Start Date: December 16, 2023
Windwillow
Chrono Trigger: The Magus Cut
Chapter Two: The Absent Queen
Inside Gaspar's chamber at the End of Time, the four spectators watched in amazement as the Gate opened up and sucked Marle inside. As it closed and shut tight Schala stared in mute horror, while the other three stared on somewhat impassively. They already knew that everything was going to end alright, so it didn't affect them as much as it did the princess of Zeal. She hadn't seen anything that had happened up to that point, and so she swallowed her terror and sunk back in her seat with a sharp sigh.
"What... in the world..." Schala gasped.
Schala startled suddenly when her brother tapped a finger to the object around her neck. "Take a good luck at what's the cause of it: your pendant," he said softly. Pausing to briefly take a swig of beer, Janus smiled and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grin.
"Again, what is happening?!" croaked Schala. "I don't understand!"
"Simple question, simple answer... the Dreamstone," said Gaspar quietly. Schala turned to him and tilted her head in confusion as the old man took a sip of his tea. "Your pendant is made from it... a mineral that is naturally occurring on the Planet. Meaning," he said a bit harshly, "the Planet was able to use it to hijack the machine and open up a gate to the common era of 600."
"Yes, but there was always the danger of a little wrinkle: Lavos," explained Spekkio as he grabbed a chocolate chip cookie and shoved it in his mouth. While he chewed it, showing very bad table manners, he turned to Schala with a crooked grin and let out a sharp belch. "If that creature figured out what was happening, all he'd need to do was to reverse engineer the Planet's methods and send Marle into the depths of the Sun or something..." he muttered darkly. "That'd give her a hell of a tan."
Schala's hand went to her mouth in shock and horror, whereby Janus smacked him over the back of the head and forced the remnants of the cookie from his gullet. "Hold back a bit, you stupid tub of lard!" snarled Janus fiercely. "Scare my sister again and I'll gut you."
"There is no debate, however," said Gaspar flatly, "that the move was risky."
It was all almost too much for the princess, who sunk back in her seat with a sharp gasp of breath. She slowly lifted her hand to her pendant and flicked her fingers against the blue jewel, shook her head, and muttered Marle's name under her breath. The thought that Lavos could have, at any moment, put an end to both the Planet's plan and Marle was positively horrifying. And she knew for a fact that the beast would have done it in a heartbeat if he'd caught on.
"Oh, pull it together, girl!" groaned Spekkio. "We all know it turned out okay, so don't have a freaking coronary."
"Besides, the Planet isn't done mucking with things," muttered Gaspar. Schala turned to him quizzically and tilted her head, so he groaned and put his tea cup to his lips and took a slight sip. "The Planet didn't just open one Gate... When the time came for Crono to do his bit..." he said softly, "the big man interfered one more time."
"One more... time?" murmured Schala.
"When Crono met her at the castle, well..." Gaspar said absently, "Just keep watching."
Scene One
Just as Crono fell flat on his face and the Gate that swallowed Marle slammed shut, the entire square fell into a deep silence. The Telepod had already fizzled and nearly exploded into a bath of burning hot steam, Lucca and Taban had skittered to safety, and Crono laid on the ground trembling with fear. The woman he'd found and said he'd protect... well... he certainly didn't protect her. A low moan passed his lips as he slowly dragged himself to his seat and stared at the still-smoking Telepod with a silent horror. As she wiped the sweat from her brow and gasped for breath, Lucca quietly turned towards Taban for some sort of answer. Receiving none, she looked first at Crono, then at the crowd, and then mumbled a word that her mother would have slapped her for saying. Things had gone from bad to worse, right past horrible, and into the realm of oh-my-God-we're-screwed. Once the facts set in, all that she could think of were two words: damage control.
Lucca slowly and painfully lifted herself to her feet and turned to the crowd, flashing a fake smile that any actor would have been proud to have made. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the finest experiment in history!" she said desperately, shaking her head as if to convince herself. "She'll be back in just under an hour, so don't worry and get the hell out of here!" Lucca shrieked.
While the crowd dispersed, some in terror and others in confusion, Taban angrily grabbed hold of his daughter's shoulders and shook her hard. "What just happened?!" he croaked. After a few moments of thought, where nothing came, he staggered back and put his face in his hands. This was so out of control, and he knew that he'd be the one blamed for it. "Lucca, what in the high holy hell just happened, girl?!" Taban screeched.
