Chrono Trigger 1. Prologue & Chapter 1

The Prophet's Apprentice-Redux

Written By: Dark Creation

*It's been 6 years and a couple requests for continuance of the original story. There have been a couple times that I've wanted to write another chapter and returned to the original story to reacquaint myself with it and I found myself unable to continue the story as it was written. Not to seem stuck up or arrogant, but I found myself unable to write at the relatively primitive level that I did before. Wanting to continue the story, but unable to do so as is, I have decided to rewrite it in a style and manner that I hope makes the story flow smoother and engrosses the reader more deeply than it did before. Outside of this brief introduction and any disclaimers that I can remember to put in, there will be no comments within the story so as not to interrupt the flow of the story. I hope fans of the original and anyone new to the story can enjoy this endeavor. I will appreciate any feedback, whether it be suggestions, criticisms, or encouragement and I hope to hear from you often as I found that nothing fueled my desire originally to write this story, more than the comments of my readers. That said, I do not know how often I will updated, but I will try to write fairly steadily and complete the story within a few months. Without further ado...The Prophet's Apprentice"

~Dark Creation

*I do not own Chrono Trigger, nor do I plan to profit financially from it or any other creative property not beginning with and belonging to myself.

Prologue

Crono, Frog and Lucca descended the staircase gripped with equal parts fear and excitement. The adrenaline ran through their bodies so fast that their hands shook as they took hold of their weapons and their knees buckled with every step. Their hearts beat faster with every inch closer to Magus' dark throne.

They entered a pitch black room. The air was heavy and it felt as if there were an evil mist upon it. The chanting that had begun atop the stairway had grown from undefinable hum to a deafening song of shadow.

Crono and Lucca stayed by the door as Frog stepped forward. The brave knight had dreamed of this day for ten years, but his resolve was shaken, held together only by the promising light of the Masamune. As his foot fell, a dark flame erupted from an torch urn on the floor. Frog stopped, startled for but a moment. He looked back at his companions, who nodded in affirmation. This was what they had come for. This was the demon they had sworn to banish.

The three stepped forward together, with more torches lighting as they made their way down the carpeted path. The chanting grew louder still, but this time they did not hesitate.

"Neauga, ziena, zieber, zom...Now the chosen time has come...Exchange this world for..."

As they reached the end, the torches erupted in a circle around a solitary figure: Tall, pale, dressed in dark armor and a crimson cape and mantle. His long blue hair blew in an unnatural wind. He did not acknowledge them at first, rather he continued his chant. An ominous, four-armed statue became visible before the man, who finally acknowledged the adventurers with a twitch of his pointed ears.

He turned to face them with a dreadful scowl. He seemed unaffected by the suffocating darkness around them. His blood red eyes shot from one warrior to another, studying the heroes who had made it to his Ceremonial Hall.

"Magus!" Frog shouted, releasing all of the rage and bravery he'd accumulated over the ten years of his torments. Magus' eyebrow cocked as he realized who the warrior who stood before him now truly was.

"I...it's that stupid frog!" Magus said in disbelief, before cracking a malevolent smile. "Kissed any princesses lately?"

"I rather enjoy this form, and I oweth it all to you! I have something for you!" Frog said as he pointed the legendary sword at his sworn arch-nemesis.

"Ah...! The Masamune!" Magus said, seemingly amused. He raised his hands and the little light in the room flickered violently as the unnatural wind blue even harder. "The black wind begins to blow...Okay...give me your best shot...If you're prepared for the void!"

The warlock leaped into the air and disappeared, only to appear behind Crono, kicking him and knocking him briefly to the floor. The three young warriors huddled together, back to back to back, brandishing their weapons with deadly intent, but the dark wizard only laughed. Within moments, the room filled with electrical energy, exploding between the three warriors and knocking each of them into the wall.

Crono was the first up and released a lightening spell of his own that raced around the room, finding a shadowy target in a corner of the ceiling. As the dark figure fell, Frog leaped across the room in a manner that only his amphibious legs could allow, and met the mage as he landed, swinging his mighty blade.

Magus twirled in a deadly pirouette, the magical sword slicing slightly into his arm as he swung back with his scythe, glancing Frog's leg. Though the wound was slight, Magus immediately staggered, visibly pained by the cut, which only fueled Frog's offensive. He lunged forward again, but was blown back by burst of flame.

Lucca watched Frog hit the statue hard, but made note that the spell was significantly weaker than the one Magus had used to initiate the battle. She returned with one of her own and caught the wizard as he moved from shadow to shadow. An audible groan could be heard from the darkness, but the two remaining warriors could only determine a general location. Lucca fired twice into the shadows, but hit nothing but the stone wall. She looked to Crono, who could only shrug before being knocked to the ground by the but of Magus' scythe. Lucca raised her pistol, but was met with a kick to the face before she could pull the trigger.

As the two gathered themselves, Magus looked upon them with an angry sneer. He began to draw from the darkness of the room. His hands held a black orb of energy that grew as the light in the room began to grow brighter. He raised his right hand into the air and the orb of darkness burst and a wave of searing pain shot forth, consuming both Lucca and Crono.

Magus watched their bodies writhe on the floor and smirked, but his satisfaction was short lived as he found himself knocked to the floor. Before he could turn to meet the eyes of his assailant, the blade of the Masamune came down upon his face. He just barely evaded the full consequences of the attack, but another weakening cut had been made just below his right eye. The blows continued to rain down upon him, forcing the wizard to roll around on the floor to escape the certain death that the enchanted weapon was promising him.

Frog continued his relentless attacks, trying the keep his foe pinned to the ground while his friends recovered from the horrible spell that had brought them down. He lost ground on his opponent with every attack, and he knew it was only a matter of time before Magus got enough room to gather himself. He thrust down again and the blade stuck in the stone floor for just a second too long and as he pulled it from the floor, he looked up at Magus, who glared at him with evil intent. The warlock thrust his palms forward and rush of cold wind and sleet came forth, blowing the valiant knight back onto the floor.

Magus summoned forth his scythe again and approached the prone Frog, who lay motionless, ave for the occasional twitch, at the base of the statue. He raised the blade up and prepared to bring it down on the fallen warrior, who was saved at the last moment only by a pair of energy bolts that had flown errant across the room. Magus turned to face the source and found himself struck in the knee by a third bolt.

As he fell to one knee, Magus scowled with pain and rage at the gun fighter laying on the floor, pointing the pistol at him. She fired again, but Magus faded into the shadow. Lucca looked around desperately for the wizard, waiting for the final fatal blow, but it was a blow that would never come as the mystic lord reappeared in midair, just in front of the statue as a wave of water rushed over him slamming him to the floor before his dark idol, right next to the fallen knight who'd just struck him down.

Each of the warriors fought to get back to their feet and within a few moments, Magus found himself looking up to the young warriors from his knee. His frustration mounted as he shook his head and screamed in anger.

"W...what have you done...to the Masamune...?" He asked, breathing heavily. They gave no answer, save for Frog's slow approach. The noble swordsman stood before his fallen enemy and looked upon him, not in anger, but in pity. He raised his mighty weapon and prepared to bring it down upon the wicked wizard, but the castle began to shake violently. The stone rumbled and the torch urns turned over, spilling their magical contents to the ground.

"What's happening?" Lucca asked, barely keeping her footing.

"Could it be...Lavos?"Frog asked his friends, shaken by the raw power that seemed to be building invisibly in the room.

"Bad timing...! Don't wake up on me now...!" Magus pleaded in a nervous haze.

"What do you mean? Didn't you CREATE him?" Lucca asked incredulously.

"You fools!" Magus spat. "I only 'summoned' him! He lives in the inner earth, absorbing the land's power and growing ever stronger!"

"So, he wasn't born in this period..." Lucca said as she realized the truth. Within moments, the rumbling stopped and as she regained her footing, Lucca noticed that a familiar tear in the fabric of reality had appeared just behind the fallen warlock. The three companions eyes bulged as the tear continued to grow larger and as he got to his feet, Magus found himself joining his enemies in fear and wonderment as they backed away from the growing portal.

"What's going on?" Frog asked, turning to Lucca.

"A g, Gate? It's huge...!" Lucca responded.

"You! If you hadn't shown up...!" Magus growled just before finding himself being thrown into the air. The three of them flew helplessly in the mighty vortex, the gravity pulling their bodies to their already tested limits.

"We're being drawn in!" Lucca shouted, though she was unsure if the sound had carried far past her mouth. They swirled around the room at ever increasing speed, just missing the many pillars and statues throughout the chamber.

"Whoa...!" Frog shouted as he was pulled into the portal. Crono went next and as Lucca tumbled through the air, preparing to follow her friends into the gate to wherever, and whenever, it led, she felt a hand take a firm hold of her ankle and the last thing she saw as she entered the gate was Magus' fanged scowl.

Then everything went black.

Chapter One

Lucca awoke in the grip of pain unlike anything she had ever felt. Adding to the toll that her battle with the legendary wizard had taken upon her body, she found herself cold and wet, partially buried under a blanket of snow. As she slowly got to her feet, she surveyed her surroundings and found little more than plains of snow with mountains in the distance. She saw no sign of her friends save for a mound of snow not unlike that which she had just emerged. She approached it and began to wipe it away and as she did, she realized who lay helpless underneath.

"Magus!" She gasped, falling back onto the seat of her pants. He didn't answer. He didn't even move. She crawled back toward him slowly, waiting for him to spring awake at any moment and attack her, to try the finish the job he had come so close to finishing in his castle. When nothing happened, she placed her hand upon his face and found him to be ice cold. She looked around and once again found nothing. She sighed as she tried to decide what to do. He was her enemy. They'd just tried to kill each other, but now they were alone together, in a very hostile environment and she knew that they would need to help each other if either one was going to survive. Despite everything facing her at that moment, it was still a difficult choice.

She dragged his body across the frozen waste as she looked for shelter. The storm raged without relent, the sleet stung her exposed skin from every direction. With every step, his body became heavier and her own stalled defiantly, unwilling to continue. Still she pushed on, knowing full well what defeat in his horrid place meant. She pulled him, inch by inch, as her arms and legs screamed out in agony and just as it all seemed lost, she came upon a lone mountain and, miraculously, the entrance to the cave. She hadn't seen it through the storm until she was nearly there. Revitalized by her discovery, Lucca gave everything she had to cover the last couple hundred feet.

The cave itself was not much of an improvement over the storm. The air inside stung her lungs with every breath and the stone was wet and frozen. There was nothing living inside the cave. In fact, the only sign that any life had ever been there were a pair of skeletons, lost souls not unlike the strange pair themselves, who'd hoped to weather the storm. She observed her unlikely companion, still unconscious and barely breathing. Cold mist rose from his mouth and frost had already begun to crawl across his flesh.

Lucca knew that he didn't have much time if she didn't do something. She found a bit of kindling in the cave, most likely collected by their departed cohabitants, but there wasn't enough to to manage a proper fire which forced Lucca to do something drastic.

She piled the bones carefully around the kindling.. Despite the ice upon the cave walls, the air was dry and the bones had become so as well. She pointed her hand at the mound of wood and bone and summoned the last of her magical strength, igniting a spark in the makeshift fire place. At first there was nothing, but then smoke rose from the bones and within a few minutes, the fire raged.

She sifted through her pack and found her pistol, her tool kit, and a couple vials of tonic. She held the medicine close as she contemplated giving the last of it to the man laying helpless at her feet. It would most likely save him. It would at least wake him up, but what would he do when that happened. She was certain that whatever happened, it would not begin well. As they battled earlier, his rage had become palpable, his seething anger boiling over, almost changing the air around them. She knew he would not be happy now and would most likely attack her when he could.

She also knew that without her help, he may never wake, and the two of them might die together in that cave. Given that choice, Lucca opened the vial and poured the bitter liquid into his mouth carefully. As soon as the vial was empty, she reached for her gun and found cover behind a stalagmite. From there, she raised her weapon against the nearly dead wizard and waited.

