A Step Onto Chronos Chapter 17
The Hilt of Darkness and Lucca's Return.
By: Shadic the Hedgehog
"Okay, fine. We'll play your stupid game," Magus conceded. He had been arguing with the past half-hour with the disembodied head and hands of Nornstein Bekkler. He had finally given up when we told him someone else would be actually playing it. Crono stepped up and while he did pretty good, we still ended up paying Bekkler a thousand gold for the clone. I grabbed Crono, who was about ready to punch the guy (that was half our gold, gone) and headed for the Gate, Magus and Robo close behind. After reaching the End of Time Robo stayed behind while Marle decided to join us (Lucca was her first friend outside the castle, besides Crono, of course). Magus decided to take a look at the Great Book of Amber, since Robo had told him a lot about it and he was intrigued with how parts of it sounded similar to the things he learned in the library of his castle, so Glenn came instead.
We jumped into the Epoch, Crono still piloting, and took off for "The Future." We landed near Keeper's Dome and Glenn was about to head inside, to talk to Robo-Belthasar. I told him that wouldn't be necessary, I could tell them everything they needed to know about getting up Death Mountain.
As we reached the base of the mountain a powerful gust of wind hit us, throwing us to the ground. I climbed to my feet when the winds died down and dashed over to the cliff face, turning into Barog to dig my claws into the rock and hold myself steady. Crono and Glenn followed suit with their swords pulling some spare ones out to have one sword in at each step. Marle hung onto Crono to carry her up the mountain. We scaled the first obstacle in a way the game would never allow us to.
After getting past the extreme wind, I shifted back and we continued our trek. We were inside one of the caves when we encountered our first Lavos Spawn. I warned the team against attacking the shell or using any area attacks, because the counter-attack would hurt. We finished the battle when I shoved my sword through its eye and charged flames into its insides, effectively blowing it up. Continuing our travels, we came across the slippery path. Glenn cast Wind and carried us across so the we wouldn't fall to our doom below. We encountered another Lavos Spawn on the other side and summarily defeated it, Crono's finishing spell shattering the shell to miniscule pieces. We got lost a couple times as I tried getting us to the last obstacle and Lavos Spawn.
When we finally reached the Spawn I cautioned every to be even more careful. We needed the shell to be mostly intact to reach the summit and get Lucca back. That decided, entered the battle without using any spells. We were having a harder time with it than usual. The Spawn was firing some sort of quills at us that slowed our movement through pain and then s/he would shoot us with lasers like a miniature "Destruction Rains from the Heavens." Without our spells the Spawn seemed to be getting the better of us and if it wasn't for Marle and Glenn using healing magic we would have already lost. Then I remembered something that made me smack my forehead: Glenn could just carry us up the little cliff with his magic.
I pointed at the eye of the Lavos Spawn and fired a stream of white-hot flames into it, too hot for the eyelid to stop for long. As cracks began appearing across the shell I stopped, as I was getting tired and my skin was turning black from being charred by my spells. I fell to the ground, taking an abnormal liking to the coldness of the snow on my burnt skin. Marle used a Megalixir we had found in one of the chests on the way up here and we waited for the shell to cool off before pushing it to the incomplete climbing rocks on the wall. Glenn, Crono, and I approached the shell and just as we put our hands on it to move it, it crumbled into little bits. The others glared at me 'til I mentioned my backup plan. Glenn smacked his own forehead (which was pretty wide thanks to him being a frog still) and lifted us to the summit. I took the Time Egg out from my coat pocket and held it up to the moon. It rose up and I closed my eyes.
'Please… Let Lucca come back with us unharmed,' I prayed. The Chrono Trigger shattered above my head and I opened my eyes to stare at the moon as it eclipsed with a red shadow. I felt like I was back on the Telepod what seemed like ages ago, and I was suddenly standing in a frozen frame of time.
It looked as it did when I was standing up, arm outstretched towards Lucca, whose flames were feeding Lavos' Eye. Magus was collapsed near his sister and Queen Zeal stood haughtily above it all, laughing her head off. My thought at the moment was for a black marker to mar Queen Zeal's face with. But then my thoughts returned to Lucca. Crono pulled the Lucca Clone from our Bag of Holding and got ready to put it where Lucca stood. I pulled Lucca from where she stood, the black-and-white tone everything had fading from her as she collapsed in my arms. The instant Crono put the clone in the right spot and position, I expected us to return to Death Mountain's Summit immediately, but it wasn't happening. Then I noticed a spot of brown in all the black: the hilt of the Murasame. Glenn saw what I was looking at and picked it up for me, then we appeared on Death Mountain. I laid Lucca by the small tree on the summit and sat down beside her, waiting for her to wake up.
"Wha-what… happened to me?" she mumbled as her eyes opened slightly.
"We just saved your life," I replied. "It's been three days since you tried sacrificing yourself for us. Never do anything that reckless again."
"Gotcha… I just feel… a little sleepy…" she closed her eyes again and relaxed. Her breath became soft and even and I smiled at everyone else.
"Let's get back to base, guys. Lucca's gonna need some time to recover." Glenn nodded and flew us down to the Epoch which we took back to the End of Time.
"Fate makes Fools of us all,"
-Cain, author of Chrono Continuum icybrian dot com. Thank him for the Beginning of Time thing I've only referenced so far.
A/N: Sorry the chapter's so short, but I've had a bit of writer's block recently. I'm sure the next chapter will be longer!