Some of you might remember this chapter and the next from my original version. I've still cleaned them up quite a bit. And we only have two or three more chapters to go. Wow, time flies...

Chrono Trigger still isn't mine, y'know.

Shanda was busy cleaning when Ozzie found her. He watched silently for a little while, inwardly smirking. He had quite a show planned, and it would be all the more entertaining to invite the mother of Flea's favorite... 'student'. "You, woman. Come with me," he snapped, pleased to see the fear flicker through the Human's face. She'd never expected to be addressed by the Mazoku king, after all. Come to think of it, did she even realize her daughter was still alive? Oh, this was going to be fun.

Timidly following after the round figure, Shanda had time to wonder what was going on. The dread Maou Ozzie had spoken to her, ordered her to follow him, and that, from the talk of those who had been here longer, was never a good thing. Her unease only increased when she was brought to a smallish room where the three generals were sitting. None of them so much as looked at her, however, too busy looking into a large globe.

"You're late, Maou Ozzie," Flea drawled, gesturing at the crystal sphere. Shanda very carefully looked at the floor, not wanting to upset these monsters. But oh, how she hated that... female -thing- that had done such things to her daughter!

Settling his bulk into the empty chair, Ozzie waived his hand dismissively. "I know, I know. But I had to get someone to serve our food. Now, is everything ready? How about our two, how are they?"

Slash glanced at Shanda curiously. It wasn't customary to have slaves serve them while they were watching the trials... but Maris had mentioned this woman, hadn't she? Right, this was Lyn's mother. That explained it all quite nicely. "The girl's still out, see?" he answered, motioning to the scrying globe.

"I still can't understand why they're even in this trial," Tihl muttered. "Let alone why you put them together… a pair of mages! They'll never make it."

Something in the way they were talking pulled Shanda's mind away from her hate. Wondering what was so interesting in the ball of crystal, she lifted her head enough to see. It took her a few moments to make sense of the slightly distorted figures. A muffled gasp escaped her when she recognized Lyn lying on a stone floor, a blue-haired young man standing above her. She didn't notice that Ozzie was watching her, or the cruel smile that graced his features at her gasp.

Lyn awoke in the dark, on hard, cold stone. She managed not to groan, though her head hurt like a Hench had danced on her brain. Instead she tried sitting up, carefully, confused. She had been in Flea's rooms, and then… she'd fallen asleep. A sleep spell, then, but where was she now? Searching for balance, her hand found a wall of rough-hewn stone, with what felt like moss or lichen on it. There was a sound of leather on stone, and gleaming red eyes suddenly fixed Lyn in an annoyed stare. She yelped, and in response got a snort that she recognized as belonging to Janus. "It's about damn time you woke up. If I had known you'd prove so lazy, I would have left you. Now we're behind," he snapped.

"Be…behind?" Lyn asked, her voice sounding as puzzled as she was. Her eyes were adjusting, and she glanced around, noticing light coming from the walls themselves, outlining the general shape of a hallway. The outline of her hand on the moss struck her oddly, and she quickly removed her hand from the wall.

"It's the trial, didn't anyone tell you about it?" Lyn shook her head, and Janus sighed and ran a hand through his hair in irritation. "We're in the dungeon. There's an artifact we're to retrieve. If we fail to bring it back, we'll likely be dead. Now come on, let's get going."

Lyn nodded nervously, wondering what Janus had not told her. She knew that, while Janus had not lied, he had not told the whole truth. There was something he was hiding, most likely in a hope to make life easier on himself. It would get explained in time, whatever the Mazoku youth was hiding. Lyn knew she probably wouldn't like it, but she also knew that she had no choice. She had promised to follow Janus, wherever he led. Standing slowly, she kept her limbs from the glowing moss as best as she could. "Let's," she agreed. Janus turned away, and Lyn began to follow.