Within a few minutes, his body began to stir. Lucca's trigger finger tensed, ready to pull the last few millimeters to fire the weapon she had aimed directly at his chest. He groaned softly and slowly began to sit up. He looked around, confused and in obvious pain. Within a few moments, he noticed the gun pointed at him. He didn't say anything and neither did she. He simply stared at her and she stared right back, her trembling arms visibly shaking the gun. Magus signed and rubbed his forehead for a moment.

"So? What now?" Lucca asked, breaking the eerie silence.

"Well, it would seem that I am your prisoner." Magus said, resigned to and annoyed by the fact.

"Do you know anything about where we are?" Lucca asked. Magus looked around and saw nothing familiar until he looked outside, into the storm. His eyes grew wide and he slowly rose, ignoring the young lady and the gun she had pointed at him. She watched him limp just outside the cave's entrance.

"It can't be!" He whispered, as if he were too afraid to say it out loud, lest it prove to be untrue.

"What is it?" Lucca asked, still aiming the gun at him.

"You may not believe this, but we have traveled back in time." Magus said, looking back at his captor, but finding no look of surprise upon her face.

"You'd be surprised by what I'd believe." Lucca responded. "Go on."

"If I were to guess, judging by the strength of the storm and the location of this cave, we are somewhere near the Algetty colony, circa 12,000 B.C." Magus said.

"How do you know this?" Lucca asked., confused by Magus' seemingly intimate knowledge of their current environment.

"I grew up here." He said to her, which visibly shocked the young lady. "Well, not here. Up there." He said, pointing into the sky.

"I didn't see anything up there except storm clouds." Lucca responded growing suspicious of Magus' story.

"Of course you didn't, but it's there: A kingdom of dreams, floating in the sky upon a cushion of power, fueled by the demon, Lavos." Magus answered.

"What were you doing in your castle?" Lucca asked as soon as Magus mentioned the name.

"I was summoning the beast to battle it and, hopefully, kill it." Magus answered.

Lucca had suspected as much. He'd spoken of the monster before with such venom and hate on his voice that it seemed strange that he would use it as a tool for power. She'd begun to think that there was something far more simple, more personal, fueling his actions.

"We came to your castle to stop him by stopping you." Lucca said as she lowered her weapon. "We thought you created him."

For a moment, Magus thought to attack, but he pondered her words carefully, realizing that their goals were the same. He studied her, much as he did before they did battle, but in a different light, under different circumstances. He examined her as a potential ally now, not a potential enemy.

"You know of me. You knew of my plan. You knew where to find me. You knew of the Masamune and the Frog. You even know enough of Lavos to want to see him destroyed." He said, glaring at her intently. "You know a great deal, yet I know nothing of you."

Lucca froze. She didn't know what to tell him. For all she knew, his hesitation might only an act designed to coax information about she and her friends out of her, but he seemed genuine. She wanted to believe him. She wanted him to be her ally in this horrible, unfamiliar place. Despite everything, she wanted to trust him, but she still wasn't sure if she should, or even if she could.

"My name is Lucca. I am an inventor and a time traveler, originally from the year 1000 A.D." She said, purposefully omitting any information about her friends. "In my travels I stumbled upon the year 2300 A.D. By that time, Lavos rules over the earth, poisoning it and consuming everything it has to offer. It is a rotting world, slowly dying with every passing moment. Having seen it, I could not let it happen. All the information regarding Lavos begins with you, so I naturally started there."

"You were the mastermind behind the attack on my castle? You led those warriors against me in a desperate attempt to stop Lavos?" Magus asked, in disbelief. Lucca nodded, wishing not to lie out loud. Magus gave a single nod back to her and suddenly lunged forward, wrapping his hand around her neck and pinning her against the wall. "Do not lie to me child! I will flay you in two and let your innards spill onto the floor without a second thought." Magus growled, spitting into her face as he spoke. She made no move to resist as he scowled into her face. She held her ground as best she could, her face maintaining a hard resistance.

Within a few moments, his grip softened and he let her go and turned back toward the entrance of the cave. She stared hatefully at him as he gazed out into the storm. She raised her weapon again and tightened her grip around the trigger. Her hands shook with rage and she thought she might accidentally fire, but that possibility did nothing to make her lower her weapon. She hoped it would happen. In those long moments, she wanted it to happen.

"The stakes have changed, but the opportunity remains." He said, turning back toward her, not even acknowledging her threatening stance. "How far are you willing to go to stop him?"

"What?" Lucca said.

"What are you willing to do to kill Lavos?" Magus asked, his eyes piercing into her heart. She knew then that no lie would pass.

"I won't hurt any innocents and I won't let you do it either." She said.

"You misunderstand me." He said as he stepped outside. "If my plan works, we'll be saving an entire kingdom, but if we are going to succeed, you'll need to do what I tell you. You'll have to follow my lead. You'll have to trust me."

"How can I trust you?" Lucca said, still pointing her pistol at him.

"We want the same thing. You trusted me enough to nurse me back to health. That's all the trust I am asking for. We can help each other." Magus said, a wicked smile crawled across his face as he began to imagine the possibilities.

"What do you have in mind?" Lucca asked, letting the pistol fall to her side.

"In time. Our first order of business should be getting some rest, then we need to do some hunting. Neither you nor I are properly dressed for these conditions and we'll need food if we are going to make it to Algetty. I am still forming this plan, but we should be able to discuss it in detail when we arrive at the colony."

"Fine, but I still don't trust you." Lucca fired at the wizard, who seemed amused by her defiance.

"You will. I assure you." He replied, laying down to rest.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Magus stood alone in a black, empty space. He tried, in vain, to examine his surroundings and determine where he was, but there was nothing but the vast, black shadow. A single light shined down on him, illuminating a small area around him. He knelt down to touch the ground and found it to be smooth and hard, like tile. There was no dirt or other filth and it seemed to be that way all around him. He stood erect again and looked up, into the light. It stung his eyes, but he was determined to find something, if there was anything to be found, that could tell him where he was.

A gentle whisper carried in the air, barely audible. His head snapped in the direction of the sound and his heart raced: He recognized the voice.

Without a thought, he ran. The light followed him and the whisper became a voice. Screams and sobs and bursts of power could be heard. He went further and could hear the tense screech of metal being strained to its limits and the sounds of bodies slamming against something hard and solid, then going limp. The screams grew louder, but they were no longer of the same voice as before. Men and women roared defiantly and shrieked at some unseen horror. With every moment that passed, another voice was silenced, and the whisper could be heard again.

She was crying. He could almost see the tears running down her cheeks through the blackness. The image of her holding her hands to her face, weeping, unable to escape the pain and terror and guilt stood solely in his mind. Then he heard laughter: a wicked, evil cackle. He knew that laugh too.

"I still cannot believe it has come to this." An old man's voice said. "Even as I watched it happen, I always thought she would come to her senses."

"She has been lost for some time, Melchior." Another old man, this one sounding much weaker and sickly, said. "We always knew this was the likely course."

"It doesn't bother you, Balthazar, that we are about to turn our backs on a lifetime of service to Zeal?" Melchior asked, his melancholy heavy on his voice.

"We do what we must in the name of Zeal." Balthazar answered. "We all know that what we are about to do will make no difference. Our home will be destroyed and everything we knew and loved with be gone. This is not about success or failure. It is about who we are."

"Alas, if we were younger men." Melchior said, a bit of his warrior's fire returning to his voice. "Dare I say, in our primes, we may have had a chance."

"Hey!" A third elderly voice said. "I do believe the path before us is open and there is no time like the present. Shall we proceed?"

The voices faded away and Magus was left alone with only the sounds of chaos to keep him company. He saw nothing, he felt nothing, but he could hear the sounds of a wild battle, with magical energies the rivaled his own being unleashed and just as it seemed that battle was reaching a climax, everything went silent. There was no sound for moments, and then there was that terrible scream. It had haunted him for decades. Not a night had gone by, for more than twenty years, that he did not hear that scream in his dreams.

"Janus! What are you doing here!" The gentle, woman's voice asked. Magus' eyes went wide as he heard those words-the last words he'd heard her speak.

He closed his eyes tightly and held them shut for what seemed like an eternity. When he opened them, it was all there: The three gurus on their knees in front of him, his mother wearing a sickening smile as she surveyed the carnage from the shoulder of her god. He saw Schala collapsed upon the floor, lacking the strength to stand, let alone resist the force before her. He saw Lavos in all his horrible glory. He could feel it's power seep into his very pores. I was just like he remembered.

He inspected himself and, as he expected, he was a boy again. His arms and legs were short and chubby, his cheeks fuller and the muscles beneath them didn't pull down in the perpetual scowl that had he'd grown so accustomed to. Instead of his armor and cape, he was wearing those regal, purple robes that they always made him wear. Everything was so much bigger and that unshakable confidence he'd acquired in the years mastering his craft was gone, replaced by the fear and confusion that so often inflicted the helpless. He wanted to do something, to change it all. His mind screamed at him to cast a spell, but he knew that the boy wouldn't even raise his hands.

The monster shrieked again and those holes, those black portals, opened up beneath the gurus, one by one, just as he remembered, and when they were gone, he looked down, just in time to see one open up beneath him, eager to swallow him whole and take him away from everything he knew.

* * *

Magus awoke back in the cave, drenched in sweat. Though there had been a time when such a dream would have bothered him, he'd long grown used to the nightmares. They'd plagued him all his life and that one in particular had plagued him, off and on, ever since the day he'd lived it for real. His conscious mind had been dulled to the terror and he reacted to them now on instinct alone. He took a deep breath and swallowed, and felt for the amulet around his neck. As he stroked the jewel, he looked around and saw the girl laying across the cave on the other side of the fire pit, which had burned out as they slept. He wiped the sweat from his face and closed his eyes.

The magic of the amulet brought his conscious mind back into the dream and from there he watched it all unfold again and absorbed everything he could from it and kept his eyes open for anything new, something different from his memories and all the other dreams. It didn't happen often anymore, but he knew that it could, and if it did, he needed to take advantage of it.

Sure enough, just as as he began to fall into the darkness, he saw something different; something that unnerved him greatly. He watched as Schala turned her gaze away from him. He followed her eyes and saw, in silhouette, a familiar figure. It ran toward him as he fell and just as the hole began to close, her face came clearly into view:

Lucca.

He let go of the amulet and returned to the cave significantly bothered by what he'd seen. What it all meant was beyond him at this point, but he knew that whatever it meant, the success or failure of his coming endeavors were tied, in some way, to his unlikely companion.

She stirred a bit, catching his attention. Her body shivered violently and her lips and fingers had turned blue. She'd curled up into a ball, laying upon the floor as a baby rests within its mother's womb. He scowled at the sight, annoyed by the thought that, without his help, she might die of frost before they ever began to make their way to Algetty.

He pondered the question of whether or not to just leave her there to die. He didn't like what he'd seen in his dream and was tempted to simply leave the problem behind. His dreams were always complicated and unraveling their mystery was always a great source of trouble with just as many disappointments as there were rewards. He was often tempted to give up the practice he'd learned as child, but was always reminded of the tremendous gains it had brought him.

The difficult part, of course, was trying to determine what it meant. Her presence was the only difference from the horrors he remembered as a child, which immediately told him that her presence jeopardized his plans. He was also firmly aware that he'd seen too little of the event to know if something happened before or after that would change the outcome. He sighed in frustration at the impossible prospect of making an informed decision based solely on what he'd seen. The slightest error would doom everything and he did not like the prospect of risking everything on the flip of a coin.

As she stirred again, he considered approaching the situation from a different perspective. She had been his enemy, engaged in mortal combat with him and was a factor in his failure to complete the summoning ritual, delaying his vengeance. On the other hand, she'd saved him from the cold and nursed him back to health using medicine that she had to know she might need for herself. Everything she'd said and done since the end of their battle indicated a willingness, perhaps even a desire, to work together, even if begrudgingly so toward a common goal - Lavos.

