Fan Fiction ❯ Never Ever in a Million Years ❯ Girl Talk ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer: I do not in any way own Chrono Trigger. I mean it! Really! Honest!

After cautiously stepping into the room, Lucca sprinkled some of the powder into a corner and set it on fire. With the room now illuminated, she stepped in further and motioned for the others to follow.

They had been slowly but steadily going further into Tyrano Lair, but still there was nothing of interest. No monsters. No Toma. No Rainbow Shell. The only treasure they had found was a helmet that apparently kept you from being confused, but what a fat lot of good THAT did in a place like this...

As everyone spread out in all directions to search for anything noteworthy, Lucca could not help but feel the tension between all of the group members. Usually when they went through a dungeon most everyone (well, you couldn't expect that kind of thing from Magus) was talking, laughing, and joking the whole way through, even when they were fighting monsters. But there was nothing today. Just...silence. It hung heavy. Could it have been that the spat between her and Magus had left a bad taste in everyone's mouths (or at least Crono and Marle's) ? Well, no use thinking about it. Lucca was in no mood to be joking around at the moment anyway, especially since for the last fifteen minutes she had noticed Magus giving her quizzical, almost annoyed glances. He was planning some crap, she was sure of it...

Crono went up to the large tyrannosaur skull that appeared to mark the only other way out of the room. Knowing of the magic imbued within it from experience, he lightly tapped the nostril area. The skull's jaw slowly dropped with a tired creak, revealing a dark hole. Crono cautiously stepped inside, squinting in the semi-darkness to get a glimpse ahead. "Crap! There seems to be nothing but a dead end down this way!"

"Oh, no!" moaned Lucca, looking up from a careful search of one of the darker corners. "You're joking, right? You are, aren't you? ...But no... Toma found the same thing, didn't he?"

"Nooooooooo!" whined Marle. "And we came this far, too! All for nothing!"

"Wait! WAIT! There's a switch back here, I think, under this pendulum clock. Yeah, that's what it is!" He came back out of the skull, beaming at his discovery.

"Hey! Look!" Marle had her arms out on either side, having apparently made a discovery also. "Two switches!"

Lucca came closer to inspect them. "Well, that makes three now. But which one should we step on first? It could be crucial to opening a new doorway. We'll have to figure out a patt-"

"Shut it, four-eyes," Magus suddenly interjected, roughly pushing her out of the way and heading for the switch on the right. "Stop acting like you know everything."

Uh-oh. Lucca suddenly realized something, just before he stomped on the switch. "MAGUS! STOP! THE HOLES! TOMA! STOP!"

Not surprisingly, Magus didn't listen and activated the switch anyway. A few seconds passed... He turned and flashed Lucca his trademark crooked grin, his aristocratic nose turning up even more than usual. "See that, geeky? I DO know what I'm doing. You're clearly inferior to me in every way, so for the rest of this place I suggest taking a back se-"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" Marle's scream suddenly shattered the dusty silence. Lucca and the others whirled around. The princess was surrounded by two tubby, lightning-breathing reptilians, who looked to be very close relatives to the Terrasaurs and the Megasaurs they had encountered in 65 million B.C.

"Hang in there, Marle! We'll get rid of 'em!" Crono quickly began casting Lightning 2 over and over again, shocking the dinosaurs to distract them. Seeing that Crono's power alone was not enough, Magus grudgingly began to Dark Bomb them also. Lucca stood and did nothing. If Marle was so beautiful and perfect, the she could just kill those monsters herself.

After the dinosaurs were just piles of smoldering carbon and Crono had pulled a hyperventilating Marle away from the bodies, he asked everyone in a strained voice, "Wh-where the hell did they come from? They didn't come from behind, that's for sure."

Lucca, who had been studying the ceiling in impatience while waiting for those damn Terrasaur things to just die already, had an answer for that. "They came from the ceiling, that's where. See that open trap door up there? That was triggered by the switch just now. So smartass-" -at this she turned to Magus- "-if I were you I'd consider DISCUSSING things next time before you go off and do something stupid."

"Hold your tongue, you weakling! It was nothing I couldn't handle, so why complain about it? But then again, heh-heh, if you had been alone...weak and geeky, that's what you are. If you had been alone you'd be dead by now."

