The Red Rose
1016 AD, omega timeline
"Let's do it!" Lucca shouted.
She and Crono would be fighting the dragon tank, but Marle had no time to watch or help. The attack from the other direction was ten strong, led by a shield-bearer. They had to come single-file, but that huge shield covered the whole line. Marle nocked an arrow to her short bow, smoothly drew back, aimed, and released. The broadhead point thunked into the thick timber and quivered there. "Damn," she muttered. The quiet woman in the white furs, Fina, readied her useless broken spear. The kid with the big gun snapped it open and frantically started reloading it. Neither of them would be any use in holding the line. Marle reached for the short sword at her hip.
"Guardia!" Marle's head snapped up. Usually that cry meant someone was attacking her, but it was the blond jerk with the two blades, Zeo. He had both weapons drawn and was charging, though Marle thought he was favoring his left leg. "Guardia!" he shouted again.
The soldiers, unnerved by having their own battle cry shouted at them, flinched back. Zeo sliced both weapons at the shield-bearer. The sword barely made an impression on the huge tower shield. The red knife sliced a gash right through it, but the blade wasn't long enough to reach the person behind the shield. Zeo, expecting to crash past a wounded or dying man, instead ricocheted off a firmly-held wall of wood. He did manage to bounce past the shield-bearer instead of backwards, but that just meant he caromed off the railing and tumbled to the stones in the middle of the enemy troop.
Marle fired another arrow, but the shield-bearer remembered to face front in time. The arrow buried itself in the shield beside the first. Meanwhile, Zeo got to his feet just in time to parry attacks from both directions. He spun around, trying to watch both ways at once, his two weapons flailing. His hair flapped in the wind of his own motions. Finally, he let out a desperate, wordless scream and seemed to slash in four directions at the same time. Blades of air flew out from his weapons, a technique Marle had never seen anyone but Crono use before. Four guards fell, one of them right over the side of the bridge.
Marle was startled from this, she had to admit, impressive sight by a deafening bang in her ear - Kurt's gun. A grapple appeared, embedded in the tower shield. Kurt grabbed the line it trailed in his strange gauntlet, and yanked. The shield was pulled right out of its owner's hands.
Marle wasn't about to let a couple of amateurs outdo her. She drew back another arrow, and slipped into a light trance. She was one with the arrow, one with the target. Blue light appeared along her line of aim, and she fired. The arrow drove through the former shield-bearer and came halfway out the back of the armored man behind him. Now the front of the attack was beyond Zeo; he had enemies on only one side by now. His fighting took on an almost leisurely style, as though he intended to stand there and hold this narrow bridge all day. Marle thought he just didn't want to move on that bad leg more than he had to.
Whether it was true or not, the guards seemed to believe his bravado. When he killed one of them, the rest fell back. Zeo walked backwards to the rest of the group. "That charge was the stupidest thing I've ever seen," Marle said. "You're lucky you're not dead." She spotted a gash in his back, and another, shallower cut on his hip.
She gave an exasperated sigh and spread her hands. She concentrated, and let her aura become visible around her. The light washed over Zeo, and his bleeding stopped. He looked back and smiled, about to thank her. "You're an idiot," she interrupted him, "but you're useful for the moment." Zeo frowned at the insult and faced forward again. Behind her, Marle heard Lucca shout look out! and something that sounded disturbingly like fire. She allowed herself a quick glance back and saw Crono still in the fight, though his boots were smoking.
She heard a warning from Kurt and looked back. The guards were attacking again, this time at what passed for a charge for men in plate armor. "Zeo!" Kurt called. "Slide trick!"
Marle had no idea what this meant, but Zeo nodded. "Fina," he yelled, "hold the line." And he ran at the attackers again, still screaming the enemy's battle cry. Kurt fired his gun. Marle winced, but it was the grapple again, and it was aimed over Zeo's head. It caught a gargoyle on the prison tower and reeled taut. The lead guard tensed as Zeo approached, but instead of attacking, the boy jumped onto the bridge railing and ran past. Fina came up behind him, glowing like the moon, and smacked the leader's helmet with her spear point. He started to collapse forward. Fina pushed him back with her spear, so he fell on the man behind him.