He knew she wasn't telling him everything, but everything that had happened so far told him that her quest against Lavos was genuine, which in the warlock's mind was no small thing. The thought that he no longer stood alone against the godly monster he hated so much comforted him. For so long, he'd operated on his own, hiding his intentions from those closest to him, those who would use him and Lavos to sate their blood thirst. He was able to work with what he was given, and used them as much as they tried to use him, but the girl freezing at his feet now represented something different, something bigger. He didn't have to use her. He could work with her and, perhaps, even trust her.

The thought jarred him from his contemplations. Trust was not something he was comfortable with and even the thought of it frightened him. He could tell her things, exchange information with her without fear of it turning on him. There was no obstacle on the path to Lavos that he was not certain he could overcome. What concerned him was when they reached their destination and the blood began to spill, would he be able to count on her? Could he rely on her? Could he trust her with his life.

Not now, he acknowledged, shaking his head at the thought. There was too much at risk to even consider it, but the potential was there. Seeds of trust had been sown, the question was whether or not his soul was fertile enough to allow them to grow, but he would give it time.

He took off his cape and place it over her. Then he held his hand to he back and chanted softly. The cape grew warmer as the whispers passed his lips and her watched her body relax, releasing the tension that had coiled her up. Her shivering stopped and some of the color returned to her skin.

He knew it wasn't a lasting measure, but he was fairly certain it wouldn't have to be. He left the cave to search for food and firewood, all while he wrapped his mind around the recent developments and plot to come.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Lucca woke next to a healthy fire and the smell of meat cooking. She looked over and saw Magus sitting on the other side of the fire, tearing a piece of meat from a large bone with his teeth. Next to him, draped over a large stone, was a large, blue furred skin. It was covered in spots of blood and cut poorly, but it was still large enough to wrap her entire body in it.

"I would like my cape back." He snarled, drawing Lucca's attention to it for the first time. She uncovered, finding the air still rather cold, despite the fire, and handed the garment to him. He took it back and nodded politely, as though he was acknowledging that they were now even. She'd saved his life, and it seemed he'd returned the favor.

"Thank you." She said as she sat back down.

"It would have been hardly productive to establish a working relationship with you only to let you die in the cold." He said.

"Given your reputation, I wouldn't have put it past you." Lucca said.

"Perhaps my reputation has been slightly exaggerated: both by those who would be enemies, and those who would be allies." Magus said, tearing away another piece of meat.

"Frog might have something different to say about that." She snapped back, earning a glare from the warlock as he chewed.

"Your food should be ready now." He said in a not so subtle attempt to drop the subject, which Lucca quickly picked up on. He took her meat from the fire and bit into it. It was tough and a bit overdone, but it tasted okay and given the growls coming from her stomach, she was hardly in a mood to complain. "When that skin dries, you can use it as a cloak for the journey to Algetty."

"Have you worked out your plan?" Lucca asked, though he did not answer immediately.

"Most of it." He finally responded to her. "The plan itself is simple, but there could be any number of unforeseeable obstacles. Improvisation will be key."

"Well, what is it?" She asked impatiently.

"I told you we'll discuss that when we arrive in Algetty." he said.

"Why?" She shot back immediately, defiance thick on her voice, but he didn't answer. "Well, if you aren't going to tell me, I have a plan of my own."

"Oh, really?" Magus said with false interest.

"This kingdom of yours," Lucca said, "We could approach them with the truth. We can tell them what is going to happen and as the events unfold as they have been warned, surely they would come to understand the danger of the situation." Magus only flashed an amused smile and snickered. Lucca snarled and glared at his insult.

"An interesting plan. Alas, it is but a childish fantasy." Magus said, his derisive smirk fading as he spoke. "These people are addicted to the power Lavos offers them. Even in the face of their doom, they will not give it up. Make no mistake, if you even hint at sabotaging their efforts, they will turn on you with a fury unlike anything you have ever seen. They will abandon their own, even their most revered and respected, to the taint of Lavos. What makes you think they would embrace us. We are nothing to them and if we make our intentions known before the time is right, that is exactly what we will become."

"So what is your plan, then?" Lucca shot back angrily.

"Deception is the key." Magus said. "Tell them the truth, and they will fight us every step of the way. Tell a convincing lie, and they will escort us to our destination."

"You think you can convince them?" Lucca said, snidely.

"I know I can." he answered. "These people are not like the people of Guardia. They have no fear of magic and the last vestiges of honor and nobility in their society are quickly dwindling. I have much to offer them; more than they would ever dream of turning away."

"So what is the problem? What is giving you so much trouble?" Lucca asked.

"In a word: You."

"What?"

"You are a wild card. I know nothing about you, other than the fact that your magical skills are feeble at best. As of right now, there is no role for you to play, and if that remains the case, I have no use for you. Quite the contrary, you become a potential detriment, even if I distance myself from you." Magus said, holding nothing back in his assessment. "Be thankful I continue to consider you a potential asset. If I cannot find a way to use you, I have no reason to keep you around."

Though there was no malice in his voice, Lucca was still enraged by his words. She could not believe how easy it seemed for him to insult her. She considered tossing a spell or two his way, just to show how 'feeble' her magic was, but quickly dismissed the notion. This wasn't the time or the place, nor was she convinced it was necessary.

He smirked as she tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her anger. Magus had learned, many years ago, that the best way to manipulate someone was to play on their strongest emotions. It was all a matter of identifying those emotions, and Lucca clearly had her share of pride.

"I don't think it will come to that. I will just need time to shape a role for you. I believe I can do that by the time we reach Algetty. When that role forms, I will reveal everything." Magus said before tending to his meal once again.

The two ate in silence. They gave each other brief glances, Lucca in anger and Magus in curiosity, as they ate. Lucca was clearly annoyed by the way he'd almost dismissed her entirely. She knew he did it on purpose, to somehow manipulate her, but she didn't care. The fire in her belly urged her to prove to him that she was worth it. It was that drive that had pushed her to succeed all her life, and she faced the disturbing realization that Magus had sniffed it out in the short time they'd known each other and used it. That he was capable of such insight and manipulation only reinforced all the terrible things she'd grown up learning about him.

He'd shown her kindness though, beyond anything that she'd been led to believe he was capable of. He hadn't known her for more than a few minutes, and most of that as an enemy, yet he was willing to shield her from the cold at his own expense, then bring and prepare food for her. He wasn't the evil incarnate the books had made him out to be, though he certainly wasn't warm and inviting either. There was a coldness about him that she felt like she understood: a wall built of loneliness and anger. She was all to familiar with the feelings, but she had always had Crono and her Mom and Dad to support her and help her channel those feeling into something positive: an inner fire that drove her to earn the respect and admiration of those around her. She saw glimpses of that in him, but they were buried beneath a mound of bitterness and arrogance. It wasn't enough for him to prove his worth, he had to be better than everyone. Lucca smiled, in her mind, at the thought: it was something she could use against him, like he'd done with her and her pride.

As Lucca began to weave her own web, questions raced through the wizard's mind and he knew he would get few answers to them and none that he could trust. Between his dream and the inconsistency in her earlier answers, he didn't know what to think. Ever since this girl had entered his life such a short time ago, it seemed everything was slipping out of his control, and even with his small victory, he felt helpless against this tide of uncertainty.

He'd planned the summoning of Lavos for years and was at the peak of his powers when he finally put that plan into effect, yet she and her friends were able to stop him, and nearly killed him. Now he was back home-if that word could truly be used to describe this place-and the girl who nearly caused his death and ultimate failure, was now a potential ally.

What kind of ally she would be was still up in the air, though. She didn't possess the devotion of his former underlings and her motives were not so easy to manipulate. Ozzie, Slash, and Flea were all, above else, self serving and if what she claimed was true, this girl was anything but. She was willing to travel across time to challenge forces she couldn't possibly overcome for a cause that was not her own. That was, of course, if she was telling the truth. Magus believed her, but there was that part of him that could never trust anyone. It told him not to trust her, that nothing good could come of it and that part of him was almost never wrong.

Still she intrigued him, though only if he could control her. Her insecurities were the only thing he had at the moment, and he knew it wouldn't last forever. He needed more from her and he knew that the only way he could get it is if she trusted him, which was out of the question at the present time.

It was a start, though.

"The skin should be ready now. We should make our way to Algetty immediately so that we may arrive before nightfall." He said as he looked out into the blizzard. Lucca silently complied, draping the skin over her back and wrapping it around her body, then the two left the cave with Magus in the lead and Lucca following close behind.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

They'd been walking for hours, and Lucca had quickly realized that their time in the cave had done little to diminish the storm raging above them; if anything, it had gotten worse. The wind caught the beast skin that she'd wrapped around her and did everything it could to wrench it out of her grasp and as she fought against it, the heavy snow whipped around her, stinging her exposed flesh and melting against her skin, inviting the chill in the air to trap her in a killing frost . Her legs stung in the cold, her muscles screaming in agony with every step, and she knew that it was only a matter of time before frostbite set in. Despite it all, she pushed on, unwilling to let a mere storm stop her, especially while Magus, with his judging eyes, potentially looked on.

She hated herself for caring what he thought, but couldn't help it. Her pride had always fueled her, but she'd always had the support, from her father and Crono, to turn any criticism of her into motivation without being consumed by anger. Here, she was alone with little more than stinging words to keep her company. She knew that if there was to be any change, she would need to overcome the limitations of her pride and find some way to play the warlock's game against him. With that thought, she glared into the storm ahead, at the source of her frustration, trying to find some weakness in him that she could exploit.

While Lucca focused her anger towards him, Magus thought of the girl only in terms of how he could use her. She would never pass for an enlightened, but her abilities with magic showed promise; not enough to intrigue the queen, but perhaps enough to make her presence in Zeal acceptable. Perhaps, if her had time to train her, and the resources to do so, she would be acceptable, but he had no idea how much time he had, and his plan would require plenty of time to gain the queen's trust; time he deemed far to precious to waste on what would likely amount to little more than a brief assistance.

Then it struck him, so bluntly that he almost stopped just to appreciate it. The idea was so simple, so obvious, that he was surprised that he had not thought of it sooner. Of course he couldn't train her, but they could. For Zeal, time and resources were nothing in exchange for power, and the intrigue of one such as her, unknown among the enlightened, but possessing their gifts, would be nearly impossible for them to pass up. He would be free to scheme, she would be out of his hair and, perhaps if things went really well, she could truly be of some use.

It was perfect.

No more than twenty feet behind him, Lucca tried to see through the haze of Magus' words to figure out his plans. She was well aware of the power he possessed, but was certain that he wouldn't be so confident relying on that alone; after all, she, Crono, and Frog had overpowered him on their own, with magical abilities that, as he implied, were dwarfed by the people of this mysterious kingdom. No, she knew that no matter how powerful he was, it would take more than that to carry out this deception he intended for them. He needed their trust, and it seemed he knew how he would get it. He would have to give them something, but what would he sacrifice to them for the chance to face Lavos.

She pondered everything he'd told her, looking for some hint of what he planned to do. For a time, she thought he might give her to them, perhaps claiming she intended to sabotage their efforts or that she was potentially useful to them. The idea quickly wore away at what little trust she had left in him, but she realized even that would not be enough for him to be so confident. He would need to offer them something that he was certain they would want, something with immediate returns that he could use over and over again to make them more and more dependent on him.

She smiled, despite the conditions, as it all became very clear to her. If he really grew up among them, he would know what was going to happen. Their future was his past and he was going to use that to get them feeding out of his hands. With every secret that only time could reveal, he would become more and more useful to them, and every time he was right, they would trust him that much more, all the while keeping the most important secrets to himself. Given enough time, they would not question him, and he would be free to scheme all he wanted under the guise of truth. He could give himself every advantage if he played it right.

No wonder he was so confident.

They continued on until they came atop a hill overlooking the landscape. At first, Lucca wondered why he'd stopped, but as she caught up, she saw exactly what had given him pause.

The coast line was within sight from where they stood and less than a mile into the cold dark waters a mountain floated in the air, held in it's position only by a massive chain that wrapped all around the great land mass and was secured to an island just underneath.

"Is that Zeal?" she asked, remembering what he'd said about the kingdom floating in the sky.