"You think I know, dumb ass?! Even when I got zapped halfway to Porre the Telepod never did that!" Lucca moaned. She suddenly felt a hard hand on her shoulder and found herself wrenched around to face a very displeased Crono, and she had a good idea of what he was thinking. He wasn't supposed to hear that part. "Okay, so maybe I had a few glitches!" she insisted desperately. "I didn't think it'd blow her up!"
"We'll talk later about that..." growled Crono menacingly. "First things first: bring her back!"
"You think I intended to do that?! Say it again and I'll put you on your ass!" Lucca roared.
His teeth gritted, Crono grabbed hold of Lucca's shoulders and shook her hard enough that she came back to reality. "Don't give me that! It's your gadget, you know everything about it, and dammit I want you to bring her back!" he snarled. "I didn't bring her here for you to assault her, rip her apart, and shove her in a damned black hole!" Crono shrieked, hard enough for Lucca to realize how hard he was taking it just as he shoved her nearly onto her back.
"Again: What happened?!" choked Taban.
Lucca's anger finally became too much and she slammed her foot into her father's knee, sending him spiraling to the ground in pain. "Okay, calm down! You two have had way too much caffeine! The machine functioned perfectly!" she insisted. After a brief pause she took in a deep breath, gathered her thoughts, and put a hand to her face. "Listen... If the machine malfunctioned, it'd do it in the same way it did before, right? It didn't. Something else happened!" Lucca gasped. "That pendant she was wearing had some sort of funky reaction..."
Crono swiftly shoved Lucca out of the way and hurried to the first pod of the device, snatched up Marle's pendant, and put it around his neck. Lucca immediately realized what he was asking and moved to argue, but a quick glare silenced her and she gestured for Taban to join her at the controls. The two started up the machine (it took a minute to reboot), began the calculations, and set about making the Telepod function again... or malfunction, rather. As she input the controls and Taban worked the levers, Lucca desperately attempted to replicate what had originally gone wrong. When she received no adequate response her anger built until she slammed her fist onto the console, which immediately restarted the circuit and caused the Gate to begin to reopen. Crono kept a firm hold on Marle's pendant as the wind and dirt began to kick up and as he was drawn towards the blue sphere he caught sight of Lucca out of the corner of his eye flashing him a thumbs-up.
"I'll follow when I figure out what went wrong!" shouted Lucca, though Crono could barely hear her over the din of the Gate. Eventually the young swordsman's body was disassembled and shunted into the blue hole in space, the Gate opened wide, and swallowed Crono whole. The square fell into an eerie silence as Lucca dropped to her back, covered in sweat. She had to find some way to get to Crono. But would she be able to do it in time to actually help him?
Scene Two
Being the first to enter the Gate, Marle found herself drawn through a cascade of colors that seemed to swallow her up from the top of her ponytail to the tips of her toes. She was deeply engulfed by the raging energies, felt the ravages of time and space being ripped open, and caught sight of a strange red star in the distance before she ended up dropping through a large black hole, screaming all the way down, only to reemerge in the waking world with a sheen of sweat over her entire body.
Silence reigned as the light dimmed and Marle's senses readjusted to adjust for her present situation. She weakly lifted herself to her seat and brushed the dust from her jumpsuit, wiped the sweat from her brow, and looked around at where she was: a large, grassy space in the middle of seemingly nowhere, with brushes and bushes all around the scene. Marle slowly dragged herself to her feet and stared out into the brush, and when she heard a rustling her hand darted to behind her back and she drew the silver dagger that she'd brought for self-defense and brandished it.
The brush shook and finally parted to reveal its instigator, a young man wearing archaic Guardian armor with a sword at his hip. He wore a flat helmet and was dressed in mesh and chain mail, and when he approached Marle she lifted her weapon and lashed out at him, though he quickly dodged. Marle's pulse and breath quickened as more of the soldiers emerged from the thicket, her eyes darting between them back and forth in a desperate attempt to reason who to stab first.
Why are they dressed like that?! I haven't seen armor like this before... Did Dad have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for his "rescue party?" It's a sad bunch...
