ZnT belongs to Noboru Yamaguchi and J.C. Staff. I own Cronoz.

Chapter 5: Retracing One's Thoughts

With a metallic moan, Cronoz rubbed his head, the pain from explosion two days ago still present. He lay squatted and alone in his master's room, bored out of his impressively large mind. Or memory bank. At this point in his life, the mech didn't even care. He was too distracted by the multiple dents in his armor.

Louise sure left a number on me… The mechanical familiar sighed.

After the explosion, almost tearing the rusty machine apart, Louise spent an hour yelling at him, telling him how he was much more akin to a dog than a steam powered robot. Of course, she didn't say that exactly, she just screamed 'thing.' She left him in her room after that, forbidding the mech to leave the room. And if he did… Cronoz just assumed the consequences would be exactly the same as the last time: Explosive.

Louise was now at one of her classes, though she didn't tell him which one, or how long she would be until she came back. Cronoz was just lucky she let him come back to her room. He scanned the room, looking to see if there was anything remotely interesting to do. All of his master's clothes were washed and put away, the room was spotless, and Cronoz didn't exactly know how to cook or knit. Louise had been incredibly harsh, returning every single one of the books Tabitha let him borrow from the library.

With a sigh, the rusty mech decided to look at Louise's own personal bookshelf. He slowly and carefully moved - shuffled, was more like it - over to the wooden piece of furniture and scanned the spines of the novels placed there. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything he was mildly interested in. Nothing on airships or bombs mixed from powdered ingredients. And even though the history of the academy seemed interesting…

"Wait…" Cronoz mumbled to himself. "Wasn't I supposed to do something with that old geyser the other day?"

The mech scratched his head, as if to jog his memory. It was only about five minutes later of meditative thinking did Cronoz remember what he was supposed to do. "I was supposed to meet with that Old… uh… what was his name again?"

Again, he spent another five minutes thinking before he came to the conclusion that his name must have been Old Dumblegalf, or something along those lines. He didn't care. All the rusted machine could think about was the idea of actually doing something this day.

Cronoz did his careful shuffle maneuver over to the door and began to transform his right index finger into a tiny picklock, seeing that if he tried to unlock the door with his huge fingers the door would probably collapse or something. As he began to stick his newly formed finger into the door handle, he stopped. The door handle began to shake and turn, and, before he could duck-waddle back to his corner, the door swung open. Cronoz made eye contact in seconds, and immediately regretted it.

How are huge pink eyes so intimidating? Cronoz thought to himself.

Indeed, before him stood Louise, his pink haired master. Her arms had already crossed, and her brow was already furrowed.

"And where, exactly, did you think you were going, familiar?" Louise asked, annoyed.

Cronoz paused, contemplating whether or not he should tell her the truth or say something witty.

I'm in trouble already…

While climbing the spiral staircase up to the principal's room, Cronoz rubbed his head. He could feel it going numb, he was eighty-seven percent positive. Of course, now he knew that jokes weren't his strong suit, and he should have known saying something like 'flirting with that busty redhead' wasn't exactly the smartest thing to say around Louise.

I swear, I think I'm becoming more human everyday I live in this world. The mech thought to himself.

His shorter master interrupted his thoughts without turning around. "So, is there a reason why you wanted to talk to Old Osmond?"

"Replying. The day I spoke to him, I said I would explain to him where I came from before I came to your world." Cronoz said.

"I see," Louise turned around and eyed her familiar. "You never did tell me where you came from either."

"Odd. Must have slipped my mind." Cronoz replied with slight coyness in his voice.

"Hmph. Whatever," Louise returned to stepping up the stairs. "You will explain your story eventually anyway."

The two awkward companions kept silent until they arrived at the old wizard's office. The green haired secretary opened the door for them, her name also slipped from Cronoz's memory. She walked out of the room after the two walked in. As expected, the elderly Osmond greeted them with a wave of the hand and asked them to sit in front of him. Louise sat down on one of the guest chairs, whereas Cronoz carefully seated himself on the ground, respectfully moving the other comfy armchair away.

"I'm glad you came by, Louise and… Louise's familiar." Osmond scratched his chin and picked up his pipe.

Cronoz lifted a finger. "Cronoz. And, if you don't mind me saying so sir, but those things are very… um…" He was going to continue, but he could feel Louise's glared on him after the second he uttered the word 'and.' Cronoz took back his finger while quietly muttering 'never mind.'

"Er… anyway, Cronoz," Osmond set down his pipe. "Why don't you tell me where you came from? And possibly what you did as well."

The mech nodded its four eyed head. "Acknowledged. I will try to explain to the best of my ability the events that occurred precisely thirty minutes before I presumably arrived in your world." He turned his head to Louise, as if to ask for her approval. She nodded, and Cronoz began.

It was dark out. The moon shined down upon the abandoned docks where the great metal mech stood at. The gleam of the moonlight half reflected from his armor, half hid from it, depending on where the rust was arranged on his metal skin. He rotated his head around, searching for any sort of movement at the nightmarishly creepy boat yard.

He was Cronoz, and he was searching for a mad man.

Well, technically it was a mad teenager, but to him it didn't really matter. He never liked taking these kind of jobs when his creator asked him to do them. Cronoz wasn't sure why. He just disliked chasing down criminals, since that was a job for the authorities. Or bounty hunters. He didn't trust them either. Their type of scum wasn't needed. But that was for another day.

He felt a rapping on his lower leg. Cronoz looked down to find his white haired companion. She wore a black dress (however she fought in it so well, Cronoz will never understand) with a red cross on the front, with golden brown lacing tying it all up. Her white hair seemed to radiate under the moonlight, like she was some celestial being. She carried with her a great long pistol, another odd choice as far as weapons go. Cronoz did not question it.