"Not quite," the warlock answered. "It is the Mountain of Woe. In ancient times, the enlightened ones lived among those without the gift. They would eventually lament this and seek a way to escape being bound to the earth. Eventually, there was one among them who, through the use of the fabled sun stone, was able to lift them above the clouds and those who they deemed below them. The Mountain of Woe was his first success. It was uninhabitable due to the terrible beasts that lived upon it, which made it the perfect testing site as none would be harmed if it failed."

"Why is it chained to that island?" Lucca asked.

"Even then, their vanity consumed them. They would have none but themselves among the clouds." Magus answered. "Come, the earthbound village of Algetty lies just under the mountain."

The pair moved on, with Lucca searching the landscape for any sign of the promised village, to no avail. There were no houses or huts, there was no common area, there was no sign of any life what so ever. There was nothing but snow, just like everywhere else in this horrible era. Still, she followed him as he marched into the vast nothingness, but was slowly doubting his supposed memories more and more.

They marched on for nearly another hour before arriving at a large mound of snow. They stopped and Lucca examined the mound for some kind of defining characteristic, but found nothing. She looked at Magus, who stood still, his gaze transfixed on the mound, and quickly noticed that standing stationary in the thigh deep snow had given the chill of the biting blizzard a perfect opportunity to take hold. The painful stinging in her muscles intensified steadily until eventually giving way to an jarring numbness.

"What are we doing?" She asked, though she was doubtful of receiving any answer. She began to jog in place to keep her blood from freezing inside her veins, but grew concerned. Her doubts were growing stronger and were not helped when she looked upon his face. She saw no sign that the cold affected him, but instead found an quizzical expression, like he was searching for something he'd forgotten.

Lucca looked around, trying to keep her mind off the cold. The featureless snowfields stood in stark contrast t the ominous sight of the mountain floating overhead. As she watched it drift back and forth, casting its shadow over the ocean just a few hundred yards away, she felt a burgeoning fear and respect for the power of this kingdom that Magus had spoken of, all the while, an unsettling question rose in her mind – If they were capable of this, what else were they capable of?

Just as the question came to mind, she saw the warlock raise his hands at the mound of snow and heard him speak.

"Those bound to the Earth, come forth and receive your masters, born of the sky."

With that he lowered his hands and they waited for but a few moments before a block of ice lurched forward, followed by a pair of shabby looking men pushing a large piece of wood tied firmly to the block.

"Our apologies for the wait." One of them said. "We were not expecting any visits from the sky born." As the man finished speaking, he held out his hand, but Magus merely looked at him before speaking again.

"Food and lodging?" He asked, while gesturing for Lucca to enter.

"Already being prepared. You'll have the cave on the second level down. The elder will be there to greet you shortly." The second man answered. Magus simply nodded and entered the cave. The two men looked to each other and sighed before resetting the ice block.

Lucca looked on in awe as she stood atop and great cliff face with a network of caves and ladders running down the side. She had expected little, perhaps a few carved out caves in one central room, but found herself quite impressed by the underground village. The fact that she couldn't feel the slightest twinge of magical energy in this place made it's complexity that much more impressive: these people had built this place on their own, and in it's own unseemly way, it was beautiful.

"Come, they've made arrangements for us." Magus said as he walked past and stepped over the side of the highest cliff face. She hurried to the ladder that connected the two levels and saw him floating lazily down to the cliff below. She climbed down as quickly as she could and found herself following his leisurely efforts in a clumsy rush to keep up. Again she felt humbled by him, though the realization of it struck he quickly enough for her not to react to it.

"Ladies first." He said, smiling, as he held his arm out toward the cave's entrance. She walked in silently, not giving him the chance to snipe at her again. She found a quaint little cave, loking not unlike the larger cavern outside save for this one was furnished with beds, a fire, and a table and chairs. Lucca immediately discarded the beast skin and sat upon the bed nearest the fire before laying back upon it, exhausted.

"I hope this little journey has not defeated you. We face more dangerous foes ahead, you know." Magus said as he took a chair from the table and sat near the fire.

"I imagine we will be better prepared for those foes." Lucca said without making eye contact.

"Quite," Magus answered with a smirk that went unseen. "The elder will be here shortly with a contingent bringing food. We will discuss our business when we are left alone."

Just as he finished speaking, and old man followed by a pair of young women, carrying large portions of meat with a few boiled greens, entered the room. They were all dressed in tattered beast skins and looked weary at the chore they were currently performing. The man stopped in front of Magus while the two women placed the food upon the table and left.

"We humbly offer these meager portions to you, visitor from the sky, and ask if there is anything else we can do to assist you." The old man said in a rehearsed tone.

"We come without proper dress. Do you have anything available?" Magus asked.

"Yes, my lord. We have a store of extra cloaks and robes available for visitors from the floating kingdom. I will lead you there, if you like."

"Yes, that will do." He said before turning to Lucca. "Do you wish to come?"

"Pick something for me." She said, without moving. The wizard smiled before getting up and following the old man out of the cave.

Lucca lay motionless for several minutes, appreciating the tingle of feeling coming back to her legs. She unfastened her helmet and placed it on the floor next to the bed before laying down again. A dull ache ran back and forth through her body as she lay still, enjoying the comforts of the primitive bed and the warm fire and she pondered the last few days and the those they lay ahead, with the shadow of Magus cast over it all.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Lucca laid on the bed silently, taking in everything that was going on. For a few moments, she even questioned whether it was all real; maybe it was a dream, or a hallucination. Maybe she was dead and this was some twisted afterlife.

Of course, it wasn't, and she knew it. If it wasn't the smell of the cooked meat, not unlike what Magus had prepared for them in the ice cave, it was the pain in her legs from the muscle tissue thawing that seemed too real. She breathed deep, collecting herself, trying to figure out what she was going to do.

Magus was playing with her. No matter how she looked at the situation, it came back to that pivotal fact. He was going to continue to manipulate her until she molded to his liking. What he didn't say with his words, he said with his eyes and his sneers and his completely confident demeanor. The only time, it seemed, he wasn't working away at her was when he was trying to figure out how to do so, and those breaks were few and far between. She knew that if she did nothing, it wasn't going to stop until she became what he wanted: his puppet.

The only question was what she would do about it. She'd dealt with bullies and cynics and people eager to see her fail all her life, but she'd always had support and none of those foes presented the challenge that the warlock did. He was cold and calculating and the threat of him simply killing her and walking away always hung overhead. He was keeping her around, but he'd made it clear that she was not necessary.

She hated herself for relinquishing that one moment where she was in control. He was weak and defenseless and she had a pistol pointed right at his head at point blank range. There was nothing he could have done except what he did. She still couldn't be sure that he was telling the truth, but she wanted, so badly, to believe him. She was all alone, in a strange place, with only the man who she'd just recently been fighting against for her life as a possible ally.

They wanted the same thing and he seemed even eager to have someone else to fight with, but was it too good to be true? He'd seemed so lonely, in that brief moment, that she had to believe him; it had to be real. _Maybe it was,_ She dared to think. Maybe the loneliness was real. Maybe he really did want, or even need, someone there with him. She didn't know much about him, but she knew enough to know that if he was telling the truth about his ultimate plans for Lavos, then he'd forged them alone. Ozzie had said that Lavos was going to be used against humanity, but if Magus knew as much about Lavos as he pretended to, there was no way he would believe that Lavos could be used in such a manner, but he also knew that he would need resources that only the mystics could provide. He used them, like he was trying to use her, because he knew he couldn't trust them with the truth.

And there she lay, knowing the truth, yet he still kept her at arms length; still treated her like she was a puppet and not a partner, like she thought he meant when he first proposed combining their efforts. He was still alone, and she knew that deep down, it ate away at him. A hidden part of him didn't want to be alone anymore and, for a moment, thought that Lucca could help change that, at least in regards to opposing Lavos, but maybe even further.

A weight lifted off her heart. She'd found something she could use, though she still was not entirely sure how she would use it, other than the fact that she would have to go to him with it. She would have to occupy a role she was unfamiliar with: the aggressor. She was prideful and sometimes boastful, but up until recently, she'd always practiced keeping people at a distance until she knew that their friendship was genuine and not some cruel joke. Her new friends had helped open her up, but her limited experience with Magus was beginning to close everything back in around her. She wanted to trust, and had done so with her new friends, but had received the rude awakening that she knew would come eventually, in the form of mystic lord.

Yet she'd watched him push those feelings of doubt aside and play the bully. She could do it too. She knew there was insecurity hidden behind the arrogance. In a way, she knew exactly how he thought, but if she was going to play off those emotions correctly, she was going to have to play that cruel joke, the false friendship she'd always despised, on him, to the same despicable effect.

Her stomach churned in a mixture of disgust and hunger. The smell of the meat in the air had tickled her fancy, pulling her mind away from the unpleasant thoughts, so she gave in and got up to get something to eat.

* * *

She'd eaten her fill when he returned, wearing a long, dark cloak, and carrying some folded fabric with a hue of pastel green. His face was partially hidden by the shadow cast by his hood, but she could clearly see the smirk on his face. He tossed the fabric on to her bed as he walked to the table. She glared at him as he sat down to eat.

"You were gone long enough." She said as she examined the fabric. She let it fall to the floor and found a simple, yet elegant robe. She pressed it against her body to check if it would fit.

"Yes, well, cloaks such as this are not in fashion in Zeal. I had to search for some time to find something that suited my tastes." He answered.

"And mine?" She asked.

"The common fashion, in a style that accentuates your few finer points." He said, smirking. For a moment, Lucca almost let the jab land, but caught herself, instead finding the hidden compliment in his insult. She glanced down at herself, the robe draped over the front of her and had an idea.

She turned, back to him, to place the robe on the bed and immediately took off her shirt, exposing her bare back to him, causing an immediate and extremely satisfying reaction.

"What do you think you are doing!" He exclaimed, stunned by immodesty. She turned slightly, holding up her arms to maintain a bit of intrigue, and smiled.

"I'm getting out of these wet clothes." She answered. "I need to change and I'd rather do it here with you than out there with all those people."

"Could you be any more vulgar?" He said snidely, but she only shrugged and continued.

"I don't particularly care. You do whatever you want, but I am changing." She said, holding firm, waiting to see what he'd do.

Magus shifted in his chair, betraying his unease while she wrestled with the robe. His eyes, tracked back and forth but always found themselves drifting back to her bare torso. He realized at this moment that he found her attractive. She was not stunning, but when combined with her intelligence and fiery nature, her beauty more than shone through.

It didn't take him long to realize what was happening. He couldn't tell if it was planned or a simple accident, but he knew that she struck at something deep. For a few, blissful moments, he actually enjoyed it, before remembering what it meant: she'd gotten to him just as he had been trying to get to her.

Disgusted with his weakness, he huffed and got up to leave the room. He looked back, one last time, and found his eyes meeting her's. Her torso was still bare and she again held her arms over her breast. She flashed an embarrassed smile, like she was just realizing what was going, and turned to look away just before he finally left amidst a cloud of frustration.

Lucca could not contain herself for too long after he left and broke down and gave out a triumphant laugh, both at his discomfort and at her most glorious victory. She knew it wouldn't stop him from playing his games, but now she could play her own, and it was quite obvious that her first strike had been an effective one.

She composed herself quickly and finished changing out of her wet clothes and into the robe. She examined herself as thoroughly as she could, and was quite pleased with what she saw. She could see that Magus wasn't laying when he said he thought the robe would look good on her. It fit her form, but loosely, allowing enough of her figure to show through without looking trashy. She couldn't help but acknowledge his taste, and though she wanted to keep that tidbit to herself, she knew that if her own machinations were to succeed, getting him to lower his guard was of the up most importance and compliments would go a long way in that regard.

