A Step Onto Chronos Chapter Twenty
Simultaneous Side-Quests
Shadic the Hedgehog
"Alright guys, we've actually got a few things that can all be at least partially done with one trip to the year 600, and two of them are on the island of Choras," I said. "Also, I've been thinking more on the whole thing with the Demon Elementals, and I'm beginning to doubt that they'll show up again. Black Flame, or 'Xelloss' as he seems to be calling himself, was probably just trying to keep me from awakening, not knowing that I already had until I transformed. Actually, now that I think on it, the Blood Dragon said something to that effect.""So we are not limited to you, Glenn, Marle, and Ayla?" asked Robo.
"Right. I still want Glenn on this trip, because it involves the ghost of Cyrus, but otherwise the other two spots are open."
"I'm going!" called out Lucca. "Like I said before, I've been dead for a while and I wan to get back in the game!" I laughed a bit before I reminded her about her world being a game in my world.
"What are the tasks you'll be working on?" asked Crono.
"Firstoff, we'll be repairing the Hero's Grave, and at the same time I'll talk with Toma about the Rainbow Shell. Then, once the grave is fixed up, we'll head to AD 1000 and power up the Masamune by having Glenn talk to Cyrus' ghost, as well as actually getting the location of the Shell itself. Then we return to 600 and clear out a path to the Shell that Guardia's troops can use to get the shell out of the cave and watch over it for us. Finally, we'll help with the replanting of Fiona's Forest and Ill go help make the Sun Stone quest easier."
"Sounds like a full plate," commented Lucca. "Maybe we should take everyone there and split up to get everything done faster."
"That's a pretty good idea," Crono nodded. "Glenn, Joe, Lucca, and Magus will be fixing up the Grave site, then, while Marle, Robo, Ayla and I will go through with the Rainbow Shell."
"Why should I be in the same group as him?!" demanded Magus and Glenn simultaneously, pointing at each other.
"Fine, we'll switch Robo and Glenn and switch tasks, sheesh. The tough part will be sharing the Epoch for time travel."
"Why don't you guys head out with the Epoch. We'll go through the Truce Canyon Gate, then once most of you are unloaded from the Epoch, send someone over to us with it." I suggested. "As long as we don't try to time travel, we should be alright with squeezing five people into the ship, right?" Everyone agreed to the idea, and we set the plan into motion.
As my group entered town to wait for the Epoch, some of the villagers started panicking. "Help it's Magus!" "I thought he was dead!" "Hurry, call the guards!" Eventually the streets were cleared of people save for the four of us, and I could have sworn Lucca and I had sweat-drops on our heads, much like any anime character.
"Well, it appears that I'm as infamous as always," Magus smirked.
"Yeah, well, don't get a big head," I admonished. "We're just supposed to wait until whomever Crono sends in the Epoch shows up to take us to Choras."
Lucca suddenly said, "Hmm. I wonder why, in my time, the ferry only goes to Domino and back, and not to Choras. That would be far more useful."
"I dunno, but it was actually quite laughable in the game," I chuckled. "It cost ten gold for a ferry ride when it was faster, not to mention free, just to simply walk across Zenan Bridge."
"Really? Then what purpose was there to include it?" asked Robo.
"In the original version of the game, Zenan Bridge was unusable until you beat Zombor and crossed it in this time period, so at the time it was only way between the cities."
"The Epoch approaches," Magus announced. "And the frog is driving."
I wasn't entirely sure how Magus could tell that Glenn was the pilot, though I noted that he called him "dumb frog" or "stupid toad" or whatever. Magus was proven right when the ship landed and Glenn got out. As we walked over to meet him I saw people peeking through their curtains, their faces full of hope upon seeing Glenn. 'They probably think we're here to fight it out. Wait'll they see us get in with him!'
"What took you so long?" snapped Magus.Glenn gave a melodramatic sigh. "Crono was taking too long in deciding who would pilot the ship, so I took the initiative and flew over myself."
