Prosecution & the Future
It was late when we arrived. The chancellor came running up to us with soldiers at his side, "Princess Nadia we thought you had disappeared! You know how much trouble you have caused us?" He then looked at me, "Scoundrel, thief! You should get the electric chair for this!"
Before I knew what happened I was in the courtroom. The lawyer, Pierre, was getting his papers ready. The chancellor looked at me with a smirk on his face. Then there was the sound of the judge's hammer.
"The case of Guardia Kingdom versus Crono is now in session, chancellor you may begin your report!"
I had never been so nervous in my life, the thoughts of marle and lucca were floating in my head but I couldn't get it together. The chancellor approached me and started to ask questions.
"Now Crono, is it not true that you ran off with the princess?" he asked.
"Well now I wouldn't say ran off, more so it was an accident that I had no control over…"
He was quick to cut me off, "Yes younger people are all the same! They show no signs of control!"
"Now wait a minute I didn't say tha…"
Again he cut me off, "Don't give me that young man! If you didn't run off with her then I don't know what is! How about ransoms…were you not tempted at all by her fortune?"
A blank stare sat on my face as if he was the biggest idiot in the world, "What the hell does that have to do with anything? She's back now isn't she?"
"Objection your honor," Pierre yelled, "This has no relevancy whatsoever to this case!"
"Crono do you have a response to this?" the judge asked.
"Yes your honor, her fortune had no appeal to me whatsoever."
The chancellor was getting very impatient so he brought in a guest witness. A younger girl a little older then me ran about the audience telling her side of the story.
"Yes that's right I saw it with my own eyes, when he knocked into her he didn't even help her up before getting her necklace, oh my gosh I'm so nervous! I know he was very tempted by that necklace and wanted to sell it for money! Is that it, can I go now!"
"Well chancellor it seems like we have reached a decision, even if he didn't kidnap her, the fact remains that he ran off with her." He sat back in his chair for a moment then announced, "Crono I hear by sentence you to three days of solitary confinement!" he then slammed his hammer dismissing the jury and audience.
Suddenly Marle burst into the room, "Now wait a dog gone minute here, don't I get a say in all this?"
And right behind her the king entered, "Nadia all I ask of you is to behave like a princess, you may as well forget about the rest of the event in town, we are leaving!"
With that they carried me away with marle collapsed on the floor.
As we headed across the castle I feared that I may never see any of my friends or family again. Then I began to think about how I was careless for making her go to the sideshow with me. With the chancellor at my side I know I wouldn't stand a chance. When we got to the check in, things changed.
"So the penalty is three days?" the executor asked.
"No it's an execution."
"Execution, I don't remember seeing anything about that in the paper work."
"What! You dare to question my authority?"
He stood up quickly and looked around for his guards, "Yes sorry sir, Guards!"
One of them came up behind me and knocked me out cold.
Three days had gone by, I couldn't bear to wait. My execution was the guillotine. The only hope I had been to either break free or die honestly, in which I wasn't. I knelt down in the corner to find a small bag with a few items in it.
"Some people came by and brought that for you, you dirty scum!" the guard yelled.
Finally the third day had passed.
The executioner came up to the cell, "Any last words?"
I hung my head low and mumbled no.
A few inmates hung their head out of their cell as I passed; some were snickering to others and a few tried breaking free, none of which did.
As the guard was about to let go of the handle, a shot came out of nowhere that sounded like a familiar noise that made me jump down and a girls voice came into the room.
"Crono what do you think of my new Zonker 38?"
We ran over the fallen guards and managed to escape until a robot dragon blocked our way from leaving the castle.
"Forward dragon tank crush those enemies!" the chancellor screamed.
The dragon squealed and charged at us, most of it's powers were stored in the wheels so we went for that first. Each time it took a blow the chancellor became more and more frustrated.
"Go for the body Crono!" lucca yelled.
I looked for a weak point in it and saw that there was some loose wiring and jumped on top of the body and slammed my sword into it shutting it off.
The part of the bridge that it laid on completely broke off leaving the chancellor and a few of his men hanging in the air while we ran over them and into the main hall way.
We just about made it halfway when a few soldiers spotted us and charged at us, "There they are, don't let them escape!"
They nearly overcame us when the queen entered.
"Halt, what is the meaning of this?" she asked.
Then the king entered with the chancellor was steaming.
"Princess Nadia, the royal throne comes before your personal wishes!" he yelled.