Meanwhile Zeo was running right past the whole line of enemies, dodging or jumping over each guard's sword without ever losing his balance. He'd managed to sheathe his sword, but still held the knife. At last, he leaped up and grabbed the line of Kurt's grapple, and started sliding back down. He kicked the guards in the back of their heads, knocking them over like a line of steel dominos, until the grapple was pulled loose. Then he landed knife-first on the one about to swing at Fina. The guards retreated again, in a poor approximation of order.
Marle took another glance back at the other fight. Lucca was on one knee, bleeding heavily from her leg, but the entire front of the dragon's head had been chopped off, and it was leaking steam and sparks from several holes. With a confident nod, she turned back to the prison side of the bridge.
"Idiots!" came a very deep voice from inside the tower. "If you can't handle them, I'll do it myself." A huge figure lumbered out. He was eight feet tall and five feet wide, in heavy plate armor and a morning star. Crazily, Marle thought she saw a single eye leering from the slit in the center of his helmet.
"I don't think he'll fall asleep," Fina muttered. Kurt was desperately rummaging in his bag for ammo. Zeo looked at them, and at the huge captain, and took one determined step forward, and another. Then he broke into a charge. "Guardiaaaaaa!" he screamed, leaping at the captain with both swords raised. The huge morning star swatted him out of the air.
Zeo flew backwards, weapons knocked from his hands. The red knife embedded itself in the railing, and the sword, about to fly off to fall on the cliffs below, instead clattered off it to land on the bridge. As for Zeo, he bounced off the rail on the other side and nearly flew off himself before he grabbed the stone with one hand. The guard captain laughed as he slowly pulled himself up. Marle shot an arrow at the giant, and then another, but they just bounced off the thick armor. Obviously in pain, Zeo rolled onto the bridge, picked up his sword, and pulled his knife out of the railing. "Just try that again, monster!" he shouted.
The captain laughed again. "Sure. Next time I'll spread your brains for the crows to eat." He hefted his spiked mace. Marle drew back another arrow, concentrating. Zeo charged forward, just like last time. But instead of jumping straight at the giant, he first leaped onto the railing, hoping for more height. The guard raised his mace to bash Zeo away again, and Marle took her shot. With a streak of blue, the arrow drove through the plate armor into the man's belly. He brought the morning star down, curling around the wound in a belated attempt to protect himself, and that's when Zeo struck from above. His sword and knife each cut deep into the captain's shoulders. He roared, and Zeo kicked off his chest, pulling both weapons free and rolling backwards. He came to his feet and snapped his blades into guard position.
The giant staggered back, and looked at the two of them. "They don't pay me enough for this," he rumbled, and collapsed back into the prison tower. Marle didn't think he was dying, but he certainly looked out of the fight.
"Now, Crono!" Marle spun around at Lucca's shout. She saw Crono leap onto the dragon tank's back and drive his sword straight down into its body. Sparks and smoke gushed out like blood. Crono slashed the thing open in a spray of wires and gears, and leaped back. It arced electricity everywhere for a couple seconds, and then exploded. Marle ducked, covering her eyes against the flash and flying shrapnel. When she looked again, the tank was just gone, along with most of that part of the bridge.
"Damn it!" she shouted. "We need to get across that. It'll never hold us now."
"I've got it," Kurt said, loading his grapple one more time. He fired it over the gap, and it caught on the other side.
"I'll go last and bring the reel," Zeo said.
Marle snorted. Zeo was bruised, bleeding, and staggering, and certainly not up for a delicate climb over an unstable bridge. Kurt seemed to have the same thought. "Forget it," he said. "I'll make a new one." He took the reel off his gun and tied it to the bridge railing. "Go! Split your weight between the bridge and the line, it should hold."
"I'm lightest," Marle said. "I'll go first." She started suiting actions to words immediately, edging across the remaining edge of the bridge with both hands pressing down on the grapple line.
"Right," Lucca said. "Then in increasing order of weight." She peered at the group. "I think Zeo, Kurt, Fina, me, Crono. You're last, Dad."
Taban nodded grimly. "I'm probably the least important today, anyway." Lucca frowned, not appreciating this gallows humor.
One by one they crossed the fragile bridge. A few bits of new gravel broke off and fell into the shadows below, but other than that it held. When Taban set his feet on solid stone, everyone sighed in relief. Crono tilted his head toward the tower, and they all followed him down into the castle.
As Lucca had planned, it was a madhouse. A bomb had destroyed a little used side-gate, there was a fire in the kitchens, and intruders had been reported in the Queen's tower. All these places were swarming with guards; the intruders went nowhere near any of them. Instead, they ran straight for the front door.
