I have to say, this has been my favorite chapter to write so far! Perhaps that's why its also the longest I've written... and that being said, I am officially past the point of 100,000 words and I cannot believe I've written that much. I never, EVER thought I would have written something so long OR complex. Of course, the feedback and reviews that I've received on the the story has also been hugely encouraging. If you've stuck with me this far- hey, thanks :)
Here it is, then: my favorite (shh) chapter.
The dreaded ordeal of escaping Crono's mother had turned out to be much less of a dreaded detachment and more of a pleasant parting. As though she had paid her dues in having spent the better part of the evening and night entertained beneath her roof, the mistress of the house now seemed sated enough to let them part in peace- so long as they had a full stomach and full intentions of coming back soon, that is. She had even let them out with some freshly baked muffins and bagged lunches for the day, which Lucca greatly appreciated.
On the contrary, it had been Frog who had been the difficult one to handle. It hadn't been easy to coax the insistent knight that he was needed for something other than watching Magus' every move, and it had taken even more convincing to keep him from running after the others, even though they were long, long gone (she had known better than to tell him of their new plan until after they left Crono's house).
He had trailed behind the scientist and Robo all the way to town, grumbling to himself as he struggled to align his moral compass with Lucca's. That they would be fine, she said. Stop making such a big deal about it, she said.
"Maybe we should just hang around here for the day," began Lucca, snapping the knight from his uneasy brood.
"Hn?" he mumbled, looking up and squinting into the sunlight.
They were upon the town now, and the soft, morning sun was streaming down gently through the distant mountains. It settled on the fair like a golden cloak, bringing its familiar activities to life with its tender touch. Stalls were being set as the throngs of people stung through the fair grounds, eagerly inspecting the merchants' wares or the bakers' breads. Children ran from game to game, parents chased after them… It was redundant, Lucca knew, but it was a much pleasanter environment than she had been in for some time now.
That sun really felt good… and she did have her book to dig into. Besides, she dreaded the thought of standing in a void of darkness and time for the whole day.
"I think that's a much better idea," she continued, quite decidedly this time. "I'd really rather not wait around at the End of Time all day."
"Nor I," croaked Frog, though with different cause. While his masked resentment was not so blatantly obvious now, it was clear he was still anything but pleased with the current party arrangements. He had yet to persuade himself that he was doing the right thing, never mind Lucca.
The scientist frowned back at him. "I'm afraid, there's really nothing we can do about that. If I could, I'd- wha-!" The ground began to thud and the trio looked around in surprise. The source of the tremor- the sudden row of knights, Mystics, and cats rounding the fence she had been comfortably leaning on- charged at them with alarming speed. Caught off guard, Lucca fumbled to get out of the race way as they rushed by, though not quite fast enough; a small, orange cat dashed between her legs and tripped her.
"Would you watch where you're goin' here!"she bellowed, catching herself before falling face first into in a patch of sand.
Frog moved to help her up. "Twas' close indeed. What for inspires this strange party to run whence?"
"Eh, probably the money." Lucca quipped with a twinge of annoyance, though it wasn't directed at him. She hesitantly took his hand and stood, brushing the sand from her knees. "They're racing. Don't they have races in the past?"
"Nay," Frog replied, apparently confused by the concept. "The only occasion requiring one to run whence forth would be for one's life."
"Yeah, well with all the betting happening here, I'm sure their thinking isn't that far off." Frog looked further confused, so she decided to change the subject. "Hey speaking of cats, where's Alfador? Shouldn't he have been with us?"
The knight's demeanor darkened, and Lucca regretted mentioning it. "Indeed, and his wretched master as well."
"Look," she sighed, growing tired of this discussion. "I couldn't argue with the guy, okay? If everyone here is in danger, then..." she grasped for the words unsuccessfully. "Just trust me on this one. I mean this in the best way possible, but letting you go along would have been a mistake. You two are really pulling each other's threads lately."
Frog's small arms crossed over his chest and his brow furrowed into an unimpressed scowl. He looked as though he greatly wished to defend himself, but he kept his lips sealed instead.
"Anyway," whirred Lucca, who ushered them between the stalls into the heart of the square. "We have some time to kill, so we better pick up some supplies for our trip. Let's see what we can find here, huh?"
Frog didn't seem to be fully listening, but Robo, who was hoisting the clone over his head as though it were some kind of trophy, nodded in agreement. Lucca looked around at the turning heads and strange looks they were receiving with a grimace. "Although, I don't suppose it would hurt any to drop the clone off with Gaspar till we're ready for it."
"Looking for travelling supplies, are we?" came a familiar voice from behind them. Lucca turned to see Melchior coming towards them, a slight smile turning up the corners of his thick, white moustache. Her brow arched slowly, and she turned to him as though she could not fully comprehend seeing him.
"'Aye," croaked Frog, who was eager for something to distract himself with. "It doth seem time for a revision, all things considering..."
"Well then, it sounds like you'll need to see my newest wares!" Either the older man did not notice Lucca's blank staring or he simply paid it no mind. He gestured to the table behind him with a furtive grin. "Only the best will do for such important trips."
"You're…" Lucca stammered, stepping towards him stupidly. How had she not realized who he was until now?
"Melchior the sword smith." He tilted his head to them politely.
'Antiquity time traveler,' Lucca finished to herself under her breath. How had she forgotten till now?
"And I've heard about you, Ms. Ashtear," continued he. "Your inventions are infamous around the likes of Truce- especially with what happened the other day."
"What happened the other day?" she asked in sudden alert.
Now he looked confused. "Your science experiment gone wrong, of course. It's been the talk of the carnival."
"Oh." She relaxed awkwardly. "Yeah, that. Right."
He mistook her relief for disappointment, and took a step towards her with his staff. "Come now, don't let that get you down; you're a very bright girl. I'm sure you'll come up with something better."
"Yeah, thanks," she said simply, brushing a stray hair from her eye.
"You know," continued the older man, a touch of mystery in his voice. "It was a rather intriguing project you had going there, though it did seem to take a rather unexpected turn of events. It would seem time doesn't like to be tampered with, wouldn't it?"
Lucca blinked at him, unsure of what kind of reply that statement warranted. What did he know? It was hard to make out anything past his voice- his eyes were covered with those strange shades and his mouth practically invisible beneath his thick moustache. Awkwardly unsure of how to respond, she gave a light shrug and turned away from his watchful eye towards the wares. Frog and Robo had followed after her, one thoroughly examining the content of the salesman's store and the other trying to reestablish the manner in which the clone was being held.
Melchior, who seemed to give up on the pursuit of questioning them any further, simply watched her move away. He cleared his throat as if to regain his focus and stroked his moustache in a thoughtful, business-like manner. "Yes, well perhaps I have something here that would be of assistance to you? My latest shipment is..."
'Old new to us,' Lucca thought to herself, looking over the petty weapons they had started their journey with a trace of nostalgia. She had forgotten how dated everything at the carnival would be.
"Thanks, but no thanks," she began politely, but it seemed it was too late to move on. Frog had already been lured in and was bent over a table of broadswords with Melchior, who was explaining something or other to him with elaborated fabrication.