Let's just get going." Magus had already swung himself into the driver's seat, cape fluttering dramatically. I got in on the passenger side while Lucca and Robo sat in the back, with Glenn on Robo's lap. I glanced at one of the windows that ad a villager peeking out and laughed, turning my hand into a claw to wave at them. Their face turned paler than a sheet and the ducked back in. I laughed harder, before wondering if I was getting too malicious.
Magus was rather good at flying for it being his first time in the pilot's seat, and we made it to Choras in what seem to be no time at all, which made me chuckle again as I remembered that we were flying in a time machine.
Thankfully, the people of Choras had no idea who Magus was, which disappointed him terribly, though were far more curious as over what Robo and the Epoch were than anything else.
"Okay, something I want the grave team to remember: when you see a weird-looking black chest in there, shine the pendant on them, but don't open them."
"Why not?" asked Marle.
"Because those chests are as much stones in time as the Black Omen, at least until the pendant anchors them to the timeline. After doing that, when you go back through the grave in 1000, you can open the chests to get better items that what you could back now."
Robo then surprised me by taking the next words right out of my mouth. "Also, when you return to this year, you can open the chests again, because they are still there."
Lucca and I stared at Robo for a moment before Crono protested, "but wouldn't that cause a paradox or something? I mean, we'd already have the items from the future, and when we take them from the past, they'll be gone from the future, so we couldn't have taken them, so we wouldn't have the items from the future... Or something like that."
Lucca shook her head. "If it were that easy to cause a paradox, we'd already be stuck in one. When Marle vanished in Guardia Castle AD 600, it was because she no longer existed, yet if that were the case, you wouldn't have bumped into her, Crono, plus her pendant wouldn't have been there to activated the gate in Leene Square using my TelePad as a power conduit, and neither of you would have gone into the past. And since neither of you would have gone into the past, she wouldn't have not existed because things were unaltered from the original timeline, which would have caused what we know happened to happen, which would have then caused them selves to not happen, and so on and so forth."
"Anyone else head hurt?" Ayla asked, looking thoroughly confused. Glenn raised his hand to agree and Marle followed suit.
Crono clapped his hands to get everyone's attention. "Well, we'd best get to our tasks."
"We'll probably use the Epoch first, because it won't ake that long to talk with Toma," said. "Oh, and when we get back, we'll have the tools for the job."
"Huh?"
"You'll see."
We split up, Crono's team heading north for the Hero's Grave and mine for the Mayor's house, where Toma was getting the funds to find the Rainbow Shell. We watched for a little while, then followed Toma to the pub in which I talked to him about the Rainbow Shell thing. Once that was done, I ordered a bottle of so alcoholic drink (I forget which one) and we went back to the Epoch.
"What's that for?" asked Lucca.
"We pour it on his grave and his spirit, in thanks for the spirits, tells us the co-ordinates of the Rainbow Shell." Magus palmed his face at the bad pun, while Lucca chuckled silently.
We got back in the Epoch and I initiated a time jump to AD 1000. Upon arrival, we landed right next to the North Cape of Choras and I did what I said I was going to do. But rather than simply tell us the co-ordinates, he gave us a psychic vision of where the island was. We got back in the Epoch and, instead of jumping straight back to 600, I flew over to some guy's house, where I asked his wife if I could borrow his tools for a project I was working on. She stared at us for a moment before sighing.
"My no-good husband doesn't do any work anyway, so I'll just give them to you. He goes to the pub everyday and doesn't come home until late at night, and by then he's always too drunk to even stand straight." She continued this rant all the way to the kitchn and back out, where she handed us the collection of tools. I thanked her and walked back out to the Epoch. We arrived back in the Middle Ages just in time for Crono's team to emerge from the workman's house, looking rather annoyed. I hopped out of the Epoch and handed them what I had gotten from the future carpenter's wife. "There you go. Now you have the tools for the job. But first, could we get a fifth person to return the Epoch once we get to the Rainbow Shell?"
Crono was a little miffed that he hadn't figured out what my riddle had meant before, but volunteered to drives there anyway. Then Magus raised and interesting point.
"If these people have the Epoch over here, how am I-, that is, how are we supposed to return to this continent?"
