Fan Fiction ❯ The evil rises ❯ Making one sane, one insane ( Chapter 4 )

The evil rises: Chapter three

by: Lone Gunmen

Authors notes: I'm back! With a new chapter. Now, I know that the plot in this story is complicated, but be patient! Everything will solve out. Well, not in this chapter, but perhaps in next. And thank you so much for rewieving! I have some notes here:

Prophet04: Thanks! The first chapter was very complicated, I tried my best to make it readable, hope it wasn't too painful to read.

Timebound: Thank you. I'd rather think 'the One' as black-robed, slightly insane person, but everybody builds up their own image about characters. Oh, and we're certainly going to hear more from Magus. He is my favorite character in the whole game, and I think that the game only scratched the surface of Magus' true nature.

Disclaimer: Don't own CT!

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Time: 601 A.D. Place: Guardia castle

Sun was setting down in Guardia Kingdom. Everything was peaceful. Since the war against mystics had ended, there was no need for that kind of things like weapons, armour and soldiers.

The shopkeepers had took them away from shop windows and had replaced them with spades, plows and buckets. The countryside was producing vegetables and fruits for everybody to eat, not anymore to the king only.

Roads were built, old residences repaired and new built. The castle Guardia was also being repaired and expanded, as the king had ordered a court and a jailtower to be built. Little did they know that it would take forty years before the first prisoner would be able to sent to the new prison. Things were so good, that anyone didn't need to do a single crime.

In Guardia castle, Queen Leene was gazing out from the window to their kingdom. She was happy because the kingdom was flourishing, and because the war was over. But, she was also a bit sad.

It had been nearly a year since anyone of the seven heroes had visited in their castle. Although she didn't quite understand how they had managed to get here at the first time, she still missed them. After all, they had defeated that sorcerer, Magus, the warmongering leader of mystics -may he burn in hell forever-, and had brought peace to Guardia.

She was still gazing out from the window, when she felt an arm on her shoulder. The way it was placed and the way it was holding, immediatly identified the owner of the arm as king Guardia XII.

"Are you dreaming again, my darling?" The king asked. The queen shaked her head slighly before answering: "Not really. I was only wondering..."

"...If the seven heroes are coming, and when." The king finished the sentece, and looked the queen to eyes. "You've had it in your mind for the last few weeks now. You think I wouldn't notice?" The king said, and formed a small smile. "When chancellor explains some minor problem or something like that, you stare into distance. And when he speaks to you, you kind of wake from a dream." The queen's face turned red from embarassment, and he couldn't face her husbands gaze.

"I..I..I'm..." She began, but the king interrupted her: "Now, now, it's nothing to shame about. I'm thinking about it, too." He sighed. "But, then again, it really doesn't help anything if we're worrying about it. They come if they come, and that's it."

The queen raised her head, and started again to stare out from the window. "I know, but I can't help it. After all what they have done to our kingdom, and for the world. I mean, imagine mystics here in this castle! Terrifying!" She kept a small pause while trying to get rid of the image of mystics terrorising the Guardia castle. She then continued. "I miss them. Well, expect that blue-haired vampire, or what he is. He scares me. And I'm sure I've seen him somewhere before."

"But, I miss Glenn the most. He should have visited here, and yet he doesn't. Why on earth not? We don't even know where he lives." The king couched, and said:

"I miss Glenn too. He is the bravest knight in Guardia. True, we don't know where he lives, and he hasn't told us. And I'm not going to ask him. I'll let him have some peace." The king looked around, and sat on a wooden chair, which appeared to be right next to him. "And what comes to your question about not visiting here, I presume that he is ashamed of his form. I think he fears how we might react if he would come here."

The queen turned quickly her head to meet the kings gaze. "That's nonsense! You said it yourself. He is the bravest knight in Guardia, and one of the seven heroes. Everybody would respect him." The queen said angry, as she would've been insulted.