As they walked in silence, Lyn was able to look around a little more, her eyes fully adjusted to the dark. Even though it was called a dungeon, the hallways felt more like those of a tomb. There didn't appear to be much difference to the Mazoku. The lichen was glowing softly, lending everything a sickly yellow-green color, like poisoned moonlight, cutting both red and huelin from her vision, while the damp underground chill was already penetrating her bones. Janus barely spared a glance at his surroundings, seeming to glide forward on sure and silent steps.

Before long, she could hear the distorted echo of voices coming from beyond the intersection ahead. Janus stopped, gracefully lifting his arm to stop Lyn. Motioning for her to stay, he crept forward to where their hallway intersected another. He peered around the corner, then held up two fingers before beckoning Lyn to him. She came slowly, unwilling to face what she feared, but knowing she had no other option. Janus motioned to her, then around the corner, before making the sign for death. The meaning was fairly clear; two people around the corner, and either they or she would die. Janus wouldn't be coming to her rescue this time, from the hard look in his carmine eyes. She shook her head in mute plea, but his gaze didn't soften.

Lyn closed her eyes and drew in a long, shuddering breath, trying to decide her course. She didn't have to kill them, she knew. If she shook her head, Janus would likely... what would he do? Leave her, probably. Leave her alone down here, where the cold bit into her and the ghastly light illuminated nothing. Leave her here, where she would die, or survive as Flea's slave. He wouldn't kill her, she knew. If she refused to fight, he wouldn't even give her that… mercy.

But she wasn't Human, was she? So why should she care if she… killed? The Mazoku killed… but she wasn't Mazoku. Was she?

As her daughter thought, Shanda watched with mute horror, oblivious to the fact that Ozzie and Tihl watched her more than the orb. She could see the Humans around the corner thanks to the slightly zoomed out view the crystal gave. What confused Shanda was Lyn's hesitation. She had recognized the motions the young man had made, but Lyn would never kill anyone, she was a healer. So why was Lyn standing there, and not trying to find some other way around?

Restless rustling drew Lyn's mind back to the present. Exhaling, she opened her eyes and nodded her reluctant agreement. Janus nodded sharply back and traced an intricate line in the air with a hand. The scythe he had wielded in Dorino materialized in the hand he'd just used. Lyn realized then that she didn't have any weapons aside from magic, but she held her tongue. This was not the time to worry about that; her magic would have to be enough. Janus darted around the corner, and Lyn accompanied him.

There were, as Janus had indicated, two men, both Human, prisoners from their poor condition and brown rags. "Well, lookit this, it's a coupla them Human-lookin' mamono. Ya reckon we should kill them?" one said, a length of chain wrapped around his fist and up his forearm.

The other man was unarmed, but he grinned all the same, eyeing Lyn. "Sounds great to me. You get the boy," he agreed, still looking at the girl. "I'll take her."

"Hey, you'd better leave some o' her for me," the first replied, letting the other man walk past him. Janus, too, stepped aside slightly, barely glancing at the man as he passed. Lyn looked at the Mazoku, mildly horrified by his coldness, but he was already starting to attack the man with the chain, trusting her to do what she needed to.

A chuckle drew her eyes back to her opponent, and Lyn unconsciously backed away as he approached her, leering. "S…Stay away from me…" she warned. She wasn't sure she could outright kill him, even if he planned on raping her. The man just grinned wider and lunged at her. Lyn evaded his clumsy maneuver easily, her sporadic practice with Janus paying off. The man approached again, with a roundhouse punch, and again she dodged, ducking under the fist. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Janus was leaning against the wall calmly watching the fight, his opponent already dead.

She shook her head at the remaining Human, desperately warning him to stay away, for both their sakes, even as she began chanting the first spell she'd ever gained. The man hung back, his eyes on the gathering blue light between her hands. There was a pause; a moment of stillness as man and girl faced each other. Then Lyn looked in his eyes, absently noting that they were green. The man didn't understand the strange madness he saw in her eyes, and he had no time to ponder. The spell was completed with a word and a flick of her hands. The light flew toward the man, elongating as it transformed into a frozen spike. It impacted his chest and pierced through until it and he hit the wall. A look of surprise crossed his face, and then he slumped down, the ice dissipating, blood flowing from the wound.

