, I have destroyed you after all!"
The robot had her in an uncomfortable position, dangling her several feet above the floor and his grip on her shoulders was crushingly tight. Elora found that she didn't care if he killed her, so great was her guilt, and her tears spilled over blurring her vision. Through her tears Elora could have sworn that she saw Prime's eyes flash.
"E...lorrra," Prime rumbled. "Elora. Elora, what's wrong? Wait, I'm replaying my audio record from when I was inactive...I see. You thought that you had erased me while my systems were reintegrating my personality."
"Prime! Are you...still...you?" Elora cried out.
"Elora," Prime's voice held a soft modulation that was new. "I am perfectly all right and I am still me. I remember everything that we have accomplished and everything that had been important to me still is. Oh! I shouldn't be holding you this tightly!"
Prime placed Elora on her feet roughly and then held up a warning hand. Elora heard a few high pitched whines and chatters from inside him and then Prime lifted her up again much more gently.
"Obviously a few of my modified settings were reset to standard parameters. I have adjusted them back to the settings I prefer," Prime explained. "Now, why were you so worried?"
"Prime, when you crashed, when your systems went down, I thought I had made a terrible mistake, one that cost you your life. When you...reactivated and seemed so...strange and then brutal, I thought you were gone...dead..." Elora's face twisted up into tears again.
Prime drew her closer to him and cradled her gently on one massive metal shoulder.
"Elora, I am fine, better even than before," Prime told her softly. "You did not harm me, in fact, your chip is a marvelous invention! My system had to reset so that I could review my memories in light of the new information, the new viewpoint the chip enables me to see. I know that Glenn is Alpha, that a human being is changed in form, by magic into a bipedal frog. My logic chip now has no strain from this knowledge. It will take me some time to adjust to its effects, but I am so glad you invented it. So pleased that I decided to trust you and try it! You, my dear friend, are a genius!" Prime enthused.
"I'm just very lucky and so relieved that you are okay. Prime, when I thought I had...killed you, I went to see Melchior. He told me to come back and find out for certain what I had done to you. I'd like to see him and tell him I was wrong, that you are fine," Elora asked.
"By all means! Can't leave the guru thinking something that's not true," Prime agreed. "I'll come with you. Then we should meet up with the guys and make certain that Alpha and Orion haven't killed Magus. Or vice versa."
Melchior was unsurprised that Prime was okay. He indicated to Prime outside of Elora's hearing that after her frantic visit he had checked with Gaspar and knew that Prime would be all right. He also approved of the way Elora's chip was functioning, as he could see the modification it made in Prime's personality. Finally, he told them to let an old man get his rest and urged them on to the Middle Ages.
********
The next few days were a particular type of torture for Magus. His difficulty trusting Orion to miss him and hit only his scythe caused him to take several lightning bolts requiring healing. Each time, Alpha made sure it was a wet, sloppy mess and by contrast Slurped Orion with the lightest and driest of touches. Magus was ready to tear his blue locks out by the roots by the week's end.
"Oh! This is so...revolting!" Magus claimed as Alpha tagged him spreading slime all over Magus's face and hair. Magus charged off, pushing rudely past Elora on his way to the stream he used to clean up after Alpha Slurped him.
"Hi guys. What was that all about?" Elora asked, indicating Magus' retreating back with a casual gesture.
"Nothing. He just doesn't like Alpha's Slurp," Orion dead-panned.
"Why not?" Elora demanded. "Alpha's very gentle!"
"To you, yes. To me, yes. To Magus...not on your life! And Magus deserves it. Stick around and you'll see," Orion advised. "How did everything go?"
"Oh, you know how it is, my inventions always have unexpected quirks," Elora replied casually. "This time I had to scare myself that I had killed Prime, but it works. Prime likes it. You know, he confided in me that the logic chip overloads felt to him like he expects headaches feel to us. He's grateful that they're over."
Prime walked up to Elora with one hand behind his back. He brought it forward at the questioning look on Elora's face to reveal a bunch of wildflowers. Orion burst out laughing at the amazement on Elora's face.