Marle's panic continued to build as the soldiers spread out to all corners of the glade, with half a dozen soon joining the first one in surrounding her. She had zero intent of going back without a fight and her fingers tightened around her dagger. From behind the brush a new figure emerged, a man dressed in thick green plate armor with both a broadsword and a buckler at his left and right sides respectively. As her heartbeat kept accelerating Marle was utterly shocked when the armored figure fell to one knee and bowed his head to her.
"Thank God, Your Majesty..." choked the knight, a tear slowly forming in his eye. "Queen Leene, the king has been worried sick for your well being..."
After taking in a deep breath Marle tucked her weapon behind her back in its sheath and watched as the knight stretched out his hand towards her. She slowly and reluctantly grabbed it and allowed herself to be gently pulled from the glade. If this was her father's doing, they certainly wouldn't be doing this so gently. Marle passed through the brush and, when she emerged, she let out a sharp cry of shock upon seeing that the fairgrounds was no longer there, just a bunch of plateaus, rocks, and trees scattered across a wide landscape.
She fell to her back and skittered back in terror, startling both the knight and the lesser soldiers when she gave a shrill shriek and put her hand to her mouth in shock. She wasn't in Leene Square anymore! Lucca, Crono, the Telepod... Everything had disappeared, and now she was smack dab in the middle of a verdant canyon with half a dozen armed soldiers around her, seemingly prepared to take her into custody. The problem was, where would she be taken?
"C-Crono..." she croaked, her throat dry as a desert.
"Who is Crono, Your Majesty?" the knight asked desperately.
Marle paused, unsure of what to say. If she said that she was with Crono and her father found out, he'd hang him. He was always overprotective, and even saying his name put the young man in terrible danger if the king learned who he was and where he came from. Her mind moved at a thousand miles a minute as she formulated a plan, a desperate one that she wasn't sure would work. Maybe if she said that he'd helped her, her father wouldn't chop off his head.
"Crono... s-saved me!" stammered Marle. "Don't hurt him!"
"Hurry to Truce and find the man named Crono!" shouted the knight, turning on his heel to meet with one of the lesser troopers. Marle's anger quickly peaked and she slammed her foot into the knight's armored knee, which succeeded in hurting both his leg and her foot.
"I said, don't hurt him!" roared Marle. "And Dad won't take me in without a fight this time!"
The knight, who had gripped hold of his aching knee with both hands, weakly staggered to his feet and unsteadily dropped to one knee again with his head bowed. He had no idea why the queen was being so violent, but he knew that it wasn't his place to judge. "Why would we hurt the man who saved you?" asked the knight breathlessly. "And your father died twenty years ago..."
"He... he's dead?!" gasped Marle.
I may not like the bastard, but dead?! When the hell did this happen?!
"I do not know why you speak so strangely, but... King Guardia XXI is waiting for you, Queen Leene!" insisted the knight.
"King Guardia... XXI?!" Marle choked.
Not Dad?! Wait... Leene... Oh, my God...
The truth finally dawned on the princess... she'd gone back in time! And now, she was being mistaken for her ancient ancestor - the queen, no less! It was an audacious idea, simply outrageous and unbelievable, but there was no denying the facts. She'd seen the image of that knight in an old book from the middle ages, but never thought that she'd actually meet one. Slowly the gears began to turn and the situation became not only strange but ideal. If she was the queen, she could get anything she wanted! A toothy grin crossed Marle's face as she cycled ideas through her head of what do ask for first.
"Got any ice cream?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
Scene Three
The same light that took Marle swallowed up Crono as well, sending him flying through a wild, warped tunnel that was decorated with psychedelic colors and strange shapes that swirled all around his body. He wasn't proud that he screamed the whole way down the rabbit hole, but never let go of Marle's pendant and kept it close to his heart as he dove through the colors and into the gap in space that awaited beneath him. Crono landed roughly face-first on the grassy terrain, his cheeks mushing against the soft dewy down of the grass. He muttered a few nasty words, lifted himself to his seat, and looked around at where he'd landed - the same place Marle had just a few short hours before him. Clearly, Marle wasn't here, but where could she have gone? When Crono heard a soft rustling in the brushes he quickly staggered to his feet just in time for three creatures to emerge from the bushes.
