Deja Vu

1016 AD, omega timeline

-o-

Zeo limped his way through Guardia Forest, with Fina and Kurt close behind. After three days of rest and Fina's healing, his knee was finally strong enough to walk on. He thought he could even run or climb with it, though it wouldn't be exactly fun.

Kurt had gone back to the market and traded the furs he and Zeo had taken from Fina's hut for a sword. It was no Rainbow, or even a match for the red katana Uncle Melchior had given Zeo for his last birthday, but it was still good, sharp water-steel. He had it strapped to his back, so it wouldn't get in the way when he was climbing.

They got to the foot of the castle wall just before the changing of the guard at sunrise. It was the best possible time for a break in - at the end of the graveyard shift, all the guards would be tired and cold and thinking more about their beds than about their jobs. The light was bad, too, a dim, flat grey that could easily convince a sentry he'd seen a shadow instead of an intruder.

The three of them - no, four: Mune was tagging along like someone's little brother - the four of them looked up. Far above them was a bridge spanning between the tops of two towers. Kurt took out his multigun and loaded it with the grapple. He aimed it up at the bridge. "Don't miss," Zeo whispered. Kurt nodded. The shot would be audible from almost anywhere on the castle wall. As soon as he pulled the trigger, they would have to move as fast as possible; another shot would take valuable time.

Much of the prison's security came from the fact that it had no entrance anywhere near ground level. The only way to get in was through the castle and over this bridge. The builders had been so confident in this simple expedient of altitude that they'd built the prison outside the castle's curtain wall. After all, what did it matter if someone got to the base? Scaling the wall would be too slow, they'd be seen before they reached the top. There was no way to get a long enough ladder there without being noticed. And no one could throw a grappling hook that high.

In the old history, Crono had put extra guards on this bridge, once Zeo and Kurt had proved how climbable Guardia Castle was. But this timeline had never heard of the Liedermark Multigun.

The shot echoed off the walls, and several birds were startled into flight. The hook flew up and landed on the bridge. Kurt reeled it in until the hook caught on the railing. "Is it gonna hold?" Zeo asked. Kurt tugged on it, and then hung his full weight from it. It held. "I'll go first," Zeo said. He took the reel from Kurt and stuck the magnet to his belt buckle. A flip of a switch, and he was lifted right off the ground.

He reached the bridge, and started to scramble over the railing. When he tried to put weight on his bad leg, though, it buckled. Zeo had one sick moment to think, "this is gonna hurt," and then the red knife in his belt wedged in the railing. It slowed his fall long enough for him to get handholds, and he pulled himself up.

"Thanks, Mune," he muttered. The green-haired boy appeared, gave him a little smile, and faded out again. Zeo dropped the grapple reel over the side of the bridge so Kurt and Fina could use it.

The three of them were reunited on the bridge without any more scares. The whole maneuver had taken about three minutes. If the sun had begun to rise behind Guardia castle, Zeo couldn't see it, but he could see the mountains now, grey on grey.

Kurt looked over the edge, as he pulled on his gauntlet. "No turning back now," he said. "The guards are already going down there to see what the bang was."

"They're clueless," Zeo said confidently. "Let's do it." He jogged across the bridge, trying not to limp. Kurt and Fina trailed behind him.

"I was very frightened for a moment, Zeo," Fina said. "You almost fell."

Zeo grinned at her. "Eh," he said airily, "I've had scarier moments than that, climbing around this castle." They reached the end of the bridge, and a staircase down into the prison tower. Here Zeo slowed down, so that their footsteps didn't echo down into the room below. When he reached the bottom, he flattened his back against the wall and peeked through the doorway.

"Someone there?" Kurt whispered.

Zeo stepped back from the door and nodded. "It's just a clerk, though, I wish we didn't have to hurt him. . ." There was a sharp rattling sound. Fina had tied a string of dried seeds to her spear, just behind the flint tip. She was spinning the spear slowly, like a graceful dance despite the tight quarters. When she ended a motion, the seeds rattled. Zeo realized she was beginning to glow softly, like moonlight, not sunlight, on new snow.

He heard a chair scraping back, too, from inside the room, and a voice muttering, "What on Earth is that?" Zeo didn't know what Fina was doing, but it was going to get them caught. With his left thumb, Zeo popped his new sword loose in its sheath.

The uniformed clerk stepped into the staircase, and saw them. "Oh," he said. Maybe he'd been starting to say oh, no, or oh my goodness! But before he could finish, Fina tapped him on the head with the flat of her spearpoint. She didn't hit him hard - Zeo might have teased a little kid by tapping him so lightly, with anything but a weapon. The light around her swirled, though, and the clerk dropped to the floor like a sack of flour. He breathed loudly, and Zeo realized the man was snoring.