With Frog a lost cause for the next few minutes, Lucca sighed and patiently glanced over the wares once again. A small selection of daggers, swords and katana made up the majority of the table, although there were a few strange weapons that she had never seen before- namely, the curved daggers nestled towards the back of the table.
Curiosity getting the best of her, she reached for one. It seemed heavier than it should be, or at least she thought so. She let the cool, curved leather of the sheath rest in her palm as she pulled the blade free and examined it. It was a dark blade, simply forged and quite dense. Despite its weight, the weapon seemed as though it had been intended for a child to handle, though she assumed it was a decent sized tool for a smaller creature such as a Mystic. But even with its small, simple complexion, there was something odd about the weapon; more specifically, the odd feeling it gave her.
"Excuse me," she found herself saying. "What kind of blade is this?"
Stationed beside Frog, Melchior half turned to her. "These are some of the typical weapons found to the east, far across the ocean. Many have been crafted and cradled by the Mystics- if you believe in such thing, that is."
"The Mystics, huh?" she held up the dark dagger to the sunlight, and it tingled in her hand.
"Oh!" The older man's calm demeanor flustered when he caught the gleam and recognized the blade in her hands. He jumped towards her, snatching the weapon away with surprising speed. "Er, I would advise against handling these, young lady. Mystic's weapons are a dangerous thing for humans to grasp."
"Alright, alright," Lucca chirped, somewhat irritated. "I'm no sword master or anything, but I do know how to hold a dagger."
Melchior chuckled to himself, before returning the small dagger to its place on the table. "I'm not afraid of you specifically handling it, dear; I am inclined to believe that all of you are more than proficient in handling such weapons. Still… you could be the most proficient of swordsmen- or women- and find yourself tainted by such foul metal; it does not well receive the human touch." He shook his head lightly. "Or rather, the human touch does not well receive it."
Her brow arched. "Are you saying humans can't handle Mystical weaponry?"
"I am saying they shouldn't," nodded the old man. He leaned on his staff and adjusted his tinted glasses. "There are very few who have the strength to resist the lust of such magic."
"Lust?" repeated Lucca dubiously.
"Oh yes!" Apparently Melchior found his funny, because he let out a loud, hearty laugh. "Such magic has brought many people to ruin. People, people, people- terribly frail creatures we are. Why else do you think your friend here was bequest with his weapon?"
He gestured to Frog, who had been listening thoughtfully. He quipped in surprise at being addressed. "Beg thine pardon?"
The mysterious salesman smiled wryly at the frog-knight, his eyes trailing down to the sword slung under his belt. "Don't think I could miss such fine craftsman ship, my friend. Not just any man could wield that blade."
Unnerved, Frog felt for the hilt of the sword as though to make sure it were still there.
With a small smile, Melchior turned back to Lucca's quizzical brow. "Perhaps you have heard the legends?"
"You'll have to enlighten me," she replied wryly, uncertainly.
Some of the Melchior's smile melted away as he cleared his throat and looked towards the horizon. "The Masamune, the blade to banish the evils within the world, cannot be held by any trace of evil lest it turn upon the one wielding it and destroy the wielder- or worse, be destroyed itself, as has been done before." Frog's hand slid away from the hilt slowly, uncertainly, and the old man continued. ""Yes, it has been far too lenient, in my opinion. Very few humans can properly wield that blade to be sure, and none can carry it duly unless-" he stopped mid-sentence, suddenly staring at Lucca.
"Unless what…?" she asked, growing more estranged with the man's behavior by the minute.
"T-That pendant," he stammered, stepping towards her incredulously. "How… where did you get it from? There couldn't be two… couldn't be."
Caught off guard, she stepped back from his advance. "W-What?"
"The pendant you're wearing," he clasped his hands together tightly, "it's undoubtedly one of a kind. Yet only a few days ago did I see it upon another. To have another so its likeness… surely it cannot be-?"
"Uh, its actually not mine, so..." Feeling outrageously uncomfortable, she shoved the blue pendant down the front of her shirt to hide it. "You're asking the wrong person here."
He held his grey gaze on her for a moment, but the tension he carried slowly dissipated. "Ah. I see."
From behind the large man, Frog blinked confusedly between the shop owner and the discomfited scientist.
"Well," Lucca stated after an awkwardly long pause. "We really should be going now. Frog?" Spinning on her heels, the inventor turned herself committedly towards the direction of her teleportation project gone wrong- wrong at the time, anyway- and put a distance between herself and the shops. Hesitantly, the others followed.
"If you ever change your mind," Melchior called after them, "I live on the continent out to the East near the mountain. Feel free to stop by at your leisure!"
"Sure," Lucca answered half heartedly over her shoulder. When she was sure they were far away enough, she straightened her scarf and grumbled to herself. "Good talk."
"'Good talk?'" Robo clicked.
"Never mind," she replied, waving her hand. "Let's get this clone dropped off and go shop somewhere else. I've had enough of the carnival already."
Moving past Lenee's bell, the trio made their way up the stairs and came to a stop before the indigo wormhole floating between the teleportation machines. Lucca took a step closer, and the wormhole opened to them with a clink and a small flash of blue light.
"Maybe we could stop back in prehistory and check out their survival wares?" She asked aloud, being the first to step into the portal. "I think they had the most up to date stock. Although, I'm sure they wouldn't have much in the way of keeping warm… Maybe the future?"
Robo and Frog followed after her and the wormhole closed around them with a few unusual sparks and spats. Thinking nothing of it, they were engulfed by familiar sensation of being wrapped in the fabric of time, moved along with that unusual motion of swimming the currents of time.
However, when they opened their eyes, it was not the End of Time which they set foot on.
"Hey-!" Lucca gasped, being shoved from the portal unexpectedly and landing on a mound of grassy sand. "What the-?"
Groaning at the rough landing, she pushed herself to her knees for a better look at her surroundings, and found they had landed in a large forest of pine. It wasn't one she particularly recognized, but then again, forests tended to look the same to her- especially when all one could see for miles and miles were trees.
Remembering the portal, she turned to where it should have been and realized with a measure of fear that it had disappeared into thin air. "What in the world?"
"It appears there has been in error in our point of arrival," noted Robo duly. He was still hoisting the clone about, but appeared to be taking in the environment with calculated movements.
Frog had also landed in a sandy pile, though he had had less luck precision of his landing. He had managed to land head first and was currently spitting clumps of sand from his mouth.
"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted to shop somewhere else." Lucca groaned, bringing a patient hand to her temple to keep her rising worry at bay. "Robo, can you tell us where we are?"
The machine continued to scan the area intently. "This location is not matching any of my current records of our travels, but it does traverse a large portion of land. Perhaps it is best if we proceed with caution."
"Right." Getting to her feet, the scientist brushed the sand from her knees and waited till Frog was mostly composed. "Well, let's just get moving then. We don't exactly have time for a random field trip today."
"I concur that we are near to an ocean, due to the salt in the air. It would be best for us to travel east, I believe."