Lucca shot a quick look at Crono. He appeared disgusted that his pleas for no more fighting had not been answered. Well, who CARED what he thought?! She shot back at Magus in an angry voice, "Look who's talking, pointy-ears! In the Ocean Palace Lavos took you out in one hit! You call THAT strong, you pansy?!!!!"

Magus started toward her yet again, but Crono swiftly intervened. "Listen," he stated in a business-like voice, "as much as I'd like to stand here all day and watch you two verbally slap each other like a couple of kindergarteners, I can't let you do that. WE have to go. WE have work to do. There's another way out of this goddamned room somewhere, and we're NOT leaving till we find it!"

They found that they had no other choice to but to press another switch. Everyone stood back as Crono activated the one on the left, and it was a good thing they did, because presently there was a rumbling and most of the floor began to slide away. By the time it had finished only a small area around the entrance and a narrow catwalk leading to the skull remained. Seemed like the way to go now was down...

After throwing rocks into the space below to see if it even HAD a bottom, Crono rummaged around in his backpack and produced a long piece of rope, which he then tied to one of the skull's teeth. Marle and Lucca peered downwards anxiously as he inched his way below, stopping only when the darkness swallowed him up and they could see him no longer. A minute later they heard his voice call up to them, "OK! I'm down! Everything's fine! The climb's only 25 feet or so!"

"Only twenty-five?" Lucca's knees quaked at just the thought as she watched Marle make her way down. How she hated heights! She had ever since she had done a header into the bushes from Crono's treehouse when they were ten. Even at just a mere eight feet she got all nervous and sweaty-palmed, making her very prone to accidents. And how she was going to survive this one, she had no clue. Why, on the Blackbird-

"Lucca, are you coming?" Marle's voice shouted up from below. "Hurry!"

Lucca, all at once, just totally freaked out. Collapsing on the floor and shakily cradling her head in her hands, she moaned, "I-I can't! I'm sorry, Crono, but I just can't! Heights make me sick! I'll just have to wait for you guys up he-"

"Oh, shut up, four-eyes," a voice growled from behind her. Shit. She had completely forgotten about Magus in the midst of all her anxiousness. Now he was going to rub this in her face for about forty years (that is, if she was lucky).

"Hold still," he commanded, and before she could protest, she found herself in those strong muscled arms, gently heading downwards. Crap. She forgot that he could fly a little. She whimpered slightly, taking care not to look down, her head buried in his chest. But it wasn't so bad after all, she mused. For one thing, she was pressed up against that body of his... She could feel his firm, hardened muscles under his body armor, and that silky blue hair, so much finer and more beautiful than Crono's... His scent was so - so arcane; it was probably some kind of incense. Sandalwood, maybe? Being so close to him now, she was even able to imagine what it might be like to just steal a little kiss-

"No! Not again!" her thoughts broke in. "He's my enemy, for crying out loud! Enemies don't have dirty, perverted thoughts for each other! And what's he doing, anyway? Being nice isn't exactly Magus's mission-"

Her question was answered as soon as they reached the ground. Letting go of her, he suddenly leaned in very close and sneered, "Weakling!" So it HADN'T been for the common good. He had decided that her being in his debt would humiliate her. Suddenly, the world made sense again.

It made sense for the rest of Tyrano Lair, too. Starting at that moment when they hit the ground on the new floor, Lucca and Magus stayed at each other's throats, constantly exchanging insults and just generally making the other mad. The monsters on this new level infested the area like roaches and they had to stop and battle quite often, but nothing kept the duo from yelling out one-liner barbs. During the course of this Crono and Marle looked on in wonder, seeing the whole thing, Crono rolling his eyes in what seemed to be a cross between disgust and despair, and Marle giving this small but knowing smile at what she thought was starting to happen.

"You call THAT a direct hit, four-eyes?! Pah, even with a gun to do all the work for you you can't even show some skill and hit somewhere vital!"

"Well, at least I look COOL with a gun, you dork! You just look like an idiot holding that big threshing reaper! Say, when are the crops coming in, Old Mac Donald?"

"You'll soon feel the power of this scythe if you don't shut your trap, metal head!"

