In the midst of an eternal silence, a black and blue portal gently sparked to life amid the darkness, stretching itself open just enough for three figures to emerge. Cold, dirty metal softly clinked under their heels as the portal closed behind them. The unsettling silence of the Bangor Dome greeted them, though the three travelers quickly wished it hadn't. The dark and hazy atmosphere of the miserable future met them with just as much musty potency as it had the first time they had the misfortune of unexpectedly falling through the worm hole.
"So much for 'any place is better than here'," Marle thought to herself, remembering back to how that mysterious portal that had appeared in the forest as she, Crono and Lucca fled the castle. It had seemed like a miracle escape at the time- that is, until they landed on the other side of the vortex, anyway. The future had been a world none of them were ready for, and even now she felt a little unnerved at returning to it.
It was a somber reminder of what exactly they needed to prevent.
Marle made a face as she looked about at the dingy florescent lights and massive cobwebs hanging over them, and then with a sigh, she reached into her satchel and retrieved a thin scarf. "Here," she said, wrapping one around her mouth while holding the other out for Magus to take, which he did not. He looked at her blankly. "It will help a little. You know, with the breathing."
"I don't need that," the wizard answered flatly, flicking his cape with impatience.
"Why not?" Marle fixed him with a curious look, and her eyes widened a little. "You… do breathe. Right?"
He slit his eyes at her, perhaps a trace of his own curiosity showing. "What kind of question is that?"
Despite herself, she got a little sheepish. She knew it was ridiculous, but sometimes she… wondered about him. "Uhh… never mind. Ready?" she asked, spinning quickly on her heels and giving the large doors a forceful shove before he had answered. Magus had never had the misfortune of travelling to the future, she realized with a wry smile.
Well, he was in for a surprise.
The doors groaned open, sweeping a bit of the dust around their feet and exposing the bleak, bleak ruins of 2300 A.D in all of its inglorious splendor.
"Hm," was all Magus mused aloud, looking over the wasteland apathetically. But when they walked through the warped doorway, he let out a stiff cough of displeasure as the dingy air filling his lungs.
'Guess he does breathe,' Marle smiled to herself from under her scarf.
The trip by foot would not be enjoyable by any means. From where they stood, the abandoned city was spread along the distant horizon of polluting wreckage. Between it and them lay a wasteland of dead grass, metal scraps and garbage. What strange beings could jump out at them along the way was less certain, however. Half of the bizarre creatures they had encountered previously were too strange to identify as anything familiar, save those thieving rats. The thought of those things gave her the creeps! But all the same, Marle took the lead with as much energy and speed as ever; the sooner they were out of there the better.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long from them to slow down- Magus, more specifically. He had fallen behind, switching between stifling coughs and holding his breath, a game which was both unbecoming of and irritating to him.
The wizard could not think of a time where he had ever made such an extent of noise. With his sharp, quiet demeanor naturally giving way little more than the few witty quips of opinion, unfiltered advice or unkempt complains, he had never really had reason for conversation. Or noise. Orders and commands to blathering Mystic legions, yes. But this- this was different type of noise all together.
"What is this nauseating haze?" the dark, agitated lord finally asked between coughs, swatting about as if in hopes of hitting something. "Poison?"
Robo, who apparently endured no consequence of pushing the filmy air through his air vents, answered him simply. "Pollution."
Magus grumbled something under his breath, but kept the rest of his complaints to himself out of hopes it would take the burn from his throat if he spoke less. Yet the coughing only managed to become worse the longer they walked; louder, more frequent and more fierce. The sound of his tortured lungs rang through the empty streets and echoed off the large, broken buildings, adding an additional layer of eerie to the deserted and destroyed land. It put Marle on edge, her head snapping as the echoes bounced back to forth, until finally she looked back at the source.
"Would you just put on the stupid scarf already!" came her muffled groan. Seeing Magus pulling his cape tighter around the lower half of his face, Marle extended the scarf again to him, which he merely swatted away. Like some sort of dying animal, he kept his distance, lagging behind them in self-misery and not-so-silent suffering.
When the stretch of the long abandoned city limits finally came into view, it was, if at all possible, a welcomed sight.
"Johnny has to be this way!" Marle jumped eagerly at the thought of shaving a portion of travel time off the journey. "We can take the bike across the city."
"Who?" Magus hacked.
"If we can obtain the bike, that is." Robo vibrated thoughtfully. He had been unusually silent until now.
"What do you mean?" Marle's innocent eyes tried to sparkle in the dust which the team had been kicking up. "You think he'll be harder to beat this time?"
"He may prove more difficult than in our previous encounters, yes," Robo began.