Lucca nodded her head thoughtfully. "That would explain all the sand."
"Pefth," Frog spat sourly. "I growth weary of the foul matter."
They began their trek in silence and it lingered as a content, peaceful companion for quite some time. The forest was pretty and calming with its spotted, daffled light spilling through the green canopy about them and the clean scent of pine drifting up at them each time they touched a branch. Over their heads, the soft sounds of birds crying and the gentle sway of wind through the great trees served as a small, white noise, confirming that they must indeed be near a sea. It gave the potential for what could have been a perfectly relaxing hike.
Yet after a while, when every direction looked the same no matter how long they went straight or which way they turned, Lucca began to feel that they were walking, hopping and rolling in circles. She looked around for some sort of landmark to identify with, but there was nothing extraordinary or memorable about the trees- it all looked the same with each step they took. She had considered trying some materials around the trunks as they passed, but Lucca realized that she would run out of material before they would run out of trees.
"Robo," she finally relented, turning to her faithful, mechanical friend. "Can I get you to use your laser pointer here? Just burn a hole straight ahead as far as you can…. I'm not feeling so confident in my sense of direction at the moment."
"As you wish."
Taking the lead, a small hatch lifted from the robot's shoulder panel and a thin, red line of light expulsed beyond them. It shot like a merciless arrow through the trees with a soft zap, creating a series of small, almost unnoticeable holes for what she deemed to be at least two hundred feet dead ahead. They were noticeable enough to keep them walking in a straight line instead of veering off to the left or right, as she feared they had been doing.
"Thanks," she grunted, and they made their way along again in silence. It had not been more than five minutes before their landmark came to an end, however.
"I have a feeling this is going to take a while," Lucca groaned.
-v-
Magus moved without hesitation after the scrambling Mystic leader, and the girls followed close behind, though perhaps less confident in themselves than he. The room was huge and ominous, sucked dry of any natural light despite the rows upon rows of large, square windows framing the wall or the dozens of flickering candles lit between them.
But even the wizard seemed to falter when a further darkness fell over them. He put his left arm out like a blockade to gesture that they stop.
"Well, well, well," came a voice both manly and slightly feminine, confusing the two girls who had come to an abrupt halt at Magus' back. Their eyes darted uncertainly to Ozzie, the only other occupant of the room, who was too busy scrambling to safety to breathe properly much less taunt them with strange voices. In fact, Ozzie's sharp, wheezing coughing only contributed to the suspended tension the two girls had begun to feel upon pushing into the Mystic's stronghold.
It was not a human place.
"If it isn't our friend, Magus," continued the obscure, taunting voice. Marle jumped at its closeness, for it seemed to suddenly be right at her back. She spun around with readied, glowing hands, but was shaken to find only emptiness staring back at her. "And friends. How sweet. Bittersweet, I suppose."
A finger slipped seductively along her spine, making the princess nearly jump out of her skin. This time, she grabbed for her crossbow and jumped towards the others with paranoid hurry.
"What wrong, Marle?" asked the confused cavewoman over her shoulder. As if on cue, she spastically jolted a foot into the air, every single one of her hairs on end. "What that!?" she demanded, spinning around savagely when she returned to the ground. A faint laugh was her only reply, and Ayla let out a sharp growl at the nearing, unseen presence. "Rahh!" she yelled, pelting a fist into the air at where she assumed the assailant to be. "Why hide?! Fight, strange voice!"
"Me? Strange?" Flea gave a distant, feminine laugh which echoed about the stone walls. "Coming from you, that really means a lot."
Both of the paranoid girl's were glancing anxiously about the room, waiting with tension high for something to happen. Magus, however, remained unfazed by both Flea's invisibility and vocal masquerade. He had grown up listening to the whole spectrum of the magician's annoying voice, though that was namely from having listened to him imitate and argue with Slash for years. Quite quickly had he come to the point that he could tell who was who from a mile away, which was usually where he preferred to be from both.
"Show yourself, Flea," came his low tenor. "I didn't come here to play games."
"No? That's a shame; you always did miss out on all the fun." Unbeknownst to Ayla and the others, her fabric cat tail lifted gently from the ground and swayed to and fro. "Who did you have to bribe to get in here, anyway?"
While Magus could identify Flea's pitch from miles away, he begrudged admitting that he had yet had to master the invisible magician's exact location; it had never concerned him much before. "Your open door policy," he stated simply, slowly sweeping the darkness of the room with his senses keenly tuned.
"Er, right," mumbled the ever unprepared and unorganized Mystic leader as he lofted himself out of harm's way on the low-laying balcony. "I guess I should probably change that now- now that a banished traitor feels the need to walk into his own grave, that is." He managed a wheezy snicker, satisfied that he was mostly out of harm's way.
When Ayla felt the sharp tug on her tail, she was too late to stop herself from being tossed (with surprising strength, mind you) across the room like a disc. She did, however, manage to land like a cat on all fours, glaring back at the direction she had been thrown from.
Sure enough, Flea fabricated between the three of them, looking as though he had just stepped off the latest gust of wind and smiling like a fanatical wolf, though his attention was now solely on Magus. "Traitors like you deserve a beating! Oh great Ozzie," called the cross-dressing villain, not one to miss a beat. "Stand back and let me take care of these cretins!"
"Cretins?" Marle tsked, raising an uncertain brow.
"You know," sighed Flea impatiently, lolling his hand through the air as though to spell it out for them. "Idiots?"
"Hey!" the princess lowered her weapon to put her hands on her hips. "Who are you calling idiots?"
"Not idiot!" chimed Ayla indignantly, pounding her fists together before breaking into a run towards the magician.
Flea hadn't disappeared for more than a second before a swift kick at the unsuspecting primal woman's side sent her spinning across the cobbled floor, and everyone else skidding into fight mode.
"You know," Flea laughed as he congealed over the downed cave woman, readying a red, pulsing orb in his gloved hands despite the other two running at him. "I like you. I think I'll keep you as a pet!"
While Ayla had no idea what a pet was, she decided that she didn't like the sound of it; in fact, she didn't like the sound of anything this stranger said. With a savage growl, she kicked the magician's legs out and rolled back on to her feet. "Ayla no pet!" she bellowed, pounding at the downed magician.
But Flea was too quick. He copied her recovery and leapt over the cavewoman as though he were playing leap frog, gliding over her fists by mere inches. "Oh, I think you'd like it." He moved to Magus with a devious smile and another pulsing, red orb in his palm. "You'd be surprised what some time behind bars can do for you."
"I've had the freedom to do whatever I wish," Magus retorted, stone faced as ever. He was readying a dark orb at his left hand. "More than you ever did. I commanded this kingdom and all of you; I was never imprisoned as its leader."
"Hah, not by us, anyway." He made to shoot the dark energy at him but Flea was faster. A searing streak of red flashed over the wizard's shoulder as he ducked, singeing the indigo fabric ever so slightly. Flea laughed. "You locked yourself away for us!"
The wizard grimaced as he got to his feet. "Consider yourself luck you've had that luxury till now."
