Chrono Trigger Omega
Episode Zero Zero One
Character Interlude Four – "Fallen Dynasty"

This first thing I remember that slowed my racing heart was the affirming sensation of my feet falling gently upon terra firma. Around me, the world was still drowned out from sight in a blinding white aura, but through my squinted eyes I began to notice that the radiating glow was beginning to fade.

That sword…the "Masamune", was it? Until holding that sword, I haven't felt a sensation so empowering in my entire time trapped in my immortal coil. The euphoria I experienced from the mystical sword's first vision had been so intoxicating that I never wanted it to end.

Gruoch…

My thoughts drift to her as I remember the sweet nostalgia of gazing upon her again. Whether it was truly her reaching to me from the great beyond or the entities of the Masamune using her form as an avatar to insure my attention, being with her again resurrected something within me that I thought I lost when she died so long ago.

For the first time in a long time, I have the desire to live.

At least I had. Not feeling the Masamune in my hands, nor the sheath around my waist, drained whatever optimism I briefly had for my endless future. Meanwhile, my eyesight slowly returns to me, as I can begin to notice my surroundings. Once the enigmatic light finally faded, my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of nightfall and the soft lights of the glowing forest around me. I gaze above to spot the trio of moons high in the sky, and despite my disorientation, it wasn't hard to tell that I hadn't left the mysterious world I awoke into this morning.

Nightrunner's courtyard was where I was not, however, as I foolishly decided to take a step forward while still looking moonward. Almost tripping on an object lying on the grass of the clearing I currently found myself, I miraculously regained my balance after stumbling forward. It was in fierce agitation that I captured the instrument of my near pratfall from underneath my feet, recognizing it immediately.

"This is…" I managed to utter as I held the neck of a shovel, one of the pair the "Demon" and I used this afternoon. That was when I heard it – the gentle sound of a river flowing in the distance, prompting me to turn in the direction of its source. Only a few feet ahead lay the river, but before it was an even more familiar sight. With shovel in hand, I slowly approached a tree standing alone in the clearing and near the river in question.

Underneath the warm glow of its foliage was the grave of Jasmine, and resting atop it, blue rose Demona had left behind. I knew better than to believe that monster to have anything sentimental to offer in regards of a victimized human, but there was something in the act that did strike me as odd. Did she actually exhibit a sliver of compassion in that brief moment? I honestly doubt it, but maybe I'll have a chance to ask the woman I named "Demona" someday.

Right before I kill her.

"I have to apologize…" lowering to one knee before the freshly turned soil of her grave, I began to speak to her as if she could receive my voice, "I failed you completely, lass. Your revenge was in my grasp, but just as I-"

Decades, if not centuries, have passed during my time where I have not witnessed an instance of witchcraft. Today appears to be making up for those lost years as yet another strange occurrence leaves me momentarily speechless. At least I had the presence of mind to jump to my feet after catching sight of a neon blue glow emanating from the rose left atop Jasmine's grave.

I knew not to make light of any occurrences where sorcery was involved, encouraged to take a few steps in retreat as I watch the sparkling rose suddenly sink into the surface of the grave as if it were quicksand. A moment later, plant life began to sprout from the soil at abnormal speed, sprouting into a multitude of radiating blue roses – enough to blanket the entire resting place Demona and I had engineered only hours before. In spite of my wariness, I couldn't help but smirk as the soft white aura from the lone tree that canopied the gravesite also faded into a matching azure luster.

The temperature suddenly went from comfortable to chilling while a gentle breeze swirled around me. The glow of the roses ascended slowly from the flowers while shaping into a form that was recognizably humanoid, floating casually in my direction and becoming all the more detailed. I fought the desperate urge to flee from the unknown, knowing that I had nothing to fear from what was manifesting before me and even if my life was in danger, I'd gladly welcome it.

I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched the sentient aura mold into a solid, yet ghostly transparent shape. Never did I expect a reunion with the person standing before me but I indeed found myself standing only a foot away from the smiling ghost of the violated young woman I came across this morning.