"Well difficult or not, we'll whoop his sorry-" Marle broke into a coughing fit, having taken the scarf a little too far from her lips.
Robo watched her blankly, unsure of what to do in such cases of human suffering. So he did what seemed right- he kept talking. "I have reason to believe we may simply be denied access to the bike itself."
"Wha-?" Confused, she looked up at him, still tenderly rubbing the base of her throat. "Why! We've raced him before!"
"No," the machine corrected. "Crono has raced him. And won. But Johnny is proud sort of machine with strange character. Based off my records of him, submission to those who have not already proven dominant would be highly unlikely; perhaps another quirk of his human-like programming."
Looking angrily at the giant destruction zone of a city, Magus scowled. "You're kidding."
Robo turned his attention to the opening they were approaching. Sure enough, the sassy robot-bike was waiting with his arms crossed in the same spot as always with that same, cocky grin. A stream of dark smoke trailed from his exhaust pipes long before he kicked his feet into wheels. But he didn't move to meet them.
"Hey kids," he called playfully when they came close enough. "Lookin' for a… Er," his tone dropped like a ten ton rock off a cliff. "Where's the spiky haired kid?"
"Crono…" Marle corrected, coming to an uneasy standstill.
"Yeah," he rolled a nail between his teeth. "That kid."
Robo piped up before Marle. "This is no time for racing, I'm afraid. We simply need the bike to cross the city."
"That's not what I asked, bot boy." The revving machine checked his arms across his chest, looking the three of them over. His smirk grew as it landed on Magus, who was standing behind the other two, not bothering to give the strange robot the time of day. "You're dancin' around my question."
There was an unsure moment that passed among the group.
"I don't like dancin'," Johnny clarified coolly.
Marle looked to Robo, sensing that he intended to take the reins of the conversation into his own hands. "Crono is currently… detained," concluded the robot after a moment of word selection. Johnny eyed them, but Robo's gaze never faltered.
"Detained, eh?" Johnny looked smugly at the pack of robots around him, who let out some kind of mechanical noise resembling a snicker. "He too busy doing somethin' more important? More important than racing me?"
A vent whirred quietly on Robo's back. "If you would just allow us to-"
"Save it, hot plate." The machine reclined against the racing strips of the vehicle, haughty and indifferent all at once. His wheels rolled back till his heels were the means of support. "I wont. I don't race with anyone but him."
"WHAT?!" Marle jumped back into the conversation, not expecting such a flat-out denial. "Why not?!"
"Cause I said so," Johnny deadpanned, already distracted in examining his nails- which resembled something like cheap rubber- with nitpick interest. "That's why. Now scram!"
Dropping the scarf from her face, Marle's fists clenched as a flush of red rushed to her cheeks. Robo stared at her, trying to formulate a better solution than the princess's temper to get them by. "We don't even want to race! We just need the-"
"I said," he leaned forwards to enunciate, "S-CRAM."
"Why, you…!" Marle stepped forwards, ready to give him a piece and a half of her mind.
But any potential whooping of robotic butt was shot dead as great, white-hot flash of energy slammed down before them, rocking the ground with its electric force and filling the air with a high-frequency hum. Shocked by the sudden blast of heat, noise and light, Marle fell backwards with hands flying to shield her eyes from the flash and her ears from the loud ring of the searing energy. She hit the ground and scrambled backwards, trying to put any amount of distance between her and the searing light mere feet away. But before she could actually gather her senses enough to get up and run, the flow of hot static stopped.
An intense ringing filled the musty, heated air.
Everything fell silent.
Sizzling rubber and metal lay strewn across the ground in blasted, torn bits. Seeing this, Marle's jaw dropped, as did the musty fabric of the scarf that she had pulled over her face for protection from the blast. The scarf muffled the startled gasp that slipped from her lips. Johnny- or what was left of him- had been split right down the middle and was still quietly sizzling. Wires were sparking violently from his melted circuits, and what looked to be limbs were melted into an ugly, contorted form. He looked like a melted candle, and Marle could simply stare in shock.
Robo, who had a decent layer of dust blown into his eyes, brandished a windshield wiper to clear the smudge away, but found he did not know what to do with the sight before him. Even the stray robots that had been following Johnny starred in what could be wild disbelief.
"W-What just… what…" it took a confused scan of the area to realize that the last member of their team was nowhere in sight. Although shaken, Marle jumped to her feet. "Magus!"
The caped culprit was already under the glass cover of the bike, relishing the clean air while the pack of robots slowly slinked into the remains to the deserted city.
"I assume you know how to work this?" he asked Robo curtly from the other side of the glass when they neared.