All three of them were squat, three-foot-tall blue humanoids, with crested skulls and two bright white fangs that dropped from below their noses. Crono immediately moved to grab his weapon and brandished it, though he wasn't sure how effective it would be. The three Imps slowly inched closer, so he took his sword in both hands and slammed it over the head of one of the Mystics, an action that immediately knocked it unconscious and dropped it to its back. The other two beasts fidgeted and moved around to catch Crono in a pincer formation. Just as they lunged a thought came and he swiftly ducked, allowing the two Imps to slam their heads against each other and knock themselves out. He quickly scurried away through the brush, and when he saw Truce Canyon emerge before his befuddled eyes the youth mouthed a curse and slid to a rough stop, his heel digging deep into the grass as he righted himself.
He quietly gathered himself and ran through the Canyon, darting behind bushes and hiding behind trees as he descended the area, though when he watched a pair of green Imps beating a round creature back and forth to one another he nearly had a coronary and quickly beat feet out of Truce Canyon and into the streets of medieval Truce. Just by looking at the commoners' clothes Crono immediately sensed that something was desperately wrong. None of them looked like they were very... clean.
Okay... Calm down... Screw it! Where the hell am I?!
Crono awkwardly stumbled through Truce's cobblestone streets, catching the attention of everyone who came across his visage. Everyone was dressed in shoddy rags and simple clothes, the buildings all clearly lacked the steel and stone that he was used to, and he could tell just by smell that indoor plumbing hadn't been invented yet. As panic began to build he swiftly turned to run and ran straight into the chest of an armored soldier, who loomed above him with his pole arm trained on his neck. Crono scurried back, shocked, as the trooper stormed towards him.
Son of a...
"Who are you, lad?" the soldier asked brusquely.
"Um... Crono?" muttered the youth. He wasn't sure what else to say.
The soldier's eyes quickly widened and he grabbed hold of Crono's hand, dragging him to his feet. Although he remained stunned, the soldier quickly dusted off his tunic and motioned towards another man. Within minutes Crono found himself stuffed inside a carriage, a royal carriage, and was rushed through the streets and into the fields beyond. He passed through several more regions over the next few hours, though he finally caught sight of a familiar place: Guardia Forest. He slowly peeked out from the carriage's window and immediately startled when one of the same rotund creatures that the Imps had been playing with at Truce Canyon popped its face up to the window. Crono immediately shouted a curse and sunk back in his seat, and to his relief the monster passed by, rolling away lazily into the forest. The thoughts returned, loud and proud: what the hell was going on?
Scene Four
Several hours after he set out from Truce, Crono's carriage stopped just past the end of Guardia Forest and he was ushered out into the plains in front of the castle. There the drawbridge lowered for him and he was guided through the gates and into the central foyer of Guardia Castle. Once there his escort left him to progress alone. Several chambers through the castle Crono arrived at the central stairs that led to the castle's throne room, flanked on either side by two guards wielding pole arms. He immediately shrank from the sight of the blades and moved to leave but was barred by a third guard and forced into the center of the chamber with the three guards surrounding him, blades extended, and ushered into the area just before the staircase. There he was held at sword point essentially, as the guards sized him up and tried to assess whether he was a threat or just a strange nuisance that the town guard had sent their way.
"Think he's a member of Magus' army?" wondered one of the guards.
"Hardly!" scoffed a second. "The boy has a wooden sword! Even the Demon King has better standards."
"I say he's some random miscreant..." the third soldier muttered. "Why they let him through is anyone's guess..."
Crono quietly withstood the interrogation, still shaken and confused. He wondered not only why he was here, but why he was also being accosted by the castle guard and attempted to be forced out of a place he never wanted to go to in the first place. It wasn't like he'd asked to come to the castle. All he'd done was give his name to a town watchman, then he was shoved inside a moving basket and carried through the forest into the heart of the nation. None of it made any sense.
"Stand down, all of you!"
The door to the throne room slowly opened to reveal a familiar face that was decked out in clothing that Crono had never seen her dressed in before. All three soldiers turned to the stairs above and immediately fell to one knee in reverence, leaving Crono to stare in stunned silence as Marle - dressed in a royal gown - gingerly stepped down the staircase and towards the four of them. Crono, astounded, was speechless.