"Wow," Zeo said.

Fina smiled at him. There was mischief in it, and Zeo suddenly realized that Fina wasn't that much older than him. "Oh," she said, "it's not hard to send someone to visit the realm of spirits and dreams." Kurt laughed aloud, and slowly Zeo realized she'd been copying the tone he'd used to brag about climbing the castle. He blushed.

"Okay, well, we're in a hurry," he said. "Let's go." He ran across the room and opened the door there.

In this room there were two guards, one on either side of the room, in oddly stout suits of plate armor. At first Zeo only saw the farther one; he had run right past the other. The guard he saw held up a hand. "You! Stop!" Zeo drew his sword, and in the corner of his eye he caught an answering movement of steel. He spun just in time, and knocked away the broadsword swinging down at his head.

The guard swung again, straight across at chest level. Zeo moved his sword to block. . . and the heavy broadsword slammed through his guard like a hammer through a wicker basket. He cried out as he was slammed aside, into the wall. The sword bit into his right shoulder, though his block at least kept it from lopping the arm right off. Zeo was right-handed, and his sword drooped weakly from the wound. The guard readied his sword again, this time at neck-height. Zeo drew Mune with his left hand and rammed the broken dreamstone right through the steel breastplate. So went Zeo's first true battle.

When he remembered where he was again, and started to catch his breath, he saw the other guard lying on the stones, with a large, smoking hole in his helmet. It must have made a fantastic noise when Kurt shot him, enclosed in this small room, but Zeo hadn't heard it at all.

"No one could have missed the noise of that weapon," Fina said. "They know someone is here, now."

"He was so strong," Zeo said. He was thinking of his father's stories of breaking out of this prison, about the weird guards that all hid their faces behind helmets and shields. He and Lucca had thought they might be Mystics, monsters, but never found out for sure. The-King-his-grandfather had fired all the old guards before Zeo's parents had even married. Zeo thought of mentioning this story, but if he did he would have to take off one of their helmets and check.

"Zeo! Kurt!" Fina snapped. Both boys jumped. (Kurt had been staring at the hole he'd made in that helmet.) "We have little time. I will heal your wound, Zeo, and then we must hurry." Zeo nodded, and Fina rattled her spear and laid a hand on the slash in his shoulder. There was a flash of snow-glare, and, oddly, a sudden burning itch, and the healing was done. It still hurt, but it wasn't bleeding and he could use his arm.

Zeo led his little group through the door. "I think the execution room is this way," he said, turning left and heading down a flight of stairs.

"Don't we want the cells?" Kurt asked as they ran.

"Maybe," Zeo said, "but if Dad's in the cells, we can save him later. If he's in the execution room, later's not good enough." They ran on down staircases and through halls.

"Where are all the guards?" Kurt asked. "I fired a double-charge, it should have shook half the tower."

"Maybe the spirits are with us," Fina said, with a glance at the dreamstone knife. "Or maybe the enemy is waiting in ambush."

"Guards don't think like that," Zeo said absently. "They run at you and say, 'stop.' Or 'please stop, Highness,' if it's me." He wasn't the type to question good luck. "The execution room is just around. . . oh, crap."

Two guards with broadswords were flanking the door they wanted, and one with a very large shield was standing right in front of it. "You three!" one shouted. "Drop your weapons!" Instead, they all drew. Kurt opened the fight with a blast of shot. Mostly it just bounced off the armor and shield, but the guards flinched and staggered back. Zeo leapt at the nearest swordsman. He parried the knife (though it dug deeply into the broadsword) but Zeo's sword sliced into the crack below the helmet.

As the guard fell, Zeo sidestepped around the shield-bearer. The other swordsman swung at him. Zeo deflected the stroke, so that it sparked against the wall. He swung the knife wildly at the shield-bearer to keep him honest. The shield-bearer turned to face him, and Fina stabbed him in the back with her spear. Zeo parried the broadsword again - it wasn't hard as long as he remembered not to block that incredible strength directly. When the guard drew his sword back for another swing, Zeo ducked inside his guard and rammed the knife into his armpit, where he had no armor but chain mail.

The fight probably hadn't been audible inside - the room had been built as a torture chamber, among other things, designed to keep in the sound of screams. The walls were very thick and the door was oak layered over cork. Zeo sheathed his weapons, opened the door, and charged through, dimly aware of Kurt and Zeo at his heels. Someone was tied to a guillotine in the first room, with his head beneath the blade and above the waiting basket. But it wasn't Crono, and there was no one else there. Guillotine blades didn't drop at random, so whoever it was could wait a couple seconds. Zeo slammed open the door into the second room.