"You look different, but I can still tell that it's you," her sensual, melodic voice projected into my mind, more so than into my ears – if at all – as I tried to comprehend the vision before me, "It's good to see you again, Lennox," spoke the sparkling blue phantom of Jasmine, "I appreciate your attempt to stop Nightrunner, but in the end I'm just happy that you survived an encounter with him."

I wanted to say something. Anything. Words wouldn't escape my lips as I continued to find myself speechless at the spectacle that was Jasmine. She stood before me in the same scintillating sundress I had first met her wearing, however, upon our reunion, it was no longer tattered, torn or bloodied as I remembered. Instead Jasmine and the clothing she wore were picture perfect, and if it wasn't for the fact that she was now a specter, the young woman would be the picture of health. That didn't change the fact that Jasmine was a vision of beauty, and exposed an allure that I regretted not seeing more of during her short life.

"How…" I finally managed to enable my vocal cords into action, "how is this…possible?" it was impossible for me not to ask. I may have seen many things in my time, but apparitions were extremely rare to come across – even for me.

"I can't explain it either," Jasmine said, slightly troubled about her current state, "but I do know that this world of Nightrunner's is about as abnormal as places come."

"I second that, lassie," I said, inadvertently causing her to smile. I couldn't help but return one myself after falling victim to her radiance, "I had a feeling this couldn't be…'home'…" I found myself to have an extremely hard time adjusting to the concept that I might no longer be on the only "planet" I had ever known, namely "Earth". I almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but in respect to Jasmine's traumatic experience here and the fragility of the forces behind our meeting, I kept my composure for the moment, "but if that is the case, by what means did that bastard bring you here?"

"It was horrible…" despite my efforts, it appeared that I managed to upset her, as I could see her disposition change for the worse, "when Nightrunner took me…it was on my wedding night," apparently the memory had disturbed her so much that it brought her to tears and caused her to choke on her words.

"Jasmine, if it's too much to recall, I won't ask that of you," I did my best to calm her. Looking into the tear-filled eyes of an alluring phantom, it was easy to become lost in them. So much so, I couldn't fathom what was to happen next, when she suddenly ran towards me as a tortured soul seeking comfort. I was already in shock to find that her hands actually made contact with me as if she was still flesh and blood, only to be thrown into madness as the world around me instantly dissolved into darkness.

The disorientation I experienced was stronger this time than what I experienced moments earlier after my abrupt arrival in the clearing. Regardless, I forced my eyes open to find a lit candle holder in my hand, while my other gripped the handle of a door. This wasn't your average door, but one that I remember fondly from better times. Made with heavy wood as doors were in medieval times, it took a bit more effort to push the double-doored entrance open than your modern faire, but opened them I did –and with vigor.

Just as I suspected, right behind them was exactly as my memories suspected – the royal bedroom of the castle I had once ruled from so long ago. It was exactly as I remembered from a night that I would never forget. The night that Gruoch and I were-

"Well, husband," as the doors closed behind me, my eyes came across a living angel, "I was beginning to wonder if you would ever arrive," as if blessed with unearthly fortune, I was reunited again by the only woman that I have ever loved, as she arose from the bed before me.

"Gruoch…," advancing with all the grace of royalty, this woman was already a queen before we were married, as far as I was concerned. Still adorned in her wedding dress, my blushing bride fell into my arms and my nose grazed across her perfumed hair. Feeling the warmth of her body against mine, the very sensation of holding her again caused every inch of my skin to tingle.

I was convinced that I was reliving another memory, brought upon from either the unaccounted-for Masamune Granddream or coming in contact with a distressed spirit. It could have been the end result of both reacting with each other, but the details of why meant nothing to me during that moment. Being with the woman I loved and reliving a cherished memory that appeared to be unbelievably real were the only things that concerned me. Seeing the reflection of the both of us in a mirror across the room, I found that I had returned to my older self, but still I didn't care. This was a stitch in time that I prayed would never end.