She's... beautiful.
"Sir Crono is my guest, and I expect you treat him as such," boomed Marle with an assertive and confident voice. She turned to leave and stared down at Crono with a strange look, something between contempt and pity before departing the room. She was unable to hide, however, the childish giggle that she loosed as she left the chamber, and Crono was unable to hide his own shock as evidenced by the fact that his jaw had dropped to his knees.
"So this is Sir Crono!" croaked the first guard. He stumbled to his feet and bowed his head to Crono.
"The one who saved the queen?!" gasped the second.
"Please, hurry to meet the king!" insisted the third guard, moving to escort Crono up the stairs.
Crono was ushered up the long stone staircase and guided into a vast chamber, the throne room of the Kingdom of Guardia, where two rows of knights with bowed heads lined the way through to the throne and its occupant. Wearing long white robes with an orange cloak over his left shoulder, it didn't take long to pick him out as a king with his golden crown that tipped a firm, blonde haircut.
The king rose to his feet and began to applaud, soon after joined by his entourage of officials. "Sir Crono, you have my deepest gratitude!" he said cheerfully, with a degree of casualness that shocked the boy. He didn't expect the highest lord of the land to be so... approachable. "I'm proud to have such a fine lad as my subject! To rescue my wife... I scarcely can express my emotions," the king said tearfully. "Even if she does look some twenty years younger than normal... I'm just blessed to have her back..."
Slowly Crono's mind put the pieces together and finished the puzzle. There was only one reason why Marle would be mistaken for royalty: she was royalty. He'd certainly heard rumors of the rebellious Princess Nadia from his own time, and by adding that to the fact that he was clearly thrown somehow into the middle ages Crono determined that he'd traveled through time and... well...
None of this makes sense... God, what have I gotten myself into?
"Can I see her?" asked Crono quietly. He had to hear it from the horse's mouth.
"She's up the staircase to the right in her personal chambers," said the king with a smile. "Hurry and go to her."
Crono hurried up the staircase and through the chambers of Guardia Castle, soon after being met by a knight who bowed to him and bid him good tidings before moving aside. He heard from the maids on the way to the queen's chamber that she'd already asked for ice cream, something that greatly amused him (and he wanted some for himself after dealing with all this garbage). Upon entering the room Crono saw that Marle, who was still dressed as a queen, was flanked by two royal maids. She quickly dismissed them both and they hurried from the room, shutting the door behind them. Marle quietly beckoned for Crono to approach, and as he did so he could see her smile bubble up through the mask of nobility that she wore so well. When he finally ascended the stairs to meet her he stretched out his fist, she smiled, and then she met it with her own in a fist bump.
"You look amazing!" gasped Crono.
Marle threw her arms around Crono and embraced him tightly, drawing him into a grateful hug. When she retreated her face still retained its mischievous allure, something that he immediately noted when his face blushed bright red. She really was beautiful. Completely out of his class and probably jail bait, but beautiful. He knew already that he was toeing a very delicate line, one that could end with his head on the chopping block.
"I just knew you'd come to save me!" tittered Marle. "I'm glad to see someone I know here."
"I said I'd walk you around the fair, right? I can't let you leave without me," Crono said with a crooked grin.
"So..." began Marle tentatively, "have you figured it out?"
"The thought's crossed my mind that you're Princess Nadia, yeah..." muttered Crono.
She let out a sharp huff and hung her head, clearly not wanting to hear the response that she'd gotten. "I didn't mean to deceive you, you know that!" she insisted fervently. "This is a very complicated situation!"
"If by that you mean that I might lose my head, then yeah, it's complicated!" groaned Crono. "When you come back to the castle in our time, I'd appreciate it if you threw in a good word... I really don't feel like being executed this month."
Marle quietly began to fidget, unsure of what to say. He had an excellent point. Even so, just knowing that he was brave enough to come after her made her feel warm. Warm in a way that she'd never experienced, in fact. Before she could say anything else, however, a sharp pain beat through her heart and she stumbled back towards the wall, muttered a foul word, and barely caught herself from falling by gripping hold of a nearby chair.
"What the hell is happening?!" screeched Marle. "I feel like I'm being torn apart!"