"I do."
That seemed to suffice for him, for he simply took to his usual slouched posture in the seat, looking more like he were sleeping than tolerating the ride. Almost hesitantly, Robo hoisted himself into the driver's seat and pressed a few buttons, which immediately lit up the dash board. Marle, still shaking from anger and shock, flung herself into the empty seat beside Magus. For the first time ever, she was uncertain of what to do or say and awkwardly tried to keep her space. Biting her bottom lip, she distracted herself with rubbing the burnt hairs from her arms and the film of soot from the golden-blue pendant around her neck.
"Scared I'm going to bite?" he asked dryly when the engines fired up.
Her eyes were cold and stern when she finally gathered herself and whirled around at him. "What did you do that for, anyway?!" To his mild surprise, she swatted him on the shoulder. "That was cheap and mean and unfair!"
Amazingly putting aside the fact that she had 'hit' him, he growled and crossed his arms indifferently. "You're welcome," dripped the sarcasm.
She glared at him for a moment, then leaned in with her usual accusing finger. "You're worse than him, Magus! I can't believe you sometimes!"
Magus opted to keep his eyes on the window, ignoring her reflection in it. Of course she was right; he was worse. But for once he chose not to indulge in an argument with her.
The rest of the ride was silent.
-v-
Despite the fact that there was more than one person lounging at the End of Time, it just as quiet and peaceful as it ever had been- at least, at this moment it was. It had taken a while to become so however, for a mere hour ago the place had nearly been torn up by the resident cave woman. After prowling and pouncing about, toying with what little there was to toy with in such an empty place and playing a game of 'catch Frog' (which Frog had, of course, not given his consent to), Ayla had finally curled up into a corner to enjoy a very long and very needed cat nap. Considering it safe to let his guard down from the dangers of an unpredictable and bored Ayla, Frog leaned up along the fence to 'rest his eyes,' as he put it. Sure enough, he quickly slumped into a deep, needed, peaceful sleep.
And Lucca had been quick to follow. She had hit the floor and the world had transformed into a blissful shade of black, a blessed relief from her fatigue.
When she had awoken, she found herself still miserably sore. The others still were asleep, and despite herself, was slightly disappointed by this. Obviously she hadn't slept very long, and the most logical thing at the moment was to simply go back to sleep, but... It seemed that it was her mind that had woke her up instead of her body. She was almost instantly back to brooding over the loss of her friend in the stillness of the place. Perhaps she had spent too much time isolating herself lately; too much time silently re-running that one horrific scene over and over again in her mind, spending the memory to the breaking point. At the thought of having more time alone to inevitably over-think everything, she sighed and reached into her bag to find something to busy herself with.
"Did you not sleep well?"
"Oh!" Although she had thought the old man was asleep (he always looked that way), she really was relieved to know that she wasn't the only one awake. She may not have been the most conscious, but still... "No- well, I mean, no. I guess not. Sorry if I woke you up."
He smiled at her. "It's no loss. I've all the time in the world to sleep."
"Heh." She figured that was a bad joke, and thought it would be beneficial for him that she laughed at least a bit. But of course, the logical train of thought in her brain had been fueled, and the wheels were turning... "Uhh…" she started slowly, hesitantly. Starting conversations with strangers had never been her strong point. "So… how long have you been here, anyway?"
The man squinted a little. "Time loses its meaning here, dear."
"Which means... you don't know?"
His hands switched positions on his cane. "You're not one to beat around the bush, eh?"
Blushing a little, she rubbed the back of her helmet. Finally realizing that it had been on far too long (although it had been needed), she lifted it from head and dropped it to the cobblestone beside her before rolling out some of the kinks in her neck. "I guess I'm not the most subtle person. You don't have to answer that."
"Oh, it's not that I don't want to answer you; believe me, I've got questions of my own." Following suit, he tipped the cap on his head back enough that she could clearly see the solid grey of his hair and eyebrows. "I just might have more questions than you."
Despite his uncertainty, Lucca only found her curiosity growing. She couldn't help it if her questions sounded stupid- dimensional time was a little known and highly speculated topic, a personal favorite of hers that had led her to build that ill-fated machine for the carnival with her father despite the ridicule she knew could come. People though she was crazy already, and that was no matter. Although... she found herself hoping the old man wouldn't come to see her as such. "Do you know how old you are?"
The man hummed and hawed for a minute. "Well last I checked, I was fifty-two."
"And how long ago was that?"
He breathed deeply. "Years?" A tuft of hair tossed through the breath he let out, and she sat back slowly, trying to take him all in at once. "Minutes? It all feels the same to me; and the funny part is that none of it changes me any."