During one particularly nasty incident on a flight of stairs Magus managed to trip her down a few steps, going, "Oops, was that your foot, four-eyes?" innocently as he passed by. Well, SHE showed him. When they ran into a group of about four Fossil Apes she just sat and watched, laughing and pointing obnoxiously, as they all decided to play a game of violent catch with his body. How he had cursed at her after Crono and Marle got him down! That was certainly a Kodak moment.

Gradually, though, both the monsters and the insults slackened off, especially after they had to climb down another hole to go on (this time, by the way, Lucca had opted to climb). This was maybe in part because of the eerie silence that ensued as soon as they reached the new floor. It was strange. It was unnerving. Not a monster was to be seen or heard down here. It was almost as if something terrible lived down here, something that scared even the toughest of monsters away...

"Well, this is...odd." Crono's voice echoed in the stillness. So he felt it, too...

Marle choked on the dust that had been kicked up upon their entrance. "I- I don't like this, Crono. I don't like it at all. What's with this place all of a sudden?"

Lucca looked around. They were in a prison cell, Kino's old one in fact, when he had been imprisoned by the Reptites. The thick coat of dust carpeting the floor revealed that no one had walked these halls in a long, long time. The pair of Avian Rex ribs that had once been the prison door lay smashed and scattered. And in the back of the cell was a large, large gap, a gap that had never been there before...

Lucca started. "This is it," she said out loud. "It's back there, whatever it is. We'd better power up..."

Marle nodded and began to cast Cure on everyone while Crono gave out Shields. As soon as they were healed to full, Lucca went up to the gap, sprinkling and igniting the powder. Then the four walked inside, being greeted by an awesome but terrifying sight the minute they walked in...

The last time they had been in Tyrano Lair Azala had crowed about how indestructible his Black Tyrano had been. And apparently he had been truthful, because even after the serious damage they had inflicted upon it and the fact that sixty-five million years had passed, there it still stood. It looked even nastier than ever, perhaps because of the heavy rust that had accumulated on its heavy armor plating. And it also had to be mentioned that its mood was now definitely less than happy. It recognized intruders right away, giving a roar and beginning the countdown, which was a nasty fire attack that took place once its timer reached zero.

Lucca's first impulse was to run away, but resolve hardened in her when Crono shouted, leaping towards it, "C'mon, let's bust it up!" Marle followed him closely, and together they began to cast a dual technique, a stronger version of the Ice Sword, over and over again. The more spells they cast, the fewer times the Tyrano would be able to use the countdown spell, and the less charred they'd all be.

Lucca stood for a moment and considered her first move. Finally, she just decided to go all out and cast Flare. No sooner had she done this when she heard a loud yelp...and it wasn't from the Tyrano. "Oh, crap!" she moaned. "Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap!" She watched in horror as Magus jumped up and down, attempting to beat out with his cape the flames crackling on his pants leg. He had probably planned to cast a Dark Bomb, as close as he had been to the Tyrano, and...Oh, shit! The fiery edges of the Flare bomb had probably grazed him!

"You- you BITCH!" he managed to snarl, writhing in agony from the sudden heat and seconds later, the other extreme (he had been forced to cast an Ice spell to extinguish the flames).

"Hey hey, I didn't-"

"SHUT UP! IT'S TIME YOU WERE TAUGHT A LESSON, FOUR-EYES, ABOUT JUST WHO'S BOSS!" With that thought in mind, he began to shoot small fireballs from his fingertips straight at her.

Lucca panicked. Not only was there a big, rusty Tyrano out to kill her, but there was a berserk Mystic King out to do the same thing as well (well, maybe killing her maybe wasn't what Magus had in mind, but injuring her was probably number one on his to-do list). Not thinking clearly, she quickly darted between the Tyrano's legs, a fireball singing her black shorts and near-missing her kneecap.

No such luck. He followed with a vengeance, the fireballs increasing in intensity. Lucca looked around desperately, eyes finally locking on a large piece of scrap metal lying on the cave floor. She grabbed it and shielded herself, which made the fireballs bounce back and forced Magus to take cover behind a large rock. He still continued to shoot them, but now he had to duck as well. Lucca, with a wicked grin, began to toss a few herself. THAT would teach Mr. Pointy-Ears to screw with her!