A thin aura of blackness surrounded the princess as her body began to seemingly disappear and reappear randomly, as if she was blinking in and out of existence. Seeing that was clearly a red flag, so Crono stretched out his hand to meet hers but was shocked when she disappeared in a crack of lightning. Left alone in the room and pondering his (very dark) future, Crono silently cursed the darkness and stepped back in shock before hurrying towards the door.
Well, this isn't good. Crap.
Interlude
When Schala watched as Marle flickered out of existence, she quietly took hold of her pendant and muttered a prayer. "What just happened?!" she gasped. "Marle just... vanished! What the devil is going on?!"
"She's safe in a secondary dimension, so don't worry," said Gaspar plainly.
"Secondary dimension?" Schala croaked.
Gaspar nodded and took a sip of his tea. "Kept in suspended animation while Crono and Lucca do their thing," he explained. "She needed to disappear so that those two could put the pieces together and begin a rescue operation."
"It was a toss-up whether spiky-head would figure it out, but the girl with the goofy glasses knew all along," said Spekkio, picking his teeth with a fishbone as he stared at the screen. "Well, maybe not all along..." he muttered. "Keep watching. You haven't seen her perspective yet."
Scene Five
Right after it rocketed Crono and Marle back into the middle ages, the Telepod immediately sizzled, steamed, and stopped working. This required that Lucca hurry and rush repairs on the device, while also attempting to deduce what went wrong with it. For several hours she tinkered and toiled, finally managing to repair the Telepod by nightfall. She then threw herself into her work in an attempt to find out the problem - and more importantly, how to solve it.
No matter how many tests she performed and experiments she tried, Lucca continually came up empty. She found that the machine was functioning normally now, albeit with some minor damage caused by the incident itself. Further research found no abnormalities, no issues with the wiring or the computer system, and any and all trace of the energy that had created the Gate was gone. With a frustrated grunt Lucca wiped the sweat from her brow and kicked the Telepod in anger, which succeeded in bruising her ankle and leaving a scuff on the machine. Nothing she tried worked.
"Everything is a dead end, dammit!" she screeched madly. After muttering a nasty word under her breath, Lucca lightly slapped her face to bring her back to sanity and stared down at the Telepod with deranged malice. She'd built the damn thing and she couldn't figure out jack.
Okay, think back to the original issue... The girl vanished because of that strange pendant interfering with the Telepod... that pendant...
"Oh, sweet lord! The girl is the damn princess!" she shrieked. "We'll hang for sure!"
Once Lucca had gathered her terror and reconstituted it into the will to make things right, she silently processed the situation further and came to a slight clue. When she was constructing the Telepod, she'd experimented with several different power sources before settling on electricity. One of the potential energies she researched was crystalline resonance. There was one crystal in particular that she'd tried once, and it nearly made the machine explode - a rare, red mineral that she'd stolen from a merchant because it looked cool. Lucca quickly delved inside her toolbox and withdrew the ruby red gem, placed it on the control panel, and received no response. She scowled and picked up a second crystal, again to no effect. In frustration she stuffed crystal after crystal on the Telepod's energy source, finally managing to create a small, blue gap in space in between the two pods - exactly what had happened before. She'd done it!
Within minutes Lucca had cobbled together the assorted crystals and pieced them together into a single device that she dubbed a Gate Key. Before she headed through that black hole, however, she needed something to defend herself. She rustled through her satchel, desperate to find something, and withdrew two objects. One was a retractable mallet that she'd used for repairing the Telepod, but the other was entirely different. It was a small, hand-sized device that fired experimental ammunition. She'd never tested it, though, and knew that she only had a few shots in the magazine. Even so, it was her best bet. Lucca hurriedly shoved both the mallet and the pistol in her satchel and stepped up to the area between the two pods. After taking in a few breaths she lifted the Gate Key and prayed for a result. The Gate slowly began to form, and after crossing her hands over her chest in prayer Lucca dove straight inside the pulsing sphere.
The whole way through Lucca screamed her head off, said a few words she probably shouldn't have, and finally landed exactly where her friends had ended up. She quickly left the area and found herself in Truce Canyon, which shocked the hell out of her. After swiftly maneuvering past the fiends and entering Truce, Lucca took in the sights of the middle ages and quickly put the pieces together - she'd traveled through time back into the middle ages somehow.