* * *

Magus paced around the upper level of the cave and fumed at how easily he'd been unnerved. He hadn't felt so vulnerable, so exposed since he was a boy. He'd lived among some of the the most cunning and ruthless creatures in the world for decades without flinching, and yet this little girl shook him so, without even trying. He couldn't help but think that perhaps his feelings were not so well hidden and now he would have to be extra guarded in dealing with her. He could not afford to be so open with his manipulations as he previously thought, but he was well-versed enough in this game to know that even this set back could be used to his advantage, but not now. The sting was too fresh and she was dealing within a realm which he was unfamiliar. He would have to be on the defensive for the time being, until he learned how to play her game.

He returned calmly and saw her sitting upon her bed, waiting for him. He took one look at her and knew he'd done well in choosing her robe. It brought out enough of her elegance to argue her place among the enlightened. She would catch eyes and garner plenty of envy and interest, especially when she proved to be adept in the art that they believed separated them from her kind. Their eyes would be on her, leaving him plenty of room to operate. He smiled, which sparked her to speak.

"It's lovely." She said. He could still feel the sexual tension in the air, but he also knew that she was doing her best to diffuse it. She wanted to calm him down, but to what ends.

"I though it would be." He said, eying her warily. He could not see anything disingenuous in her, but there was still something that told him not to trust her.

"I'm sorry," She said, suddenly, with a disarming tone, "I wasn't thinking. I...I didn't think it would be a big deal ..."

Magus was taken aback by how vulnerable she'd become. If it hadn't seemed so genuine, he might have thought she was just trying to play him, but he could see that the feelings and the words were real, on some level.

Still, he was suspicious. He'd survived as long as he had by being cautious. Nothing was ever as simple as it appeared and she was was no exception. He was determined to not be caught off guard, no matter how attractive she was to him, until he figured out what was really going on.

"I think it's about time I discussed the plan with you." He said grimly, secretly desperate for anything to take his mind off this suddenly interesting girl.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Lucca listened silently as Magus explained his plans for their time in Zeal: how he would pose a a prophet, using his knowledge of the coming future, and gain the trust of the royal family, parlaying that into the influence and access to resources that they would need for their ultimate goal: Lavos.

None of it was news to her. She'd more or less deduced the basics of his plan. It made perfect sense to play it the way he was going to play it. What she was really curious about, was how much of the specifics he would reveal to her.

He went on and detailed the events of ocean palace and fall of Zeal as he remembered them. His stories of crushed and broken bodies, dying people writhing in agony, and the destruction of the greatest kingdom the world had ever known may have shocked her just a few short weeks ago, but too much had happened since then. She'd witnessed Lavos' final victory and the catastrophe that followed in the year 2300 A.D. She'd seen mankind on the brink of extinction on a ravaged world with no hope for survival. As terrible as the story he told was, she couldn't help but think that he had no idea was was truly in store for the world.

As he spoke, Magus paid close attention to the girl's reactions, but was quickly frustrated at how difficult it had become to read her. She'd surprised him with her earlier playfulness and unusual level of trust, and now he wasn't sure what anything on her face meant. He was almost certain she'd just been toying with him, that she'd seen something in him that he'd let slip and used it to her advantage. He'd been too cocky, too careless with her. She was smarter than he gave her credit for, but there was something else. She may have been trying to turn the tables on him, but her's was not a game of deception. He'd lied and read lies his entire life and saw nothing of it in her. Her honesty was maddening. He hadn't dealt with someone like her for so long, and he dared not compare her to the last person he truly trusted.

The satisfaction from her earlier victory had quickly ebbed as Lucca understood that he still held the advantage. His game could always be emboldened by the threat of violence. He could hold it over her whenever he wished and she knew it. She couldn't help but nervously wait for how he would respond to her retaliation. She knew his confusion wouldn't last, but what would come of it remained to be seen. She knew that pressing her luck would be a poor decision, so she would remain the obedient little girl, for now, and see how it all unfolded.

"So do I have a role in this grand scheme?" She asked.

"You will play the role of my apprentice." he answered. "To them, you will be an Earthbound from a far away village who, by some miracle, has been given the gift of magic. I have trained you as best I could in the conditions afforded the Earthbound, and now I bring you to Zeal to complete your training. You will fascinate them as a unique specimen and, if you show any measure of talent, they will embrace you. You may even, perhaps, reach some level of effective proficiency."

Lucca noted the barb, though she heard none of the arrogant pleasure, that saturated his earlier taunts, in these words. Could it have simply been an honest criticism? She took the idea with a grain of salt, but didn't react.

"I am to simply hone my magical abilities until fateful arrives?" she asked.

"What you do is your own business. I don't particularly care what you do, so long as you are ready when you are needed and that you do nothing to hinder our goal."

"I find it hard to believe that is all you expect of me."

"Is it too much to ask that you be trusted to make yourself useful on your own time? I will be your master in appearances, but there will be preparations to be made and things I must do between now and the Ocean Palace and I will not waste time holding your hand and guiding your every move. You are not necessary and if you cannot function on your own, I have no need of you."

Lucca could tell he was clearly becoming agitated. The acid on his tongue only punctuated his frustration. Had she truly affected him this much? She had a hard time believing it, but she could see no other reason for it.

"I can handle myself." She answered sharply. "It's all simple enough."

"Talking about it and doing it are two very different things. This will be a long and complex deception with near constant opportunity for failure. You must be absolutely certain you can do this, or all of our efforts will amount to nothing." He said ominously. "I am putting a great deal at risk by trusting you. If you cannot handle this, say so now."

She thought deeply on her answer as though his words stung, they made sense. At first, she couldn't help but grow angry at his doubts, but the more she thought on his words, the more she felt the weight of them. He'd spoken of trust, autonomy, teamwork, though he rarely used the words. He was reaching out to her, in his own tortured way. She knew that it went against every fiber of his being to give her the leeway he was offering. He was giving her a chance to back out, making it clear to her the dangers and risks they faced, and giving her a choice.

She knew it couldn't be that simple, but she also knew that it was start. She considered her words carefully when she answered, hoping to foster more from him.

"You can count on me." She said.

He studied her for a few moments. Her words of affirmation struck him with a profound reassurance. They girl has been smart enough to see him pulling her strings, and even had pulled his own, yet she was still willing to work wit him. The more he thought on it, the more it endeared him to her. He was more than aware of this, and it gave him significant pause, but he couldn't help but see that she was encouraged by his offers, masked in taunts though they were, and was, in turn, encouraged.

"We'll leave tomorrow morning. Make sure to get some rest tonight." He said as he turned to his now cold meal.

"Do you mind if I go to explore the village?" She asked with genuine concern for his answer.

"No." Was his only response as he tore away and the meat.

She smiled and left, leaving the warlock to his troubled thoughts.

She watched the underground world toil along with a deep respect. It reminded her of the domes of 2300 A.D. These people were filthy, malnourished, and seemed ripe for submission to the despair their lives offered on a constant basis, yet they plugged along, if indeed weighed down a bit by the reality of their situation. Only the children, who ran and played along the rocky corridors of the cave complex in that carefree manner that children do, seemed free from this weight. Hope filled their hearts as they remained blissfully unaware of the harsh realities of the world.

It reminded her of her childhood, when she used to spend all day with Crono outside on the island where she lived. They would play on the rocks and in the trees and along the water without a single care in the world. They would pretend to be adventurers, slaying monsters and saving kingdoms. She'd always been such a tomboy. Watching the children play, she couldn't help but think of how wonderful those days had been for her and wonder what had happened.

She knew, of course. She just refused to acknowledge it. She'd watched her mother become a cripple. She'd never forget her mother's screams, the agony and fear behind each cry for help. Her feeling of helplessness as her mother begged for it all to stop still haunted her. She'd grown up that day. She could not be so careless as a child because too much was a stake. No matter how well things were going, those shrieks of intolerable pain would forever remind her of how fragile the joy in life really is.

She made her way through the caves and saw their storerooms and their makeshift shops. She made quick note that there was little available in the shops that anyone in the village themselves possessed. With every stop she made, the vendors pleaded for her business. It was clear to her that the shops only existed for the convenience of Zealian visitors. It would have appalled her, had she not felt so sorry of them.

She climbed down to the lowest level to watch the children playing. One of them carried a long stick and waved it around like a sword. Lucca smiled as she was reminded of her oldest friend. She wondered if she would ever see him, or any of her friends, again. Every rational part of her mind told her that it was unlikely, but with everything that had happened since the start of their adventure, it was hard to believe that anything could keep them apart.

Well, almost anything.

Ever since she'd seen them together, after they'd saved her in 600 A.D, she knew that any hopes for a deeper relationship with Crono were over. She'd been plagued by regrets with every spare moment since. She actually found herself appreciating all the business with Magus that much more as she realized that she hadn't thought of the two of them together since she, Crono, and Frog had left for Magus' Castle. She really was very happy for them. She knew they were perfect for each other and she even enjoyed being around the two of them together. It was only when she was alone, left with nothing but her jealousy and regret, that it plagued her. She didn't blame them. She'd had her chance and watched it pass by with out doing a thing.

The little boy charged into a small opening, barely large enough for a man, yelling heroically as he attacked some imaginary monster. Lucca smiled at his passion, until she heard a shriek from above. She looked to the ladder and saw a distraught woman climbing down too quickly and too recklessly, and falling badly, catching her leg in one of the rungs. Lucca rushed over to help, but the woman shook her head vigorously and pointed to where the boy had charged.

"My baby! Save my boy!" The woman screamed.

Lucca realized then that the boy was is serious danger and without hesitation, she rushed in after him.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Magus found it difficult to find any sort of peace in his solitude. For much of his life, he'd embraced the lonely company of the shadows, but they now only whispered doubts into his already troubled mind.

He felt he was taking an awful risk in offering the girl any sort of autonomy, but the irony was that he could not think of any other way to keep her under control. She'd proven to be much more cunning than he'd initially given her credit for and he knew that subtlety was the only way he was going to get anywhere with her. He was beginning to wonder whether she would be worth the trouble. There was no doubt in his mind that, alone, he could get to the Ocean Palace and Lavos, but the irrational emotional parts of his mind that he thought he'd silenced years ago now whispered tales of unfathomable possibilities.

Intelligence. Spirit. Kindness. These aspects of the young woman that frustrated and infuriated him so also reflected the qualities he most cherished in the only person he now held any love for. They reminded him that, for his schemes to succeed, he would have to face 'her' and maintain his facade. He would have to lie, manipulate, coerce, he may even be forced to harm 'her'. He would have to be willing to do anything for his ultimate victory. In the deepest places in his heart, he wondered if he had the strength to do what was necessary, if it came to down to the worst case scenario.

He chuckled as he considered the dilemma. The deepest places in his heart had held little sway over him in recent years. His rage had long replaced grief and sorrow as the driving factor in his quest for revenge. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd thought about 'her' before his return to the Dark Ages. Could she really still hold the kind of sway over him that he feared, or was his concern with the effect his love for 'her' would have on his quest for Lavos' death proof enough that his soul had become too twisted for her to have an effect of him.

Another laughable irony, he thought. His life had been a long string of such contradictions that it was hardly worth noting any more.

He stood up and breathed deep, but it did little to settle his mind. What had happened to set him so off balance? A very plain looking girl used her very modest endowments to try to bewitch him and suddenly he is too addled to think straight? No, he knew that wasn't it. Her little show had thrown him off guard, but the unease and uncertainty since had been self-inflicted. He'd been too afraid to show any emotion and she had seen it through his defenses and used it to rattle him. There had been one benefit to the embarrassment: it showed him how vulnerable he really was, no matter how hard he thought he'd become.

The shriek jarred him from his thoughts and gave him the distraction from his increasingly troubling thoughts that he craved. He stepped outside and looked down at the bottom of the cavern just in time to see Lucca rush into the cave on the left hand side. He immediately realized exactly what she was rushing into and glanced back into the room to see her weapon and armor lying neatly in a pile on the floor next to her bed. Alone and unarmed, it wasn't difficult for him to realize how slim her chances were.

To the warlock's surprise, his first urge was to go in after her. He stopped himself, as he'd trained himself to do through years under the thumb of the fiends and at war with Guardia. Was this impulse in his best interest? The worst case scenario was that the girl would die and he would be left to proceed without her: a convenient out of a growing potential problem. If she somehow managed to make it out alive, he could always deny that he was aware that anything had happened. At the very least, it would give him a measure of her abilities. The more he thought about it, the more appealing doing nothing became, but something nagged at him in the back of his mind.

