Headlong Descent to Enlightenment

I do not own Chrono Trigger...well, I own it, but not the franchise. That would be Squaresoft. I just happen to have a copy or two of the game. Mmmmm...Chrono Trigger.


Schala hadn't spoken to him in weeks.

He didn't go to her either. Both of them were busy, and she was unhappy with him. It hurt him to admit it, but it really was his fault.

Not that there was much spare time for anything anymore. The citizens of Zeal, living in their white and gold cities, were tense as well. The Ocean Palace was mere weeks from completion now. Ports were being set up slowly for moving the Mammon Machine to the new palace. It was too big to transport in one jump without killing someone.

Magus winced inside the safety of his cloak and hood.

The voice of Lavos had been becoming more potent as of late, and the Queen's mood, triumphant, also impatient, was hard to deal with. She had become subject to bouts of laughter as of late. Giddiness as well, which Dalton shared with her. But her moods were poison.

People of Zeal had begun to disappear of late. The Queen had appetites now, and just the earthbound were not enough to satiate her. Perhaps her giddiness was also related to the activities she had begun after he had sent the children away.

Magus wished dearly he could send Schala away to safety. Those brats were probably safer away from his era anyways. His mouth formed a slight grimace, imperceptible to those watching him, besides a slight altering in the way the light played across his skin.

"Prophet!" cackled the Queen, her attention drawn back to him, as it usually was. "Is there anything we can do to speed up the Ocean Palace?"

He held back a sigh, having had to answer her questions increasingly often over the years, and now she asked this question at least five times a day. "My Queen, I have hastened this process as much as possible," he explained, voice calm, "Any faster and it could invite error."

She sighed, and he could almost see a pout beginning to form on her face, before she thought of something else.

"Couldn't we just move the Mammon Machine to the palace now, and start initiating activation?" she asked, words strangely coherent compared to her expression and usual mental state. She usually was quite clever as long as it involved Lavos somehow.

"We could, but you would have to be away from it more often," was his answer. "The Ocean Palace is not yet ready for your continuous presence." And it wasn't. The fact it had gone as quickly as it had was amazing, being the size of a city. "The soonest it could be moved is a week from now."

"Then that is what we shall do," she crowed, seizing the opportunity to get the cursed machine a little closer to her deity.

"Do you wish it of me to make the arrangements?" he asked, knowing the answer already, but knowing that she loved to order people, him especially, about.

"Immediately!" she laughed, manically, excited over the small victory over time. He bowed, and exited her throne room, brooding.

Moving the Mammon Machine early would require more workers on the job. He was musing how it would be moved. Until it hit him. The light transporters, similar to the Skyway, but also requiring more energy. He didn't mind that. They would utilize Lavos, who seemed to have quite a bit to spare. After all, they had put up quite a few of those very same energy eating light passages into the new palace.

Magus was trying to calculate how much tweaking it would take to move the Mammon Machine as he headed to it's holding room. He turned a corner, and quite literally, Janus bumped into his legs. Magus halted, and watched as Janus bounced to his bottom, face going pale in embarrassment and anger, prideful, even if only five.

"Do you need assistance, princeling?" he asked the angry child, tauntingly, reaching down to pick him up by back of his shirt. He halted though, half bent over, as a gust of the black wind almost blew him over. His eyes widened, and he knew at once why it blew for Janus. He could feel loss in the boy's future.

Magus straightened stiffly, and Janus had gotten up on his own. To his closer inspection, the boy had bags under his eyes. The boy moved jerkily, as if something were trying to hold him down. He recognized the actions. His other self had some inkling that something bad was going to happen, and it would be cataclysmic.

Janus brushed past him, back straight, eyes angry.

"Wait," Magus asked, voice serious. The boy listened to him, surprisingly. His younger self looked at him, impatient, glaring. "Don't tell Schala." was all he told him. It was all that was needed.

Janus looked abashed that someone might have guessed something only he thought he knew.

Magus broke off eye-contact with an aloofness he didn't really feel, and whisked past Janus. He felt the boy's eyes burning into his back as he walked towards the Mammon Machine, the feeling of the look not relenting until there was wall between them.

He let loose a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and felt a sadness creep up, cold feet walking up his spine. It made his limbs feel heavier. But he knew he couldn't change this particular eventuality. He couldn't prevent his future without damaging his revenge and saving Schala. So he put Janus away to the back of his mind, and continued his walk to the devilish machine.

When he entered the room, Schala was feeding the Machine again. Engineers were taking readings. And citizens were basking in the reddish glow, brighter with Schala there. He gritted his teeth. The Machine always took more than it gave. He knew it, she knew it, and so did the Queen. Still Schala had to do this. The Machine didn't want anyone else. He himself had tried it once in the darkness, and had found himself rejected.

