A Step Onto Chronos Chapter 14
The Fall of Zeal
By: Shadic the Hedgehog
"Alright peoples, let's see who's going to take down the Kingdom of Zeal," I said. Everyone was gathered around the lamppost at the End of Time, as we prepared to use our new time machine, the Epoch, to assault the floating kingdom. "We'll need to take Crono and Lucca with us, and there's something Glenn should see there. But Ayla will be useful there, too… This is a mighty problem."
"And what about the rest of us?" Marle asked. "We're just supposed to twiddle our thumbs or simply keep reading this whole time? Come on, We're not that useless are we?"
"Of course not! For instance, you learn the greatest of all the cure spells and in combo with Crono and Glenn can create what's basically an extra life for the whole party! Robo's lasers count like Shadow spells, and can work with Crono and Ayla for a flurry of tornadoes! But don't worry about being left behind when we finally destroy Lavos. I'll make sure we're all there one way or another."
"Oh."
"Anyway," interrupted Crono, "We still need to figure out who's going to take down Zeal. Joe's going, because he's our personal 'Prophet.'" I scowled slightly as he smirked. "I'm going to fight Lavos personally."
"Glenn actually has to go, " I realized. "Otherwise we'll have a temporal continuity error. Melchior said he remembered Glenn being there when we rescued him, so we'll have to take him along."
"So that means it's one of you four left to choose from," Crono nodded. "How're we gonna decide that?"
"Janken."
"What?"
I sighed and rolled my eyes. I thought Japanese-based characters would know Japanese terms. "Rock, paper, scissors. I just prefer to use the Japanese title since it's shorter."
"Hmm, What do you think, guys?"
"Let's do it," Lucca replied.
"Sounds like fun!" Marle agreed.
"What paper, scissors?" Ayla wondered, making Marle sigh and explain. Ayla was as confused as everyone else as to how paper beat rock.
"It should be sufficiently random," Robo replied.
Once Ayla realized it was pointless to ask questions, they all got into a group and started Janken. In the first round, Marle was eliminated because she was the only one who picked scissors while everyone else had picked rock. Ayla was next when both Lucca and Robo picked paper (the girl is obsessed with rocks). Then they picked rock again, then scissors, and so on until finally, Lucca won with an unexpected paper, when everyone had been expecting scissors and Robo threw out rock.
"Yes! Looks like I go with ya!" Lucca cheered. Everyone nodded and the team headed off to the Epoch. We piled in, myself once again at the helm, and I set the dial for 12,000 BC and pushed the "y" button. Once again we shot off through time, but this time it seemed a little slower, as if we were struggling against the stream, but anyways, we re-appeared in 12,000 BC in the middle of the constant blizzard.
I guided us north, towards the Earthbound Village, and it was then that I found out that Crono and Lucca had gone that way, but the ladder up to the village itself had been out of reach. It wasn't this time, and I couldn't explain why it was down this time. Regardless, we climbed the ladder and headed into the system of caves.
"Let's go over there first," I said, pointing to the first cave. "That's where the Earthbound chief lives and we'll want to introduce ourselves before we go and save the Guru of Life."
We walked in and introduced ourselves. We declared our intentions and the chief sighed.
"If you want to throw your lives away, go right ahead. The anchor of Mount Woe is guarded by-"
"A Mud imp, a Red Beast, and a Blue Beast. As well as two pairs of plain Beasts along the path there," I interrupted. "We are well aware of the dangers, and intend to save Melchior nonetheless."
The chief was taken aback. "Well, then I suppose it's only right to let you take shelter here. There is a guest room the next cave down and the guy who attends the room also sells goods."
We said our thanks and headed out the doorway. We bought a few potions and ethers with the gold we had with us, and stayed the night. The next morning we said our thanks to the "manager" and headed to the bottom level of the cave system. We walked through the entrance to the Anchor of Woe Cavern (I named it that, even though it wouldn't be around for much longer) and moved down the path. We encountered the first pair of beasts and I managed to slice a good line down the side of one before it knocked me back against the wall with a single paw. I watched blearily for a second while Crono dealt with the same creature as me and Glenn and Lucca worked together against the second beast.
I got back up and Crono and I performed Slash-Cut, my sword going right along the Beast's spine. Meanwhile, Glenn and Lucca had just finished off their Beast with a well-thrown grenade down its throat. We continued down the path and fought of the second pair of Beasts in much the same way.
