Fan Fiction ❯ Never Ever in a Million Years ❯ Magus and His Throne ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimer: Again, for what seems the ten millionth time, I do NOT own Crono Trigger and I do not plan on making profit off this fic. There! Happy?

The trek through the wasteland seemed long and endless, but Lucca and the others persevered, taking long, purposeful strides. There would be no rest until this was over. The sun barely peeked through a strange yellow haze, and except for themselves, no living creature was to be seen. If things continued as they were now, then the entire world would eventually be like this barren desert. And, after seeing it, they couldn't allow that to happen. At least not a second time.

"There!" shouted Crono, pointing. "Over there!" Suddenly Lucca spotted a large rocky cliff looming over them. Somehow it seemed very ominous. With Crono in the lead, the group of time-travelers rounded one of its rocky corners. And that was when they sighted him.

Lucca had seen Lavos up close before (she had been at the Ocean Palace when Zeal collapsed), but this version of him seemed even more nightmarish than the last. One large orange eye, filled with animosity, slowly winked at them. Large brown spikes, covered with some sort of poisonous ooze, protruded from the creature's shell, just waiting to be shot at the hapless bunch. Forget killing him and saving the world. They'd be lucky if they even managed to survive this battle for five seconds.

Everyone just stood staring at the monster. Even Magus, gaping in horror, didn't have a thing to say. They watched, petrified, as the creature opened its mouth and dictated in a shrill, annoying voice, "Lucca! Lucca! Wake up! Lucca!"

Lucca, realizing that it had just been a dream, slowly opened one eye. Yup, it was Marle. Figures… "Mmmph…"

"Hey, good morning, Lucca!" squealed Marle in that repulsively sweet voice. "Sleep like a rock all night?"

"Nope, not till dawn," lied Lucca, and managing to keep a straight face at the same time. "I felt kinda sick all night. I think I ate the same thing Frog did…" THAT would teach them to be loud while she was trying to sleep!

Predictably, Marle's face turned a bright red and she conveniently had to go do something. Lucca rolled over on her side, slamming the pillow over her head and attempting to get a few more minutes of precious sleep. Morning people could just go to hell.

Sadly, her morning snooze was rudely interrupted when a large backpack came sailing through the air and landed on her chest with a loud WHUMP. "Get the hell up, four-eyes! We're not waiting for your lazy ass, so get it in gear! NOW!" Lucca opened her eyes. Magus, of course. And still in his boxers, too. But never mind that. That backpack HURT.

"Son of a bitch," she mumbled, "you could have injured me…"

"What was that, geek? You care to repeat that for me? Now, I just so recall happening to remember us ALREADY having a little talk about changing your attitude. And I'm NOT warning you again. Next time I'm getting revenge, and think about the consequences. After all, it would be quite sad if I am unable to defeat Lavos because I had to kill you instead, wouldn't it?"

Lucca rolled her eyes at this. Revenge should have been Magus's middle name. After all, he was constantly ranting about getting it. Getting revenge on Lavos, getting revenge on Queen Zeal, getting revenge on her, and even getting revenge on Ozzie, strangely enough. But had he ever gotten revenge? NO!! (Well, maybe that one time with Lavos, but then he had gotten his ass kicked.) It was for this reason that she wasn't sure whether to be afraid of him or not. But she wasn't taking chances. Not now, anyway. His voice had that dangerous tone again… She decided that ignoring him was the best route.

With a groan, she pushed the backpack onto the floor and forced herself to sit on the edge of the bed. Magus stood, arms crossed, watching her, a big smirk on his face. "My my, sleepy, aren't we? You look even uglier than usual, if that's possible. And I thought Ozzie was unbearably repulsive…"

Lucca was debating whether or not to give him a piece of her mind, but then fate stepped in and Marle decided to come back. "Great! You're awake! By the way, I came to tell you that Crono already left to see if he can get someone to take us to that island. If he does, then we're off!" She shot a look over at Magus, and looked aghast at his near-nakedness. Or maybe his body. Lucca had no idea. Either way, it looked go-never mind. She absolutely HAD to get those perverted thoughts out of her mind!

Magus walked right up to Marle. "Oh Marle, it's you," he said in what seemed to be a happy, conversational tone (which was suspicious enough, considering that this is Magus we're talking about here.) "Good morning! My, you look tired. You didn't - sleep much - did you?"