I've got to get to the castle, but... Will I even be able to get inside?
Lucca hurried through the streets of Truce and entered the grand plains that separated the village from the other towns in the area. Because it was so isolated, she had a ready made plan and withdrew a small container that was shaped like a capsule. She pressed the button and tossed it, and when the smoke cleared her prized experiment appeared: a small motorbike, powered by gasoline with an electric guidance system. She'd worked on the capsules for years and only recently managed to master the device, but now the matter was joined and she had no choice but to rely on her newest invention.
After mounting the motorbike Lucca engaged the throttle and zoomed through the northern plains of Zenan. She had to be very careful, though, as introducing modern machinery into a technologically primitive time period could create some serious problems with the time-space continuum - All it would take was for one person to see the motorcycle and then the questions would begin to snowball into chaos. No, she had to be very conservative in the route that she took.
Upon reaching Guardia Forest, she recalled the motorcycle back into its capsule and stashed it in her belt before rushing into the woods. The trip was fraught with danger, and she had to whack a few Roly monsters with her mallet, but within an hour she'd made it to the castle's drawbridge. The question became, then, how to get inside? Lucca decided that she had no choice but to wait for the drawbridge to open, and fortunately a scout had arrived shortly thereafter.
She sneaked through the gate and arrived at the same staircase that Crono had entered, complete with the three guards on patrol. Somehow, she had to get past these jokers, and Lucca quickly came up with an idea. The cunning scientist rummaged through her pack and withdrew a small, spherical object the size of a gumball that she palmed and tossed at the corner of the room. The flash bomb alerted the guards and sent them running from their posts, and Lucca quickly took her opportunity to sneak up the staircase. Unfortunately, she ended up in the throne room. The damned throne room, guards, king, and all! Lucca, who had kept on a steady jog the whole way, ended up in front of the king and immediately came to a stop before bowing her head and praying that this king was more approachable than the one in her era. She had one chance: hope and pray that Crono had somehow made it in, deceived the whole castle, and made himself into a hero.
"Who are you, lass?" the king asked, rising from his throne with a sharp gasp.
"I, uh... I'm Crono's friend," Lucca said frantically. "I came to see the pri... the queen."
To Lucca's relief and astonishment the king dropped back in his throne and gestured to his left, where the staircase to Leene's bedroom was. Lucca wasted no time in rushing past the king and his guards, passing through the halls, and hurrying towards the staircase that led to Leene's quarters. To her shock Crono stumbled down the stairs, covered in sweat and burning hot with terror. If the king found out that he'd blown up his queen, he'd hang in this era.
"Where's the girl?!" Lucca gasped as she rushed up to her friend.
"She, uh... left," moaned Crono. It wasn't a lie, really...
"Oh, sweet hell! We'll hang for sure!" croaked Lucca. She grabbed her head in both hands, shook her head, and spat out a few words that can't be printed before turning back to Crono with desperation in her eyes. "Tell me what happened! Everything!" she insisted.
The situation certainly couldn't get any worse by saying what happened. "I came here, got stuffed in a carriage, and was carried here because everyone thought I saved the queen... I mean, Marle," Crono said quickly. "Then I went to see her upstairs, met her, and then she sort of... um... blew up..." he muttered idly.
"Blew up?!" choked Lucca.
"More or less, yeah," groaned Crono.
"You were smart enough to guess who she is, right?" Lucca asked desperately.
"Princess Nadia, yeah..." Crono muttered. "We're in the middle ages for some reason."
Lucca sighed and wiped the sweat from her brow. At least he was smart enough to figure it out. "We have a problem! They called off the search for Queen Leene when they found Marle... meaning the real queen is in danger!" she screeched. "I'm guessing that Marle disappeared because of some sort of paradox... If Leene dies, the whole royal line goes with her and Marle never gets born!" Lucca moaned as she hung her head. "History gets mucked up and the whole timeline goes boom! The kingdom might just outright disappear!"
"Then we need to find the queen, right?" asked Crono.
"Duh!" roared Lucca. "Search the castle for clues and pray for a breakthrough! This is a freaking nightmare..." she moaned. "All because that stupid little witch decided to take a chance on my machine... So, I'm responsible!"
"We'll pull it off," insisted Crono. "We have to."