"But that doesn't make sense," Lucca tapped her cheek. "To keep the human body unaffected by time is impossible." A bold thought made her sit up a little more. "You are human… aren't you?"
He let out a loud laugh at that, nearly waking Ayla. The rich sound rang out and didn't return, and she couldn't help but think that it sounded familiar somehow. "About as human as you can get em' where I'm from." Her eyes lit up, and if possible she leaned forwards even more. She was at such a strange angle that she would have fallen right over if someone had breathed too hard her direction. "Caught your interest, have I?"
"You're the Guru of Time."
"Heh heh... well, that's what they used to call me, anyway." He tipped his hat as if to introduce himself, showing off his full, pearly smile. "But you can call me Gaspar."
Lucca took a deep breath and sat back, studying him openly in her weary, sleep-deprived state. "Gaspar. So you were dragged here, then?"
"I was."
Suddenly, Lucca felt that she liked him. His manners and honest reply were genuine, and she felt she could ask him a more personal question... one she almost hesitated with, for it had not been on her mental list a minute ago.
"Gaspar," she started softly. "Have you ever lost someone really close to you?"
His smile diminished, but it didn't disappear. "I've lost many people, Lucca. Life is full of surprises, and not all of them are as predictable as a birthday."
"Yeah…" she looked to the ground. "Yeah I've been learning that…"
"But, I've also learnt to make the best of what I'm given. My life here has not been wasted." He paused and smiled again. "Although, it has definitely been quiet- at least, till fine folk like yourself drop in, and that's a real change in the routine"
She smiled. "Why don't you ever leave here, Gaspar? You have all the time gates at your disposal."
He held silent for a minute. She could sense a shift in his manners, almost as though he were addressing someone else. "You know... as much as I like you kids, and I know that you're taking necessary risks for the greater good... what you're doing is still dangerous; needed, yes. But every time you change the past, there are consequences that ripple throughout time. The good you bring about from destroying may Lavos out-weigh the bad which result from your spontaneous travels. But…"
"But... what?"
"My kind... is not meant to wander though time and space so freely. I could do much more harm stepping through that gate than you could in accidentally demolishing a whole time period. It is a danger enough that I have already been brought here." His old, weathered hands took the cap from his head and ruffled his unruly dark, grey hair before finding their way back to the cane, which she noted had remained standing on its own. She blinked at him, not sure how to interpret that. "Even so, I must remain here to hold the tearing fabric of time the best I can."
"Whoa whoa whoa- what do you mean 'tearing fabric of time'?" she asked, eyeing him curiously despite her own exhaustion. "And what is you 'your kind'?"
"The Guru's," Gaspar stated, as though that was what he had meant to say in the first place. He cleaned his throat. "We seem to give the flow of time a sort of… indigestion. We were meant to be the ones to protect our respective gifting from such disturbances- not be thrown into the middle of them at their worst."
She bit her lip, struggling to pull one single question from her mind at a time. "So that's what it means to be a Guru then? To 'protect' what you're gifted with?"
He smiled at her, and his words held no more strange inflection. "You thought it was just a nice title?"
"Well… yeah," she admitted with a half a grin. "But what do you mean by protecting your gifting? Are you the one in control of the time gates?"
The question seemed to catch him off guard. "I'm sorry?"
"The gates," she pointed dumbly past the picket fence, and he dumbly followed the motion. "Somebody has to be controlling them, and if you're the Time Guru…"
He looked back to her with slit eyes that somehow managed to look older than he. "Lucca," he began slowly, then seemed to reconsider speaking altogether. He leaned on his cane, and then back against the post behind him. "No human could ever control those time gates. I may be the Guru of Time, but that is only because the responsibility has been given to me. I myself hold no power over the gates themselves. Only knowledge."
"Yeah, but knowledge is power," the inventor stated, sitting back against the fence with something like a skeptical frown taking over her features. Something wasn't right here. What did he mean by 'given' to him?
"Ah, but I would disagree. Knowledge is empowerment, not power."
"What…?" she looked at him blankly. Philosophy had never been her favorite subject.
" Knowledge only equates to power when you act on that knowledge. You know," he tried, "'knowledge is in the head; power is in the hand'?" Seeing her blank look, he elaborated. "You build things, do you not?"
She nodded.
"Well then, if you knew how to build… let say an airplane, for example. You've envisioned it, drawn up the blueprints, figured out all the fine details and bought all the necessary parts... and then you let it all sit in a heap in your workshop and never put that airplane together."
Lucca looked as though she were trying to decipher another language. "And waste the opportunity of a life time? Are you crazy!?"