Suddenly a searing heat filled the other half of the cave. Lucca realized that the Tyrano had finished its first countdown! She hoped that Crono and Marle were well and uninjured, but she wasn't able to find out at the moment, due to obvious circumstances. "Damn you, Magus!" she inwardly cursed as a fireball hit her shield with a loud thud. "You're gonna get us all killed!"

The fireball fight continued on for a good ten minutes, but after five things started to change. The attacks from Magus's side slackened off, and what fireballs he did shoot were weak and were just a little warm if they managed to come into contact with Lucca's skin. He was just sitting on the rock now, grinning and letting one fly about every ten seconds. He almost seemed...playful, as bizarre as a description of the person in question could be. Lucca smiled back and changed her mode as well. She would never admit it, but this seemed almost...fun. Dropping her shield, she started to make faces at him, trying to egg him on. He smirked and aimed one at her stuck-out tongue, managing to make her giggle. That smirk, as close to a smile as he could get, was actually kind of sexy...

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING!" Lucca and Magus swiveled around to see Crono and Marle standing nearby, neither of them looking too happy. With a start, Lucca saw that the Tyrano was dead and all that remained of it was a smoldering, junk-strewn scrap heap. Well, at least they didn't need help anymore...

"WHAT DID I TELL JUST TELL YOU TWO?! YOU'VE BEEN AT IT ALL DAY NOW! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHOOTING THOSE FIREBALLS AT THAT TYRANO, NOT AT EACH OTHER! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS? GEEZ..."

"Um, I'm really sorry, Crono," Lucca managed to stammer in a wavering voice, "it's just that I set Magus on fire, and I-"

Marle suddenly felt the need to interrupt. "Guys! Shut up a minute! It's the Rainbow Shell!" She ran over to the back of the cave.

Everyone, forgetting about the last spat, followed her and saw indeed that sparkling there in the back of the cave WAS the Rainbow Shell. It was truly the epitome of prehistoric beauty, extremely large and harder than steel, with thousands of almost transparent colors glimmering on its surface like drops in a waterfall. The beauty that the legends rumored it to have were just a slight grasp of the concept. This thing was bigger and better than ANY story told of it. Lucca slowly placed her hand upon it, smoothing over its cold, polished surface, wondering about the kind of prehistoric creature that had been lucky enough to live inside such a place.

Crono bent down and tested its weight with his hands. "Magus, help me lift this, will ya? Lucca, Marle, stand back a second." Crono waited as Magus bent over to assist him...

At this, Lucca licked her lips in delight. Magus had been forced to discard his cloak (some of her fireballs had definitely hit home) a few minutes prior, and his tight pants now left little to imagine... She smiled as he bent further down, enabling her to get a REALLY good look. (Mmmmmm, not bad,) she thought, continuing to stare at his rear end. (Not bad at all. It's so tight, and so yummy-)

BOOM!!! Lucca jumped a mile as the Shell suddenly connected with the floor.

"I-it's too much for us to carry," panted Crono. "Aw, crap! All this way just to get ahold of the thing, and it turns out that we can't even take it back!"

"Wait!" exclaimed Marle. "Why don't we just ask King Guardia to take a crew down and retrieve it? They can use pulleys and stuff, as long as they know the Shell's location. Then we'll go to 1000 A.D. and use it from there! That way we'll have it right away!"

Lucca even had to compliment Marle's brilliant idea, considering she had so few. The entire group agreed that as soon as the Epoch was fully fixed, they'd get to Guardia Castle to talk to the King about it.

"He'll have a heart attack when he sees this thing," Crono commented. "This thing will make him richer than all the gold in the world combined!"

Magus caressed its surface again with a gloved hand. "I do have to admit, it IS a thing of beauty. Such a thing would have made a wonderful decoration in my castle..."

Lucca snorted at him. "What, because rainbows are the gay pride symbol as well? Geez, Magus, pulling out all the stops, are you? Purple cape, long hair, now a shell representing a rainbow...you leave me no choice but to believe that you, well, like boys."

From that time on, their temporary truce was over.