Someone with a yellow tunic and spiky red hair was being forced into another guillotine. Zeo's eyes stung when he saw his father alive and well. He nearly called out, but then Crono gave him a look of surprise and total non-recognition. Zeo remembered Kurt's face when Elaine hadn't known who he was, and realized he was probably wearing that same face himself, now. In this history, his dad had only known his mom for the length of a day, and he'd never been born.

"Zeo!" Fina said sharply. Only then did Zeo register the other people in the room. There were seven guards with broadswords, as well as a uniformed but unarmed man with Intelligence insignia. Everyone drew their weapons.

"Kill the prisoner!" the officer yelled.

"No!" Zeo charged forward, his weapons flashing, but he couldn't get through seven fighters in half a second. Kurt took more useful action. Guessing something like this might happen, he'd loaded his gun with the grapple. The central point thunked into the guillotine's frame, just below the blade, and the arms snapped forward. An instant later, one of the guards cut the rope holding the blade up, and it fell. It only fell two inches, though, before it hit the grapple arm and grated to a stop.

Then Zeo and Fina were fighting for their lives. Zeo had both speed and Mune's razor edge, and Fina had reach, but they were badly outnumbered. Fina tried to stab the flint tip of her spear through a crack in her opponent's armor, and it snapped in half. Undeterred, she started glowing, and her spear started a weirdly graceful spin. She smacked a guard with what was left of the point, not even scratching the armor, but the guard collapsed. Another one, though, took advantage of her slow movements to slice open her leg, and she staggered back against the wall.

As for Zeo, he was hard pressed. The heavy swings weren't fast, but their power meant Zeo couldn't block them quickly, either. He'd cut one man down in the surprise of the first charge, but there were three still attacking him, and he didn't have time for any serious attacks. Finally, a sword was swinging straight at his head, and he had no time to block it and no room to get out of the way.

The broadsword struck a metallic grip, and bronze fingers closed on it and pulled. It actually bent before Kurt broke the guard's grip. He spun it around and jammed the point through the slit in its owner's visor. Another guard swung at him; he knocked the sword aside with his gauntlet and punched his attacker in the head, staggering the man back and ringing his helmet like a bell. Zeo took the opening to cut the stunned guard down. The tide of the fight had turned.

"Kill the prisoner!" the officer shouted. "Don't let them retake him!" A guard turned from the rescuers and swung his broadsword down at Crono. Zeo's father was still lying prone by the guillotine, though he'd wriggled his head out of the hole. He rolled away from the sword stroke and got to his knees, his hands still tied behind his back. The guard swung his sword down again. Crono leaned forward, and somehow he reached his tied hands up behind him and caught the sword between his palms. While the guard was goggling at this impossible move, Crono ran the rope around his wrists along the blade. The rope snapped, and he rolled away to the side.

Zeo was desperately trying to fight his way to Crono, but although Fina had dropped another guard with her sleep magic, he still couldn't get through. Crono was nimbly dodging away from his would-be executioner, and he obviously wanted to get to one of the fallen swords. His back was to a wall, though, and he couldn't get past. Zeo pushed forward, but an armored arm pushed him back, and he had to duck a sword stroke. "Dad!" he shouted, forgetting himself in fear and frustration. Crono gave him a startled look.

The door behind the rescuers banged open again. A gunshot rang out, not loud enough to be from Kurt, but a guard's armor was pierced all the same and he fell. A silent arrow flew over Fina's shoulder and killed another. "Crono!" a woman shouted, and Kurt's head snapped around. Zeo didn't look, since his opponent was still standing, but he saw the sheathed sword she threw fly over the battle. Crono caught it, and in one motion he drew the red katana and swung. He didn't just kill his own enemy, he created a razor sharp slash of air that flew straight across the room and killed the officer and Zeo's guard as well.

Zeo lowered his weapons and turned around, panting. The archer was a young blond woman, maybe just a girl, wearing loose clothes and a cloth mask over her lower face. The gunner was a purple-haired woman with thick glasses. With a bizarre sense of deja vu, he recognized Lucca.

"We came to rescue you," she said to Crono. Then she looked around at Zeo, Kurt and Fina. "I guess you didn't need our help after all."

Kurt stared at Lucca, and the blond girl who'd come with her. He should have realized. When she'd told him the story of the original rescue, she'd said, "Well, of course I couldn't let him get his thick head chopped off." And so she couldn't - here she was.

