Chapter 29 - The Circle Of Life

While Dr. Crantham had already received the results from the nanotech virus, the infection hadn't yet taken place. Admittedly the time-bubble was supposed to stop time completely inside the Hand of Kronos space station, time did indeed flow, albeit greatly slowed down. By creating the virus, it was already destined that it would be released and thus, Doctor Crantham had already received the results. Hence the meeting that was taking place at this very moment...

"I believe you have news for me Doctor Crantham?" he asked, clasping his hands together tightly atop the desk.

"Indeed I have sir. I believe I have discovered what happened to Prometheus. I've a small video clip here showing footage from the Command Centre in Tintagel Dome at the time Lavos rose through the planet's crust. With your permission, I'd like to show it to you."

Receiving only a nod in response, Dr. Crantham drew a small circular disc from his pocket and slid it into the console on Lazarus' desk. An image flickered on the screen before the tracking kicked in, settling it. On screen could be seen two men running into a room, talking to a man stood by the central console. Beside him stood a robot... Prometheus. As the two men ran away, both the one who seemed to be their leader and Prometheus stayed there. Chunks of the ceiling came crashing down until the picture suddenly turned to pure static.

Ejecting the disc, Crantham pocketed it. "It's seems fairly self-evident to me that Prometheus was destroyed in the collapse of Tintagel Dome. I assume he was there due to the change in the time-line. With that in mind, I don't believe we have anything to worry about from him so we can carry on with our plans."

"So it seems Doctor. You've done well. Dismissed..."


They had searched and failed. There had been no sign of Lavos except a small gate where there had been none before. Naturally, they took the gate and found themselves in the arctic wastes of the Earthbound Ones in 12,000BC and they found something else. A putrid, green carcass - its blood frozen on the floor. A simple cave became Ozzie's final resting place, from where he would never leave.

After further exploration of their new locale, they found the Skyways of Zeal, the mystical circles of power that served as the transport between the two castes, from the frozen hell to the glorious heaven that was the Kingdom of Zeal. And there they found her, the one fated to be merged with the primordial terror of the planet, the innocent young girl who feared for her mothers' sanity as Lavos slowly took control over her power-hungry mind. And there they ignored her, leaving her to her gruesome fate. And there the prophecy came, but not as it had the countless number of times before. This time it was different. This time it was final. This time would be the last. No more would a prophecy be given at this juncture in time. No more would there be any hope for the future. No more. Time had been changed forever

"You will all die soon." With that, the young Janus Zeal continued on his journey down the stairs, his faithful purple cat, Alfador, following him at his heels.

Futility enveloped the trio as they stood on the stairway for they knew the truth of the words that the young boy had been spoken. They could feel death's touch at the base of their spines, the icy cold shiver that was slowly growing throughout their bodies. It was to end with their deaths, they knew that but still hoped they could make a difference before they did...

They had charged up Marle's pendant with the Mammon Machine and were about to enter the Queen's chambers when a voice rang out loud and clear:

"STOP!"

They whirled round and saw her. There she stood in the light, dressed in black as always. Destiny. Standing further back was a rather pensive-looking Spekkio.

"Destiny, what are you doing here?" asked Crono as he strode up to her.

"They're gone."

"Who's gone?"

"Marle and Lucca. They're gone, disappeared and I think I know where. I think... no, I know they're in the Hand of Kronos and if they're there, I don't think they're in good hands."

"We've got to go after them! We can't leave them in the hands of the Black Wind! God knows what they'd do to them..."

"No, we can't go after them yet. You're not strong enough to do this... however, I might be able to get them out. As for you three, you're going in for some heavy-duty training with Spekkio."

Aghast, Frog strode up to the two. "What about Mistress Schala and the Ocean Palace? Surely we canst not let Queen Zeal's plans go ahead?"

"It's irrelevant at the moment. The time-line is already permanently warped. It's beyond all hope of restoring it to what it once was. Now we must fight to get the best future we can. The time is coming soon; we can't stall it much longer. We either stop it now or we just condemn the world."

"So we just give up on everything else?" questioned a now furious Frog.

"No, we just do that afterwards. We try up and pick up the fragments that are left after the battle. We do not have the time to do anything else. Either you come with me now or we all die, it's as simple as that." Turning on her heel, Destiny strode out of the Zeal Palace, Spekkio following her.

As Frog and Crono watched Destiny stalk off, Ayla slinked up to the pair. "Desnee strong. Me like Desnee. Me follow Desnee."

"Ayla's right Glenn. We don't have a choice in this; we either trust her or we die. My mind is already set; I'm going with her. We can't be the hero all of the time. Sometimes we have to pick our battles and run away so we can fight another day. Do you think Cyrus would have wanted you to die in there and the world is destroyed or you back away for now and come back when you're stronger and win! Do you think Cyrus would have let his pride get in the way of doing the right thing?"

Frog's shoulders slumped, he knew Crono was right. Saying nothing, he brushed past Ayla and Crono and made his way outside, the others following him...


Something was wrong and he knew it. Her demeanour towards him seemed wrong, she was... watching him carefully. Why two of us for this? Why two for a one-person job? Warren Stark's mind was troubled as the two of them made their way to the Atria of Time. Standing close together in the light shining down on them, he braced himself as they started to float upwards. Something moving in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Whirling around, he saw Destiny set down in another pillar. Screaming out her name, Warren felt something sharp plunge deep into his back, lights flashing deep inside his head.