I pondered this for a moment, then got the idea to just send a flare up when we were done, and once every hour after that, so that they could find out if we were done. If they were done first, they'd be on the island proper.The Lucca said, "And if worse comes to worse, I'm sure we can just persuade Joe to carry us back as Barog." Everyone agreed (except me, I didn't want to think of having water that close to me while trying to carry something) and then we took off. It was a short flight, and we all got off quickly, though I had to wait for Lucca, because she had decided to sit my lap for the journey.
As soon as the ship took off, I realized I should have had Crono switch with Robo, because the cave was full of dinosaurs. I didn't say anything though, because we still had magus with us, and he was capable of wide-range attacks of Fire, Ice, and Lightning. We got lost a couple of times in the caves, which were far more expansive that in the game (not to mention I had always gotten lost in there while playing the game anyway), but thankfully after defeating the first fifty or so dinosaurs, the rest decided we were more trouble than it was worth and stayed out of our path.
I managed to find the Blue Stone to teach Lucca, Robo, and Magus the Triple Tech Omega Flare (only then realizing that I actually had the Omega Flare team with me). Unlike the game, the Stone wasn't equipped to one of them allowing them all to use it, but rather shone a brighter blue before disintegrating and fusing with my teammates. Right after it happened, Magus grinned, then turned around and blasted a hole in the wall with a blast of pure Shadow magic.
After what seemed like another day of wandering (but my watch said was only five hours), we came across an enormous cavern containing a beast just as large: the Rust Tyrano. Lucca jumped when she saw it.
"Holy... How did that thing manage to survive this long?"
"You mean that is the Black Tyrano from Tyrano Palace?!" I replied. "That would make it over 65 million years old!"
Even Magus looked shocked at that as he asked, "A beast that old? How could it survive?""I can only think of one explanation: since Tyrano Palace is where Lavos made touchdown, its strange radiation must have actually granted the Tyrano and all the dinosaurs from the cave immortality of a sort."
"Making him part of Lavos' leagacy, if you think about it," Lucca agreed. We both glanced at Magus as he pulled out his scythe, cape flowing majestically behind him.
"Anything created by the influence of Lavos will be destroyed. The Black Wind howls!" he charged at the Rust Tyrano, his gloves and scythe blade crackling with dark energy. I drew the Murasame and followed after, flames flowing across my own blade. I heard gunshots behind me as Lucca let loose on the monstrous T-Rex, but the bullets just bounced off, barely scratching it. Robo tried to use his Uzzi-Punch on it, but only made it more annoyed. Just before Magus and I were about to strike with our magically enhanced blades, it let forth with a roar just under Lavos' in magnitude that shook the cave to its foundations. Several large rocks began falling from the ceiling and I quickly grew out my wings so that I could dodge them, while Robo batted them away from himself and Lucca with his Rocket Punches. Magus wasn't so lucky and got struck right between the shoulder blades. He cried out in pain as he fell and I flew over to catch him before he hit the ground.
"This isn't good," I said, landing by Lucca and Robo. "It seems to have covered itself in really hard stone or something. That would explain the colour change too..."
"Weapons may be useless..." hissed Magus. "So we try using magic...""Right. Robo, you don't use magic, so you heal up Magus while Lucca and I keep the Tyrano busy with spells. Once he's better, I want you guys try using the Omega Flare."
Everyone nodded and we moved into action. Lucca let loose with a Flare at the same moment I did, allowing us to use Twin Flare just like Giga Gaia had back on Mount Woe. I unleashed a few of my more minor Flare spells (A/N: which makes me think that perhaps instead of "Fire" I should have had Spekkio say his element was "Flare") across the bridge of the over-grown dino's nose while Lucca drank an Ether. I then caught Magus starting to cast his part of Omega Flare and jumped aside. Lucca soon joined Magus in chanting, and just as they finished and threw their spells upwards, Robo leapt into the air and opened his body to reveal the reflector unit he had installed to fight the Demon Elementals.