She made him uncomfortable, of this there was no doubt, and though his initial impulse was to purge the irritant from his life, for good if possible, he also realized that it was a blessing in disguise. She would force him to confront things in himself that, if left unsettled, could prove detrimental to his ultimate goal. She would give him a reason to stay alert and vigilant. She would not allow him to grow complacent as he'd done with the fiends, which had been his downfall against her and her friends in the first place. He understood then that, begrudgingly, he needed her.

He leaped from ledge and rode the shadows to the ground floor.

Lucca stopped abruptly as the danger she'd just rushed into became apparent to her. The cave smelled of rotten flesh and there were broken and crushed bones littering the floor. There were no torches on the wall and the only light in the cave was that shining in from the village. She looked around for some sign of both the boy and whatever terrible creature lived in this place. When she found no sign of either, she realized she'd have to push further into the darkness.

She bristled at her fear, glad that Magus was nowhere near to see it. She imagined the smug look on his face: how his eyes would roll away from her and that arrogant smirk would crawl across his face. It angered her and that anger made her focus. She had gained an advantage on him and the last the she wanted to do was give it up by failing here. She calmed herself down and focused.

She held up her hand and pictured it holding a small flame in her mind. She could feel the magical energies flow from her body and up her arm into her palm. She could feel it grow and become warm. Suddenly, the invisible energy ignited and her hand burned, untouched by the flames that now illuminated the cavern.

One problem down.

The beast's cave possessed none of the structure of the cavern that Algetty was built in. There were dozens of nooks and alcoves that lead nowhere. There were no side caves big enough to serve as a room, but there were plenty of places to hide, for both the boy and whatever creature called this place its lair. She stayed cautious, keeping in mind that her only concern was the boy; she wasn't there to hunt monsters and it was with that thought that she realized how ill equipped she was to do just that. No gun, no armor, not even her helmet. The only time she could remember feeling more vulnerable was when she was in the battle with Magus, which had nearly cost her her life.

The fire in her hand flickered in the force of a roar from deep within the cave. Loose rock shook free and piles of bones collapsed. Lucca circled, straining her eyes as she followed every slight movement. She knew that the deeper she went, the more danger she was in.

"Mommy!" she heard a voice sobbing from one of the alcoves and it was there that she found the boy, crying, with his face in his hands and his stick-sword laying on the ground in front of him. She placed her free hand on his shoulder and he jerked away at first before seeing that she wasn't a monster.

"It's alright, I'm here to help you." She said in as soft and reassuring a voice as she could. The boy looked at her warily, but seemed willing to trust her at first, but just as he was going to take her hand, he wrenched back and screamed.

She knew she'd made a mistake. She should have heard it come up behind her, or at least felt its heavy footfalls as it drew close. Now she could feel the edges of it's breath as it stood just a couple feet away.

Before the start of her adventure, Lucca would have wasted valuable time turning to get a look at what was behind her, but her trials had taught her how to react in when cornered like this and without a moment's hesitation, she turned and hurled the fireball in her hand in the direction the boy had been looking, where it landed squarely in the face of a now angry beast. It flailed about angrily, but the attacks were defensive. Her strike had blinded it, at least temporarily, which gave her time.

She closed her eyes and tapped into the well of power within her. She could hear the creature roar and smash against the rock and the crunch of bone beneath its feet, but she pushed all that aside and drew from the fire burning within her. She could feel the energy flowing all around her, circling her body. A flowing stream of fire burned around her, growing faster and faster until its head caught its tail and it burst into a wave of flame that threw the creature back and off its feet.

The effort had drained her and she dropped to a knee when the spell was done. She took a few deep breaths and composed herself. She felt weak, but as she saw the burnt husk of the beast, she couldn't help but swell with pride at her accomplishment. She turned to see the boy stagger out of the alcove, unsure of whether or not he should be afraid of this woman who had burned the cave and killed the creature, but was reassured when she smiled at him. He helped her to her feet and the both started to make their way back to the village when another, much deeper roar came from behind them.

This one was bigger than the other one had been and was fire red. It was coming from the back of the cavern, charging at full speed. The pair started to run and though she knew she didn't have much energy left, she drew what she could into her right hand; it wouldn't be much, but maybe she could blind this one like she had the first. As they ran, she twisted and tossed the flame. Her aim was true, but it merely burst off the beast's face and it continued to charge as if nothing had happened.

Whether is was from the shock of her attack's failure or the drain of the magic, her legs lost their strength and she stumbled. She boy turned back for her, but even with his help, she knew she would never get back to her feet in time. She urged him to leave her but he wouldn't and all she could do was watch as the creature bounded toward them. She could feel the ground tremble as it bounded, the raw power of hits body unleashed with every spring. She closed her eyes as it seemed it was making its final leap, bracing herself for the crushing force and realized, after a moment, that it wasn't coming. She opened her eyes and saw the beast fighting for its life, struggling to escape from a pit of shadow that was pulling it in. She turned around and saw Magus, his arms raised, standing over her and chanting in a language she didn't recognize. The beast screeched in terror as more and more of it was sucked into the shadow until nothing remained except the last echos of it's final, terrible wail.

They emerged from the cave and returned the boy to his very relieved mother, who wept as she held him as close as her strength would allow, before returning to their own room. She sat down on the bed and immediately fell back onto it, closing her eyes and readying herself to endure his taunts and mockery.

"Are you okay?" He asked. The question seemed odd coming from him.

"I'm fine. I just didn't have enough energy for the spells I cast." she answered.

"We'll have to work on that." he said, without the judgment or sarcasm, or even anger that she had expected. "You did well."

Lucca's eyes burst open with the compliment, subdued as it was. She sat up to look at him. He was obviously uncomfortable, but he was trying.

"I was reckless." She said, as much in admission as it was a test to see if he would pounce on the weakness.

"Perhaps," he said with a smile that faded as quickly as it appeared. "but it doesn't matter."

"Thank you." she said, smiling at him.

"Get some rest. We're leaving in the morning."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

She stood upon her black cloud, hurling terrible energies about with the slightest gesture. A mere glare set the object of her ire ablaze in dark fire. A simple breath blew away entire cities. A wave of her hand sent her home, her kingdom, tumbling from the skies into the ocean below, where all of her people would freeze or drown.

And she felt nothing.

_"Do you not see what you can become?"_

She stiffened. It was "him"

"I don't want this," she said, her cruel and empty visage crumbling into something tortured and pitiful. "I don't want this!" she denied again.

_"You can lie to me, little princess, but you know what sleeps within you. You know what you hide from them, but you need not hide it."_

Her body shook, whether it was with fear or anger or anticipation, she couldn't make out. The jumble of feelings that melded within her tore at her mind as she considered the words. She pulled at her hair, clawed at her skin, did anything she could to force tears to her eyes. She needed to horrified by what she'd done. She needed to feel guilt. She needed to be punished.

And then she stopped, a sudden calm coming to her as her heart focused. She breathed deep.

"I am more than just my anger and my sadness. I have love and joy. I am not defined by the darkness in me."

_"Foolish child, do you not feel it growing within you. It is your true nature. It is the true nature of your entire people. Your are being shown the hate and destruction that guides your species and that which you all try to deny is coming forth. You deny the inevitable."_

"NO!" she cried out. "I won't let you win!"

_"You won't let me win? Do you not understand that which you would stand against. I have already won. You just don't see it yet."_

Everything went dark around her and she felt like her body was being stretched to its limit, but she fought against it. She would not scream. She would not cry out. She would not give in.

Somehow, she knew the voice smiled at that thought of defiance.

_Not yet._

* * *

When Schala opened her eyes that morning, she wondered, and not for the first time, if she would be better off if she didn't wake up at all. She started to reach for her amulet, but pulled her hand away just as she was about to touch it. She couldn't watch it all again.

She was afraid. She was afraid of what she would see. She was afraid of what she would learn. She was afraid of what she already knew.

She sat up in her bed, her muscles pulling against her every movement. She welcomed the sensation, painful as it was. It reminded her that she could feel.

There would be more tests today, she knew, and the aches that still stiffened her body that morning promised her that they would not get easier. It took every ounce of strength she had to control the wild energies that the Mammon Machine, even running at partial output, was generating. She couldn't imagine what kind of power it would unleash when it reached it's full capacity, but she knew that the energy she was wielding frightened her.

_"You are only frightened because you do not understand..."_

Her eyes widened and she shook the voice from her head violently, fighting back the urge to scream. She hated that voice. She hated how it made her feel and the thoughts it introduced into her head. She didn't want to understand! She wanted it all to go away, but she knew that she had to endure...for him."

"Schala! Are you awake?" came a voice from the hallway. She rubbed her eyes and tried to clear her head. "Yes, Janus." she said, smiling.

The boy peeked into her room and then slowly walked in, followed by a small purple cat. He forced a smile at her, trying to show her he was happy to see her, which he truly was, but the trying times of the last few months had drained the joy from him. Schala returned the smile and though her's was more convincing, it too had to be fought onto her face. There had been little to smile about for Zeal's prince and princess of late.

"Do you have to go back to the Machine today?" he asked.

"...Yes, but I don't think it will be as bad as it was yesterday." She lied.

"I wish you didn't have to. You always look so tired and in so much pain after you work on the Machine."

"I know, but mother says it is important and I cannot refuse her." She said, her voiced weighed down in regret. She knew she could, but she also knew what that would mean and as she looked down at her little brother, who looked at her lovingly, she knew would never refuse.

"Maybe it would be easier if you had help. Maybe I could..."

"No! Don't you dare, Janus!" She snapped at him. "This is my burden. I am the only one strong enough." She said.

"But..." her brother started, but held off from saying any more. She could see the frustration on his face and she knew that if he could, he would do anything to help her. She gave him a genuine smile and leaned in to hug him.

"Thank you, Janus." She said as she held him, ignoring her body's protests to the sudden movement. "I know you want to help, but I can handle it."

_"Can you?"_

She stiffened as she heard the voice again, that dark, horrible voice that taunted her and promised her things that she didn't want, but were becoming more difficult to refuse. She felt a pressure on her chest and as she looked down, she found her brother, fighting her tightening grip.

"Ow, Schala! Let go!" He cried and she immediately let him go, causing him to stumble back.

"I'm sorry, Janus..." She tried to apologize, but his wide eyed stare told froze her solid. She tried to say something else, but the words wouldn't come forth and he ran off before she could regather herself.

Her body slumped in resignation, her heart having taken another blow, but she found that the hurt was lessening with each heartache that the last few weeks had brought, though she worried that it was not the hurt, but the feeling, that she was losing.

* * *

Janus ran through the halls of the palace toward his own room with tears rimming his eyes. He wasn't mad at her, or frightened of her. He knew she didn't mean to hurt him. He knew that it was the Machine and her mother, and that terrible burden they placed on her that made her do those things. They were hurting her and they were trying to change her. He ran because he knew he couldn't help her. Not yet.

He returned to his room and headed to small bookcase that held all manner of tomes that were full of spells and lore that all citizens of Zeal were meant to learn. He looked behind himself to see if anyone was watching him and, when he was convinced he was truly alone, he pulled it back slightly and reached down behind it, retrieving a book with a black cover that had been a secret gift from the Guru of Time.

The Grimoire of Shadow.

It was widely believed amongst the people of Zeal, including the Queen and Princess Schala, that Janus' magical powers were negligible at best. He'd never shown much talent beyond the simple cantrips taught to the youngest of the peasant class. It was a reputation that made Janus the subject of derisive stares wherever he went. No one would ever say anything to him, being the Queen's son, but there were many who felt that he should have been discarded, sent to live with the Earthbound, amongst the others who were devoid of the gift.

The truth, however, could have hardly been more different.