"It would seem so." The king said, and it was his turn to stare out from the castles window to the distance. "...In surface. Yes, I believe that Knights of the square table would respect him, and accept him to their new leader. The chancellor, castle guards and the cook would respect him, no doubt about that." He turned lowered his head and started to stare the floor. "But what about maids, servants and other normal people?" He explained with a low voice, as he would be talking to himself. "They would start to gossip about him. Whisper about him behind his back. He could never take that. No, I think he has made the right decision."

"I would stop that immediatly!" The queen nearly shouted. "I would forbid gossip and whispering!"

Which immediatly made the king protest. "That would only earn us the reputation of a tyrann. And we wouldn't be able to control it." The king rose from the chair he was sitting on. "I think that things are just fine now." "We should go. The dinner is probably ready."

The queen looked out from the window for a while, then sighed, and said: "I guess you are right." With that, they left the queens bedroom, and the guards shut the doors behind them.

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Time: 601 A.D. Place: Cursed woods

The sun was setting down. Birds, insects and other small animals were returning to their nest's inside the forest. Nearly all the beasts had fled, or they had been slayed. But by who? Nobody from Porre didn't visit into the woods.

The answer was sitting in a rock, in shadow of the trees. It was a green frog, it had a great blade next to it, and a darkgreen cape hung from its neck. It hold a golden medallion in its hand, when closing it, when opening.

This amphibian was Frog, or Glenn as some called him, one of the seven heroes, slayers of Lavos. But, something was wrong about him.

Everybody could've seen that he hadn't slept well. He had bags under his eyes, and his glance was empty as he stared into distance. Little did they know, everybody who would've taken a step towards him would've died in an instant.

His thoughts were not clear. They were twisted combination of reality and dreams. Nightmares. His dreams had never been pleasant, they had nearly always included death and pain. Cyrus' death... And his transformation. But now, they felt like they'd been dragged from hell.

He saw Cyrus' death, over and over again. Over and over again he heard his scream of pain and last words:

'I'm..a..g-goner. T-take...care....of....the queen. T-take...care...of.....Leene.....'

Over and over again he heard his own shout when the magic hit him, felt the pain when the cells in his body changed, transforming himself into this cursed form.Then the nightmare changed, revealing a new way to torture his mind.

He was in the throne room of Guardia castle. Everybody from the castle was there, laughing at him. The faces of the queen and the king were insane and evil, they were contorted with laugh and mockery. The castle guards were in stitches, even the chancellor was laughing. Then they started to advance on him. Slowly but unavoidably they walked towards him, pinning him against the wall. They grabbed his arms and legs, and...

He slashed the air with amazingly fast reflexes before he even understood what happened. A bird dropped to the ground, dead. The sound the bird caused had woke him up from his nightmares. And he had killed it. What was left of his sanity, yelled that it had been wrong, but he couldn't think why.

He sat back on the rock, knowing that the nightmares would come back, but he didn't care. He just wanted to rest. And within a second, he fell back asleep.

This time nightmare was different. He was in Ocean palace, facing Lavos for the first time. But this time he was alone. He could see Lavos, but now it seemed ten times more bigger, ten times more deadlier. And the queen Zeal, who was standing on top of it, seemed like a demon queen from hell. Her blue hair was now red, and when Lavos had got bigger, she had got bigger too. Her face was too horrifying to watch, and when she speaked, oh! There wasn't word to describe her voice, so terrifying it was.

'So you wish to challenge the almighty Lavos? Foolish mortal, Lavos' power is beyond your imagination!' She smiled, revealing her razor-sharp teeth. 'I'm going to enjoy this.' Something moved inside Frog, and he unsheated the Masamune, although he new it was a useless to even try fighting against this demon. He collected the remains of his courage, and took a battle stance.

Queen Zeal laughed demonic laugh, and the laugh nearly made Frog to drop the Masamune. 'Fine! Die in battle, as you knights prefer. Lavos screeced, wich made the earth shake and Frog to fall in ground. He found out that he wasn't able to move. He saw when Lavos aimed at him with the same beam which it had used to disintegrate Crono. He sensed power gathering together. 'Say goodbye.' The queen said, and smiled twisted smile. He felt the power being released.

It was a great amount of power, but it didn't hit him.