In my present, there was nothing but an empty void in my infinite existence. For a man whose lasting treasure was memories of a normal life, the past is all I have. Kissing my wife, long lost to the winds of time, only reassured me of that.

"You won't have to wait a second longer, my love," I assured her sweeping her up into my arms, much to her surprise and amusement. About to chart a course to our bed, the climate suddenly changed when we both stumbled upon an unexpected obstacle.

"Young love…" his all-too familiar voice spoke with feigned sincerity. Just seeing him within the confines of our room- no, within the sacred haven of my memories was a transgression that impeded upon my very soul. Standing before us was none other than Nightrunner, slyly smiling like the true villain Jasmine had described, "Congratulations, Mac!" he extended his hand to shake as I wasted no time placing Gruoch behind me and reaching for my sword. The trusty blade that I had always carried in those times, however, was mysteriously absent from my side, placing us both in a significant disadvantage against the dangerous Ramnarine.

"What's wrong, Lennox?" our uninvited guest appeared jovial as he could clearly see I was far from welcoming.

"Who is this, husband?" Gruoch asked, unaware of the history between Nightrunner and I. Or, in this case, our future.

"Come on, man," Ramnarine insisted, "you've gotta introduce me to the vision of beauty that is your wife. You're one lucky cat, Lenny…" he admitted taking a step towards us. This bastard was unbelievable. In between his words and his disrespectfully casual behavior, I was incensed to degrees I had never knew were possible.

'It was horrible…' Jasmine, ever so distraught, flashed into my mind as I remembered her words, 'when Nightrunner took me…it was on my wedding night…'

I had finally reached my boiling point, as her words drove me wild with rage. Springing into action, I recklessly dove straight for Nightrunner as my hands reached out for his throat.

"Now, now, your highness," Ramnarine smirked after quickly catching my wrists, "I came all this way to make love, not war," his strength was inhuman, as his deceptively lean frame almost overpowered me twice over. Already crippled from his punishing grip on my arms, the situation continued to worsen after he delivered his merciless knee to my stomach. My legs instantly gave out and upon my descent he added insult to injury, driving a blinding head butt straight home while finally releasing my wrists.

The next thing I knew, my eyes were regaining their focus as I found myself gazing upon the ceiling and fighting to keep conscious. Gruoch quickly came into view when she fell onto her knees next to me in urgent concern.

"Unfortunately for you-" the unsavory invader approached my vulnerable form, "-the one I came to make love with is your blushing bride."

"Lennox!" Gruoch, at the height of distress, held up my head, "Are you alright? Please say something!"

"R-r-r…" I fought to speak as I tried to rise, "…run…" I warned her the best way I could in my ruined state.

"I won't leave you, my love," she said in that defiant way that I adored, releasing me soon as I could prop myself off of my back which my hands. She rose, standing between myself and Nightrunner, as she glared at him fearlessly. I struggled with my legs, which were as stable as gelatin, while fearing for my newlywed wife who had no idea what horrors this man was capable of. Ramnarine leaned intimately close to Gruoch attempting to steal a kiss, but, to my satisfaction and greatest fear, received a different experience entirely.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!!!" snapped my wife after peppering Ramnarine's cheek with the most spectacular slap I had ever witnessed. The spectacle was so amazing, it was a bonus to see him knocked off balance and stumble aside momentarily in it's wake, "How dare you strike the King of Scotland?!!!"

"Lady Macbeth…" Ramnarine rubbed his cheek as his evil smile returned, "Every bit the firebrand I expected…" fighting to keep consciousness, something happened next that brought me back to my senses.

His movements were lightning fast, but thanks to an opportune blink of my eyes I witnessed the flash of Ramnarine's hand thrust into the abdomen of my love and instantly rendering her helpless. When she fell into the open arms of her attacker and soon-to-be enslaver, I had come to realize that every second I was wasting on the floor was ensuring Gruoch a fate worse than death. Nightrunner had taken a moment to examine his prey in her sleeping form smiling lustfully before suddenly catching sight of something else.