"What, just because I'm a princess doesn't make me a person?"
"You pick up weird ideas venturing around outside with your supposed friends!"
"It's not venturing father, its called common sense!"
"Princess Nadia!"
She threw off her dress, "I'm leaving, let's go crono!"
All the soldiers were still on their knees while the chancellor yelled at them, "Don't just stand there, after them!"
The king lowered his head in shame knowing he had been too hard on her.
Meanwhile we raced through the forest only to come to a dead end.
"Crono, what do we do?" marle cried.
"This is ridiculous crono, isn't there an easier way out?"
And right before us, a blue portal appeared.
"Quick don't let them into that thing!" the chancellor was right behind us so we had to make a quick move.
"Crono let's take a chance and go to wherever this takes us!"
So we decided to jump in leaving the chancellor's men and himself shocked.
When we got out, the surroundings weren't too convincing of the things to come. We went around until we got to a dome like building.
"Crono are you sure that this place is safe? We don't even know if there will be people around." Lucca spoke out.
We decided to check it out and headed inside through the twists and turns to find a bunch of people in ragged clothing standing around the room.
An older man stoop up right away and asked, "You three, where did you come from?"
"We came from the labs in the west." I stated
"What; so there are people who can beat up those freaky mutants…excuse me my name is Doan, I'm the descendant of the director of this information center. There's a computer and generator in the basement, but monsters also, it's a pity."
I knew what had to be done and started for the ladder that when downstairs.
"Wait a second, where are you going?" he asked.
"Why downstairs of course, got to try right?" marle said.
"It's just that no one that's gone down there has ever returned." He sighed.
"Well just keep your fingers crossed for now and we'll be back in no time!"
"Alright be careful now, and come back alive" he wished.
When we arrived down there were many robots and guards scanning the place, so we had to be sneaky. Just the right movement would trigger them causing them to attack.
We just about got to the next room when a huge machine dropped down from above knocking us to different sides of the room.
Its scanner announced, "Intruders, you will be eliminated!"
"Crono what's going on?" Marle cried.
"Come on you guys, we don't have a choice, let's get rid of this hunk of junk!"
Two mini droids appeared by its side. We got out our weapons are started to search around it to see where the weak spot was.
"Hey let's take out the androids before going for the big guy!" lucca suggested.
We determined that the droids attacked at the same time. Marle took a slight hit to the side and fell for a moment.
"Marle!" I cried.
She got back up slowly and healed herself partially. "Alright that doess it, let's show this piece of shit what we're made of!"
Lucca and I widened our eyes at her saying that but shrugged and charged at them hitting them simultaneously then charging the big robot only to be knocked away again.
"Crono we need a new strategy!"
I thought for a moment then realized that only true power and strength will beat it so I said let's surround it and work our way in slowly!
And so we did eventually getting right underneath it so it couldn't scan us and we managed to blow a hole in the bottom causing it to break down just as we got out of there.
When we got out we passed through a few more rooms with some guards then we got to a long maze at which point we spotted a frozen rat. We tried touching it but it didn't move.
"Come on crono, we'll check that out later." Lucca said.
I took another look at it and moved on. Finally we arrived at the room where the computer was held.
Lucca started tapping into it trying to find any information that would help us get back to Guardia. "Hmmm" she said, "It looks like the building we're looking for is east of here that would be the keeper dome I believe."
"Yeah, leave it up to lucca. I'm starting to think you could find anything on this computer. Look at all the buttons; I wonder what this one does." Marle asked curiously.
She pushed it and on the screen it shifted to a different time period that we weren't familiar with.
A creature by the name of Lavos appeared causing destruction to that world, which when we looked at was 1999 ad.
Lucca had come to the conclusion that we must be in the future.
"No it can't be, I don't believe this is the way the world ends!" marle screamed.
Lucca adjusted her glasses and thought for a moment then said, "Well if lavos exists in the future from us, would it be possible for us to go back in time and stop him from being created?"
Marle and I looked at each other then agreed that it had to be done to save the good of mankind. We held up our hands and yelled, "All for one and one for all!"
We headed back and this time the rat had moved to the back of the room towards us only we could see it moving slowly, "Quick let's get it before it runs!" marle yelled.
"No, we have to be careful and sneak up on it." Lucca said.
We inched slowly towards it but right away it ran and we had little time to catch up to it for once it went underneath the door we'd be unable to get it. And at the last moment I dived and grabbed its tail.