"Oooo," the magician puckered his lips in mock terror. "You're scaring me now, Maggy!"
"Wow, I'm really seeing the family resemblance here," Marle giggled with mild sarcasm as she loaded her bow. Magus barely had time to roll his eyes before he was dodging Flea's personified kiss attacks.
"The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, sweetheart!" The villain laughed heartily, taking another swipe at his target while batting his eyes at the princess.
"Don't flatter yourself," spat Magus. His hand flowed rhythmically, itching with unseen energy. Pointing, he unleashed a dark and precise sphere around his target, striking him backwards with a dizzying tempo. "I'm nothing like you."
"Awe, now that hurts," mocked another voice from the shadows, and Slash jumped to Flea's defense with a drawn sword. "You really mean to say you don't love us even after all this time together? I thought we were like family, us four."
Magus eyed the duo intently, his eyes darkening. "You were never family," the wizard retorted, leaning more on the tone than he meant to. Slash smiled a devious little smile before brandishing his blade between the Mystic overlord and himself; he had struck a sensitive chord, and knew it. Family was one thing they had never ventured to bring up about the mysterious wizard- not to his face, at least.
But times had changed.
"Oh c'mon now, we're the closest thing you've got!" Flea laughed, recovering well enough from the shadow attack to dodge the arrows being fired at him. His attention turned to the source of the projectiles- Marle, smugly aiming her cross bow, and Ayla bounding close behind- which left Magus and Slash with nothing to glare at but each other.
Which, of course, didn't last very long.
"Shouldn't you be dead after the last stunt you pulled?" Slash cut right to the chase, and his slasher followed in a close second. "Or was Lavos just as soft and pathetic as you?"
The infamous weapon sliced through the empty air where Magus had stationed himself a mili-second ago, vibrating with its master's annoyance; the wizard had vanished into thin air. As if the game were nothing new to him, the speedy henchman spun in expectant circles, waiting for the dark figure to reappear. "Whatever. The warrant out for your head among the Mystics will do the job if we don't. They're all blood thirsty, seeing as how your promises turned out to be a gut-sucking let-"
"Down!" called Ozzie over the commotion of the other's fighting, and Slash ducked just in time to shun an inverted sphere of energy intended for his head.
"Pathetic." Reappearing in front of him with drawn weapon, Magus gave what could be close to a disappointed look before attacking.
"Oh please. It's called teamwork, Magus," came the haughty defense as Flea, who was picking an arrow out of his braid while avoiding Ayla's forceful onslaught. "It's what family does."
"Family? More like- oh boy." Marle had stopped to reload her bow, which had proven to give her some technical difficulties. Thankfully, Ayla had taken over the brunt of the attack to cover her.
"Yah!" the cavewoman called, sailing through the air towards the startled cross-dresser and landing on his back with a wide smile.
"Wha-?" Flea managed before the fierce pounding on his head began. Crippled by the direct hits to the head, Flea knew better than to use his magic and simply jumped to his feet and began to run about. But Ayla held fast, tightening her grip around his slender neck and clinging to him for dear life while Flea went bucking about. "Oof!" He was swatting desperately at Ayla as though she were an over-sized fly he could brush off. "Stop that! Bad girl!"
"What did I say about taking in strays, Flea?" Slash grunted sarcastically between the swings Magus was dodging with flawless ease. "Haven't you learned your lesson yet?"
"Me?! What about that time you let that vamp sleep in your bed, huh?"
"Shut up!" bellowed the already angered swordsman, turning from Magus for the split-est of seconds. It was more than enough time for Magus to land a good pummeling on him with a flash of scorching fire, which blasted his target backwards like a strong wind. Digging his heels into the ground to secure his stance, Slash's purple cheeks flushed a slight shade of irritated red. "Look what you made me do!" he snarled to wherever Flea was.
"Me?" came the incredulous reply, though it came between the grunts and groans of the unrelenting pounding nearly deafening him. Flea had not yet managed to shake Ayla from his back yet, and in a moment of distressed terror, was running in urgent circles, flailing about in a desperate attempt to rid himself of the unwanted creature currently using his head as a drum.
"Would you two focus for once? Seriously!" screeched Ozzie from his perch, showering the unwitting princess below him who was still fiddling with her faulty cross bow.
"Eww!" Marle whined, thankful for her sleeves as she wiped the unwanted spittle from her forehead. She turned to the obnoxious green Mystic and aimed her crossbow at him. He saw this with a startle, and rolled backwards just as two arrows skimmed his ankles.
"Slash! Flea!" he cried.
"Oh, shut up," growled Flea, who was struggling to parry Magus' magical projectiles with his blade. "Can't you see I'm busy here?"
Marle couldn't help but giggle at this. "I thought my family was bad, but you three have got to be one to the most dysfunctional families ever." She aimed another shot at Ozzie and he squirmed uneasily, but when the twang of the string sounded, the arrow remained fixed in place. "Stupid bow," she grumbled to herself, fiddling with it angrily.
"Hah!" chuckled Ozzie, who was starting to feel pretty good about himself. He let out a blast of magical energy at her, and she rolled out of its way with a frown. The Mystic leader grumbled and tried again, until he was showering shot after shot at her, all of which she managed to dance between. "Now who has the upper hand?" he snorted to himself. "The upper hand! See what I did there?"
"Ozzie, what did we say about making jokes?" Finally gaining some small victory over the cavewoman, Flea rolled sharply along the ground and slammed her into the wall. It did the trick in shaking her loose.
Marle's endurance remained high as she jumped between the bolts of energy, but it seemed Ozzie was quickly running out of steam, for they lessened to the point where Marle no longer had to dodge them. "Why are you attacking Guardia?" she demanded up at him when he finally stopped to catch his breath. "And how did you get access to time portals?!"
"Time portals?" he wheezed, looking in confusion towards Slash and Flea, who seemed equally. They were barely able to afford a glance his way, however, for their hands were both full at the moment. "Uhh…. I'll never tell!"
Marle frowned. "The forest- why are you taking the forest?"
The Mystic leader looked oddly uncomfortable with himself, and he seemed to suddenly gain the enrgy to return to the full force of his previous onslaught. "That's for me to know and you to never find out!" he cried as the bursts of strange magic returned.
Marle's lip's pursed. If she couldn't get up there to convince him he needed to talk, she knew she wouldn't get much more information. Perhaps the other's were having better luck?
But it seemed the others were more focused on the fight instead of getting information. Not long deterred from her goal, Ayla had continued chasing Flea in a game of hide and see, wherein Flea would disappear and Ayla would hunt him down with her highly honed senses. The irritated magician grew tired of this rather quickly; she wasn't supposed to be able to find him! Deciding he had had enough of the savage for now, Flea reappeared next to Slash, interrupting his fight with Magus. He had intended to help Slash out, but seeing that incessant creature running at him again, nearly deflated. "Oh c'mon!" he groaned. "No! Stay! Say over there!"