"I just wanted to say thank you, Elora," Prime said solemnly as Elora took the flowers. He bowed slightly and then walked off.
"It should be interesting watching how he uses the illogic you've given him, Elora," Orion smiled.
"Uh, huh," Elora agreed absently. "You know, Orion, I'm glad to be with all of you again and all but I haven't slept well and I'm beat. I'm going to go grab a nap, okay?"
Prime sought out Magus next and found him by the side of a clear bubbling stream. Magus was trying to skip stones across to the other side. Prime watched him for a moment, reached down and selected a flat stone and skipped it to the other bank.
"Well done!" Magus cheered.
"Thank you. How has it been for you? I remember from our conversation at the End of Time; you were quite apprehensive," Prime asked.
"Orion and I have gotten on fairly well; he is really not so bad and nowhere near as pompous as I had assumed. Alpha...avoids me. Unless I need healing, he's nowhere to be found. Frankly, I wish he couldn't be found when I do need healing," Magus muttered.
"Strange. I would have thought that you and Alpha would make the first connections and his maturity would help Orion to accept you. It seems I was in error assessing his emotional response to you," Prime remarked.
"Now that you are here things might come together more easily. At least I will not be smacked with that revolting Slurp again!"
Prime spoke longer with Magus, judging how far Magus had progressed in combining his magic. He noticed the lengthening of the shadows and, consulting his internal chronometer, decided to find Alpha before full dark.
Alpha was in the woods, apart from everyone else. His position allowed him to see both Magus at the stream and Orion in the clearing outside of Alpha's pad.
"Well met, my friend. Thou appear'eth to be none the worse for wear from Elora's ministrations," Alpha greeted him.
Prime looked at his friend with the new sensitivity his illogic chip gave him. He noticed an uncharacteristic lack of precision to Alpha's movements. Alpha's bearing seemed more subdued than usual as well. Finally, Prime realized that Alpha had not looked him in the eye. He found that missing directness the most distressing aspect of his friend. He tentatively diagnosed Alpha's condition as melancholy.
"Alpha, what troubles you?" Prime asked simply.
Prime found with his new perceptions he could read the bittersweet smile on Alpha's frog-like features. Alpha shrugged.
"Naught. And all. I am again...this," Alpha gestured toward himself. "The life I had built here, my place as Cyril in Guardia's court, the friendships I hath here, art dust in the winds of Time. When this quest is o'er, thou and all the rest must return'eth to thine own times, leaving me thus, alone, to build again. 'Tis hard to take."
Alpha stalked toward a small tree wheeled and stalked back. Prime allowed himself the fanciful notion that he saw fire in his friend's eyes.
"And for what?" Alpha locked that burning gaze on Prime. "For the life of one who despiseth me. I am only what he himself wrought!"
Alpha wheeled again and stood with his back toward Prime. The robot could sense a strange charge in the clearing as the knight tried to control his feelings. He placed his hand gently on the tense shoulder before him.
"Alpha, none of us can claim to understand your pain. None of us knows how to help you. You have taken on a burden we cannot even imagine. What can we, can I, do to help you? What must you do to find peace?" Prime found himself asking.
Alpha turned and regarded the robot through inscrutable golden eyes. He took a deep breath and some of the tension eased from him.
"I know'eth not, Prime. I wonder if I know what peace is anymore. I thought I hath found it, as Cyril, found a place where I couldst aid my king and queen, but now..." Alpha shrugged, as much as his frog form allowed. "Think'eth not on it, my friend. Thou seem'eth different to me. Elora's chip work'eth as she hath wished?"
"Yes, after frightening the wits out of her first. She is at your home sleeping. For me, it was over quickly, but for her it was an ordeal," Prime admitted. "It's getting dark. I am returning to your house now. You might want to return, too."
Alpha watched as Prime walked off. He noticed that Prime moved more quietly and thought back to the extraordinary conversation he had just had with the robot. No one else had mentioned or seemed to notice his despair. Alpha acknowledged Elora's genius and wished that there was something she could do to help him regain his once again lost humanity.