He moved past her carefully, trying not to see the strain present upon her face, the stiffness of her body. He was surprised Janus had left her on her own. But it was almost too painful for him to face as well. Her body was a shell as long as she had to remain in communion with Lavos.

So he tore himself away from her, and continued to the engineers, to have the conversation he meant to have.

"The Queen wants to move the Mammon Machine to the Ocean Palace a week early," he began, and heard groans, as the engineers were already being pushed to exhaustion. "I will be in charge of the moving, and I will only need some of you. I can set up the transportation, so I will only need five of you when the time comes."

Their opposition lost much of it's gusto. Disbelief colored their faces, and they looked doltish. "Sir, are you sure you can do this?" one of them managed to ask.

His glare snapped to place on him. "Do you think for a moment the old Gurus would have deigned to teach me if I were incapable of such an elementary task?"

"N-no sir, not at all," another stammered. "You just haven't really participated in the transport of materials until this point."

"Because my talents are taken elsewhere," he rumbled. "Now you shall do as I request, and I will have the engineers you have on the least important tasks at my side when I ask for them."

At that, they nodded, backs straightened. He almost sneered at them. They were weak, if moderately intelligent.

"As it is, I am going to use an altered form of Skyway to move the machine. I will only need assistance in the actual moving, for the Machine is particularly dense and large." was his short explanation so they would know what to expect.

The engineers looked at one another, and nodded, musing. "Sir," was their response, almost in unison, and this time it held a measure more respect, although just as much fear.

He turned gracefully, shadows clinging to his form, and found Schala staring at him. "My Lady, did you need anything?" he asked, giving a small bow, not meeting her eyes, voice cold and detached.

"No, Prophet, I do not need you," was her response, still gentle, but he felt it tear him apart inside. Those small words hurt him beyond belief.

"As you say, my Lady, I shall be gone then," was his only response, still cold and detached, but she saw his eyes as he unbent, and his eyes had her stepping back slightly. Their intensity was ferocious. She looked away, and he walked past her, wishing he could apologize for everything, but he wasn't sure he could do so properly until he had finished his task. She would remain hurt until then, probably even afterward as well. So he kept walking, going to an empty experimental room, to perfect the altered Skyway until he was too exhausted to think of her face.


The week passed in a blur to him, and for once, the Queen was leaving him be, he need to have the Mammon Machine in the Ocean Palace overwhelming her need to know anything about things to come.

Himself, he decided to drown himself in work, finishing before his week was over, and he left the last day to recuperate.

The day was all his for once, which he hadn't had time to enjoy since the Ocean Palace had begun construction.

Thinking back, he hadn't been able to enjoy days for himself most of his life. He decided he would attempt to relax, as he was so close to his goal, in another week, the Ocean Palace would be ready as well. The Queen had been putting more people to work.

Reflecting on how many workers had been disappearing into the Ocean Palace, he could only suspect that most of the neighboring villages dotting the continent must be empty by now.

Not that he cared for the earthbound, but he laughed to himself, at the same time concerned, for the bodies had to go somewhere.

He lingered in the area where he used to sit with Schala, before those time-traveling wretches showed up, before they had been separated for the majority of the time by the Queen's exhausting demands.

And he found himself drowsing in the sun, the peaceful air in the gardens at odds with the danger and insanity of Zeal.


The air was clear, but at the same time, he knew he was home. He watched how the sun created a myriad of shining ripples on the ocean, and felt loss. He felt tears of bitter denial...and wished upon himself death. He knew where to find it, they would come, and he could let them destroy him...


Magus awoke viciously to someone touching the tears on his face, grabbing blindly, and twisting, magic igniting, before he saw the surprised and scared face of Schala. He found her pinned to the stone bench he had been napping on a moment before.

The magic in his fist died as he watched her, hand going limp, the other which had pinned her by her neck so quickly relaxed as well, and he was surprised to find tears on his face, and watched as one dripped down, and fell on her cheek, next to her eye, almost making it seem as if she mirrored him with tears of her own.

His fingers went to his face, touching the tears in disbelief. He tried to remember why he was crying, but the dream was slipping away from him now. He couldn't pin it down anymore.

He looked back at Schala, whose eyes were wide, and she lay unmoving, watching him, even as he still had her pinned to the bench, one hand with tears still on the fingertips, the other one supporting him next for her head.

"What is going to happen?" she finally asked him, barely voicing the words, mainly mouthing them, her face not scared of him so much, but of what would make him so very afraid.

With her question, he looked at her, and realized once more how frail she was, how easy it was to break her, and he threw himself from her, and found himself running from her question. Her sad eyes chased him all the way to his room, where he curled on his bed, suddenly unsure of his chosen path.

He didn't sleep for the rest of the night.


The next day, he found himself tired, but newly resolved of his purpose once more. He left his chambers for the Queen, to tell her of his finished project, and for permission to proceed.