His scolding was to no avail, of course, and so Flea decided to switch tactics. While Ayla was running full speed at him, he jumped a safe distance back and took hold of the hem of his crimson cape with glowing hands. It seemed to grow ten times heavier, and Flea struggled with it as though he were lifting a weight. He was nearly going red in the face from the apparent strain, when suddenly a strong outburst of fire rippled from his cloak towards the unsuspecting three in the form of a monstrous, flaming wall of fire.
This quickly stopped Ayla in her tracks and sent her scurrying the opposite direction as the flaming wall chased after her. Knowing she could not out run it, she threw herself into the brick pillar, narrowly avoiding the reach of the flames. Magus, who had seen the reflection of the blaze in Slash's eye as he jump to safety, simply spun and pulled his cape over his body as the wave hit him, dispelling the fire with ease.
Marle, however, had been so focused on dodging Ozzie's poorly aimed attacks and trying to get answers out of him that she barely saw the flaming wall before it slammed into her with its full, fiery force.
Magus spun at the sound of her rigid scream.
"Marle!" Ayla panicked, her skin prickling as she ripped herself away from the cold brick wall. Seeing her singed friend hit the ground with a thud and lay still, a fierce anger morphed her brows into perhaps the most severe look Magus had ever seen. She growled and turned to the dangerous duo with a look of animalistic rage. "You HURT! Hurt BAD!"
Slash and Flea, completely ignorant of human prehistoric velocity, strength, or stench looked at each other and laughed, fully expecting some emotional attack from the savage girl running at them.
"Ayla-"
Before Magus could demand the cavewoman heal their fallen teammate, she was lost to the rage of bashing heads together and retracting her teeth. Lips pursed, he turned to the girl crumpled on the floor and slipped off a glove which he placed on the burnt areas of skin.
The open flesh stuck to the leather.
-v-
While Lucca truly wanted to believe that reaching the end of that damned forest was an attainable accomplishment, she was beyond sick of twigs jabbing between her glasses and bugs flying into her helmet. Yet she found that she could not be completely happy to discover what she found when the last branch was pulled away.
"What… is that Medina?"
Frog frowned as he held back the branch for the others. "Tis' a good question. I hath no desire to spend mine eye upon this foul place yet again."
"This is most peculiar," Robo noted, looking from the forest to the town a small ways off. "What could have caused a gate to open in such a spontaneous location?"
"Who knows," the scientist frowned, looking up to the sky. "Augh, we really need to get to the moving now. Who knows how much time we wasted in those stupid woods!"
But Robo was not dissuaded. "The gates malfunctioning in such a way is concerning. We have not experienced this before."
"Yeah," Lucca rubbed at her helmet with the hopes that it would scratch an inch, though it was to no avail. "But we've still seen a lot of weird things. The gates opening in the first place was strange enough, so who's to say that they've stabilized?"
"Yet we have seen nothing of this magnitude until present." The robot watched Lucca take her helmet off and shake out a few small twigs. "But perhaps we have seen something similar. The strange alteration of that gate may have simply been a discharge of energy in the time stream; perhaps a result of our encounter with Lavos? It bears similarities to the other effects we've seen, such as the appearance of the vortex in the desert. Perhaps it could also explain the appearance of a new gate, as Magus said."
"Claimed," Lucca corrected. She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I didn't stop to see it. All the same, we need to get moving. We can think more on this one later."
"Aye, let us waste no further measure of time. If we art to meet with the others… tis' best we not keep them waiting." said Frog eagerly, who was already ahead of the others. He seemed to share Lucca's antsyness now.
"But Lucca," Robo started again. "If one gate was malfunctioning, then how are we to know whether others are safe? We could be further displaced."
"You could be right, Robo." Lucca shook out her hair one last time, combing her fingers through it slowly and savoring the sensation. "If there is excess energy rippling through the time stream, then the gates would be easy targets, because they're already an outflow of energy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were affected. But we don't have much of a choice in the matter; Lavos can already do whatever he wants with those gates as it is."
"Perhaps tis' best that we use the Epoch to travel henceforth?" croaked Frog, who had realized that the others were not following after him and turned back.
"Ideally that sounds great, but it's docked at the End of Time and we need a gate to get there." Lucca shook her head. "We have no choice but to risk it."
Robo didn't seem convinced. "Lucca, this is a risk we cannot fully calculate. There is no way to know where we may end up."
"No, there isn't." She tucked her helmet back into place and slipped a thoughtful fist under her chin. "But we can't stay here either. We need to get moving if we're going to make it to the End of Time before the sun sets- and we still need to get supplies for the hike up that stupid mountain."
A vent whirred on Robo's back. "From what I recall, the Mystics are rather hostile to humans. I calculate much difficulty in doing business here."
"The Mystics may not take kindly to our being here, but that's just going to have to be an occupational hazard today. There's no way we have time to go all the way back through the Heckran's cave to get back to Guardia. Besides, taking the gate at the carnival might just throw us back into those woods. Our best bet is that closet portal in Medina."
Robo was thoughtfully processing through all this when Frog interrupted. "Let not the Mystics trouble you; we art fully capable of defense." His eyes flashed a mischievous glance her way.
"Well c'mon then- let's get a move on before its dark," the inventor finished with another glance to the late-day sun. She sighed softly. "We're already way behind schedule as it is."
The trek into Media was surprisingly refreshing. The salt in the air was all but gone with their distance from the ocean, and the wind was free to roam over their necks and cool their exhaustion. It was a fresh and crisp wind that made Lucca realize how thirsty she really was, and so she pushed on with a touch more speed. But the moment's peace was quickly ruined by the eerie sounds of chanting.
"The town center approach'th," Frog noted dully, looking down the hill to where the voices were echoing. "The foul fiends art ever at their idols."
"I'm surprised we couldn't hear it a mile away," Lucca shuddered. The awful sound grew louder as they drew closer. As they rounded the first house of the city, the noise hit them like a revolting wave. "Jeeze, what are they being so loud for?"
Frog looked to her, and they exchanged hesitant glances. Wordlessly, the three crept further into town and peered over the great stone platform of the town's central square. Nothing was particularly amiss; the Mystics were engaged in their usual routine of chanting, marching and being generally cultish. Some marched in place, some were sparring, and some were circling the giant statue in the center.
Then it hit Lucca.
"Wait a minute," she whispered, nudging Frog to get his attention. When she had it, she pointed to the statue in end of the square. "That's a statue of Ozzie they're worshiping."
"Aye," Frog croaked, and they sank down the stone barrier. "They may well worship him for all the glory undeservingly lavished upon him."
Lucca's brow perked. "Yeah but… shouldn't that be Magus?"
The others looked at her blankly.
"Never mind," she whispered. "We've got more important things to worry about right now. Let's go get our equipment."
The three figures moved through the town as discreetly as a girl, a robot, and a frog-man could, and so it was no surprise that they found themselves attracting unwanted attention in no time. Every house they passed seemed to cast a suspecting shadow on them, and every Mystic they crossed fixed them with a cruel stare.
"Lucca," Robo piped up as they ascended the stairs to the market. "I believe we are being watched."
"Yeah," the scientist sighed quietly. "Thanks Robo."