Robo was charging a laser by bouncing it around his reflector unit and shot it just in time to intercept the black flames of Lucca and Magus' combined spell. I could tell, without having experienced the version most often seen in the game, that this was a far more powerful Omega Flare than normal, which probably had something to do with Robo's reflector unit and my other teammate's increased magical training at the End of Time.
The Omega Flare was a stream of demonic black flames crested by white-hot ones being shoved and directed by the laser coming from Robo's chest. It tracked across the Rust Tyrano's muzzle several times, melting and sometimes even sublimating (A/N: if you're confused) the rock embedded in its scales. Just as the Omega Flare died away, I finished off the beast by jumping up on the beast's mouth and stabbing the Murasame through to its brain. It started to open it's mouth for one final roar, but died just as it's mouth opened, collapsing to the ground with an anticlimactic wheeze.
I momentarily left the Murasame in the head, charging enough magical fire through it that it would flow through the corpse's blood stream and turn it to ashes. Once the beast's corpse was out of the way, we saw IT. It was sitting in a shaft of moonlight that came through a hole in the cave's ceiling: the Rainbow Shell, in all its glorious hues. Even being shone on by the moon made it beautiful, the splash of colours glowing softly on the walls. Even Magus seemed awestruck by the glorious beauty in front of us. We then sat down around the shell to ponder a way to get the Shell out of the cave damaging it or even having the potential for danger that carrying it out through the caves would cause.
Next thing I knew, I was waking up to be almost blinded by the now sun-caused radiance from the Shell. I noticed also that Magus and Lucca were also asleep, though Magus' sleeping spot was not nearly as embarrassing as Lucca's. Lucca was asleep on my shoulder, even though she had sat down a good six feet away from me. Robo was, of course, the only one not sleeping, and might even have been continuing to think of a way to free the Rainbow Shell.
Robo looked my way and saw that I was awake. "I believe I have a plan," he whispered.
"That's good," I whispered back. "Let's wake up Lucca and Magus so that you don't have to explain it multiple times." He nodded and I shook Lucca awake gently. "Lucca, wake up."
"Hmm? Oh, wow," she yawned. "Morning certainly brightens the place up, doesn't it?"
"Annoyingly so," grumbled Magus, slipping the shades he had made back at the Beginning of Time on. I had quickly gotten used to the sudden change in the amount of light, but I had to agree with his next statement. "It's difficult to admire beauty when it can literally blind you."
"Well, Robo, what's your plan?" I asked.
"It is surprisingly simple. We move the Rainbow Shell out from under this hole, then blast said hole with as much explosive force as we can muster to widen it. After that I am pretty sure we can figure out a way to lift it out."
"Ah. Well then, I suppose that we should get to it, shouldn't we?" Flames coursed over my body, quickly transforming me into Barog for his formidable strength (though it was nowhere near Gaia's unless I was pissed off). Robo grabbed two other points than the one I was trying to keep my claws from gouging and we moved it away and behind on of the more intact boulders from the Rust Tyrano's roars.
As soon as that was done, Lucca and I started lining the hole with magic-produced bombs, napalm, and readied Point Flares. As soon as we managed to do that (quite liberally) we hid beside the Shell and I detonated all the Point flares at once. There was a massive chorus of explosions that rocked the cave enough to cause more rocks to fall from the ceiling, but Magus had covered us, including the Shell, with a barrier of Darkness that kept them at bay.
I stepped out to inspect the damage to find the hole had not only enlarged, but had become a new opening for the cave at ground level, with molten rock running down the beach. I quickly stepped into the stream of lava (still Barog, mind you) and started absorbing the heat until it solidified again. After that it was a simple procedure to slide the Rainbow Shell on the smooth stone onto the beach (but far enough from the ocean that it wouldn't get damaged in any way). Then we just had to wait for the Epoch to arrive. It took them about six hours to notice the Flares I was sending up hourly.
"Ambassador, do you really want to know what's going on down there?"
"Yes, absolutely!"
"Boom. Boom boom boom. Boom boom. Boom! Have a nice day!"
-Commander Susan Ivanova and Ambassador Londo Mollari, Babylon 5