To his surprise, the Queen was waiting for him.

"Prophet!" she crooned, joyful to see him. "How I have missed your presence the past seven days."

"I am glad to be back at your side, Majesty," he whispered solemnly back, eyes meeting hers brazenly, both their eyes burning, but at cross purposes.

"I took you at your word that the movement of the Mammon Machine would be today," she smiled as she spoke, lips curved, almost wet with excitement.

"And I am ready to move it to the Ocean Palace, as promised," he told her, voice confident, their separate intensities very closely matched.

"In expectancy of your timely manner, Prophet, I have accelerated the process of finishing the Palace," she told him in conspiratorial tones. "There were certain...losses, in the process, but I am quite sure they have become gains."

Magus paused, thinking about what she had just said. "My Queen, the rate we have been completing the new Palace has already been pushing the limits of the earthbound, how could you hasten the end?"

"Prophet! Don't tell me you are becoming sentimental!" she cried, mockingly, eyes cast in disapproval she didn't feel, but threatened to all the same.

"Never, my Queen," he murmured, and it was truth. He cared not how many of the simple earthbound died in the path to his vengeance. That simple truth was felt, and whatever malevolence Queen Zeal could feel at the drop of a hat was quelled.

"Dear Prophet, we can celebrate the moving of the Mammon Machine in the Palace," she purred. "A perfect tribute to Lavos, and immortality."

He bowed his head, stunned that she had managed to complete the Ocean palace. But fear could be quite the motivator. "I am sure it will be a life-changing experience."

The smile they shared were once again contradictory in purposes. It didn't matter though. Nothing mattered but destroying Lavos once and for all. "I will begin at once, if you wish it."

"Nothing would please me more, dear Prophet," and the smile she gave him was predatory, and exultant.

"Then excuse me as I make preparations, the Mammon Machine shall be in the Ocean Palace by tonight," and he excused himself, bowing, and pivoted on his heel, to find the engineers and transporters he had spoken to a few days ago to make sure they could handle his requirements.

As he left, he thought he saw a flash of blue hair turning the corner, but that could have been anyone. So why did it catch my eye?

He shook his head, and continued down the corridor, and went to the labs first, and found half the people he needed.

"We are ready to commence," he announced upon entry, voice commanding. The transporter specialists jumped to attention at his voice. His was meant to command, and they were used to serving.

They followed him as he left to the room containing the Mammon Machine. Which was exactly where he found the engineers, and Schala, who looked like she was expecting him, her chest heaving, not with exhaustion, but it looked somewhat expectant, and similar to fear.

"My lady, have you come to watch us move the Mammon Machine?" he asked her, voice soft, daring her to oppose him, because he saw it in her. The need to stop the madness.

"My I speak with you in private?" she asked him, and to the others who were to help him, she added, "It is important matters that I need to discuss." Her tone with them wasn't sharp as it was with him. It was more of a request, and they were glad to be asked rather than ordered. The engineers and transporters obeyed with greater spirit than they did for any other.

Once they were gone, she looked at him, and didn't say anything for a while.

He sighed, and finally broke the silence, as it was stretching on tedious. He had work to do, as much as he wished he could just stay in the same room with her forever. "The Queen expects me to finish this task today."

"I know that," she whispered, sad. "I wanted to stop you."

"You know I cannot stop yet," he told her, voice never changing tone. "I have to keep going until the end."

"But you can't!" she cried, voice emotional. "Can't you feel the danger?"

"Of course I can, but there are some things that will happen whether we will it or no," was his gentle rebuke, not offering any apology to her for his part in all of it.

"Why do you help them?" she asked. "People are hurt, and I can feel some terrible disturbance. Something is not right, and it becomes more deranged the closer we get to Lavos!"

Magus winced at her desperation. At the mentioning of Lavos. He wanted to tell her what needed to be done, and why. But it would involve telling her of the loss of Janus, of the loss of the Gurus. Knowledge and destruction, so very intertwined.

"At this point, even if I were to stop helping, it would be too late," he told her. "I can only do so much at a time."

She whimpered slightly, defeated, knowing he was right. Nothing either of them could do would stop the hell-bound zeal of her people, and mother.

"I need to continue now, my Lady," he rumbled, business-like in demeanor, surprising Schala. "So if you are finished, I would like to proceed in my task."

"I am finished," she told him, drawing herself back up. "Farewell, Prophet."

She was gone, just like that, he heard the murmur of voices outside the door, and then the engineers and transporters were back in the room. Sadness enveloped him, for he had heard what she didn't say. He feared he had lost her forever.

Steeling himself for the task ahead, he told himself that it did not matter, as long as he could save her.

"Let us begin."


a/n: Well, this took disgracefully long to finish. But I didn't have it in me for a while. But everything should pick up again.