"Find anything, big guy?" She asked him.

"Negative," He replied in monotone. "Mariana, I do not believe anything is here. Human or otherwise."

Mariana looked out into the abandoned boat docks. "That's the scary thing, Cronoz. He isn't human. Anymore."

"Illogical. Unless he came into content with a dangerously radioactive chemical, he would not have changed into something inhuman," Cronoz stated, than chuckled.

"What's so funny?"

"You humans have a weird sense of stating things. Especially in literature."

"Oh whatever. Let's just find-"

Before she could finish, Mariana must have sensed something. Because in that second, she jumped up into the air just in time to avoid a huge wrecking ball slamming onto the ground. She landed with her pistol drawn, while Cronoz transformed his arms for battle.

"You know, I could here you two from aaaaaaaall the way over here!"

The duo turned their heads to find the source of the call. Farther away, and high above them, stood someone working the controls to the crane holding the wrecking ball. He wore a purple jacket with streaks of green running down the arms of said jacket as well as green buttons on the front. Stitches were marked all over it. They ran along his brown tattered pants as well, and his hat as well. A black mask hid his face, highlighted by the yellow alien eyes that he had. Mariana and Cronoz could hear the him clap even from the distance he was at.

Mariana shouted at him. "Jack Heims! Under order of the Millennium Asylum, I have been sent to take you in for escaping two weeks ago!"

The wrecking ball quickly uplifted off the ground and nearly hit Mariana if she hadn't dodged away in the nick of time. Cronoz could hear the madman shout back. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of all your vital organs spilling out of your frail little body!"

Cronoz turned on his rocket boosters and flew up into the night sky, knowing Mariana could take care of herself. He shot himself forward, over towards the psychotic teenager. Jack didn't even notice the hulking metal robot land next to him, due to his hysterics and sole concentration on hitting the jumping white haired girl below him.

"Aw crap." Jack spat before pulling out his own weapon from his jacket while dodging Cronoz's crab-like claw. He pointed at the rusty mech's body and pulled the trigger, unleashing a stream of red-hot fire.

"Ha! How do you like that-" Jack began, only to be clobbered and sent spiraling to the ground. He strained himself as he looked up, to find Cronoz looking down at him.

"What are you, flame retarded?" The madman asked.

"Negative. I'm flame retardant," Cronoz replied, in a mocking, somewhat happy tone. "You are coming with me, Jack Heims."

"Oh yeah? With what army-" Again, Jack resorted to stop talking once the large mech shoved a rapid fire minigun at his face. "Damn it! I hate getting cutoff mid-sentence!"

In five minutes, Jack was loaded onto a truck and sent back to his asylum home, a scowl stuck on his face. Cronoz watched as the truck drove off, and began to follow. However, something caught his eye. He strayed away for a second, following what seemed to be a blue light coming from behind some metal crates. He forgot all about Mariana and Jack, and followed the blue shine.

Before long, he found himself staring into some sort of portal, shining blue. It lit up the portion of the harbor like a great candle. Cronoz lifted a finger and cautiously stuck it into the light that filled the inner circle of the portal. Then, he felt a pulling sensation. It was as if the portal itself was trying to suck him in. The mech tried to fight it, but it was no use. The force was too great, and the last thing he saw before succumbing to the portal's strength was the great white moon in the sky. Then, nothing…

"And after that, I found myself here, in your world." Cronoz finished his story with a sigh, beat from reciting his tale.

Old Osmond stroked his beard and nodded. "That is indeed an interesting story, Cronaz. But I must ask, why would you follow go towards something you were unsure of?"

The mech ignored the mistake to his name's pronunciation. "You refer to the blue portal I saw?"

Osmond nodded. "Logical. It was what I was programmed to do." The mech replied.

"You were programmed to do things you were unsure of?" Louise, who had been quietly listening throughout the entirety of the story, finally cut it.

"No. I was programmed to be the greatest information gatherer in the world. A mobile library," Cronoz paused. "Although… I believe running straight into situations without a thought before hand is what you were programmed to do, Ms. Louise."

Louise went red in the face immediately, ready to destroy her mechanized servant. However, the chuckles she heard from the principal stopped her short. This also surprised Cronoz. "O-old Osmond?"

"I can see that you two are getting quite along. I've never seen such a relationship between a student and a familiar," He paused to smoke his pipe. While he did so, the two before him exchanged glances. Old Osmond continued. "If you don't mind, Cranas, may I see your hand?"

Cronoz looked down at his hand, the one with the runes on it, then at Louise, before outstretching it slowly toward the elderly wizard. But, before Osmond could study it, a loud rumble shook the entire building, almost knocking Cronoz over. Louise and Osmond rushed over to the window, finding the source of the problem: A massive, stone beast had punched a hole into the same building they stood in. A shape could be made out escaping out of the building, carrying something in her arms.

"It's a golem!" Louise exclaimed.

"Then that means the person controlling it must be the thief Fouquet," Osmond frowned. "I can't tell what she took from the vault from this room…"

Louise turned her head to look at Cronoz, only to find him leaving the room. "W-where do you think you're going, familiar?"

The mech turned, and, if he had a mouth, he would have smirked. "Logical. Someone has to stop her. You coming, or not?"

A/N: I am SOOOO sorry I haven't published this already! I have no idea what came over me. Letting my poor readers like yourself unable to read this for so long. If you're still there, don't you worry, the next chapter is going to be awesome. Just you wait.

I tried to give Cronoz his little bit of exposition in this chapter, I hope it didn't bore you too much. Next chapter will definitely be better. Cronoz vs. the Stone Golem! How bout that?

Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated, and sorry for keeping you away for so long! I'll try to get the next one out by the middle of next week!