Of course, they were met with nothing less inside the shop. The beefy henchman behind the till set them with his cold stare before the door had even opened; Lucca simply chose not to look him in the eye. The few customers in the store looked up with similar greeting, watching the odd group step hesitantly over the threshold. Amazingly, the store remained silent.
Hoping that was a good thing, Lucca swallowed lightly and moved herself down the aisle she needed- which was empty, thankfully. Robo followed after her, his loud steps the only noise cutting the tension of the room. His presence was a nice reassurance as Frog hung back at the entrance with a hand on the hilt of his sword.
Lucca kept deathly silent as she picked out a few items for herself. A shelter, some rope, crackers…
"We don't sell to humans," was the gruff response when she set them before the owner.
"Ah." Lucca pursed her lips and slowly looked back towards Robo. "Okay then… Robo, would you mind getting his one? It seems they don't buy from humans."
"Or him," thundered the henchman.
"No?" The inventor sighed carefully, taking note of the rest of the Mystics in the store setting their bags down. "Frog, I guess this one is up to you then."
"Don't toy with me!" the Mystic bawled. "Get out now if you value your life!"
"You see, I'd love to, but unfortunately I can't. I mean, I would really love to, but we really, really need this stuff to-"
"GET EM!"
There were immediately five or six different monsters rushing at them, and Lucca had barley blast one out of the air when another was jumping on her. She rolled between its legs before its arms could wrap around and crush her, leaving it to Robo's iron fist and her to the face of a hammer being swung her way.
"Gah!" she yelled, dancing out of its range just as it slammed down where she had been. She looked up to see a heavily armored guard heaving out hot breaths at her. How she had missed this monster was beyond her, but she could be sure not to do it again. Its hammer had sunk into the wooden floorboards, cracking them and lodging the mallet deep into the foundations of the floor. The massive creature grunted, trying to pull its weapon loose to no avail, and not a second later Frog had descended up it with the Masamune. The knight swung hard at the creature, which did little but startle it back in the slightest. Its armor was all-encompassing and thicker than even Lucca's glasses.
"Allow me," the inventor chimed, ushering a severe flame at the grunting beast, who released its hammer and howled miserably as the fire engulfed it and latched onto its short fur. The guard slammed its palms into itself in attempts to put out the flames, but it was in vain. Panicking, it ran around the shelves of the store which not only made his own flames grow, but spread them until they were catching the shelves and wares, too.
In a matter of seconds, the fire had spread across the whole store.
Frog looked to Lucca, and she returned his blank look. "Twas' what you intended?"
"Not really." She rubbed the back of her neck with a nervous smile.
"HEY!" The shop keep screamed over the cracks and pops of the growing flames. "What're you doin' Earl!? You're startin' the whole place up!"
The four Mystics who had been crawling all over Robo stopped fighting and looked about, finally realizing what was happening. Not wasting another second, they bolted from the building, frantically patting at their own fur for good measure.
In their place, the fuming shop keeper jumped over the counter and pounded his fists into the floor savagely. "No one burns down my shop and gets away with it- especially not humans!"
"Ah haha, yeah about that-" Lucca began, but the henchman was not feeling particularly diplomatic. He came at her with a weighty fist, knocking her over and winding her all at once. His pudgy leg was quick to follow with the intention of crushing her rib cage, when Frog's blade sliced him at the knee and he drew back.
"I think'th not," the knight began, though he was not ready for the Mystic's quick recovery. Its tree-trunk like arms swat him across the room and into a stack of thick, wooden barrels in the corner, where he crumbled to the ground.
Lucca tried to cry out, but she had no air in her lungs to do so. Knowing better than to simply lay there, she quickly rolled herself across the store towards Frog, but stopped short from the dizziness and lack of air. She had just managed to get to her knees and take one good breath before she was lifted from the ground by the collar of her shirt.
"You," the Mystic's shady eyes glared at her as his hands wrapped around her neck. "You'll be sorry you ever came in here."
Lucca struggled to pry his vice grip, but it only tightened and she heard a small snap behind her neck. "The pendant!" she managed. "Hey! Let me go or you'll be sorry!"
"Sorry?" His laugh was an ugly sounding stammer in her ears. "Mystics don't know the word!"
"Well then its time you learned some manners, isn't it?" She flung her arms out, taking command of the flames all about the store and concentrating their energy. The henchman watched with something like frightened awe as the shelves and stocks were stripped of their flames and left in a charred, smoking mess. When every single tongue of flame had been taken into account, Lucca took a deep breath and shot her arms out at the Mystic holding her, who fearfully brought his other arm up over his face. But after a moment of nothing, he peered one lid back and looked about him.
"You missed," it sneered, relaxing and clamping its other massive fist around her neck. "Looks like you need to work on your aim."
"A-Actually-" she choked, struggling to plant her feet on its chest. "I-I have been."
Before it could stammer anything further, the henchman stumbled forwards in surprise as a heated force slammed into its back. It cried out in pain as flames engulfed its body and released Lucca, who jumped away before it could fall on top of her in a flaming heap. It hit the ground beside her, nearly crushing her arm.
"Phew," she panted, wide-eyed. "Good shot, Robo."
"No thanks to you for teaching me such a useful attack." The machine helped her to her feet, which truly looked more like dragging her up with her lack of oomph. "I had never even considered using iron to conduct such levels of heated energy. It proves to pack a powerful punch." The machine made to dust her off but she shooed him away.
"Never mind me; where's Frog?"
"Fret not; I am well," came the amphibian's weak voice from across the store. Learning on the large, wooden barrels behind him, he pulled himself to his feet, sheathed his sword and let out a dry cough. "Twas' close, however."
"I'll say," she grunted, freeing herself from Robo's mothering clasp and brushing herself off quickly. She moved towards the fallen henchman and pried his hands open. Sure enough, there in his grasp was not only her yellow scarf, but Marle's pendant. "The jerk snapped the clasp clean off," she sighed, examining the chain with a frown before tucking it in her pocket. "We'll have to fix that later."
"Twas' lucky it was not broken altogether; the princess would be devastated." Frog took a minute to dust himself off and check his cape for burns. He was satisfied to find there was minimal damage.
"That's why I don't do jewelry- it's a safety risk if I ever saw one." Stepping onto the charred, panting belly of the henchman, Lucca slid the smaller items into her bag and the larger ones into Robo's chest storage-compartment. "Alright that's everything. Let's get outta' here."
"But…" Frog lingered as they move towards the door. "Are we not to leave our due with the shop keep?"
Lucca looked at him dubiously. "Are you kidding me? We tried to be nice and he just about strangled me!"
"Yes, but…"
"Grahh!" At that moment, the brawny armored guard who had spread the fire ran out from one of the aisles as though he had woken from a bad dream. He spun around the store flailing and screaming, thinking he was still on fire, and Frog barely jumped from his path before he flung himself into the barrels head first. Water spewed out as the top half of his body disappeared into the crates, and he went limp again.
Lucca took a slow and deep breath. "I hate shopping."
