Fan Fiction ❯ Never Ever in a Million Years ❯ The Roommate From Hell ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Chrono Trigger. I'd certainly like to, maybe I'd force my employees to get a new Chrono game out, but like THAT'll ever happen.

The steam from the bath curled around Lucca in tendrils. Ahh, nothing felt better than a long soak in a huge tub, even if it WAS the Middle Ages and she had to heat the water with her Fire 2 spell before jumping in . Wait, she stood corrected. Nothing was better than a long soak in a huge tub while that BASTARD in the bedroom stayed smelly and dirty.

Yes, the events of this evening had been unfortunate. After a long eight hour march north, they had finally made it to Pamall, a crappy little backwater town that smelled like the pungent odor of fish and had strange citizens to boot. Worse than that, since it was night they decided to stay at an inn, and Lucca was forced to share a room with Magus. Well, she should have seen it coming; after all, Crono and Marle usually spent all the alone time they could. But why did it have to be MAGUS, who was, excluding Marle, the person she hated the most in the world, and oh yes, that included all the time periods that she had been in COMBINED??!! Why couldn't it be someone pleasant and interesting, like Frog? Noooo, THAT could never happen…

At any rate, here she was in the bath. The minute she had heard of her rooming situation, Lucca ran off to the one place where she was absolutely guaranteed to be left alone: the bathroom. She was tired, she was pissed off about Crono and Marle, and she didn't want that insufferable Mystic King to horn in and take advantage of her current weakness, which he would probably jump at the chance to do. Feeling she like had no control over the whole situation, Lucca just sat and stared at the ceiling, letting the countless tiles hypnotize her. She was really starting to get drowsy when…

BAM. BAM. BAM. Someone was pounding on the door loudly. (Two guesses to who THAT is,) Lucca thought crossly.

BAM. BAM. BAM. "Will you hurry UP?! I demand that you get out of there at once!" Yep, it was prince brat all right.

However, during the long walk to this godforsaken place Lucca had had time to think about things. One of them was her attitude towards Magus. She was tired of cowering in fear whenever he walked by. He had weaknesses like everyone else, as that encounter in the forest had shown.

And one of them was humiliation.

"Aw, how sad!" she mocked at him through the door. "Does princey-poo wanna bathe, get his jammies on, an' hop in bed? I'm sorry, I had no idea!"

Even the simple-minded could have deduced that Magus's reply would not be a happy one. "I do NOT wear jammies, weakling! And you would do well to better respect me, since I have powers greater than you could ever imagine! Just think of all the things I could do to you for your impudence!"

"Like what? Steal my stamp collection?" Lucca sneered. Puffed-up comments like the one he had just made probably meant he was losing his cool, and when he lost his cool, that meant he was humiliated. All-in-all a winning situation. After all, she had a lot more confidence when he wasn't pinning her to a tree.

"You forget what I'm capable of, girl! I killed Cyrus in a single blow, and-"

"WHAT kind of blow, fanghead?! Just go away! Go and fail to summon Lavos again or something!"

"THAT'S IT!! NO ONE questions my sexual orientation! I am blasting this door down in approximately ten seconds. Ten, nine-"

Lucca realized she had taken things just a little too far and it was getting dangerous. Jumping out of the tub, she quickly wrapped a towel around herself, grabbed her clothes, and cast her new Flare spell on the bathwater, causing it to evaporate. She jerked the door open by the time Magus had got to three. Brushing past him in just her towel, she took the time to add, "The bathroom, Your Majesty." She had to admit, she had a lot of gall, insulting him like she did, but it was against her nature to let him get away with what he wanted.

Within half a second she found herself pinned against the wall yet again. She whimpered as she struggled to keep her towel up with one hand.

Magus, eyes half-closed, looked down upon her with his long nose. He looked as if he was thoroughly enjoying scaring the shit out of her. "I should kill you for your insolence."