Then we reached the end of the cavern. The Red and Blue Beasts moved in front of us and roared, which summoned the Mud Imp from the top of the chain.
The Imp yelled, "None may pass!"
"We're going to anyway!" I yelled and pulled out my sword, charging. A split second before I would hit the Imp, I jumped to the side and struck the Blue Beast, while Crono caught the surprised Imp with a Confusion attack. Glenn did a Meteor Stab attack (He used his Wind to throw himself into the air and fall, sword first, on top of his target) to the Red Beast. Lucca was busy casting the Protect spell on all of us, then joined us by throwing Grenades at the Mud Imp. After a steady bombardment of Grenades, the Imp disintegrated, leaving the beasts. I had already warned them not to use direct attack magic, as I had forgotten whether they absorb Fire or Ice, and if it's the same colour or the opposite colour, so we stuck with physical attacks. I sliced through the Blue Beast with a Cross-Slash, while Lucca was shooting it in the back. Meanwhile, Crono and Glenn's Red Beast was nearly ribbons already.
It took us nearly a half-hour of fighting to kill them, and, since we were all bloody and bruised, we pulled a magical collapsible tent out of our Bag of Holding and set it up. Then we realized we needed two. We did Janken again to see who would be tenting with who, and I got stuck with Glenn. I slipped into my sleeping bag and curled up at the bottom to shut out all light before I could get to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to a bubbly snore from right next to me, and a whispered conversation from the tent next door.
"Really? You think so?" whispered Crono's voice.
"Yeah," replied Lucca with a sigh. "I can't believe it though. Why him?"
"You never know who it could be."
"What, like you and Marle?" Crono coughed lightly. "Don't think nobody's noticed. It's perfectly obvious to everyone except Marle, that you like her."
"Please, just don't tell her. I'd be way too embarrassed."
"Oh, come on. If you're going to be king someday, you'll half to get over the small things like that."
"Whaddya mean, 'be king?' I can't exactly rule a country I'm wanted in, can I?"
"Heh heh. I actually skipped ahead in the game further than Joe thinks I did. I saw the ending. We get pardoned thanks to us having saved the world." I was shocked! Lucca went behind my back even more than to the End of Time!
"How did you get to the end so fast? From what I've heard from Joe so far, it seems to be a rather complicated adventure."
"I experimented with the other buttons on the keyboard, and when I hit the button marked 'F1' I was suddenly zipped ahead to the final 'dungeon.' but enough of this tale, and don't tell Joe I did that, got it?"
"Right. But you know, somethin's been bugging me about Joe." I calmed down slightly to listen to this part.
"What's that?"
"When we spent the night over at your house, after our first trip to the End of Time, I got up for a bit and had a snack with Joe, and it seems that in his world, he created beings by the same name as the Divine Protectors."
"Really? That is kinda freaky."
"But that's not the half of it. Remember the shade behind Joe when he got magic? That's one of them, or so Joe thinks."
"Which one?"
"Isn't it obvious? Fire magic has to mean Barog Firestorm! I think that means he was sent by Barog, but he doesn't believe me."
"Wow, I can't believe I'm…" I didn't catch the rest, because I ended up falling asleep again. I blinked and found myself being woken by Glenn.
"Get thee up, Joe. We are to ascend the Mountain of Woe this morning."
"Right, right…" I crawled out of my sleeping bag and stretched, cracking my back, my neck, my wrists and my fingers. "Sleep well?" I cleaned the sleepies out of my eyes and headed out of the tent. I've never been a morning person.
"Well enough. Shall we be off?"
"Yeah," replied Crono. "The chain's not too bad of a climb, and I'm sure Joe can guide us the rest of the way when he finishes waking up. Let's just wait for Lucca."
"My brain wakes up just fine," I yawned. "It's my body that has trouble catching up." I looked around to see Lucca coming back to us with weird looking animals in a net.
"Here's breakfast!" she said cheerily. "Already cooked thanks to my fire magic!" I took mine from her, wondering how she could be so… so… PERKY in the morning! I mean she had to have stayed up half the night talking to Crono about me. 'Hey, that's right… I remember now, she talked at one point about skipping ahead further than she already told me about.' Remembering that sort of irked me, so I ate in silence. Well, more silent than usual, and climbed in complete silence. When we reached the top I led the way, only speaking when I had to, and finishing off every battle as fast as I could.