Shanda once again muffled her gasp, hands flying to her mouth. Her daughter, her Lyn, was fighting a man, a Human! The woman couldn't look away from the scene which was rapidly unfolding before her, and a cry finally broke from her lips as she watched her daughter mouth a Mazoku spell. When Lyn hesitated, Shanda felt a brief moment of hope, and then the spell flew, and her daughter had killed the man.

Flea had also caught on to Ozzie's game, and so ignored the disbelieving sound. "How utterly embarrassing," she griped, complaining about her student's performance. "I thought I had taught her better."

Lyn fell to her knees, starring at the dying man in blank horror as the light dimmed from his eyes. Janus didn't let her dwell on her action though, lightly touching her shoulder. "Maybe there is hope for you," he muttered, trying to keep her from that unresponsive state. She had to be stronger then this if she was going to be his second like he wanted. He turned away from her and bent over the man he'd killed.

Confused red eyes watched Janus' movements as he unwrapped the chain links from the dead man's arm. "I killed him," she observed in a distant voice.

"Clumsy and messy, but it's only your second kill," Janus agreed tightly as he stood with the chain in his hand.

"Second?" Lyn's voice was still flat, but now there was a note of…disbelief? Or was it horror, or maybe something else?

Janus brushed blue hair from his face. "A year ago, the man with the shovel. That 'rebellion' at the building site," he reminded tiredly.

"I… cast a spell at him, but… that didn't kill him," Lyn protested, standing.

With a frown, more from her ignorance then anything she'd done, Janus handed her the chain. "Even if it was the fall that killed him, you still caused it. It doesn't matter now. Here. Even a magician needs some kind of a weapon."

Lyn took the chain and looked it over curiously, the change of topic aiding her mental recovery. The iron links were rusted, but still sound, decently made, with a good weight. The chain was about four feet long and rather thin, a little over a thumb width at the widest. "How… do I use it?" she asked hesitantly.

"How should I know! I've never used a chain before, idiot. Experiment," the Mazoku responded, wondering why she even bothered to ask something like that.

"Well you seem to have done everything else," Lyn said, defending herself from Janus' usual snarky mood.

"There's a lot I haven't done yet," Janus admitted quietly.

"Did… they have the… um, artifact?" Lyn asked, barely able to glance at her kill. Her kill… she'd killed, killed a Human, and it affected her, as much as she wanted to deny it. Simply not being Human… wasn't enough. Perhaps… maybe it was time… to accept that she was… in fact… Her mind shied away from the thought, unwilling to complete it.

Janus shook his head. "No. We'll have to keep hunting. C'mon." He turned the way they had been headed, and started walking. Lyn followed, forcing herself to lengthen her stride, not to trot.

"Are… there more… people down here?" Lyn asked quietly. Janus nodded briefly, an indication that he didn't want conversation. Lyn sighed and was silent.

A few moments later, the young pair came across two bodies, both Imps. The blue Mazoku had apparently been beaten to death, probably by the Humans the youths had just killed. Looking at the carnage, Lyn found she was almost used to it. Janus, for his part, seemed pleased. "Only four teams left," he observed quietly.

Shanda was almost ready to scream when Lyn stood... and began following the... the monster. What was wrong with her daughter— "Lyn, you're not Human any more!" -No! That had been nothing more than a bad dream, brought on by stress and worry.

Slash knew what Ozzie was doing. The sheer sadism was enough to make him faintly ill; there was no reason to torment the woman. He was careful not to watch Shanda, not wanting to see the pointless pain. The swordsman was rather surprised actually. Lyn was coping much better than he had expected. But Janus... Ah, the boy. He would be someone to fear when he came into his power.

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