If Marle had been red when Lucca had said her piece, it was nothing compared to now. Marle's face was the most vivid, fire engine shade of red Lucca had ever seen. "Um, no, Magus," she managed to stammer. "I am -um- glad you care." She hurried out of the room as fast as she could without actually running, her overly flowery perfume the only remnant of her former presence.

Lucca almost snorted in laughter, but then she remembered just exactly WHO was making her laugh. Geez, he sure was on a roll this morning, wasn't he? Magus didn't say a word more; he just padded over to the bathroom, muttering about a "loose woman." Loose, he was sure right about that.

The journey over to Giant's Claw was for the most part uneventful. Crono had paid 900g to the owner of a well-sized fishing junk to get them there. Lucca hung around the captain's cabin, well away from Magus, who seemed to be in an even more constipated mood than usual. She had to block out Crono and Marle, who were standing at the railing nearby, though; Marle's ditzy comments about how blue the sea was and how hot she was despite all the water around them were more than she could stand.

After arranging with the captain to pick them up in two days, the boat dropped them off on the eastern shore of Giant's Claw sometime around noon. The island's terrain, which was mostly just plains sprinkled with small clusters of trees here and there, looked fairly easy to traverse, much to Lucca's relief. It had been a hard walk yesterday, mostly through forest, and her legs still ached from it.

"Well, here we are," said Crono, tying a bandana around his head in an effort to keep cool.

"No shit," retorted Magus in a disgusted voice, his nose in the air.

Crono, having an amiable nature, ignored him, and went on, "Well, I think the first place we should go to is the mountain. Does that sound good, you guys?"

"Fine with me."

"You're smart, Crono!"

"I don't care where the hell we go, I never wanted to come in the first place."

Crono turned to stare at the mountain. "I guess it's settled, then. We'll head for the mountain. Good thing it's slightly off-center. It's a lot closer to where we are than from any other direction. It's still a good walk, though. Let's go!"

The hike began in silence. Everyone needed to save their energy for the long distance ahead. But Lucca swore she heard someone mutter under his breath, "Simpletons…"

Everyone was exhausted by the time they neared the mountain in the early evening. Even if the damn thing had LOOKED close when they had first stepped ashore, it in all reality wasn't. And the sheer size of it was mind-boggling. It was easily at least the size of Death Peak. Lucca had no idea where to start the search, but she knew one thing: if the Rainbow Shell was on this island at all, it definitely had to be somewhere on this mountain.

Crono put voice to her question. "Well, where should we start looking? Should we try climbing it? I don't even know where to start. It's just so big…"

"Why don't we just circle around a few times first?" suggested Lucca. "That way we can check if there's anything out of the ordinary. Even if we don't see anything, we at least might find an easy way to climb up."

"Yeah…Sounds like a good idea. But I'm sort of beat. Maybe we should set up ca-"

"Oh, hey! Look!" exclaimed Marle. She seemed to be pointing at something amongst a few trees clustered at the mountain's base nearby. "Isn't that a cave over there?"

Pushing up her glasses for a better look, Lucca squinted over in that direction. Yes, there WAS a cave there. Even though it was in the shade of the trees and it was hard to detect, she could tell that, going by the size of the entrance, it was a fairly large one. Their questions had been answered.

"Is anybody up for going on a little while yet?" asked Crono. "I mean, yes, I'm a little tired, but it's still maybe a few hours until it gets completely dark. And I'll admit I made a mistake when I told the boat to pick us up so soon, we don't have a lot of time…"

"Yeah, Crono's right, let's go," said Marle, nodding her head. "I sure hope that cave leads somewhere…"

It took Lucca's eyes a few minutes to adjust to the gloom within, but once she could see, she was wholly unimpressed. No shell. Nothing that looked remotely like a shell. It was just the usual rocky interior of a dark cave. (Could ANYTHING for once just be easy?)" she thought, chagrined, as she began lighting torches for everyone so they would be able to see in corners and in the cave's depths (supposing there were any). She had a strong urge to drop that last one right on Magus's foot (that backpack had probably left a bruise!), but she figured that once she started injuring him, he would probably do it back, and she liked her own form, thank-you-very-much.

Everyone spread out to look for another doorway. They were quickly rewarded when Lucca herself found what they were looking for. "Here! This way! And we're in luck, too! It seems to lead deeper within the mountain!"