My least favourite opponent was the Gravel creature. It was hard to fight without being able to use magic, since I'd become so used to it. But finally, and after getting lost a couple times, we made it to the final chain bridge of Mount Woe. We took a break at that end, next to a Safe Sphere in the area, and then headed across the chain. As we walked I detailed the big boss ahead: Giga Gaia. He was going to be one of our toughest fights ever.
As soon as we reached the top, we spotted the chrysalis that contained Melchior. I stepped closer, in hopes of breaking the spell before G.G. showed up. I was unsuccessful. The magical cocoon vanished and the mountain began to shake. Giga Gaia popped up directly in front of me, practically knocking me over. Then his ands appeared and he lead off with his devastator combo: Twin Flare, followed by a Shadow-type spell. After a quick moment to collect ourselves, we attacked the right hand (the hand to our right, anyway) all at once.
Crono used Confusion, while I used Sonic Blade from below, Glenn came down with a Meteor Stab, and Lucca prepared a Mega Bomb to throw. We moved away from the hand as she threw it, blowing up the hand. Then we moved our attention to the head. I blasted it with a Gallick Gun, while Crono used Special Beam Cannon. Lucca followed after with a Fire Twister dual spell with Glenn. Then we began slicing up the head like we did the hand, though we had to stop every once in a while and destroy the re-spawned hand.
"Alright guys," Crono said. "Time for that new combo attack!" Glenn and Crono whipped up a lightning storm, while Lucca and I powered up major fire spells. Tornados began touching down all around us as Lucca and I erupted, sending the flames towards the storm itself. The tornados began flaming and fire rained from the clouds, striking all over Giga Gaia himself. The hands, including the one that had just regenerated, disintegrated and the onslaught continued. Giga Gaia began to break up and vanish quickly afterwards. The storm subsided and we all began showing our magical side effects. I turned red, Lucca began sweating profusely, Crono twitched like a madman, and Glenn fell on his butt and couldn't sand up from how dizzy he was. Melchior's cocoon reappeared and began falling apart. Melchior himself appeared and glanced about.
"Oh my. It seems you four used a bit too much magic in freeing me. Here," He tossed a blue orb at us and it split, healing us all. Suddenly, the mountain began to shake. "The Mountain! It's falling apart! Hurry, to Terra Cave!" Glenn picked us all up with Wind 2 and sped us quickly to the cavern just outside the village. We ran the rest of the way to the chieftain's house. Outside there was a crashing sound as Mount Woe slammed into the ocean. We collapsed from pure exhaustion and spent the night at the chieftain's house.
The next morning, we listened to Melchior's rant about the Queen's new behaviour, and he handed us the Ruby Knife, to use against the Mammon Machine. Just then, the curtain in the doorway moved aside, revealing Schala and the young Prince Janus.
"Oh my, Melchior! We thought you must have been freed when Mount Woe collapsed," Schala said as she entered. Janus entered behind her, muttering about the dirty state of the cave. Schala hushed him and turned to face us. "And it must have been the four of you that freed him!"
"Yes, they did free me," Melchior replied. "Now, what are you doing down here?"
"Mother was going to force me into working the Mammon Machine, but since it can't work without me I've run away."
"Which is why I'm here," chuckled a voice just outside the cave. I recognized that voice and growled.
"Dalton."
"That's right. And I'm here to take Princess Schala back to her mother. She's very worried." Dalton swaggered into the cave and took Schala by the arm.
We began drawing our weapons and Dalton pulled out a dagger, pressing it against Schala's throat. "Not a step closer, or a weapon fired, or I'll cut her throat."
"Empty threat, Dalton," I growled. "You can't work the Mammon Machine without her. So if you kill her, there go your dreams of immortality."
"Hmm… You're right," Dalton looked thoughtful and glanced around the room. Schala burst.
"Janus! Run!" Dalton laughed evilly as he swooped down upon the young Magus.
"Now you'll listen. I take Schala with me, or the prince here gets killed."
Crono looked to me for clarification and I shook my head, "Janus is important to future events. We'll have to comply." Everyone put their weapons away and we moved aside as Dalton carried Janus and pushed Schala out the door. Once Dalton was gone I swore and punched the wall (Bad idea, as it turns out. My hand was throbbing for the next hour).
We left quickly, heading for the first Sky Gate. We moved as fast as we could, even stealing a hovercraft so that we didn't have to go the roundabout route. (I was glad I spent so much time exploring Kajar, I knew where to find what we needed). We flew straight to the palace, and go out quickly. We flew up the stairs that Masa and Mune were often standing on and into the throne room. We paused for a second to open the Throne Room door, and made it in just in time to see Dalton transport Schala down to the Undersea Palace.