"Ok I give up just don't hurt me!" it squeaked. "I'll tell you the secret of this building, just don't tell anyone else!"
We nodded and it told us that we had to hold two buttons together and press a red one made specially to open the door.
"Don't mess up or you'll be sorry!" as I let go of it ran out of the room.
"Well what are we waiting for?"
We headed up the stairs to the other side of the basement and preceded the right code and got into where the refrigerator was.
"Pew, something wreaks!" Marle said holding her nose.
"The back up generators must've failed when the building shut down. Crono look over there!" she pointed at a man crumpled on the ground with something in his hand.
"Oh no way am I going to touch that!" lucca said.
I sucked it up and quickly snatched the item out of his hand, "It's only a seed you guys. Let's take it back upstairs to the others."
When we arrived, everyone got up and came towards us.
"Well what are you waiting for where's the food!" one asked.
"This is all we could find…is seeds." Marle said.
They looked it at as if it was hopeless of ever getting better.
"You guys have to hold on, and so do we. Besides you don't know how much longer the enertrons will hold out for!"
Doan stepped forward in behalf of all his people and said slowly, "Uh you guys are different, you're not the same as us."
"I think it's because we're healthy!" marle perked.
"Healthy? It's got a nice ring to it; we'll try growing the seeds. In the meantime if you're looking for a way out of here, take this bike key I hope it still works over in Lab 16. Take care now and stay…healthy."
And with that we were on our way over to the west side of the colony. As we passed through we caught sight of the bike and headed up towards it when a group of robots stood in our way. We held up our defense when another one motoring down towards us.
"Hey!" they all said, "It's the man!"
"Like thanks for the intro babe, you guys can call me Johnny though. If you think you're tough enough to race me across the wastelands let me know!"
I flipped the key in my hand and said, "I'll take you up on that, but realize I never lose a challenge."
He lowered his sunglasses and smirked.
I cranked up the engine and got to the starting point next to him, "Don't bother getting ahead, you'll just get lost!" he yelled.
We rolled our eyes and waited for the light to turn green and then we were off! He tried pulling ahead of us, but fortunately we had three energy boosts that would come in handy, crono used up the first one to pull ahead for a while. On and off our bikes would rub up against each other trying to push one of course. As we sped down the last stretch of speedway he was a good ten yards ahead of us when I realized that we had one turbo boost left so I flipped on the back motors and held down the button pushing us past him and beating him out by inches. It was hard though to make the bike slow down without crashing it.
"I can't believe I lost to some first timers like you. Catch me next time and we'll ride the wind babe!"
The dome we were looking for happened to be right down the road from us so we crossed the ruins carefully then headed inside. The security seemed lifeless here as a few robots stood at the front of the room but didn't move.
"Let's be quiet and slide along the walls." I whispered.
We did a good job up until marle accidentally tripped over a metal can though the robots didn't budge. I made a face at her and moved on. Then up above sitting in the middle of the room was a humanoid.
"Hmmm looks like its half robot, half human, I think I can fix it if I have the right time." Lucca said.
"Wait what! It might attack us!" marle said backing up.
"Robots aren't meant to attack humans, we program them that way."
"You…really pity them don't you lucca…"
"Shhh, let me work on him. For right now you guys see if you can find a portal."
Those next two hours seemed hopeless as there was a door behind the humanoid but it didn't budge. Fortunately no robots came by, though the place was pretty dead to begin with.
Finally lucca announced, "Alright that should do it, now let's give it some gas!" She flipped his switch in which it started busting all around us making all sorts of clicks and ticks.
"Good Morning I am the R-X69!"
"Hi, I'm marle, and this is crono, and lucca over there fixed you!" she said.
"Alright then Ms. Lucca." He said politely.
"Actually just Lucca will do."
"Impossible that would be rude of me not to address you as that."
"Look I hate formal titles don't you marle?"
"Hate 'em!" she yelled.
"Very well then…lucca."
Marle walked up to him and asked, "So what's your name?"
He did some programming and buzzed, "ah yes my serial number is IX-32!"
"Cool!" lucca replied.
"No that won't do at all, come on crono let's give him a better name."
I thought about it for a second then said, "How about just…Robo?"
"…Sounds good to me, process is now embedded in my data."
"So Robo, how come there aren't any people around here? It looks like something terrible happened lately."
