Chapter 14 - Something To Believe In
"So what do we do now?" asked Lucca as they left Crono's house. "We don't have a clue what we're supposed to do next."
"I suppose we've just gotta wait for Destiny to show up again... without her, we don't stand a chance."
"Hmph," was all the reply he got from Marle, still unsure of Destiny.
"So, we're just gonna sit around here, twiddling our thumbs whilst our world gets destroyed? Great... just great..."
"No need to wait at all."
Spinning around, the three saw Destiny standing there, impassive as ever.
"So what did you find out on your trip?" asked Crono, ignoring the stare from Marle.
"I think I know who killed the little girls family and that leaves a rather large question over who that girl really is..."
"What? You've gotta be kidding me! How could anyone that sweet and innocent be so evil?" Marle exclaimed.
"I didn't say she was evil, but since the people I believe killed the rest of her dome are a part of my organization, they know all about time. With that in mind and the fact she was deliberately left alive, I can't help but think there's something very, very wrong going to happen because of her."
Marle's voice came out as hard as stone, "So, what? Are we supposed to just condemn her because of some crackpot theory you have?"
"No, as you rightly pointed out, it's just a theory so we can't make any decisions on it but we can't discount it either."
"How can you be so cold and talking about her like that? You're heartless!" Marle cried out, slapping Destiny hard.
"That's enough Marle!" said Crono, his eyes flashing angrily. "She's done absolutely nothing wrong!"
"No, it's alright Crono. She is right, I am heartless," Destiny said, as cold as ice, slowly turning her head and looking him in the eyes. He shuddered as he saw the lack of life in the depths of her eyes.
What the hell happened to you to make you this way? he thought, as his heart reached out to her. He just wanted to take her in his arms and tell her the world was OK, she could live her life, but something was stopping him... Marle?
"Come, we have work to do... you need to defeat a man called Magus in 600AD."
"Magus? As in the leader of the Mystics in the war against us? The one that just disappeared?" asked Lucca.
"Disappeared?" Destiny's eyebrows rose up in surprise. "Oh no... what have those fools done now?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Marle.
"It's the same thing they did in 2300AD, they've altered time... killing all those people, taking Prometheus..."
"Who!"
"Prometheus was an android you found in Proto Do--" Destiny said before she got cut off.
"I mean who is doing all this?" shouted Marle.
"The Black Wind..." was the reply, Destiny somehow making it sound sibilant.
They all shuddered, remembering Gaspar's dying words to them.
"So what exactly has happened then?" asked Lucca, ever curious.
"Well, he was supposed to summon Lavos in 600AD--"
"So this Magus guy created Lavos?"
Shaking her head, Destiny explained, "No, he merely summoned it. Lavos has been on, or rather in, this planet for millions of years, slowly absorbing the life from the planet until it can break free, and you've seen the consequences for that yourself."
"So why was this Magus trying to summon Lavos? Didn't he know that it would destroy the world and what stopped him?"
"Let me say... he had his reasons for summoning Lavos... he may have been wrong in doing so, but he honestly believed it was for the best."
"You... pity him? Despite all the innocent people that died in that war?"
"You don't know the story so don't judge him. If you knew what I knew, you wouldn't be so harsh about him."
"I think you had better tell us Destiny," Crono said, speaking up for the first time since he reprimanded Marle.
"Well, it starts all the way back in 65,000,000BC... Lavos crashed into our planet and quickly burrowed deep underground where it lives to this very day, with virtually no-one knowing about it. Then in 12,000BC, the world was completely different. Everyone, well, I say everyone but that's not true... lots of people had magic back then and they lived in the Kingdom of Zeal. One of these people was a young boy, a prince even, and his name was Janus. He loved his older sister Schala a lot and she was one of the few people he talked to. He was very much a social pariah.
"Anyway, his mother, Queen Zeal had fallen under Lavos' power though no-one had realized it, except her children. She ordered her scientists to create something called the Mammon Machine. It was a huge power source that supposedly fed off of the energy coming forth from Lavos and provided power for everything they needed. It was to be put in the Undersea Palace, the crowning achievement of the entire kingdom, but when they activated it, something went terribly wrong. Lavos was awakened, and though he didn't have enough power to rise, he still caused havoc, opening gates in the atrium of the Undersea Palace. Four people were sent through time to different zones... Gaspar to the end of time, Belthasar to 2300AD, Melchior to 1000AD and Janus to 600AD.
"Janus was found by a mystic called Ozzie and when he saw Janus' magic, he let him join the upcoming rebellion. Janus was still very young and easily swayed by the evil ways of Ozzie and he became even more cold, but slightly twisted as well. From that day forth, Janus was no more, instead there was only Magus. One thing kept him going, his love for his sister, Schala. Blaming Lavos for taking her away from him, he sought to destroy it and used Ozzie and the mystics as a cover for him as he learnt the dark arts he would need to summon Lavos and destroy it in vengeance... that was why he was trying to summon Lavos in 600AD."
"I see... but why did he have to start that war? So many lives lost..."
"He knew that what he was going to do would save billions more lives, a few thousand really didn't matter to him. Maybe it was because he was twisted, but in the long run, it was for the best... or it would have been, but he wasn't strong enough anyway."
"So why didn't you change it then? Save all those lives?"
"The slightest change in time could have caused a major catastrophe... we couldn't afford to not do that, but the Black Wind has..."
"So what now? If Magus is gone, what are we supposed to do?"
"We go back to 600AD anyway, maybe Ozzie tried to do the spell. Magus led the mystics to believe that Lavos would help them win..."
"Well, if this Ozzie person tried to do the spell, wouldn't we all be living in a world like it is in 2300AD?"
"Not if what happened originally did so again. Someone interrupted Magus before he cast the spell... I believe you've already met him, his name is Glenn, but you know him as Frog."
"So why do we have to go back to 600AD?"
"Because the spell that Magus cast awoke Lavos but not completely... it created a gate which ended up taking you to 65,000,000BC to witness Lavos' arrival to the world and then to an era you hadn't been to before... It's important that you stay as close to the original time-line as possible. Time is elastic, it can take a certain amount of strain without breaking so if I fix what happened before and you stay close enough to the original occurrences, it should all return to normal but, very importantly, still with knowledge of the changes that happened so we can prevent them from happening again."
"And if we don't?"
"Then the future will be destroyed and everyone will die."