The Guru of Time, his tutor in the magical arts, had seen great potential in the boy and had offered the book, once thought by the scholars of magic in Zeal to be lost, in exchange for the prince keeping it, and the truth of his magical powers, a secret. Janus thought the request to be a strange one, but, given the enormity of the gift, accepted and had done as his mentor had asked. The old man handed him the book and the young prince immediately felt the dark power held within. He knew then the enormity of the gift he'd been given. He didn't dare open the book then, but he was older now, and stronger

Most importantly, he had a reason to open it: he needed its power.

"I'll save you, Schala." He said, gancing back one more time, before opening the book.

* * *

"What is this place?" Lucca asked as they entered the small building. She could feel power radiating through the walls and gathering in a well beneath the glowing purple glyph on the floor.

"This is a skygate. It is the main method of transportation to the Kingdom of Zeal." Magus answered.

"This is like my telepod! Only the scale is massive!" She exclaimed, studying the mechanisms and architecture. Unlike her clunky and unrefined machine, the building was ornate and beautiful, with all of the machinations subtly hidden beneath layers of magic and art.

"Magic opened many doorways to my people." He said as she admired the craftsmanship of the place. "This is just one of many wonders." He said, gesturing for her to walk on the glyph. Her eyes followed his, then looked to him tentatively before walking into the glyph.

She could feel the molecules of her body shift to something less than tangible, like she was becoming light, and everything seemed to rush by and grow brighter. Her senses faded with her corporeal form and the next thing she knew, she was once again standing in a skygate, but could feel or hear no signs of the storm that had raged around them since they arrived in this time period. Everything felt warm and alive. All the grayness of the world below was gone. She stepped out of the building and the sight before her took her breath away.

She was on an island, but there was no water surrounding them. The sun shined brightly overhead, but the only horizon belonged to a massive land mass that was many miles away, separated from her only by swirling clouds. Everything was lush and fertile, the land itself alive. Water flowed off the great flying continent before her to the world below, but somehow she knew that the falling river would never make it to the ground in its current state. Everything in this place radiated a warm energy. There were few shadows anywhere, even in the city to the east of her, where the great buildings should have cast a shade somewhere.

It was the most beautiful place Lucca had ever been and, in the deepest places in her heart, it horrified her.

"Welcome to Zeal, the Kingdom of Dreams." Magus said to her as she stared and the astonishing world before her.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Lucca awoke, for the first time in weeks, nestled between the sheets of a real bed, to a sunbeam shining gently against her face. She stirred between the layers of silk and again marveled at how soft and inviting they were; a far cry from the cold ground and dirty straw that she'd just started to get used to. For the first few minutes of the morning, she struggled to think of a reason she would want to leave this lap of luxury.

Then one walked through the door.

"What are you still doing in bed?" Magus asked, his face tightened in exasperation, as she quickly drew her sheets up to her neck, covering the sheer nightgown she'd been given to sleep in. As she watched his expression soften and a hint of color enter his deathly pale cheeks, she couldn't help but crack the slightest of smirks, to which Magus once again bristled. Then is was Lucca's turn to express some frustration.

"Perhaps I do not want to be a sideshow today." She bit back. Her first day in Zeal had not been particularly pleasant. They had spent much of the day traveling to the City of Kajar, where Magus made her a spectacle to the supremely fascinated, and more than a little eccentric, magic scholars. She was 'The Earthbound Enlightened', and while Magus spent his time discussing her prowess and "his own role in her development" with the more experienced and well connected of the scholars, she performed spells and endured pokes and prods and what seemed like an interrogation from the younger researchers. She knew that their goal was an audience in the palace, but the condescending stares and what she deemed "stupid speak" (the slow, monosyllabic cadence that was most comparable to baby talk and they all chose to adopt with her) had quickly worn thin.

"Your time of performing for gawking fools is done. I've received work that the Guru of Reason is expected to be in Enhasa and he has taken an interest in us." He answered back.

"Already?"

"Word moves quickly from the lips of the enlightened. Your magic abilities, despite your 'handicap', did their job in garnering the attention of Zeal's elite. Soon, whispers will reach the crown of you, as well as what I have 'seen' for the future of Zeal. Don't worry though, I'm sure you will have another chance to perform. The Guru will want a demonstration of your prowess." Magus smirked at Lucca's less than enthusiastic facial expression.

"Why, so he can smile stupidly, gawk, and talk to me like some sort of caveman?" She muttered, earning a glare from Magus that told her that further objection would not be tolerated. He'd expressed to her how important such a meeting was and she knew that he would not tolerate anything less than another spectacular performance from her.

"I'll be ready in a few minutes." she said with an affirming nod, which he returned before leaving her to dress and get herself ready. When he was gone, she dropped the sheet and sighed. Their arrival in Zeal had meant that she'd had to follow Magus' lead with no divergence and he'd been disturbingly quiet on where, exactly, that would take them. The previous day had gone smooth enough as she'd been too busy playing the dumbstruck peasant to try to pry secrets from him, but she knew he was hiding a great deal from her. He'd told her enough to play her role, but she'd seen the tapes in 2300 A.D. and though she did not doubt his substantial powers, as well as her own growing ones, she knew that the battle that he'd been promising could not be won by the two of them alone. She knew that, in his mind, he knew it too, but there seemed to be a deep emotional motivation for his actions and, however calculated his plans might be, she wondered if she could trust him enough to hold back the flood of rage she sensed he struggled against whenever he spoke of Lavos.

There had been encouraging signs, she had to admit. He'd proved willing to rest the success of the early part of his plan on her and he'd seemed genuinely pleased with the success they'd achieved thus far. And despite his playful jab, he'd made it clear to her that he noticed her discomfort at the Zealian's interest, even if they did not, and even had gone so far as to offer her a bit of support: "Just remember, you are playing them for the fool that they assume you are" he'd told her with a knowing smirk. He may have just been trying to calm her down and keep her focused on the goal, but it seemed more and more, as she thought about it, that he was offering her words of encouragement. She knew it was no small thing and appreciated his subtle support.

She had to admit, he was growing on her and it seemed, she hoped, that she was growing on him too.

* * *

The young woman sat uneasily as the much older man sifted through various gadgets strewn about a large workbench. She had to talk to someone about what was happening to her and even though she'd decided that the almost always objective Guru of Reason was her best option, she was still wary of sharing her concerns with anyone, and couldn't bring herself to begin. The old man sensed her tension and decided to lead the conversation with what he felt was the most likely reason for her visit.

"So, how goes your work with the Mammon Machine?" he asked, with disturbing insight, as he studied a near unidentifiable piece of clockwork.

The Princess glanced over, taken aback by his forwardness. "It's going well," she said, earning a glace from the Guru for her insincerity, "Though I admit that it is a daunting task. Holding its energies in check is becoming increasingly exhausting."

"Indeed..." He managed to mutter before pausing to look more closely at some intricate gear work. "I imagine it will continue to grow more difficult as we draw more and more power from Lavos, but certainly much of it is contained by the safeguards Melchior and I installed in the machine."

"Please do not misunderstand me, Balthazar. I am confident in your both of your efforts," Schala said, hesitating for a moment to gather her thoughts and select her words, as she did not want to completely let on what she was enduring. "I fear that these efforts tax me in ways beyond the sheer power I am wielding. I feel as though there is an intelligence behind the power that fights me for control. It is as if Lavos itself is challenging me and even taunts me as I struggle to manipulate even the small amounts of its vast energies. I fear my own failure, and what may happen as a result."

The old guru looked up and saw her breathing heavily, and even noticed a bit of perspiration on her brow. He put down the machinery he was examining and walked over to her.

"Do you believe such a result in imminent?" He asked her. Her breathing slowed and she wiped the sweat from her face.

"I do not know." was he simple answer. The old man nodded and took her soft hands into his own, old and calloused, and looked into clear blue eyes.

"You are the very best of us, my dear. There is a reason you were chosen for this responsibility. Only you could ever hope to meet this challenge. The Queen and I would never have asked you to bear this burden if we were not certain of your abilities," He glanced away in what appeared to the princess as almost shame, "I must concede that we are dealing with a power that seemingly knows no limits, a power perhaps beyond even the combined might of the kingdom. You alone among the enlightened have been so close to the source and only you can speak to what if to be found there. Do not be ashamed of your fear. I, myself, often wonder if we are not tempting fate in this endeavor." He paused for a moment and glanced about the room. "Such questions cannot be answered with the knowledge we possess. All that can be said is that, given what we know, I have the utmost confidence in you and your powers."

Schala smiled and her heart warmed at the old man's words.

_So do I..._

She stiffened as those three haunting words echoed in her mind. Balthazar felt her tense as he looked into her widened eyes.

"What is wrong, my dear?" He asked, through the sound of his secret door opening.

* * *

Lucca watched in continued amazement as the flame burst from the pages of the book, just as she had done for the gust of wind from the previous book and the fountain of water that poured from the one before that. She'd performed so well that even Magus believed that she'd hardly noticed the bookcase against the wall slide from view, revealing the entrance to the Guru of Reason's workshop with the completion of the sequence. She smiled eagerly at him as he placed a hand upon her shoulder and, with a stern look, urged her to continue onward. When she looked away, he allowed himself a satisfied smirk, one that could have convinced those who might have noticed that he was amused by his protege's excitement, but secretly betrayed his satisfaction with the girl's enthusiasm.

He could not have asked for more from her. They'd only been in the kingdom for this, their second day, and they were already being granted an audience with the Guru of Reason, one of the highest ranked citizens in the kingdom and the only one of the Gurus still in good standing with the crown. Even he had to acknowledge, even if he only did so privately, that their progress was because of her. On his own, he would have dropped cryptic whispers that may have needed weeks to garner any sort of attention. With her, the attention had been immediate and positive, but more than that, she humanized him. He'd worried that his years with the mystics had changed him too drastically for him to be accepted among his people, but his glares and sneers were softened by her spirit and warmth, and they'd been accepted immediately. The scholars had even chartered a sky coach for them so they would not have to travel in the frozen wastes below, and he was not arrogant enough to think it was his charm that had convinced them to their generosity.

Charm would only take them so far, however, and Magus was well aware of this fact. Sitting in the throne of Zeal was a soulless ghoul, a mockery of the woman she appeared to be, whose only interest was power in all of its elusive forms. It would be him and him alone that appealed to the Queen. He would flaunt the strength of his magic and give her gifts of 'clairvoyance' that would convince her that the ambitions could not be halted. All the while, he would fight back the urge to cut out her heart and burn it in her hands while she watched, just before she died.

"What is wrong, my dear?" He heard a voice, one he knew well, as he walked through the door, but as they entered the Guru's workshop, the sight of a young woman in a purple robe with long, blue hair, stopped him as if he'd walked into a wall. He could feel his heart race, the blood rushing through his body. He felt everyone stare: the girl, the guru, and his 'apprentice'. It all seemed to fall apart in that moment. He could feel his jaw quiver as he tried to speak and was even force to take a breath before he was able to get the words out:

"Princess Schala...What a pleasant surprise."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

To his credit, Magus recovered quickly, masking his initial shock and subsequent discomfort in a guise of unexpected honor that both Balthazar and, more importantly, Schala were quick to accept. Seeing her had legitimately startled him and he found himself equally amused and alarmed at how strongly he was still drawn to her, pulled by feelings that he'd hidden deep in the shadows of his memory.

A part of him, long stifled and still heavily restrained, wanted to go and embrace her. 'It's me, Janus! I've come to save you!' he would say to her and as she looked into his face, recognition would slowly creep into her own and she would embrace him back, not reassuringly or even lovingly, but with relief and gratefulness. The man he'd become found the fantasy childish and useful only in reminding him how vulnerable he still was, and he was quick to drag those hopes and their source, the spirit of the boy he'd once been, back into the dark abyss of his soul.

He hadn't seen her in decades, long enough that the face he was now looking at didn't quite match the one he remembered, but none of that had meant anything upon finally seeing her again. He hadn't severed his ties to her as completely as he'd thought. He shot Lucca a quick glance and gave a moment's thought to whether her influence had made him vulnerable or whether it had prepared him, however meagerly, and allowed him to save face.