"Hey now, your lordship…" he smirked, spotting my struggle to lift myself from where he had dispatched me. Throwing my wife over his shoulder with no more regard than one would do with a sack of potatoes, the sight of that enraged me more than anything I had ever witnessed in my life.

This monster has to die. Post-haste.

"Don't get up, Lenny," the bastard had the nerve to joke as I was almost up on one knee, "I can see myself out," Ramnarine turned away from me, walking across the bedroom to the window where I suddenly realized he must have made his entry. He might have scaled the tower where he had found my quarters, but how could he make his descent to escape with a hostage in tow?

As I finally regained my footing and desperately tried to piece together what was left of my equilibrium, he was already at the window and preparing to jump like a madman to a fall that would ensure both their deaths. A rush of adrenaline came to me in the eleventh hour, focusing my mind, pain and strength on only one thing – saving my wife. My older form broke into a dash that would have shocked even me at the time - that is if I hadn't more important things weighing on my mind.

"Gruuuuoooch!!!!!" I shouted at I watched the inevitable as I reached the halfway point of my dart – the horror of Nightrunner's suicide jump with my love in his arms. I slid to a stop meters before the window, almost hesitant to look at the disaster that awaited my eyes when I did. Suddenly, a distinct, soft sound whirred in my ears as I had finally taken the time to notice it and its source outside the window.

Ramnarine might have been an anachronism, what floated ahead and the outside of my tower window wall turned out to be an even bigger anomaly. There he stood, lowering Gruoch into the rear seat of a jet black flying machine the shape of an arrowhead that had been rounded and polished. Gold framed wings jutted from its sides, giving the device the more of a boomerang design, with two more-shark finned wings of the same style rising from the rear of aircraft which as at the moment had been facing in my direction. After laying my wife across the leather-bound and wide back seat, Nightrunner jumped into the equally ornate singular front seat of the vehicle's oval shaped cockpit. Strangely enough, the control center where he made preparations to abscond with my bride lacked a glass shield. The only thing stopping me from rescuing Gruoch was my own fear and time itself. At this point, I had none to waste.

"We have a stowaway in our midst, Lady Macbeth," ever the comedian, Ramnarine glanced behind him as he detected my clumsy landing upon his hovering mystery machine, "someone should tell him…" I battled to keep my balance as I felt the hovering aircraft jerk forward slightly, grabbing on to one of the fins for support, "Two's company. Three's a crowd!" adding to his exclamation point, he pressed a red button on the control panel before him initiating a strange phenomena around him and Gruoch.

An enigmatic liquid gel slowly rose from oval ring around the cockpit; gradually solidifying into what I predicted would become a protective glass dome if I didn't act fast. At the same time the aircraft began to move forward gradually, moving away from the castle and gaining speed by the second. Before the momentum became too great, I threw myself towards the front of the arrowhead as the hardening gel reached its apex at the peak of the forming cockpit dome. With a hole no bigger than a softball at the top of the now-rapidly closing shield and with no more seconds to spare, I had come to a split-second decision.

In a cold-sweat, Gruoch awoke abruptly upon the back seat, facing up towards the sunset sky racing above her at incredible speeds the likes of which she had never witnessed before. However, it soon came to her attention that there was something else much closer than the clouds above that she should be concerned with.

"Lennox!!!" I could barely hear her cry as the wind of travelling at almost mach speed battering me robbed me of most of my hearing. I could see her clearly through the glass as my arm was caught at the top of the dome and the glass sealed around my elbow. The pressure of the glass closing in was excruciating, but at that moment, it was the only thing keeping my affixed to the aircraft that seemed intent on torturing me with pure velocity. With rage filled eyes, I can see her attention turn to Ramnarine, who she finally notices when she hears his voice.

"I suggest you take this moment to remember him, milady," Ramnarine advised as he gripped the controls of the arrowhead, "this is the last memory you will have your husband."