Zeo was just as dumbstruck as him; it was Fina who recovered first. "Hello," she said simply. "I am Fina. My friends are Zeo and Kurt."

"I'm Lucca," she said. Kurt had to bite his tongue so he didn't say, "I know." Lucca gestured to the archer. "This is Marle." Marle? No, Kurt thought, after a second look. The hair and eye color were similar, but this Marle was half Lucca's age, and Queen Nadia was a shade older than her.

But Zeo wasn't as quick to see this. "Mom?" he said incredulously. Crono's sharp green eyes narrowed at him, but he didn't say anything and Zeo didn't notice.

The girl's eyes flashed. "'Mom?' Do I look like someone's mother?" She looked Zeo up and down. "I'd have had to give birth to you when I was two."

"I'm not twelve," Zeo snapped. Marle turned red, but Zeo had guessed her age pretty well, Kurt thought.

Lucca interrupted them. "If you're okay, Crono, I left something in the outer room." Crono nodded, and she ducked out.

Marle looked at them all again. "What on Earth are you people doing here, anyway?" she asked. Fina was taking advantage of this brief break to tend the cut in her leg. Kurt pulled his grapple out of the guillotine, letting it slice down on empty air.

"Saving Crono," Zeo answered. Thankfully he remembered not to call him "Dad" again. Kurt was going to have similar problems with "sire." "Thanks for the help," Zeo added, sounding offhand but sincere.

"Help? We're saving Crono," Marle said, "and I'll thank you when you get out of our way. This is no job for amateurs."

"Oh, and you're a veteran of a thousand battles?" Zeo snapped back. "We got almost a dozen guards, and you got two."

"Seven," she corrected. "Two on the way here and the five that you saw."

"You can't count Crono's kills!" Zeo shouted. "He's the one we're trying to rescue!"

"He's with us," Marle answered. "You're just interlopers, and you're interfering with a carefully laid plan."

"We saved your butts! What would you two have done against seven swords, with your bow and your gun? One shot each, and then the show's over."

Marle opened her mouth to answer, probably something about the short sword on her hip and the large hammer Lucca carried, but just then Crono cleared his throat.

Zeo ducked his head, and muttered, "Sorry." He said it to Crono, though, not Marle. Surprisingly, Marle fell quiet, too. Crono herded them into the outer room.

There Lucca was standing with the man who'd been in the other guillotine. Kurt was startled to see it was Taban. "The Red Rose," Lucca's father said, as though it was a greeting.

"No time, Dad," Lucca said. "They're probably rallying for a mass attack right now. If we get pinned in here, it's all over." She opened the outer door, and Crono took point and led them out. The seven of them ran back through the halls. They spotted only a couple guards, who retreated instantly. Lucca and Marle took potshots at them, and usually hit. Kurt saved his ammo; his weapon was much slower to reload than theirs.

It looked like Lucca was right, and the guards were gathering for a mass attack somewhere. But it had better be soon, hadn't it? It wouldn't do them much good to be in a large group if they had to chase along behind in plate armor. But the group passed through the long room where the two guards had been, and no mass attack. They went unmolested through the office where the poor clerk still slept soundly. Then they were running across the bridge to the castle. The sun was up now, but a cold wind was blowing out of the northern mountains.

"Where's the mass attack?" Zeo asked.

"Distracted, maybe," Lucca said. "If even half the plan went right, the whole castle should be in the most amazing five-sided uproar by now. But this still seems too easy." There was a deep rumbling, and the bridge shook. "What's that?"

Zeo and Kurt looked at each other. "Uh-oh," Kurt said.

Zeo snickered. "Here we go again!"

Marle glared at them. "What are you…" The bridge rumbled again, and out the far door came a great tank in the shape of a dragon, with spiked wheels and a head on a long, articulated neck. For some reason, Kurt took this moment to wonder if they had a way to get that impossible thing up and down stairs, or if it had been installed in the tower for this specific purpose.

Lucca just looked the thing up and down and drew her pistol. "Think we can take it, Crono?"

"Yeah," Kurt answered for him. "I'm pretty sure you can." It took all his willpower not to start giggling like Zeo.

"Kill the head first," Marle and Zeo said at the same time. Then they looked at each other. "How did you know that?" they demanded, still in perfect unison. Something clicked in the back of Kurt's mind, but he was interrupted before he figured out what it was.

"While they are doing that," Fina said, "we must defend their backs." Kurt looked back. Armored guards were coming out of the prison tower and advancing toward them. The promised mass attack had finally come, when the rescuers were pinned against the castle's strongest weapon. Crono caught Zeo's eyes, and the prince nodded.

"Let's do it!" Lucca shouted.