A Step Onto Chronos Chapter 13

Wingless Time

Shadic the Hedgehog

Upon returning to the End of Time, I explained my story to Marle, Robo, and the rest. With a few modifications, like: "I'm not sure what happened to Magus, but when I met the Prophet, I remembered his role in the game and joined up with him." That sort of thing. In any case, after I detailed the fight between Magus, myself, and the rest of the party, Marle hit me on top of the head, causing Ayla to hit me hard on the back, thinking it was some sort of game.

I complained, "This just isn't my day..." and we all had a big laugh. I took a small rest and when I woke up, we discussed plans to fight Lavos. I told them that Lavos' weakest moments would be as close to the year 65 million BC as we could get.

"That would be 12,000 BC. But the Gate was locked, so how art we supposed to return?" asked Glenn.

"A device called the Epoch. It's a time machine that should be able to bypass any restriction on Gate travel," I explained.

"Is that true? Then where is this machine?" wondered Robo.

"Your time, actually. It was being built in the place called Keeper's Dome."

"Who could be constructing this?"

"Well, let's see. The Guru of Life makes deadly weapons, the Guru of Time is living out of time, and the Guru of Reason has gone mad. Without reason, it's pretty easy to think you can build something to break the boundries of time and space. Belthasar finished the project, at about the same time as when he died. He's still there, though: he implanted his mind in a robotic version of a Nu."

"Fascinating. I have a map of the sewer system that leads to Keeper's Dome in my databanks, perhaps together we can get to this 'Epoch.'"

"Yeah, good idea. Who else should come?"

"How about Marle and..." Crono looked around. "Glenn. The two of them should be able to help with healing, and because you're all pretty powerful, the mutants shouldn't be much of a problem. Just be sure you come back for me before you go to fight Lavos. I wanna take a crack at that damn beast."

We all nodded and headed off to the Pillar Room, stepping into the one with the plate stating, "Proto Dome, AD 2300," and activating the Gate Key. We shot off into the murky darkness, traveling through the time stream to the place and time where we found Robo. After arriving at the other end of the Gateway, we immediately headed off to Lab 32, where we found Jonny and the other robots racing with the Aeon, my old car.

"Hey! Jonny! How ya been?" I asked. "I see you refueled my car!"

"Oh, I did way, WAY more than that, sonny! I boosted the whole dang system and turned it into a robot! Uh huh." Jonny laughed. "Right after that, it started to request even more upgrades, and now it's a super, duper, evil-fightin' machine!"

"Really, now? You were able to take my primitive tech and turn it into something cool?"

The car drove up to me and nudged my leg, " 2 n07 j002 73ch 4n//\/\023, d00d! i \/\/45 13373d 4nd 8310n6 70 /\/\/531f! i 2 62473fu1 7h0u6h. i 2 62473fu1 7h47 j00 820u6h7 /\/\3 h323!" I looked down and blinked. My old, beat up Ford was talking in 1337-speak (which was very difficult to understand when spoken), and it's headlights were blinking like eyes and were even swiveling up to look at me.

"Well, that's certainly interesting," I patted the hood and it revved, almost indignant. "Oh, sorry. I forgot that you were sentient for a moment. Well, you said you were grateful that I brought you here, and I must say that I am, too. You were certainly a big help on the way here, carrying us and all."

"n07hin6 70 i7! 4f732 411, i \/\/45n'7 4\/\/423 47 7h3 7/\/\3. \/\/h47 j00 d0in6 84ck h323?"

After Robo and I translated the car's new language, Robo replied, "We are on our way to Keeper's Dome just south of here, where we are hoping to procure a time machine."

"4 7i/\/\3 /\/\4(hin3? 7h47 50und5 1337! \/\/4n7 /\/\3 70 6i\/3 j00 4 1if7?"

"...Why not? Just get us to the sewers, we will go to Keeper's Dome from there."

"n0, n0, i in5i57. i'11 74k3 j00 7h3 \/\/h013 \/\/4/!"

Robo's eyes blinked a few times, "Thank you! Would you like payment for your trouble?"

"i7'5 n0 720u813 47 411! i7'5 ju57 50 u832 1337 70 533 j00! \/\/007!one!11111!one1one!"

Well, we piled in and the car hovered in a circle before it took off across the Labs. As soon as it left the Labs, it rocketed towards the island, Robo giving it advice along the way with an ethernet hook-up. We made it across the sea in less than four hours, which would normally have taken us about six days.