Marle and Magus followed Lucca's lead and started to go into the newly-found entrance, but stopped when Crono lagged behind. He seemed to be bending over (and what a nice view it was too, Lucca noted) to pick up something. He walked over to the others and showed them what appeared to be a small, leather-bound black book. "I think it's a diary…"

Lucca grabbed it and took a closer look. "Yeah, it says Toma Levine, World Explorer on it. Looks like he was here…" She leafed through it, skimming through some of its contents. "Hey, listen to this! This was the last entry he wrote: Have been searching this cave for two days. It's really quite strange, it's as if this place was inhabited at some point. This would be the perfect place for the Rainbow Shell to be, except…everywhere I've looked leads to nowhere. There are only dead ends. Even the switches I've pushed do next to nothing; their only purpose seems to be to trap people in the level below. Hey…wait! Those holes! What if I jump into them on purpose! Yes! I'll start back at the beginning, and…" The rest of the sentence was just an illegible scrawl.

Magus rolled his eyes. "What a redundant thing to write in a diary…"

"But what does he mean about the holes or whatever?" asked Marle, puzzled.

Crono shrugged. "I don't know, but we'll have to watch for 'em up ahead. And hopefully we'll run into Toma while we're at it. You know that guy…I hope he didn't break his neck jumping. After all, the Rainbow Shell is still just a rumor in our period for good reason, right?"

Lucca personally didn't give a good damn if he was alive or not. Boisterous, rude, and arrogant, all Toma seemed to do was just suck up beer and soda in bars while boasting about all his so-called adventures as an explorer. And if he turned out to still be alive…well…she'd have a lot of fun making fun of his diary. Those holes! What if I jump into them on purpose? How simple was THAT?!

The next room was a big surprise. Whipping her torch around high in the air, Lucca saw that it looked quite familiar. The floor was a cold, metallic tile that clinked as she stepped on it… An egg-like treasure chest, the contents long gone, lay broken on its side in a corner… And in the center of all was a large, elegant throne, adorned with polished dinosaur spikes…

"Hey!" exclaimed Marle. "This looks a lot like Tyrano Lair, doesn't it?"

Magus sneered, "Gee, maybe it is." Seemed that Lucca wasn't the only one that suffered from Marle's sheer stupidity…

Lucca, anyway, could tell straight up that this WAS Tyrano Lair, the place where they defeated Azala and his vicious race of Reptites over sixty-five million years ago. She and Marle had been along with Crono and Ayla that day, and it, excluding Death Peak, had been one of the toughest times she had ever had. The Black Tyrano that Azala had engineered had been no laughing matter…

Crono wiped dust off one of the throne's arms. "It's amazing how well-preserved this place is, isn't it? It's been sixty-five million years, and it STILL looks almost the same. And I think it's possible that the Rainbow Shell is here. It could have been a Reptite treasure, maybe."

Lucca had to agree. "That's very possible, Crono. I bet back in prehistoric days things like that were a lot more common. But even if we don't find it here…just think of all the things waiting to be discovered! I could take rock samples- and take home some artifacts to study-" The prospect was actually quite exciting. Yeah, here and there she had pinched an object or bought a souvenir somewhere, but it was nothing like THIS.

Somebody snorted. Lucca's eyes narrowed. No, correction: MAGUS had snorted. So…he thought she was a geek, did he? She glared at him angrily, despite the fact that Crono and Marle stood there, watching everything. He merely glared back, his mouth twitching slightly. So he thought taking rock samples was funny, huh? (You'd better watch it, buddy,) she thought with animosity. (I don't care HOW many dark bombs you think you can hit me with. I can take your crap when I'm alone, but when you insult me in front of Crono…)

The person in question tried to alleviate the knife-cutting tension by changing the subject. "Hey guys, do you think this is a good place to camp? We're not too deep in, and we'll be protected from the elements in here. How about it? We'll get started bright and early tomorrow morning."

"Sleep? In here?" asked Marle a little fearfully.

"It's fine, girl, it's fine. I'll protect you. Besides, we'll have lookouts. We do almost every other night we camp, don't we?"

"Well…all right."

An hour later found everyone sitting around a large, waist-high torch salver that burned an odd, fluorescent-green flame. The bracket itself was truly an intricate work, silver with ornately-carved organic patterns, but the real treasure was inside, a colorless powder that gave the fire its green color. Lucca found that if you sprinkled it on the floor and ignited it, it would burn for a long time, for perhaps hours. This would be a real asset when they explored tomorrow.

Crono turned his wistful gaze from the fire and voiced what was on his mind. "You know how strange this all is? And now here we are again, two weeks later, in the same place, except almost sixty-five million years have passed. It almost seems unreal."