"What?!" her attention returned to me once again as she quickly took my hand. Despite the agonizing breeze hindering my sight, I could see the rivers of tears flowing from her sparkling blue eyes as the warmth of her touch became the only moment of relief I experienced throughout this entire debacle. She was the eye of the storm in my life, and had always been. Now and forever, "Please, don't do this!" I could hear her begging as she held my hand near her face, her warm tears running across my skin.

"Fare thee well, King of Scotland," I could spot Ramnarine glancing back before applying his death blow, "Alba Gu Brath…"

The shock of aircraft's thrust forward, threw Grouch violently back into the seat, but her grip on my wrist did not relent. Despite the forces placed upon her by gravity she was able to look up at me one last time, as the sky melted away into a stream of colors, dissolving her loving husband with it. As the end swiftly arrived, her terrified screams were the last thing I could hear.

The echo from her fading voice rang in my ears as a bright light obscured my vision. My eyes fluttered open to endure the one ray of sunlight that managed to pierce through the onyx-leaved tree that I awoke to find myself under. When I brought myself to sit up, it was within the bed of azure roses that Jasmine had created atop her grave when I encountered her ethereal form hours before.

Had it been only hours? For all I know, it could have been days. The sound of my churning stomach had become unbearable as I slowly rose to my feet, suddenly realizing that during all my time here that I hadn't eaten anything. As I stepped off of the enigmatic grave of Jasmine, I turned around to face it, still under the shade of the now-blackened leaves of the tree she had been buried. A chill ran down my spine as the flowers that my slumber had crushed has risen back to life as the bed shimmered with an spiritual aura.

I had far surpassed my quota of unnerving events for one day, finding myself warily stepping backwards and away from Jasmine's resting place, moving from underneath the shade and into sunlight. I couldn't shake the sensation that I was being watched as I moved into the open, observing my surroundings to spy who might have been spying me. However, just as my eyes that returned to the fallen maiden's grave marker, a blur launched from the onyx foliage of the heights of the tree. It was entirely too large to be a bird and was descending fast, barreling right for me. Whatever little was left of my grogginess from my nightmare quickly departed my mind as I prepared for this new challenge in the land of Nightrunner.

Landing perfectly on all fours was a figure - a human crouched touching down with the nimbleness of a cat and donned in a unique tight-fitting armor that was a black as the leaves of the tree it had spawned from. It had covered every inch of the stranger's body and while hunched over I couldn't decipher whether this person was male or female. Upon the strangers back, immediately took notice of two katanas crossed and in sheaths as the mysterious figure stood. Realizing the danger, I reached in reflex for the mystical sword that I had become so attached to in such a short time, only to have my hand reach for vacant space by my hip as I remembered that the Masamune had abandoned me.

"You have lost the sword's respect..." a voice, strange, yet familiar, emanated from the rising stranger. The voice was definitively male but carried a synthesized tone to as I expected to see the face of the man in front of me when he became upright. To my surprise, I was met with my own reflection, glancing upon the chrome mask of the mysterious and slender stranger's helmet, "but I am here to help you get it back."

I had thought that the stranger's digitized voice rang a bell, but then the truth behind it hit me. The voice the stranger had spoken with, was my own.

"Who are you?" as atypical of it for me to ask, in my shock of his sudden appearance, I couldn't help it. Suddenly, stretching out his arm towards me, another sheathed katana materialized within the grasp of his clenched fist. Although it wasn't the Masamune, it was still familiar to me, appearing to be the same sword I acquired for Nightrunner when I faced him.

"Your 'teacher', if you have any hope of mastering the Masamune," the stranger was direct as he emulated my voice, "like these swords I carry, I am known as 'Katana'," stunned, I barely caught the Prism-bladed sword when he quickly tossed it into my chest, "but you will call me 'sensei'-" with machine-like efficiency and blinding speed, "Katana" drew one of the swords blades from the sheaths strapped to his back, positioning himself for battle.

"Your training begins NOW!" darting at me as I managed to remove the sheath from my own sword, Katana wasted no time initiating this unwitting student into his curriculum.