"You're faster than I expected," Dalton proclaimed. "I guess I should leave you little going away present." He waved his hand and a dark sphere appeared, he then jumped into the Point-to-Point Gate and a Golem appeared. We dispatched the Golem quickly, using the as many elements as possible in the shortest amount of time to confuse the Golem's senses. Suddenly the Golem belched so loud that it shook the throne room. We caught a whiff of the burp and practically swooned from the stench. Glenn cleared the room of the horrible stench quickly and we all jumped down into the Undersea Gate.
We arrived on the highest floor of the Undersea palace and encountered Masa and Mune. They explained the situation, and vanished. We headed on down as fast as we could, getting stopped once by a puzzle I always had a bit of trouble with. We made it to the two double switches that concealed the way to the Mammon Machine and quickly completed that little trick. We ran along the path, resting momentarily for Glenn's Cure spell and a few Ethers and we ran in. I nearly had Dalton. I could've cut his head off if I hadn't suddenly remembered his importance to the story: he gave time it's wings. Allowed the Epoch to fly.
He panicked and this time summoned the Golem Twins, Trapping us once more in a one-way bubble. We took out both Golems with a single Firestorm, and this time we almost passed out from the smell. Dalton lowered the shield and prepared to take off our heads himself when there was an ear splitting, gut wrenching roar.
"I'd love to stay and kill you, but immortality awaits!" he laughed and flew off to the other end of the hall. Glenn once again cleared away the smell and we breathed in a deep lungful of fresh air. We each drank one of the four Elixirs we found on the way down, and headed through the door to the Mammon Machine. The Door to Greed.
We charged ahead as fast as we could, Lucca making hasty modifications to her gun so that it could fire the Ruby Dagger into the Mammon Machine at full force. I glanced to either side of us as we ran and I saw Masa and Mune flying alongside us. I stopped quickly near the middle of the group of Zealians, and as Lucca fired the Dagger, Masa and Mune flew into it, to empower the dagger. When it hit I saw another sword appear.
"Impossible…" I whispered. It was my father's sword, now the Murasame, puncturing the Machine just underneath the newly created Masamune.
"The dagger has become the Masamune!" exclaimed Glenn.
"Which is precisely why I wanted you along in the first place, Glenn, paradoxes aside: To see the origin of your sword." I was still in awe from the appearance of the Murasame, though. Schala fell to the ground as the Queen turned.
"It's too late!" screamed Queen Zeal in glee. "Immortality is OURS!"
The horrible, screaming roar sounded again as we were suddenly immersed in the Space between Time: Lavos' Dimension. The party hastily drew their weapons, and we assaulted Lavos with everything we had. But almost immediately after exhausting ourselves I heard a voice in my head.
"PITIFUL MORTALS. YOU DO NOT STAND A CHANCE AGAINST ME," My head seemed to burst from the Psychic Volume. "YOUR DESTRUCTION SHALL RAIN FROM THE HEAVENS!" from Lavos' shell came a multitude of lasers that fired into the "sky" and came back down, blowing us all to half-consciousness. I watched blearily as Magus attempted to stand up against Lavos, but only succeeded in breaking the Murasame. I blacked out momentarily, but came to in time to hear the most horrifying sentence ever:
"Lucca, what are you doing?" I snapped my eyes open and saw Lucca stumbling towards Lavos' Eye. She turned towards Crono and gave him a thumbs up.
"Saving your life, I think," she replied. She turned towards me, myself too weak to move, tears were streaming down her face. "And the rest of the world's…"
She began gathering magic, I could somehow see the energies flowing about her, building up more power than she really was supposed to have. Then I realized it: she was attempting to cast a spell as powerful as my Final Flare, but without as much fire reserves, she pushing to use her own life force in the spell.
I somehow made it to my feet, though I don't remember standing up. Lavos opened his eye and laughed a deep and terrible laugh in my brain. He began stealing the energy Lucca was gathering, and was turning it into a Disintegrator beam. He fired it off, and Lucca vanished from my sight.
A teardrop hit my cheek. Coming from where Lucca had stood. I was in momentary disbelief. Then came the anger. The ALL POWERFUL ANGER! My vision turned red, flames began growing around me, and I let out a bloody roar that expressed my feelings to the world. Then I knew no more.
"Rage is just like any other weapon: you have to use it not let it use you."
-Barog Firestorm (A/N: I was kinda grasping for a quote, so I went for something of my own)