-v-
"Princess." There was no response from her crumpled form when he nudged her with his foot, save the worst excuse of a groan he had ever heard. "Can you hear me?"
"Uhhh," managed Marle. She tried to flex her shaking fingers but quickly decided against it when she felt the pain of her burnt skin. She hissed something incoherent under her breath and gasped for air.
Looking over his shoulder to ensure the doomed duo had fallen to Ayla's capable hands, Magus muttered a few words to call forth a black ice to his palm. As always, it appeared very quickly, but trying to maintain it within his palm was not such a quickly accomplished victory; holding any kind of magic had never gone well for him, as a matter of a fact. He found, ironically, that though the ice spell burnt his calloused hands, it wasn't the cold of the ice that burned him, but the magic itself. He never kept the replicating denizens so near his own skin.
"Here," he said, ignoring the pain as he knelt at her side and placing the iced palm over her skin. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Unfazed, he worked the best he could to keep a consistent chill to her temperate, angry burns while fighting his own.
The skin along her arms was torn and raw, looking like it had been put through an oven. She squirmed in pain under his hand. It was strange and it made him feel… uncomfortable, touching a person like this. Or at all, really. The night before had been just as strange. He wasn't a healer- he didn't touch people, or let them touch him. Perhaps Marle was a different story, but he had only just begun to consider becoming used to her lack of physical restraint. This girl seemed to have no hesitation to touch what could clearly cause serious trouble.
'What does this button do?'
"What're… you doing?" Marle asked softly, although she didn't move and her eyes didn't open.
"You're burnt."
She struggled for a long minute to sit up so she could squint at him. "You're… h-help…ing?"
"You're not. Stop moving." Looking over his shoulder at all the noise, he saw Flea and Slash retreating fearfully to the stairs, where Ozzie joined their scowls.
"She's psycho!" gasped Flea, leering at the cavewoman while trying to hold up the torn fabric of his clothes. "Where the heck do you find these people?!"
Ayla, who had spent herself a little too much in her rage, had fallen back to circling them on all fours and growling, keeping them cornered. She had even managed to draw Ozzie down from the balcony somehow, though whether that was for better or worse was uncertain.
Although Slash had a natural gift at maintaining an unaffected and distant countenance, even he was panting a little, attempting to retain all possible oxygen he could. "At first… I didn't wanna slice you to pieces." He smiled so wickedly that it didn't even look like a smile. "But after that, I think I've changed my mind!"
"You!" Always on his own train of thought, Ozzie began hollering at Magus' back from behind those of the two recovering Mystic leaders. "You lied to us! You promised revenge for us, but the whole time it was all about you! You said you wanted to create a world of evil, but you only wanted to create a world of… hey! Are you listening to me?! I'm ranting, here!"
Sensing their eyes on to him, Magus shook the ice away from his hands and turned, blocking Marle's fallen form with his own towering frame. He knew better than to keep his back turned on someone as foolish as Ozzie for too long.
Seemingly confused by what they were seeing, the three stared at him for a long moment. Then, as though a light bulb had turned on in his head, Ozzie began to howl with laughter. "So that's it! You've gone soft for the humans! Oh glory, this is too good!"
Magus's default glare met him. "You're as delusional as ever, I see."
Stirring a little, Marle tried in vain to stand. Though his body remained fixed in place, the wizard's crimson gaze briefly turned back to her.
"Oh, ho, ho! Look who's delusional now!" Ozzie laughed. Flea and Slash grinned at each other, respective weapons up and ready to draw blood.
"N…no," Marle persisted, worn but obstinate as ever as she struggled to her feet. If Magus hadn't learnt by now that she was just as head-strong and stubborn as him, then he knew who the real fool was.
Not wasting another moment trying the voice of reason, Magus made rash decision and called the ice back to his hand, clamping it tightly as it gathered energy. It stung bitterly.
Unaware, Marle pushed herself off the floor with great struggle.
Flea and Slash charged forward.
Ayla crouched, ready to attack.
And Ozzie's howling laughter drowned out everything.
First came the stinging, white ringing sound. Then, suddenly, a bright light filled the room. Not fully knowing what to expect, Magus pointed his glowing hand at Marle's shaking body, feeling the ice draw from within himself and break out of the tips of his fingers. It racked through his ribcage, surprising him and pulling the breath from his lungs like a carpet snatched from under his feet.
SHHING!
Where Marle had stood was a hunk of sheer, solid ice.
"Magus!" Ayla yelled before the ambient ringing had ceased or the light had cleared. Half blind, she jumbled over to the ice block encasing her friend and laid such a pounding on it that it shook her more than the ice. It didn't even chip the surface. On the other side of the ice, Marle's stunned, unblinking eyes looked back at her. Livid, the cavewoman spun back to the kneeling culprit. "What you do!?"
Watching this all with keen yet stunned interest, the three villain blinked at the ice, blinked at Magus and then blinked at each other.
"Well that was… that was weird." Ozzie shrugged, and the team exchanged derisive glance. Slash sheathed his blade and rolled his shoulders, and Magus knew what was coming.
"She's safe," Magus breathed to Ayla, seemingly more concerned with the triple attack coming between him and the hesitant remainder of his party. He could only hope the cavewoman would see his stunt as a virtue rather than a vice. "Com'on."
"Safe from what? Hypothermia?" Flea snorted, throwing Ayla away from the ice block and smashing her into the wall like a rag doll as he made for Magus. "I guess that's as soft as Maggy gets!"
Right behind him, Slash's blade scarcely missed the nape of Magus' neck as he jumped backwards, stumbling and casting streams of uneven lightening at the three approaching enemies. It was enough to momentarily shock them all and give him a mere moment to catch his breath. When had magic ever drained him so?
But then the wizard's full magical force was upon them again, unleashing streams of fire to his left and ice-tipped spears to his left. Before Flea could summon his magic, he was doused with a wave of water, and before Slash could take another slice at him, he found himself swinging through dark, deceptive magic.
Ayla recovered from the indent she had made in the wall, but held back to watch how the fight might play out before deciding whether Magus was her ally or not. Truly it seemed he would show no mercy; his onslaught was relentless.
"Grr… A triple technique for that one!" Ozzie hacked out a puff of dark smoke, somehow immune to the lethal powers of a direct lightning strike. His arms flapped about wildly as though he were signaling for something. Indeed it seemed he was, for his two frayed henchmen drew themselves near to him into set positions.
Although it looked more like a poorly choreographed dance was about to unfold, Magus knew the danger of their combined attack power and so moved quickly. Before Ozzie could fully launch himself off Slash's shoulders and absorb Flea's fire magic in mid-air, Magus yelled some foreign command and the sound of rushing water filled the room. It sounded as though a tidal wave was washing through the room, but when they other's realized they had not been hit, they looked about curiously and found, to their surprise, their leader had been encased in a bubble of dark water. He thrashed about angrily in mid-air, trying to will his awkwardly shaped body out of the sphere as he floated over their heads. The bubble was stubborn as he was, however, and had he more room, he could have swam about. But this was not the case.
He was choking.