Lucca drew her knees to her chin and replied, "I know. It doesn't seem possible, does it? But what bothers me is how this place even survived. Didn't Lavos crush it? This place was probably shoved MILES into the earth and it still appears to be almost untouched."

"Yeah, what a surprise, considering it probably took a lot of force to push it right back up again. Nature produces lots of miracles, huh?"

"I don't know, but right now I'm worried about Toma," Marle piped up. "He's somewhere deeper in this cave, all alone…This place might seem empty, but that doesn't exactly mean it is."

Crono put his arm around her affectionately. "It's okay, cutie, we'll keep an eye out for him tomorrow. But in the meantime, we need to get some rest. We need watches in a place like this, though. I'll go first, then Lucca, then you, and then Magus. How does that sound?"

"Fine."

"All right."

"Hmpfh, now I'm being reduced to THIS…"

Everyone, yawning and stretching, prepared for bed. Magus, noticing the sidelong glances that BOTH Crono and Marle were shooting at the throne, quickly announced, "I get the throne. All you other unworthies can sleep on the floor." He snatched a spare blanket and headed for it.

Lucca smiled. THIS was too good to miss out on. "What, miss your big throne, fanghead? Well, I genuinely feel sorry for you. But oh well. At least for tonight you can PRETEND."

Lucca found herself on her back, one of Magus's large, booted feet planted firmly on her chest, before she could even say knife. He had a look of utmost fury on his face. In fact, the only time she had ever seen him more angry was in the Ocean Palace, right before Crono had died… "Now WHAT was that you said, four-eyes?"

Her heart pounding so hard and fast that she was willing to bet that Magus could feel it, Lucca grinned and continued, "Oh, what's the matter? Want your medieval architecture book back, mage man? Well, of course you can have it back. Us geeks have to stick together, you kn-"

"Let's get the facts straight, geeky. First of all, don't compare me to you. That puts me right at the bottom along with FILTH like you. Second of all, I'm still very powerf-"

"STOP!! NOW!!" Crono stood up, looking shocked and stupefied. Believe it or not, this was the first he had seen of Lucca and Magus's spats. "You both aren't three years old! Get off her, Magus!"

Grumbling obscenities under his breath, Magus stepped off Lucca's chest and stalked off towards the throne. He tore off his cloak (which just so happened to be the purple one), covered himself with the blanket, rolled over, and appeared to go to sleep.

Meanwhile, Crono was gently helping Lucca, who was extremely red in the face, back up. What a man he was. Looking at her concernedly, his warm hands enveloping hers, he asked, "Lucca, what's the matter? What's gotten into you? I can't say it was totally his fault, because I have to admit, that insult was synonymous with a kick in the crotch."

Great. Now Crono was involved in all this. This actually made that night in the forest seem like a laughing matter. Fighting back tears (but not so much about Magus's crap as it was about the humiliation connected with Crono's seeing everything), Lucca managed to spit out, "You really don't understand, Crono. He's been on my ass ever since Death Peak! It's like he senses weakness or something. I-I have to fight back."

Crono sighed, "I know it's tough siding with him, especially since he once was our enemy. Especially because of what he did to Frog. But we have to put that past us. We've got a bigger enemy ahead. We need him, and he needs us. If it weren't for Magus, I'd still be dead. And he kept you guys together so I could be revived. We owe a lot to Magus, Lucca. Just try to see things from his point of view. The Zeal catastrophe, the whole thing with Frog, and now he's siding with people that were out for his blood three weeks ago…and I mean, if YOU were raised by Ozzie, you'd have some issues, right? Just don't provoke him. Don't stoop to his level." With that little speech out of the way, Crono embraced her tightly and then let go of her, moving back to his side of the fire.

With much chagrin, Lucca made up her bed and lay down, seething at what Crono had just said. He just didn't understand, did he? And he probably didn't want to, either. All he did was just lecture her like a wayward child, not caring a WHIT about the whole picture, and seeing when things were secure (at least on the surface), he went back to his own little world, back to Marle and whatever sunshine rainbow happiness he always thought about. Maybe Magus, on a certain level, was right. Maybe she WAS surrounded by simpletons… And as for the big bastard himself, well, tomorrow she was sure he'd be saying and doing a few things in proclamation of his unconditional hatred for her. But she was going to give as much as he gave. She drifted off to sleep with that thought in mind, little knowing what the next day actually had in store for her. Forget a few proclamations. SHE was going to be in a war zone.