Racking her brains for something to say, Lucca quickly blurted out, "No, you shouldn't! Crono and Marle are right next door, and if you kill me they'll beat the living crap out of you for sure! And what about Frog? He's got the Masamune, and he'd just love an excuse to use it. Now let me see, you were bleeding pretty badly that one night, weren't you? And how about your master plan to defeat Lavos? You won't be going anywhere for awhile if you ax me, there'll be a funeral and preparations for it and mourners-"

Magus cut her off with a sweep of his arm. Using that same deadly voice from before, he murmured, "All right, I will spare you this time. But you'd better watch your back from now on, geek." He spun around on his heel and stomped off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Shaking like a rabbit, Lucca walked over to her bed (luckily there were two, otherwise she would have probably been freezing on the floor) and changed into her clothes. Yes, the sarcastic, make-fun-of-you-till-you're-mad approach DID work, (to a point) but there was no denying it, it was a frightening process. Well, at least at this point she knew he wouldn't blast her to pieces during their spats. He couldn't do much more than frighten her. Lucca knew she had made some very good points during their maybe-I-should-kill-you dispute, and he found that he couldn't without getting into terribly hot water. And if he so much as opened his mouth again, she would give him back some of his own medicine. Gladly.

***

Lucca was well into a thick but very interesting (for her, maybe) machinery book when he emerged from the bathroom, looking as cross as ever. And for once he had nothing to say. He just turned and proceeded to make the other bed. Lucca raised her eyebrows in amazement at this. Had Nus suddenly sprouted wings? Or maybe, just maybe, had her "fight fire with fire" tactics worked? Maybe...

She continued to stare at his form in puzzlement. Well, maybe just halfway puzzlement. The other half was surprise. For a guy that used as much magic as he did, Magus sure had a lot to show off. Right now he was just in his boxers (so much for the jammies theory) and without wearing his usual blues, purples, and reds, Lucca could now see that his skin was actually less white than it appeared. In a funny way, it almost seemed a little...tan? And was that a six pack she had glimpsed before he turned around? Not bad, not bad...

At that thought Lucca immediately blushed a crimson red and buried her face in An Engineer's Guide to the Mechanical Principles of the Ninth Century. What was she thinking? Magus sucked. Magus was mean. Magus was ugly. Even FROG had to be better looking than Magus. She took a deep breath and thought, "Think Crono, think Crono, think Crono, think Cro-"

"Listen, metal head," Magus's voice cut through her inner diatribe harshly (apparently he had just been getting warmed up earlier), "what you just did to me was unacceptable. By all rights I could kill you for what just happened. But I won't. Not quite yet, anyway...But your time will come; what with two strikes already against you the third will be soon to-WILL YOU PAY ATTENTION BEFORE I BLAST YOU, GIRL?! No upside-down book could possibly be that interesting..."

Shit! It really WAS upside-down! So much for keeping her cover. Well, at least he didn't know about that little look-see she had just had; the fact that she had done it was embarrassing enough as it was. She put the book down and stared at him in mock rapt-attention. He scowled, propping his arm on the pillow before continuing, "You squabble with me as if I am your equal. Hah! You're nothing compared to me girl, and you would do well to remember that. I am the heir to the throne of Zeal, and the King of the

Mystics-"

"Ooooo! The Mystic Kingdom! Now where have I heard of that before, it sounds familiar," Lucca commented, pretending to think hard. "Oh yeah! It was just destroyed...by me, Frog, and Crono! Really, you need some better people running your kingdom, if just three people can topple it like that! I mean, look at Ozzie, that green blob-"

"All right! That's it! I've had it!" Even in his half-sitting position Magus managed to form the beginnings of a dark bomb on the tip of his finger. "You're going down!"

Lucca felt ready to pee her pants, but in a situation like this, she absolutely HAD to keep her cool. "Me? Go down?" she said lightly, making her voice didn't shake. "But who'll fix the Epoch? You won't be going far in its current condition."