"If wishes wert horses, frogs wouldst ride," he said softly to himself. He slowly returned to his house.
Alpha entered to find Orion, Prime and Magus holding a subdued conversation. Elora lay on his bed, her helmet and glasses on the bedside table. Alpha walked over and drew a blanket over her shoulders and looked searchingly into her sleeping face.
"She be a mechanical genius and mine affliction be magical in origin," Alpha thought to himself.
He walked over to the cooking fire and retrieved the stew pot. Silently he portioned it into bowls and served his friends. After he had finished his meal he cleaned up the pot and bowls and curled up in a blanket in a far corner of the room. Orion, Magus and Prime continued their conversation a while longer and then also prepared for sleep.
An hour or so passed. Alpha tossed fitfully on the blanket on the floor. He turned again fussing in his sleep. Magus noted his restlessness but held himself quiet, feigning sleep.
Finally, so swiftly and silently that Magus almost jumped himself in surprise, Alpha jumped up and then took an incredible leap past the ladder into his home, out into the night air.
Assuring himself that Orion, Elora and Prime slept on, Magus crept to the top of the ladder and eavesdropped on the agitated frog.
"Leene, dear Leene, how canst I fulfill my vow to Cyrus to guard thee when I am again...?" Alpha asked fiercely.
Magus heard Alpha pace about the small clearing and risked poking his head out the hole.
"I held such simple dreams...be Cyrus' squire, one day mayhap find one...one who...phah!" Alpha stooped and grabbed up a dead branch. He broke it into pieces as he slumped dejectedly to the ground.
"Now...I am again...this," his voice sunk to a hoarse whisper. "A mage's jest...a pathetic monster...how, how canst I be...this again?"
I refuse to feel guilty!" Magus thought furiously to himself, "Play with fire and get burned! No matter how hard he tries..." Magus suddenly realized that Alpha could not know he was listening and so could not be trying to make Magus feel anything.
Magus cast his memory back to that moment on the Denadoro Mountain. He had felt drunk with power. The dreaded Masamune he had sundered with a bolt of pure magic; his implacable foe, Cyrus, lay dead at his feet; and Cyrus' squire, Glenn, crouched before him in disbelieving, anguished amazement. He remembered Ozzie urging him on and then the rush of shaping his power to curse the pitiful squire into a frog.
He had fully expected Glenn to perish in that unfamiliar form on that dangerous mountain, and returned to plotting his conquest of Lavos. His surprise when Glenn, wielding the Masamune, had shown up in frog form to thwart his plan had been absolute.
He considered for a moment about how tragic Glenn's life must have been since that meeting on the mountain. A new feeling stole into his heart. He felt shame.
Alpha tossed the branch bits over his shoulder and stood up. He brushed himself off saying, "Peace? How can one such as I find'eth peace in this time or any other? But...I am a useless, crippled thing 'til I do..."
Magus silently scurried down to his makeshift bed an instant before Alpha descended the ladder. He closed his eyes and forced his breathing into the slow pattern of sleep, but listened intently as Alpha moved almost silently about the room.
Alpha listened to the quiet rhythms of his sleeping friends and wondered at the distance he felt from them. He realized the distance was not in his friends, it was in him. He looked over at Prime and saw that his eyes were dimmed; Prime was still in an energy-conserving sleep mode.
Alpha penned a quick note, left it on the central table, gathered his sword and gear and climbed the ladder. He looked up at the moon set and remembered the morning of his dual knighting and the respect and friendship shown by the King, Queen, Chancellor, Knight Captain and even the Cook. Shaking his head ruefully for the friendships that could now never be, he set out.
Magus watched as the frog looked carefully about the room, rose, wrote his note and left. One aspect of his childhood as raised by Ozzie was an incredibly developed sense of night vision. Constant exposure to the cruel tricks imps liked to play had fostered that. After Alpha had left, Magus glided to the table and read the letter.
He put his head back in thought for a moment, bared his teeth in irritation, scribbled a few sentences on Alpha's note, grabbed his gear and floated out next to the ladder. After his silent departure, the room lay in peace as everyone else slept on.
-------------
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