The Aeon dropped me off at the entrance and I thanked it in 1337, "d00d! u 2 50 f234kin 1337!1!1"

"j00 2 50 \/\/31c0/\/\3!one1one!" The Aeon honked twice and flew away, using its left turn indicator to wave goodbye.

We walked into the dome and, unlike Arris Dome, it went directly to the central section. We headed up to the top of the room, and encountered a Robo-Nu "asleep" against a wall. Ignoring it, I asked for the pendant. Marle handed it to me and I held it up to the blue, glowing door. The door shone brightly and flew upward into the ceiling at extremely high speeds. I stepped through first, being right in front of the door, and everyone else followed. As soon as I stepped on the first platform, there was a slight glow and several small dots appeared on all the other platforms.

"Ignore those," I said, walking around the room. "They're only little messages left by Belthasar."

Robo, at the back of the line, was stopping occasionally to pick up each of the little message recordings. He caught up quickly (of course he did, he's a robot), and made it just in time for me to open the final door to the Epoch. We walked through the door and I realized that it wasn't only the Arris Dome computer that was larger on this side of the screen. The Epoch was immense, but, because it was on something similar to landing gears, I had to look up at it, making it seem even larger.

Robo glanced at all sides (except the top) and wondered three things: "Which side is the front? How do we sit in it? And what runs the Time Machine?"

"As far as I know, it's run by an Infinite Improbability Machine, and the seats will soon be brought by Robo-Belthasar. The direction of the seats should tell you which side is the front," I answered. Sure enough, the door slid open and in rolled a set of four chairs, followed by Robo-Belthasar.

"Ah, you're here. Excellent," Belthasar said, clapping his hands together. "I assume you're here for the Epoch?"

I blinked in surprise, "Uh, yeah. How'd you know?"

He laughed. "I recall from this Era's databanks two people, of the description of you two," he pointed at myself and Marle, "and two others, disappearing in a sphere of blue light. And I recalled that I came to now through a similar sphere. Thusly, you are Time Travelers in need of a way to reach somewhere you otherwise could not. I remember Melchior telling me about four travelers that saved his life and apparently got a time machine from me. So when I got here, I started building this! I hope that answers any and all questions you might have."

"Yeah," blinked Marle. "I think it did. Well, everyone, let's get in!"

"Right!" We chorused. I sat down in the front-right seat and Robo sat to my left and Marle and Glenn sat in back. Robo-Belthasar continued to push the seats up under the Epoch and pushed a button the ground. The main body of the Epoch began to lower, until it connected with the platform the chairs were on.

I looked at the dashboard in front of me to discover that I had picked the wrong seat: instead of Robo getting the controls, I had gotten them.

"Alright guys, lets head back to the End of Time and pick up Crono and Lucca. We're going to rescue Melchior, and I, at least, want what Melchior saw back then to be the same thing he's going to see." I saw Marle and Glen blink in my rear-view mirror and I sighed. "Time travel, it's filled with confusing grammer."

I set the Time Dial past the year AD 2300, our current time and the last one on the dial, and pushed the button labeled "Y." Don't ask me why, 'cause I really don't know. Anyway, as soon as I pushed the button, the Epoch began humming, first at a low C, then the pitch steadily grew until it went past human hearing. There was a bright flash of light and suddenly we were traveling through what seemed to be a stream of Fire rushing along in our direction.

"Beautiful..." whispered Marle.

"Aye, 'tis truly amazing," mumured Glenn.

"So this is Time Travel outside of Gates. I wish I could study it further," Robo, of course. I I was simply awestruck. Suddenly, the fiery Time Stream faded from sight and we were surrounded by the murky darkness of the End of Time. I pushed the "Open/Close Cockpit" button and we jumped out of the seats. Marle wasn't sure if she could do it at first, but I reassured her that she could really jump that high.

We walked to the center of the platform and everyone gathere around us. Robo told everyone that we were ready, but needed to switch him and Marle with Crono and Lucca to keep the Time/Space continuum correct. Or something like that. I jumped in back with Lucca, while Crono and Glenn sat up front. I had to explain to Crono that all he had to do was set the dial to the desired time, in this case 12,000 BC, and push the "Y" button. It was then that I realized why it was labeled that: to keep the game mechanics straight.

This time, when we went rushing through time the Time Stream outside the Cockpit, The stream was rushing in the direction opposite us, and the Epoch seemed to be moving slower, as if there was a resisting force involved.

"Time travel, it's a cornucopia of disturbing concepts,"

-Ron Stoppable, Kim Possible: a Sitch in Time