Destiny span around to see blood flow from Warren's open mouth as her roommate, Sascha Vicks, pulled a knife from his back. His hands stretched out to touch her as he floated up... and then they were gone. There was no sign anything had happened, Warren's blood having been sucked up through time as well as his corpse and his murderer. Her heart was torn, to go after Sascha and avenge her friends death or rescue Marle and Lucca... and she made her decision. Turning from the pillar, she strode to the hidden wall panel and flipped it open. Placing her hand against the scanner, she waited as she was identified and recognised, the door to her left sliding open. Walking through it, she quickly made her way to Warren's quarters. Opening the door, she saw his roommate, Gus, in there with one of the female agents.

"Get out," she said, her voice stone cold.

Snatching a blanket to cover himself, the man stood up. "What the hell do you think you're doing!"

As he reached out to her, she grabbed his hand, twisting his arm up behind his back.

"I said, get the fuck outta here NOW!"

Pushing him away from her, he stumbled into the wall, connecting with it hard, breaking his nose. The woman screamed as she saw the blood. The blanket disregarded, he span around and lunged at her. Palming off his fist, she quickly slammed her knee into his groin and then placed an elbow to his spine, knocking him to the floor.

"Last warning. Get the hell outta here Gus before you die."

Getting to his feet tenderly, he grabbed the blanket from the floor and stumbled out the door. "You're one crazy fucking bitch," he mumbled as he passed her.

Turning to the cowering woman, she just glared at her as she quickly ran out of the room. Destiny walked over to Warren's bed and lifted the mattress up. As she had suspected, there was some money there and some papers. She remembered stealing money from there when he'd been asleep after they'd... Lifting it up fully, she saw something at the far end of the bed. A video disc. Grabbing it, she fumbled the case open and slammed it into the player he had set up in the room. Sitting down on his bed, she watched his last recording.

The screen flickered and his face appeared as he sat down in front of the camera. "I made this recording for you Destiny in the event that something happens to me. I need to make this perfectly clear, I was a member of the Black Wind before you approached me on that day in the library, but as I saw that fear in your eyes, I realised something I hadn't seen before. I..." Warren trailed off, looking down at his hands as he picked at the skin around his fingernails. Looking back up at the camera, he continued, "I love you. It's as simple as that. I don't know why it took me that long to realise it. I know you don't feel the same for me and you never will. That's just not who you are. You're a free spirit, out to get what you want and you don't give a shit about anyone else..."

A laconic smile appeared on his face. "It sounds kinda odd me saying that when I'm completely, head-over-heels in love with you... Fucking hell, I gotta stop babbling on like this, there's more important things at stake. Firstly, the Black Wind have been cloning and breeding people. They've got access to technology that enables them to create people and they can alter memories. Now comes the bit you won't like... you're one of these people. You're a clone of sorts. Your DNA is that of one Queen Alyssa Zeal. Your memory of your early childhood in a special section of the base here was wiped. At the age of four, you were placed in Arris Dome in the year 2299AD. The other inhabitants of Arris Dome all had their memories changed, that you had always been there, that you were no-one new so their suspicions wouldn't be aroused. Then, in 2300AD, all of the inhabitants of Arris Dome were wiped out by the Black Wind except you. You were found by Crono and taken back to his time era and left with his family. When he disappeared in the incident that is going to happen soon, you were brought up as an only child. At the age of 14 you were taken by the Hand of Kronos and trained to be one of their Time Wardens before you were then sent on a mission to save the world.

"The important thing for you to realise here is that this has already happened. It's all been done before. I've recorded this message before. You've watched it before. Everyone has died before. We're trapped in a time-loop from which we can't escape... but there must be a way out of this! I refuse to believe we are doomed to die time and time again! You, and only you Destiny, can stop this from happening. Only you can break the cycle. Only you can save the entire planet... This entire place is one giant Mammon Machine, feeding off of another Lavos. The one in our planet was not the only one of it's kind. There are hundreds of them out there; they're an entire species. They found a dead one floating out in space and they copied its DNA, recreating its brain only. They're using the energy it gives off to power the time-bubble that surrounds this place but it's starting to reassert itself on the world. It's gaining more influence in its surroundings and it's only a matter of time before it breaks free. That in itself could be disastrous; another Lavos hell-bent on getting revenge on the people that imprisoned it for all these years.

"Now for the really scary bit, what's behind this whole thing. As far as I can tell, it's a being that calls itself Kronos, the God of Time. It's been weak and powerless for millennia until it found a person strong enough to host him. Whilst I don't know exactly who this person is, I know it's whoever is in charge of the Black Wind. I also know that Kronos hasn't been able to fully assert himself on this individual or we would already know about it. The Time Bubble in this station isn't absolute in blocking out time. It does pass in most of this facility, just a lot slower. However, in the inner sanctum, time is at an utter stop. I'm guessing this is due to the combination of the Time Bubble provided by the Lavos Brain and the power that Kronos is exerting upon that area. No time has passed there whatsoever. God knows how many times the people there have seen all of this happen before...

"I can only hope that this is indeed you watching this Destiny and not a Black Wind operative. Again, I can only hope that this helps you in someway. My heart is with you always Destiny and I pray that you can do what's needed. You can't allow this to happen again..." Kissing his finger, he pressed it against the camera lens. "I love you Destiny and I always will, whether I'm dead or alive... my spirit will be watching over you..." He reached out of shot and the screen turned to static. Destiny sat still on the bed, unmoving except for the single tear that slowly rolled down her face...