That had him stumped. With a wave of his other hand, Magus dispersed the dark bomb but continued to glare at Lucca. "You've got a point there, girl," he snarled, "but don't think for a minute that I'm keeping you alive out of kindness. You're just useful for that one purpose. And that's all."

"Well, aren't we truthful," said Lucca sarcastically. "You know, if you'd just be an EENSY bit nicer to others, then maybe they'd actually respect you. But like THAT would ever happen, so why the hell am I even suggesting it? Oh, and Maggy-" -this was the last thing she said before turned over to read on her other side - "you know your cape? Did you know that purple's the gay pride color?" She smiled wickedly at that comment. Even for a genius that was good.

She heard a little choking noise from the other side of the room, but no attempts to blast her while her back was turned were made. And so she had it. She had finally floored Magus. But he would make a comeback. His hugely inflated ego would make sure of that. But she would have to deal with it when the time came. Despite the fact that she knew he was used to pushing people around and his insults probably meant nothing, she couldn't help but feel a little hurt at some of the things he said (especially the geek part; even if it was true, she couldn't bear being called a geek). Well, she'd just have to put her armor on and tolerate him.

She snuck a quick peek at him to see if he was still fuming about the whole thing. No, he was calmly reading a thick, ancient book about what appeared to be medieval architecture (NOW who was the geek?). Although Lucca in no way could read minds, he appeared at peace, one arm crooked behind his head and a look of indifference on his face. His almost waist-length pale blue hair, still half wet from the bath, fanned out like fine silk...

(Argh!) thought Lucca, jerking her head back. (What's wrong with me?! Not only is that bastard unattractive, but he's acting like nothing just happened as well! But I feel it... No matter what I say, he's still winning and he knows it! Geez, if I'm that desperate, I must really be lonely...) She blew out the candle on her side of the room and attempted to go to sleep, but sleep was slow in coming.

Thoughts about Crono and Marle. Again. God, she just wanted Marle to DIE. She was beautiful. She was a princess. She was literally rolling in gold. SHE didn't have to worry about people unfavorably judging HER because of HER appearance, since it was already so good. SHE didn't have to take the constant verbal abuse of a certain Mystic King because SHE wasn't singled out as weak. SHE didn't have a constant battle with HER self-confidence because it had been whittled down in the past. And most of all, SHE didn't have to worry about being overlooked by the opposite sex because HER looks were, at most complimentary, utterly plain. Argh! Well, that was usually the tradeoff for being smart... This train of thought continued on for perhaps two hours, until, until..something ELSE happened that was maybe worth mentioning…

Lucca's eyes snapped open. She had just heard a noise, a weird one at that. It had been loud, loud enough to wake her up from her sleep, if she had been indeed been sleeping, she wasn't sure if she had been or not… She listened further (it actually kept getting louder and louder) to try and come to a conclusion. It seemed to be coming from the next room…

Suddenly, her mouth opened wide in disgust. She knew EXACTLY what it was. It was Crono and Marle. And they were doing, um, activities. No, this night was not in her favor. Not at all.

She lay there, miserable, her head swimming, being forced to listen to the whole affair; no matter what position she lay in, she could still hear it. This continued on for several minutes, but then something completely unexpected occurred. Magus woke up.

Maybe he had just been released from a particularly powerful dream, maybe he had been suffering through it for awhile already. Either way, he suddenly jumped out of bed, unceremoniously scaring the SHIT out of her when he did, and proceeded to pound on the wall that bordered their room and Crono and Marle's. "WILL YOU SHUT THE HELL UP IN THERE? IF I WANTED TO HEAR GRUNTS I'D GO TO A PUBLIC BATHROOM!"

The silence was almost instantaneous. It was almost funny, in fact. Magus stood and listened for a moment yet, his pointy ears slightly perked up, but nothing could be heard. Satisfied, he turned and went back to bed, rolling over on his stomach.

Lucca sighed gratefully and drifted off to sleep. Well, at least the bastard was good for SOMETHING…

Author's Note: Yes, I am aware that Magus is vastly out of character. Flame me if you must!