"You're right, my scanners detect no other present life forms, I think something was responsible for all of this, do you know what?"
He thought hard about it and made some analyzing then said, "It appears to have been the work of Lavos in 1999ad. There's not a lot we can do around here, if it's ok with you I'd like to come with you. My time here serves no real purpose anymore."
We all looked at each other and figured that he was right seeing as though there's no one here that really needed help trying to rebuild the future.
Lucca remembered the door we mentioned and walked behind up to it.
"Hey robo do you know why this door is locked? We tried opening it but it doesn't want to move."
He examined it and said, "Ah yes the main power hasn't been turned on in a long time, there's a factory up north of here. If we can get by security I'll have enough time to unlock it. Someone will have to stay here to make sure it doesn't close."
We decided lucca would since she was the smart one.
The walk up north wasn't a pleasant one now that it was night out even though there was no difference between night and day. When we got inside the door slammed and locked behind us.
A little red and green blob of acid sprayed down from the ceiling and popped up in front of us. There were disgusting little creatures that were very devilish. The green ones were more vulnerable to main attacks where the red ones took more hits. After some time they disappeared and Robo tapped into the main computer opening up the gates to go down. Just then, a spider robot came up to us when Robo managed to smack it out. We ran through some chambers down below then headed further down until we got a room with a password in it.
"Leave this one up to me" Robo said, "I can assess the computer through my database but we have to be careful not to trip the alarm."
He carefully pressed in up, right, bottom, left. The door unlocked and opened showing a switch in the middle of the room.
"That's the main power switch, let's turn it on and get out of here!" he said.
Slowly I approached it and pushed it down. Apparently someone must've been watching because the alarms went off and Robo yelled we had to get out of there before the system came crashing down on us. So we bolted out and halfway we ran into creatures that looked just like Robo.
"These…these are my brothers! R-X65, R-X60, how have you been?"
One of them walked up to him and punched him across the room.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"You are a defect." One of them said. "They have tampered with you and now you must be done with."
And with that they started attacking him not letting us get in.
"Crono what should we do! He's getting pulverized!" she yelled.
They stopped for a moment letting him decide over again.
"Please stop…please…"
Though they didn't let up and continued charging him until he was no longer operating. One of them took him and pushed him up a ladder then came back down towards us.
"Robo, you guys won't get away with this!" marle screamed.
They outnumbered us six to two but we knew we had the advantage since they didn't know what we were capable of.
"Crono let's spread out so that they get confused!"
We did just that but two of them were able to keep track of us. Then they started charging at us one by one. Marle took most of the damage since she didn't have good defense.
"Crono this isn't working, we need a new plan."
I thought quickly then ran over behind them so that she had three and I had three each. I took a great chance and ran right in the middle of them waving my sword back and forth hoping to get a few hit points, and they never saw it coming. At the same time I yelled to marle to do the same thing, and by the time she got through them they were falling apart.
"Yeah that'll serve you for messing with crono!" she bragged.
We got a few items they had dropped and looked where they put Robo.
"Oh man they completely ditched him…looks like we'll be delaying our trip back home again. Let's get him back to lucca so she can get to work again." I sighed.
It was a long and treacherous haul back to the dome before we showed Lucca what had happened to him.
"Oh for gosh sake…those pieces of shit" she mumbled to herself. "Alright you guys let me get back to work again; apparently they have no concept of self dignity."
Instead of doing anything productive both marle and I slept next to each other on the floor while lucca was hard at work.
This time was a lot longer then when she first repaired him.
"Lucca, do you think you can fix me?" he asked half way through.
"Don't talk right now, I need to concentrate.
"What do you plan on doing after your fix me? Are going to change the future?"
"Well that's the plan right now…what about you Robo, what are you going to do?"
"Lucca…no one has ever asked me that before…"
A few hours later he was working well again. We had just wakened up and were feeling good as ever.
"Lucca, I thought about it and decided I want to come with you guys. There's nothing left for me here."
"Well you do realize that if you do come that it'll be a long journey." I said
"Well yes of course, but I'm sure I'll be of great assistance to you."
I smiled and patted him on the back.
"Alright you guys let's head out now that the main power is back on."
We headed towards the portal and jumped in though something different seem right, instead of closing right away it flickered on and off then finally closed down on us sending us to an unknown locations.
We got out and looked around.
"Um Crono…where exactly…are we?"