It was now nightfall later that day. The group had headed back up to the surface outside of the cave to camp; even if camping inside the cave had meant a little more shelter, they could stand the stuffiness and claustrophobic confines no longer. Instead they pitched their two tents in the shadow of the mountain, enjoying a meal of dried roast mutton (it was considered a delicacy over in the Choras area) and, as weird as it sounded, toasted marshmallows. Lucca was overall tired and exhausted, but somehow amidst this she felt...happy. The search had ended, she had seemingly come out on top in the battle with Magus, and best of all, after tomorrow she wouldn't have to see his ugly face any longer (although she was perhaps pushing it in calling his form in any way ugly). Tonight she shared a tent with Marle, too. Apparently she and Crono had gotten the message that one night when Magus had pounded on the wall to shut them up. Although spending the night with Marle was by no means the best arrangement in the world, it DID mean that she wouldn't be having any verbal battles tonight. No insults. No being pinned against the wall (or, in this case, the tent nylon). Sadly, it also meant no glimpses of Magus in his boxers, but that tradeoff was in her favor.

It was close to midnight when everyone left the campfire and retired to their tents. Lucca was full ready to have a good long sleep, but Marle seemed to have other plans. "Lucca, I'm sooooo glad I've got you alone now," she said, getting into her sleeping bag. "It hasn't been just you and me for a long time now. We need to catch up. You know, girl-talk."

If Lucca could have fallen off the earth and died right at that moment, she would have certainly been glad to do so. Girl-talk?! Now where did THAT come from? Wait, wait---if she had to sit for an hour and listen to Marle talk about Crono and their nightly activities, well, she'd probably go into the other tent to sleep with Magus all night. Not to mention she'd willingly share his pillow.

It didn't turn out that way, though. In fact, it was even worse. Marle took Lucca's silence as a willingness to listen and asked, "Lucca, what exactly is going on between you and Magus?"

Lucca was floored immediately. Never in a million years had she known she was going to be asked THAT question. Of all the stupid things...

"Nothing," she replied quickly.

"Oh, come on, Lucca, I'm not falling for that! I KNOW these things!"

"Know what? That we absolutely hate each other?! There's nothing TO it, Marle! There's nothing secret going on! All of what we've been doing is right out there in the open!"

"I didn't mean THAT, silly. I know it hasn't gone that far YET."

"Yet? YET??!! There will NEVER be a yet! He hates me, I hate him! It's a simple relationship, as simple as it can get! And there's the fact that he's gotta be ten years older than me..."

"Lucca, just spit it out already. I'm not that stupid. The way you always go out of your way to insult him... You like it, and he likes it. Notice how he smiles sometimes whenever you dish out a really smart comeback? It's like he ENJOYS someone around that's as smart as he is."

Where the hell she got some of this crap, Lucca really wanted to know. It was time that place was burned down. She continued to protest, "Marle, you've got the idea all wrong! It's pure, unadulterated HATE that I hold for Magus, and nothing else. There's no attraction at all!"

"Oh, but there is, Lucca! Remember when he brought you down that hole? If he truly hated you, then he would've let you rot up there. No, instead he brought you down, holding you pretty tight, too!"

"For crying out loud, Marle, Crono would have probably forced him to anyway! He didn't want to, he had to."

"Say what you want, Lucca, but I know this kind of thing when I see it. And as for that fireball fight...admit it, you were having fun. Both of you were! That's one of the few times I've seen Magus smile! That wasn't too nice, with just me and Crono fighting the Black Tyrano and all, but I'm glad it happened. Maybe you're starting to realize-"

"Good night, Marle." Lucca, unable to take this punishment any longer, suddenly turned over to go to sleep.

There was a sigh. "Well, good night, Lucca..."

Although she had been tired to begin with, Lucca was up for several more hours, thinking about what Marle had said. Of all the bullshit she had been fed EVER, this took the cake. There was absolutely NOTHING between her and Magus. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Even if she thought he was the tiniest bit yummy, there was STILL nothing. No attraction. Nothing. Never ever in a million years.

(Accidents, disasters, friend-stealing twits, POed warlocks,) she thought crossly, tossing and turning in her sleeping bag. (Seriously, so many bad things have happened to me lately that there possibly can't be any more! Now something GOOD has to happen…right?!)

Little did she know what tomorrow held in store for her…