It hit against his nightmare. Suddenly, everything around him went into tiny pieces, like a glass that has been hit. But he remained, in never-ending darkness. Then, he heard, or more likely, sensed something coming also in. He turned his head to that direction where he sensed something coming in.

There was a wound in the darkness, from where light kept coming in. And a hand. Frog wasn't actually sure wheter the nightmare continued on the other side, but he was ready to do anything to get out from this miserable darkness. So, he took the offered hand to his firm grip. And was pulled to the other side.

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He stepped into a room, which seemed that it had been made from pure light. There were several bookself here and there, but there wasn't any walls, floor or ceiling. The source of the light was a glowing orb, thousands time brighter than any sun, which was floating above a desk of some sort. In front of a desk, was an odd chair, like there would be no other similar chair in the world. There was a figure sitting in the chair, but Frog couldn't see what it was, beause the orb was so bright.

The figure turned around in the chair, and turned his face to look at Frog. Now, Frog saw that this figure was a bearded man, who was holding a staff in his right hand. However, he could not see the man's face, because of the orb. He had to turn his glance away.

The man didn't do anything, just looked. Frog was starting to think that he had fallen asleep, but then he felt like, twitching in his conciousness. It moved quickly away, but started to twitch again, in a different part of his conciousness. He felt when his emotions, knowledge and secrets were readen, and he couldn't prevent it from happening. He was about to say stop, but then it stopped. And the man began to speak with a voice, which gave no information whatsoever about his feelings.

"I see. I can't let you to lose your sanity, and I really can't help you. But with the information I have found, I can do this small thing for you." With that, the man pointed him, and mumbled a single word.

Frog felt like his body was, was, melting, and being reshapen into a new form. He fell to ground from amazement. "Now, begone." The man said and swinged his staff. A wound opened to the light, and Frog was dragged in there by the air that surrounded him. The last thing he saw in the room was the man drawing something to his notebook.

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Frog woke up in the grass next to the rock he had been sitting on last night. As he tried to raise, he noticed that something was different. As he stood there, he noticed that his perspective of sight seemed much higher as usual. He raised his shaking hands in front of his face and examined them in the morning sun.

They were normal human hands, not green frog hands. He quickly ran into his nest, and dug his chest to find what he had buried there long ago. He raised a small mirror from there and looked into it, and he saw face that he hadn't seen for a nearly ten years.

Green-haired man at the age of about thirty looked back from the mirror. He examined his face just to make sure it was him. He then lowered the mirror, and gazed to sky through the hole which led to his nest. "Thak you, whoever you are." He said with a low voice.

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Time & place: unknown

The dark-robed man had looked through his mirror just a minute ago when that green amphibian had been in tortured in his sleep. Then he had felt how the nightmare that he created had been crushed, and that frog had changed back into his human form. This was extremely annoying. He heard Dalton opening his mouth.

"Not a word." He said through gritted teeth, and Dalton's words died on his lips.

'Now, that was impossible that he would've gathered some willpower and crushed my precious nightmare. No, that was possible, but his transform was impossible. He doesn't know the secret of transforming. Or does he?' Then the thought hit him.

"Nooo, he wouldn't do that... Or would he?" He said out loud, and started to pace around. "It is possible, but I can't be sure... And I would've sensed his presence. But then again, he's very good hiding himself."

"The One, who?" Dalton asked, and the glance he throw at him was curios. "Who?" He repeated the question.

"My nemesis." The One answered. As Dalton's lips parted, he hurried to say: "That's all you have to know. For know. Prepare some of your minions. I think we will take the next one out with the old-fashioned way."

Dalton gave a small nod, and said: "As you see fit." Before he left the room.

'Dalton might give me some trouble. He thinks too much about his revenge. I need to discuss with him about this minor attitude problem.'

He turned his gaze to magical mirror and to sleeping man in it. "It is only matter of time for now. This means only delay for you. Nothing more. You can't hide from me." As Glenn would've heard his words, he moved restlessly in his sleep before taking a better position on the cold ground and falling back to peaceful slumber.

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Author's notes: Well, there's chapter four. It took pretty long from me to write this, so I hope you all enjoy it.