"Now where did you learn that little trick, dear Magus?" The rushing sound continued to fill the room, serving as a strange kind of white noise to the tension. Magus was too focused on keeping the bubble intact to grace them with a reply, it seemed. Displeased, Slash rolled his wrists and turned to the wizard, but Ayla jumped defensively between them.
"Can you SERIOUSLY just stay out of the way?" Flea groaned, flailing his hands about with a great amount of frustration.
Ayla let out a low growl and jumped at him, but he disappeared before she could land a blow. "Where girl go?!" she demanded, turning to Slash as if he would answer.
"Haven't we gone over this already? I'm not a girl!" called the accused, finally reappearing by his partner. They looked from the concealed Ozzie, to Magus and back to each other, then nodded. Again, Flea vanished into thin air.
Sensing Flea's psyche shifting around the room, Magus spilt his own between maintaining his magic barrier and charting Flea's movements.
"Grrr!" Being she could not track down Flea over the noise, Ayla turned and charged at Slash before he could fully realize what was happening, swinging hard and fast punches at him which he managed to dodge with great struggle. It was obvious that she was too fast for him, but he kept it up long enough for Flea to reanimate himself behind the ferocious woman and grab her feet out her beneath her.
Ayla let out a yip of surprise as she hit the ground face first. Not a moment later, she was being spun around by the ankles and tossed through the air again, right into the very same dark bubble of water encasing the green Mystic leader. It grew to encompass the addition and held just as fast. After a shocked moment, Ayla began flailing around, bounced off the watery walls of the bubble until she too began to choking.
Magus clenched his teeth.
Sated by the turn of events, Flea sauntered towards him with non-threatening strides. "What do to, what to do…" Slash gave himself more distance from the x-Mystic leader and held back a ways. "Let them both die then kill us? Is that why you're here, Maggy?"
Said magician gave little more than his usual glare as a reply. Inside the bubble, Ayla struggled against the liquid. Ozzie had grown more lurid with panic, efficiently wasting his energy to the point of an eerie stillness.
"We're no fools, Magus." Slash railed a step forward, perhaps a little more upset than Flea. "You only look out for yourself; you don't care about anything or anyone, especially humans. You're not with theses weirdoes for the fun of it."
His hands continued to glow with the dark aura spending the life energy of the two imprisoned in their watery cage, who had both slowed in their movements now. Magus remained a silent statue. If any of the searing words either cohort had spoke chiseled the deep tower of a man, it didn't show.
"You've always been the quiet, serious one." Anticipating the silence, Flea moved around him slowly, curiously. "I've often wondered what drove you to summon that monster Lavos to this world; you were so determined. But I don't think…" his hand brought Magus' stone face down to his meet his. "I don't think it was for the same reasons we wanted him."
Magus locked him with cold eyes for a long, silent moment.
"Was it?"
Finally relenting, his eyes closed. As though he were releasing a great breath, his fingers relaxed very slowly and the sound of gushing water and mad sputtering filled the room.
Flea took a long moment to drink in the mysterious being, daring still to hold his chin up although his eyes were sealed closed. "Perhaps we do not know you so well, Magus."
With a grin both wild and selectively devious, Slash jumped at the wizard before he could recover from the spent magic running though his limbs and knocked him to the ground. The last thing Magus remembered seeing were two silhouettes laying on the floor, and the shocked expression on Marle's face from within the ice block.
-v-
"Twas' a moment of hilarity I shant soon forget," Frog laughed, wiping a non-existent tear from his eye. "The look upon his mug- did'st thou see it?" Frog attempted to imitate the face and the noise it had made, though it sounded nothing at all like the creature had.
"What was it like again?" the scientist laughed with a grin.
"Mayhaps more like this- art thou watching?"
Lucca almost rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help looking over her shoulder with a snicker. Frog, who was largely more amusing than she had even seen him, gave another sputtering impersonation before breaking into a laugh. She smiled to herself; she had never seen the tight-collared knight laugh at anyone's expense before, much less at anything else, and it was strangely entertaining. Not that she had been one to talk lately- she knew she had been pretty miserable, but Frog was as uptight as Magus about certain things, and propriety was easily on the top of that list.
"I saw it, Frog." She laughed again as he imitated the guard's panicked face again, and for a minute she almost forgot they had just about died.
"If you wanted to see the scene again, I could always replay it for you," Robo stated simply, not understanding what was so funny. "I witness his flailing as well."
"Ho ho! T'was perfect!" the amphibian laughed, wiping his face clean of the look. "Gold! Twas' simply gold."
While well needed after the stressful day, the laughter died down as they neared the Mystic's house with the gate. That strange chanting caught their ears again.
Frog seemed to hear it first, for the mirth and mischief quickly left him. Had he had ears, they would have perked up.
"Lucca," he turned to her with all seriousness, "doth not their chanting differ from before?"
"Probably," she shrugged, wanting to get away from it. "I mean, they probably have a bunch of different chants; would get boring having only the one, ya know?"
But Frog was not put off. His feet took the slow and sure steps back in the direction of the town square as though he were in some sort of trance.
"Frog!" Lucca called after him, but he was already gone. With a sigh, she ran after him and motioned for Robo to wait for her. She was surprised to find herself so agile after being tossed around, and Frog was no less of a surprise than her. For his small size, he sure covered a lot of ground quickly. Naturally, he made it to the stone rising before her.
"Frog what are you doing?" she hissed, sliding next to the stone platform with careful practice. "Frog?"
The look fixed on the knight's face as he peered over the rising was her first indication that something was wrong. Hesitantly, she followed his lead and peered over the ledge herself. At first, she saw nothing wrong with the scene; the Mystics were engaged in their usual albeit creepy practices like any other day. Maybe more of them were sparring now, but that could just be an evening thing…
Then it hit her. "The statue. That's…. that's not Ozzie."
"No." Frog met her eye with such ferocity. "Tis' Magus!"
"No…" she unwillingly relented. "That can't be right."
She heard Frog's leather gloves rasp as he tightened a fist. "The fiend should ne'er hath left mine vision!"
Lucca sighed a little, trying not to act panicked even though she too, was concerned by this strange turn of events. "Frog, we can't just jump to conclusions. I mean, this is pretty weird, but…"
"Doth thou not understand enough from the vile statue of that wizard?" the amphibian demanded through clenched teeth."Doth thou not see?"
"Look, I know it looks bad… I'm a little worried, too. But Marle was the one who wanted to do this. History is being changed right now… and we don't really know what that means yet."
Frog glowered darkly for a moment, trying very hard to contain himself.
"We just need to give it some time before we jump to conclusions. Changing the past is a messy business." Hoping her words had sated him, Lucca slipped back down the wall and Frog followed a moment after, the former confused and the later elated with anger. Lucca was silently praying he wasn't right.
"If thou say'th so…" the knight grumbled through grit teeth.
"C'mon," she finally decided. "Let's get the rest of our stuff and wait for them at the End of Time."
It was with a reluctant, begrudging attitude that Frog followed after her, and not without one last glance back at the towering, familiar statue of the wizard.