He bowed his head and recited an seemingly wholehearted apology like any other subject would be expected to do, though he did so with an eloquence and calm that belied that he was not quite so awestruck as he'd appeared. Lucca watched on deferentially, playing her role as well as she could, but she could not help but be somewhat distracted by the heavy tension between this young woman, Princess Schala she'd been told, and Magus. He'd been staggered by the mere sight of her, though he'd recovered quickly enough that Lucca was certain that she was the only one who'd noticed. If she hadn't experienced it first hand, she'd have marveled at the way he responded almost seamlessly to take back control of the situation. The guru, whom she recognized as Balthazar from the Keeper's Dome in 2300 A.D, was too aloof to notice, but she could see the princess shift uncomfortably as they approached.

Schala could not help but feel uneasy with the chance meeting. She'd already felt exposed and vulnerable while speaking with the Guru of Reason, whom she'd known all her life, but now there were these strangers. The girl seemed innocent enough, but he discomforted her, for though she could not see his eyes through the shadow cast by the hood of his robes, she felt his gaze on her-piercing and unrelenting-boring into her heart in a not unfamiliar manner. He knew her, of that she was certain, but she had no idea how.

She tried to recompose herself, but even in the moments that she was able to steel herself against his attention, _It_ was there, whispering into her mind, but it was different from before. There was no coercion or manipulation in the whispers. It was commanding her, calmly at first, but more and more insistently, with a growing hint of anger and something else which she might have thought was fear, had this been any other being. She'd never felt Its will so heavily before and it took all her strength not to give away any sign of the conflict within her, for she struggled desperately to refuse the command it repeated to her, over and over again:

_Kill them-now!_

"Ah, Schala, this must be the Earthbound prodigy I told you about," the Guru said, with just a pinch of aloof skepticism. "the scholars mentioned that you were looking for a new tutor for her, sir...I'm sorry, but I do not recall if they told me your name."

"My name is Magil," Magus responded curtly; his gaze, hidden by the shadow of the hood of his cloak, never left Schala, "I'm the sure the scholars neglected to mention it in their enthusiasm with Lucca's prowess."

"Ah, yes! Lucca, is it?" the old man said, turning his attention to her directly. She shrunk under his scrutiny, trying to appear awed by his lofty presence, but when she thought of the broken shell of a man she'd met before, it became difficult for her to hide the pity she felt for the man before her now. "What village are you from, young lady?"

"None, Master Balthazar," Lucca answered with the story Magus had devised for her. "Master Magil found me in the Northern Wastes."

"An isolate?!" Balthazar exclaimed, his eyes wide in genuine shock. "I didn't think there were any left! How on earth did you find her?"

"I am...gifted...with with farseeing dreams," Magus said, cocking his head to the side without actually shifting his focus. "In one such dream, I saw a girl bringing forth fire, by the force of her will alone, in a desperate attempt to keep her family alive. Intrigued by the possibilities, I left the comforts of Zeal and searched the Wastes for weeks until I finally found her. By the time I arrived, most of her family had succumbed to the cold or one of the other terrible dangers that can be found in the Wastes, and the rest, including Lucca, were on their last legs. I did what I could, but she was the only one with the strength to survive, even with my aid. I suppose she was fortunate, though it is hard to describe any such circumstances as fortunate."

Lucca fixed her gaze to the floor and focused all of her thought on her mother and that day she'd been crippled, producing a few silent tears to lend credence to the story. Deception was not in her nature, but she'd agreed with Magus that it would not be wise to leave anyone unconvinced of the truth, especially the Gurus or the Princess, all of whom, Magus had said, were more in touch with their humanity than the rest of Zeal's citizenry and thus were more likely to notice a weakness in their story.

"I am sorry, my dear. Oftentimes, it is too easy for us in the sky to forget the hardships of the people who struggle upon the earth below." Balthazar said, with an earnest pity that surprised Lucca, as he placed a comforting hand upon her shoulder.

"A terrible road has brought you to our kingdom," Schala added, "but I hope that you are able to find some joy and happiness with us among the clouds to fill the void left by those you've lost. They will be in my prayers." Lucca ventured a glance toward the princess, whose unease had seemingly been overwhelmed by sympathy for her contrived back story so completely that Lucca felt bad that it had all been made up.

"Thank you, Your Highness." she said with a discomfort that was not contrived. The whole act was quickly beginning to turn her stomach.

"Her Highness has a most kind heart," Magus interjected, noticing Lucca's growing disgust with her role in the deception. "For what it is worth, I have done everything I could for her both in developing her talents and leading her out of the frozen hell of the Wastes. She has come far, but has unfortunately reached the threshold of my skill with fire magic. I had thought it best to return home and bring her with me to Zeal, where she belongs, in hopes of finding further tutelage for her."

"Indeed, a wise course of action, especially with the circumstances being what they are." Balthazar agreed. "Perhaps, if she feels up to it, the young lady would give us a demonstration so that we might gauge her abilities as they stand?"

"Of course," Lucca said, forcing a smile and then allowing it to become natural. It was something she'd done a thousand times in her youth, when she was feeling sad for one reason or another and wanted to hide it. She'd learned how to make it so convincing that Crono was the only person who ever saw through it.

Magus stepped away from her to join Schala and Balthazar in observing her performance. He stood next to the Guru to maintain some space from Schala, but continued to fight the urge to keep glancing toward her.

The day before, Magus had instructed Lucca to make her spells as flashy and theatrical as possible. Most of the citizens of Zeal, he explained, possessed intermediate skill at best and used flashy tricks to hide their shortcomings and would be quick to embrace her if she showed similar proclivities with her talents. He advised her against that course with the Guru, whom he'd said would have little use for such tricks and would see through them easily. So, while the day before, she'd used relatively weak spells to conjure forth flames and then simply made them dance about and take various playful shapes, the resolved herself to putting all of her energies into casting her most potent spell. She raised her hands above her head, palms up, and conjured a white hot fireball and then used the force of her will to stretch it into a ring that expanded on its own around her until it nearly reached her audience, and then she let the flames burst free from the inner boundaries of the ring in a searing hot disk of flame that threatened to lick at her robes, while her audience remained safe from the conflagration, though they no doubt felt the searing heat. Lucca breathed heavily as the fire died away, though she managed to maintain a contented smile that grew just a bit when she saw the approval on two of the faces in her audience.

Balthazar applauded her efforts openly: "Excellent control, reasonable power, a solid Level two effort." While Magus merely smiled in satisfaction. Schala, though, seemed as if she hadn't even noticed and was more focused on keeping herself under control, as Lucca saw her catch herself casting a suspicious glare or two toward Magus.

"Thank you, Master Balthazar." She said sweetly, allowing a bit of real pride to show in the old man's praise.

"You were right to bring her here," the guru said to Magus. "I can thing of perhaps a handful of mages in the entire kingdom capable of teaching her further, as far as fire magic is concerned. Myself perhaps, though if I am to be honest, her talents may be beyond my own in that field. Certainly Gaspar, but who knows where he is. Schala here, of course, and Melchior. He would probably be the best bet, considering both skill and availability."

"The Guru of Life..." Magus said with a bit of trepidation. "I would have reservations about him serving as Lucca's tutor. I have had troubling visions concerning him that gives me pause."

"Troubling? How so?" Balthazar asked.

"Troubling in a manner that I think would be important to discuss with your mother, Princess. I would not say more in this casual setting." Magus answered, speaking directly to Schala, making her shift even more. "In fact, I was wondering if you could get me an audience. It is of vital importance to the kingdom."

"If what you have to say is so dire, I imagine Mother will want to hear it. I will do what I can." Schala said.

"Thank you. Whatever you can do," Magus said, before turning back to Balthazar "and the matter of Lucca's tutelage?"

"Indeed. I suppose I could..." Balthazar began, but was quickly interrupted.

"Could the Princess teach me?" Lucca said, earning surprised glances from everyone, including a particularly hostile one from Magus. She smiled innocently, as if she did not understand the gravity of her request, but she secretly beamed at Magus' reaction.

"The Princess is very busy. She has many duties to attend." Magus said to Lucca as he fixed his gaze fiercely to Schala, desperately hoping that she would decline, but it was the Guru who spoke first.

"You know, I don't think her duties are so overwhelming that she does not have some time to spare, and it might be good for her to spend some time with someone her own age. Of course, the decision is ultimately hers to make...," Balthazar argued.

Schala glanced back and forth between the three: the sweet earthbound girl who looked to her eagerly, the wise old mentor who seemed to urge her to accept, and this dark stranger who, by sheer force of will, opposed the idea far more insistently than his mild demeanor indicated. In the end, it was him that affected her decision, but not in the way he wanted.

"I think I can find some time for you." Schala said, hoping to have a chance to learn more about this ominous man. Lucca squealed with delight, causing Balthazar to chuckle merrily and a deep scowl to cross Magus' face, but for the moment, there was nothing he could do.

Magus and Lucca gave their thanks and said their goodbyes as they left the Guru and Princess Schala. Magus reined in his annoyance at the turn of events and seemed perfectly pleasant in departure, while Lucca continued to be endearingly cheerful and excited. Schala felt her heart lighten as she watched her leave. She did genuinely like the strange girl, though something about her seemed very odd. Whatever it was, it helped her to forget her troubles, if only for a moment.

They returned to their rooms in an uneasy silence. Magus kept a brisk pace that betrayed his irritation at the turn of events, though, truthfully, things went quite well, despite a couple of missteps. Lucca kept up with little effort, pleased as she was with herself. She knew the suggestion would not go over well with Magus, considering his reaction to the mere sight of the Princess, but that was merely the icing on the cake. She could see that something was wrong with Schala, though she had no idea what it might be and she did not imagine the Princess would be quick to share her troubles, she at least had an opportunity to spend some time with her and, maybe, gain her trust enough to convince her to share her secret burden.

They returned to their apartment and as soon as Lucca closed the door behind her, Magus was there, right in her face, pinning her against the door. His hood had fallen back, revealing the full intensity of the anger in his face. She stood firm, unwilling to cower as he so obviously wanted her to. She stared right into his eyes, daring him to do something. He took deep, desperate breaths, as if he was building up enough rage to throw away all caution and do just as she dared.

"What do you think you are doing?" He said slowly, matching her defiant stare with one of unbridled fury, denying any hope that any answer she might give might quench his anger.

"Making myself useful." She said, reminding him of the very words he'd said to her in Algetty. His face twisted up in frustration at her response.

"You're antagonizing me." He said, turning and walking away from her, regaining control of his anger. "Such pettiness does nothing to help what we are trying to accomplish."

"No, but having eyes an dears on Schala might, and though you couldn't seem to keep your eyes off her, I think mine might be able to see a bit more than yours." Lucca said, feeling that she was gaining ground.

"You don't know what you're talking about." was his only reply.

"Don't I? The sight of her nearly knocked you to the floor. I don't know who she is to you and I know you won't tell me, but there is something...off about her and I have doubts that you can be objective about it." Lucca said, earning a disdainful sneer.

"And so_ you _are going to solve the mystery and fix everything, are you?" He spat disdainfully.

"If I can."

Magus closed his eyes and took a breath, withdrawing into himself for a moment. He had to clear his thoughts. He could fume about the situation all he wanted, but the reality of things was that she was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He couldn't be objective. He was obviously nowhere near as detached as he thought he was.

"Are you really going to try to help her?" He asked with resignation on his voice. "This isn't some plot to try to use her against me?"

"I'm not going to lie to you-the suggestion was partly motivated by a desire to see how you'd react, but something _is_ wrong with her and I want to help her if I can." Lucca admitted with an earnest tone. "You care deeply about her, don't you?"

Magus sighed and turned away. Lucca wasn't sure what to say to that, so she said nothing. He hadn't denied it. She was a bit shocked at the realization. She hadn't thought him capable of that kind of feeling. She'd teased a base reaction out of him, piqued his interest a little with a bit of flirtation, but that was nothing compared to what she now realized he felt for Schala. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy, and though the sensation was not foreign to her, it felt strange nonetheless.


End file.
