Chapter 30 - Escape To Victory?
They had been in the cells for days now, neither able to truly believe what their eyes had seen in that room. Neither of them wanted to admit to themselves that their friend could possibly have been behind all of this. Throughout the lonely days they'd spent in the cell, neither of them had spoken a word, silence wielding complete control over their cell. Marle laid stretched out on the bottom bunk, staring up at the bunk above which Lucca was dangling her legs from as she sat on it. The only sound to be heard was the snarling electrical field across the small entranceway to the cell and occasionally a few snatches of conversation from down the hall.
Finally, the silence was broken: "Look, we can't just stay in here forever, we've got to get out of here somehow."
"But how? We've tried everything already Marle. It's useless, we're stuck in here until they decide what to do with us. There's no point trying to fight it."
"There must be something we can do!" Marle cried furiously as she sat up, whacking her head on the bunk above her.
As Lucca sniggered and Marle rubbed her head, someone stood in the doorway, blocking the light off into the small room.
"Wh... who is it? What do you want from us?" stammered Lucca.
"Getting you two idiots outta here might be a start. What the hell were you thinking coming here! Don't you trust me?"
"Not particularly Destiny, I mean, why would we? You never gave us a reason to trust you!" exclaimed Marle
"Don't give me that shit, it's coz' you thought I'd take Crono from you and you know it. Well I got news for ya, I'm not interested, you can have him, a fat lot of good it'll do you."
"Stop bickering you two! Why don't we just get the hell outta here?"
Merely shrugging it off, Destiny disappeared from view for a few seconds. With a flash, the electrical field disappeared. "Come on, you better get outta there quickly, who knows when they'll check up on you again." As Marle and Lucca scrambled out of the room, Destiny handed them their weapons. Feeling something slick on it, Lucca examined her handgun closely.
"What is this?" she asked, lifting a finger to her eye. "Blood? What the hell happened?"
"I'll just say they weren't particularly forth-coming in giving me your weapons back. Let's leave it at that." With that, Destiny spun around and walked through a near-by door. As the other two followed, they saw the dismembered bodies of two guards lying on the floor, soaking in their own blood. Stepping over the corpses, Destiny continued in her relentless march, drawing a viciously curved red sword from the scabbard at her hips. Hefting it a bit in her hand, she kicked open the next door as alarms started going off all around them, red lights on the walls flashing. The three continued moving down various corridors, slowly making their way back to the Atria of Time, knowing it was only a matter of time until they met some opposition.
Skidding out of a junction came two Black Wind operatives, both levelling guns on the oncoming party. Like a flash, both were dead, one with a bullet to the head, the second with a crossbow bolt through the throat. As blood sprayed over her, Destiny carried on walking, spinning the sword around in her hand. She stopped when she realised Lucca and Marle weren't following her. Walking back to where they stood she looked them both in the face.
"Get over it, they would have killed you both just like that. If they try and stop us, they're our enemy, and as such, their lives are forfeit. Got that?" As they nodded dumbly at her, Destiny turned back around and continued walking. From the next adjoining corridor leapt a sword-wielding man. Virtually ignoring him, Destiny flicked her blade outwards, slashing across his throat. As she continued walking, he dropped his sword and fell to his knees, clutching at his throat, gurgling as the hot blood pumped through his grasping fingers.
Reaching the entrance to the Atria of Time, Destiny flipped open the panel and slapped her palm to the plate but the door wouldn't open. The screen flashed up with a message: "Access restricted to this person." With a scream of rage, she put her fist through the screen, sparks flying as she cut her hand open. Shaking her head, she reached into the holdall she carried in her left hand. Pulling out what looked like a stick of putty, she smeared it across the doorframe. Jamming a timer into it, she set it to five seconds and armed it. Grabbing the holdall from the floor, she sprinted past Marle and Lucca, screaming at them to follow her. As they did, the putty ignited into a large flame, a huge, roaring, fireball chasing them down the corridor, light bulbs bursting in the extreme heat as the door flew in the opposite direction. Marle felt the hair in her ponytail singe as she ran away, quickly diving into an open doorway. When the fireball died out, the three gathered back in the corridor.
"Well, that was easy," said Marle brightly.
"Too damn easy, something's wrong here." Destiny shook her head, raising the sword in front of her. Slowly, she inched through the door but there was no-one in sight. "Come on, let's get outta here quickly. As the three of them stood in the pillar of black light, Destiny looked up. Slowly, it winked out. Looking around them, they saw all of the pillars of light disappearing until they had all gone, plunging the room into darkness. A faint glow came from the doorway and the trio stared at it as it slowly came towards them. Flickering, lights came on showing him standing before them.
"Crono?" asked Destiny as she stepped towards him. Reaching out, Lucca grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back to them.
"That's not the Crono we know..."
Looking at Lucca with bewilderment, Destiny turned to face him again. Slowly she realised he was very different; he exuded evilness from every pore in his body.
"It's a pleasure to meet you ladies again, and you as well Destiny. My, how you've grown since I last saw you."
Silence blossomed over the room. No-one moved and not a single sound was made. Swiftly, Marle aimed and fired her crossbow, the bolt flying towards him. Even quicker, he snatched it out of the air, his fist clenched tightly around the shaft.
"Do you know how many times I've caught that crossbow bolt? Do you know how many times I've been through this exact same moment? I sure as hell don't... I lost count after the first few hundred. Hell, I've even said these exact same words thousands of times!"
"What the hell are you going on about?" Lucca whispered hoarsely, her hands shaking in fear.
"It's all happening again Lucca," said Destiny, no emotion in her voice. Lucca and Marle looked at her in surprise. "We've done this all before. We're trapped inside a time-loop. Every single thing we've done, we've done possibly millions of times before and he's seen it all."
"I'd listen to her if I were you, she's a smart girl. It's a shame she's not going to live much longer." As he said that, he raised his right arm and a sword appeared from nowhere, dropping into it. Lunging forward, he drove the blade straight at Destiny. Snapping her blade up, she knocked his to the side, quickly swinging hers back in an effort to disembowel him. Leaping back, the blade's tip caught his shirt, tearing it open. Stepping forward, she swung the blade overhand, his sword quickly meeting hers, sparks flashing as the sound of metal upon metal rang out through the room. Lucca and Marle stood there speechless and unmoving as the swordfight played out in front of them. They didn't see the two men slip up behind them until two late. Knocked unconscious they were dragged off, not that Destiny noticed, she was fighting for her life. As their blades locked together again, Destiny swung her fist but Lazarus caught it in his, twisting it viciously, breaking her arm with an audible crack. Keeping hold of it, he smashed his forehead into her nose, a spray of blood hitting him in the face as her nose broke. Staggering back, she half-fell to the floor. Looking him in the face, she screamed and lunged at him. Her eyes flew open as she felt the cold steel penetrate her chest. She looked up at his leering face in horror, knowing that she had lost. Casually, he pushed her off of his blade, sending her tumbling to the floor. As the blood flowed freely from her wound, he stood over her, sword raised high above his head. The light flashed off the blade as it arced down to finish her off, plunging into her stomach, a fresh gout of blood pouring from her.
"That's still as fun as the last hundred times I did that," he said, stooping to pick up his cigarette where it fell. Taking one last pull on it, he threw it into a puddle of her blood and walked away. It hissed as it extinguished, all life gone from it...