"The real question is, are you?" The Guru chuckled a little, and the scientist wrinkled her nose. "That knowledge would go to waste if you never put it all together, no? In other words, those dreams would never mold with reality and you wouldn't be flying that plane anywhere but inside that noggin of yours."
For a moment, she chewed what he had said and then looked back to him. "I see. Just like you and like the Chrono Trigger."
Somewhere underneath his hat, the Guru's brow arched.
"If it weren't for you creating the trigger, well, we... Crono wouldn't..." Her face remained blank as she slowly, almost lifelessly cracked each knuckle. As if to snap herself out of it, she gave her head a quick shake. "You acted out of some incredible knowledge to make that, didn't you? So you must know some very important and powerful things."
"I suppose you could say so." He watched her twist and pull at each one of her fingers before finally sitting on her hands. "Yet not quite enough, I'm afraid."
This caught her attention, and suddenly she was the fish on his hook. "What do you mean 'not enough'? Aren't you the Guru of Time?"
Gaspar laughed at that, though it was not quite a happy laugh. "Indeed, and some Guru I am. I don't even know how to make it work. Alas, time intertwines with many things... many of which I know little of." Lucca waited on the edge of her non-existent seat for him to go on, but he didn't seem as stimulated at the thought of continuing their discussion as she. "But never mind that all now. It's no good dwelling on it."
Never one to pass up on such intriguing conversation, Lucca sat up and readied herself to drill him further, but... when she studied the old man closely, she felt herself deflate. As much as Lucca wanted to press him, she couldn't climb over her sudden change of mood, for the Guru had taken on some solemn and overcast sadness. Rather disappointed, the scientist bridled her tongue and let her questions slip into the back of her mind to fester. This old man had always been a mystery to her, as would anyone who exists outside of time and procured magical eggs to aid them be. Now, however...
Interrupting her thoughts, Gaspar cleared his throat. "Well since you've been so attentive to me, I do believe it is my turn to ask you something. May I?"
"Sure," she shrugged.
The old man leaned away from his cane, all traces of his former sadness gone. It almost made Lucca open her mouth again. "Why did you stay behind?"
Lucca's lip twitched, and she looked to the ground. "I didn't have much of a choice. I mean, my friends kind of made me…"
"Come now," he said with a laugh, not buying it. "Don't give me such excuse. You were hell-bent on going out after your friend when you first arrived, even in spite of their efforts to restrain you."
The scientist spun the helmet in slow circles on the cold stone, watching it whirl with distant interest. She was quiet for a minute. "Yeah well, I'm still hell-bent on this. I'd go to that sketchy future and back again a thousand times if that's what it took to revive Crono. But…" she finally sighed. "I guess I realized that I needed to... to stop."
"Stop?"
There was a look on her face which was not quite shame, but perhaps a distant cousin to it. "I wouldn't have done any good going out in that state- literally. I probably would have passed out, collapsed somewhere… that's what I feel like doing right now."
He waited silently for her to go on.
"When you said we would only get out of this endeavor the effort we put into it, I realized that… that my effort had run dry." She swallowed. "I had no energy left." She blinked and looked away. "You probably think that's a weak excuse. You probably think I'm weak. I know, it sounds like it. But somehow... somehow I knew that was what I had to do- the logical thing. It's probably the first logical thing I've done in weeks."
"I hope you do not always underestimate yourself, dear Lucca." Gaspar's solemn look melted into a smile, and then he yawned. "You are a smart girl. There will be many trials ahead of you yet to get your friend back."
"I know." And indeed, she did. None of their quest had been easy, and she was sure it wasn't about to get any easier in the next few days.
"You have good friends," Gaspar noted, seeming to grow tired as they spoke. He yawned again and tipped his hat back down so that she could no longer see most of his face. He slouched into a lean against the light post. "They know you well."
"Yeah," she smiled a little despite herself. Despite the over-all mystery of the man, Gaspar must have some calming effect on her, she decided. It was a rare thing for her to speak so freely to others, and even rarer for her to be concerned with what people thought about her. No, she had learned to get over that a long time ago…
Seeing the old man standing alone against the post, it suddenly occurred to her that this was how he spent most of his time; alone. She felt for him. "Gaspar?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry that you're all by yourself here. It… it must get dreadfully lonely." She looked away frowning, feeling terribly sorry for him suddenly. She couldn't imagine what kind of punishment it would be to live in isolation for the rest of eternity, nor did she want to.
Even if she had been looking at him, she wouldn't have seen his lips press tight. He didn't answer her.
Somebody get this guy... a tissue.