Even in this confusion, the castle's main entrance wasn't left unguarded. One of the guards had been called away, but his partner had been prudently left behind. This wasn't quite prudent enough, however. Marle proved why the door had rated two guards in the first place by putting a silent arrow through the man's throat before he could give the alarm. Then she looked up at the balcony, and saw the sad-eyed figure in an ornate dress and coronet. "This wasn't in the plan," Marle thought wildly. "She was supposed to be in the tower. . ."
No one else was there, just seven traitors and the Queen. Crono looked up, and met her eyes. With a slight smile, he bowed. She inclined her head in acknowledgement. Marle carefully kept her face neutral, but the Queen's eyes held hers for a second. Zeo actually grinned and gave the Queen of Guardia a jaunty little salute. Then Nadia turned and went back the way she had come.
"Time for me to go," Marle said. "For the Red Rose."
"For the Red Rose," Taban answered. Lucca added, "Good luck." Marle nodded, and vanished deeper into the castle.
"Where's she going?" Kurt asked, as Marle slipped away.
"She has other work to do," Lucca said. "We're going this way. Hurry!" She led them out into the courtyard, at a run. The haste was quickly explained - they were seen immediately by guards on the wall.
"Close the gates!" someone yelled. His squad hurried to obey. Kurt raised his gun and fired. The range was a bit long for him, but the soldiers running for the gate all staggered or flinched from the spray of buckshot. Almost simultaneously, Lucca fired her pistol, and their officer dropped like a sack of potatoes.
The rescuers kept running for the gate. The leaderless, beleaguered soldiers hesitated. Then one of them shouted, "It's Crono! Run!"
"No, you fools!" someone shouted from atop the gatehouse. Another officer, no doubt. Lucca shot him off the wall before he could give any orders. Crono loosened his katana in its sheath, and the poor soldiers broke. Then they were through. There was a cleared area around the castle, before the forest started, and a few of the confused soldiers on the curtain wall had the wit to remember their crossbows. Two quick shots from Lucca discouraged this show of initiative. She was wounded and firing on the run, but Kurt hadn't seen her miss yet.
Once they made the woods, it was all over but the parade.
Crono called a halt after only a couple minutes. Lucca seemed about to argue, but then she sunk down onto a handy log. "Just for a bit," she said. Her leg was still bleeding.
"Hold still, Lucca-Leader," Fina said, producing a bandage from somewhere. Kurt hadn't gotten very far in teaching her modern technology, but she'd seen the utility of cloth and cotton bandages over leather and moss right away. She quickly wrapped Lucca's wound and tied the bandage off. Her hands glowed as she worked, and she finished with two quick shakes of her spear-rattle.
"Handy," Lucca commented. "We usually need Marle for that sort of thing." Kurt caught Zeo's eye. The way Marle had healed the prince on the bridge had looked remarkably like Queen Nadia's Aura. If they hadn't just seen the two of them in the same room. . .
"Now, you, Zeo," Fina said. "You took a nasty hit." Zeo didn't argue, but sat down and let himself be treated. "How's your knee?" the shaman asked, when she was done glowing.
Zeo waved her off and stood up. "Fine."
"I'll look at it later. Now," she deadpanned, "I suggest that you all try not to become injured again today." Kurt was too tired to laugh, but she got a chuckle out of Zeo and Crono, at least. "The spirits are tired and so am I."
"Okay, time to go," Lucca said. "They'll remember to search the forest eventually." But if they did, it wasn't before the rescuers made it back to Truce.
Lucca led them into the dock district. Kurt found the route familiar, and as they wound their way among the square, ugly warehouses, a theory emerged in his head. When she led them to a particular door, the theory was confirmed. Lucca fumbled in her pockets. "Where'd I put that key?"
Kurt pulled a key out of his bag, and fit it into the back door of his parents' warehouse.
Everyone but Zeo and Fina stared at him. Lucca finally dug out an identical key and held it up. In fact, it was the same key. "How'd you get that, boy?" Taban growled.
Kurt grinned. "I don't think we've been formally introduced, sir. My name is Kurt Liedermark." It took them a few seconds to make the connection. Predictably, Lucca got it first.
"Elaine," she said.
"Bad security," Taban added.
Lucca pointed a thumb at Crono. "Apparently not, eh?" But she was frowning, too. "Anyway, come on." She led them inside, around behind a pile of boxes, and into the open back of what looked like a solid six-foot crate. She pulled a ring on the bottom, and it swiveled up - it was a trap door.
"Now, that's new," Kurt commented. Underneath was a ladder down into the darkness. They all climbed down, and Crono led them through a narrow, switchback passage, with walls full of arrow slits.
"Now this place is defensible," Zeo said. "No way we could have snuck in here."
"Explosives could collapse the whole thing," Kurt noted. "But barring that, the six of us could hold off the whole army down here."
Finally they reached the end of the passage, and it opened up into a large hall. Kurt jumped when he saw the huge shape looming right around the corner, but then he recognized it. It was a Gato, one of Lucca's battle robots. It looked a bit like the Mark III Kurt remembered, except the parts were cruder. Beyond the Gato, about twenty armed young men and women were sitting around, apparently waiting. When they saw Crono they all started cheering. "The Red Rose! Crono and the Red Rose! Down with the King!" Crono grinned and waved at them
Lucca gestured them in. "Welcome to the headquarters of the Red Rose Rebellion. Make yourselves at home."
Most of the rebels left once they'd had a chance to talk to Crono - or rather, Zeo thought, once they had a chance to touch him and make sure he was alive. Zeo, Kurt, and Fina found themselves sitting in what was apparently a planning room. The table held maps and a large slate with chalk, though no sign of actual written plans.
"I think I'm starting to get a handle on this place," Kurt said.
Zeo shook his head. "I'm not." The cheers he'd heard in the main hall were still making his eyes cross - "Hooray Crono! Down with the King!"
"It seems simple enough to me," Fina said. "The chief - the King - is evil, so heroes have banded together in secret against him. I already knew that Zeo's father and Kurt's mistress were among the greatest heroes of this age." She shrugged. "But then, this is the only version of these events I have seen. Perhaps it is more confusing for you." Zeo nodded. "Would you like to. . ."
"There you are." It was Marle, still masked. She put one hand on her hip and pointed at Zeo. "Okay, brat, no one's trying to kill us and we've got all the time in the world. So you're going to sit there and tell me why you tried to foul up a perfectly good mission."
"Foul up?" Zeo leapt to his feet. "Brat? Look, I don't have to answer to you. I was saving my f-friend, and you barged in to our mission."
"Crono's never seen you before in his life!" Crono, Zeo realized, had come in after Marle, and was watching with a vaguely exasperated expression. Lucca and Taban were on his heels. Marle ignored them. "And by what possible standard was that your mission?"
"We were there first!"
"We're the Red Rose! You're three rookies with two good weapons between you!"
"You're a spoiled little witch! You're bossy, you're arrogant, you can't stand not being in the spotlight, and you think you own the world!" Off to the side, Kurt was holding back laughter for some reason. Zeo paid no attention. "You keep talking like I don't know what I'm doing, but if Crono had had to wait for you he'd be dead, and if you don't like that, Your Royal Highness, then -" Suddenly the tip of Marle's short sword was at his throat. Zeo stopped his rant short, with a soft choking sound.
"How did you know?" Marle's whisper could have cut silk.
"How did I know what?" Zeo rasped. "The Highness thing? It was just a joke. You're a stuck-up girl who calls yourself Marle, you have to have heard it before."
Kurt groaned. "Zeo, shut up." Lucca and Crono had their hands on their weapons now, too.
"I don't think they did know," Lucca said. "They do now, of course."
"They also know the connection between the name Marle and the royal family," Marle said, still in that deadly whisper. "Not even Taban and Elaine know that." She pressed her sword point forward; Zeo stepped back.
She wasn't really holding it right - her elbow was locked. Zeo could duck back, draw, and strike before she could react, but he wouldn't have time for a harmless disarm. "Don't make me hurt you," he said.
"Don't make me laugh. How do you know?"
Zeo swallowed. The motion made a prick of blood on his Adam's apple. As soon as he said the ridiculous words "time travel," she was going to make him draw.
"The same way you do, Princess," Kurt said suddenly. Zeo and Marle both froze, though they didn't dare look away from each other.
"That's ridiculous," Marle said.
"No, it's not," Kurt said. "Something's been bugging me about you two, and I didn't know what it was, until you reacted to 'Your Highness' like it was true." He walked up and pulled Marle's mask down off her face. Zeo gasped. She looked like his mother. She looked like him.
"He's your brother."