Fan Fiction ❯ The Magus Hunted ❯ Ethers and the Mystic Project ( Chapter 6 )

Part 6

While everyone else went to sleep and Alfador curled up safely next to Lucca's side, Magus walked through their chambers, making sure the main door was sealed and that there were no hidden doors they'd overlooked. He glanced at the table with the remains of their dinner, but unlike Marle's kingdom, there was no carafe of blood for a weary sorcerer. A static hiss droned in the cabinet, and he touched the television's largest button to turn it off.

The entire castle seemed asleep. Only the occasional soldier tramping down the hall kept guard. For all the suspicion of this King Delavue, he apparently believed that Magus would keep his word. He walked back onto the balcony and grasped the railing, looking out over the city. The wind was still only cool, the city still hummed with faint music and he was still hungry.

Without a look back, he climbed onto the railing and leaped into the air. Controlling his fall, he floated towards the ground, arms out as he fell and using the castle wall to guide himself down. The courtyard that was all that remained of Guardia forest grew larger and larger, the dots of light turning into lamps, until he landed on the grass, startling the guards at the main gate. To his surprise, they did not attack. He watched them for a moment to make sure they wouldn't lunge when he turned his back, then walked out of the courtyard and down the main street.

Few people came near the castle so late, and he turned a corner down into a sidestreet. Without any streetlamps, the road was dark and empty. He glanced down the road just in case, then stood still and concentrated. Even among somewhat trusted companions, he would not reveal every spell in his arsenal, and if Frog thought he was limited to short teleportation spells to conceal himself, so much the better.

The shadows around him gathered and slid over his body like liquid, covering his body and face. With a thought he manipulated the shape and colors until it mimicked current clothing trends and prevalent skin tones. When he stepped back into the main street, he appeared to be a tanned, dark-haired commoner with black pants and long-sleeved shirt. Although everyone probably knew his face, he hoped that without the blue hair or white skin, no one would connect him to the prince on their television screen.

Arms crossed, head down, he walked beside closed stores and dark windows. Owls and insomniac sparrows sang in the night, out of place in the stone city. He put one hand on the wall and trailed his fingers over the smooth surface. Felt through his gloves, it reminded him of the damp caves he'd grown up, worn down by underground rivers and time.

On the next corner he spotted a group of drunkards singing and wobbling back and forth. With his next step, he gently pushed off of the ground and rose into the air, flying high enough to reach the tops of the shops clustered around the spires like eggs. He landed on one and continued walking, occasionally flying over a gap or street to the next shop, avoiding everyone below.

The noise and light grew stronger as he came to the center of Cronopolis. He paused to look down on it. Thousands of people, mostly youngsters, crowded the streets and sidewalks, hopping from building to building. Colored lights flashed out of every window, loud music pounded the air. He imagined mystics in place of humans, nagas slithering with shopping bags, goblins dancing in the clubs, ekans slurping down ice drinks. The lights were the right intensity, the music as loud as he could stand. It could have been their paradise.

He stepped off of the roof and landed gracefully, checking his reflection in a dark window to make sure his spell was still intact before making his way into the throng. As before, the amount of human food in the area overwhelmed his senses and nauseated him, and he hurried along the sidewalk. Being taller than most of the adolescents helped him navigate the crowd and find the rows of clothing stores opposite the clubs. After glancing at their displays, he chose one called Pedestals of Night. The attendants and shoppers were all dressed ridiculously, entirely in black with too much makeup, but the capes and cloaks looked better than anything else he'd seen.

He waved away one of the attendants and examined the rack of cloaks. All of them sagged on their hangers, limp and devoid of magick, but he could fix that later. He picked a thick black cloak with a long hood, reminiscent of his prophet disguise, and carried it to the cash register. As he took out a handful of coins, he spotted several bottles sparkling on the shelves behind her. "Ethers?" he asked.

"Huh?" She looked up at him. "Oh yeah, we got those. It's the real shit, too, not that filtered water crap. The strongest ones give you a real kick."

For magicless humans, no doubt they "kicked." He took five and handed over several gold coins. She stared at them for a moment, then put them into her register and made change. He couldn't help a sigh of relief. That money illusion trick didn't always work, especially after fights, and he didn't want to waste time convincing her that thousand year old coins were still valid.

Once outside again, he turned the cloak over his shoulders and brought the hood low over his face. Now he started attracting looks since few other people were wearing capes and he found another sidestreet away from the lights. As soon as no one could see him, he leaped back onto a rooftop and headed back to the castle. When he reached the courtyard, rather than bother with the guards again, he simply leaped up, riding the wind higher toward the balcony.

His cape billowed behind him as his hood fell back. The full moon hovered over the spire, growing larger and larger as he approached. For many years it had been his sun, his only light brighter than a torch or candle. He'd written spells by its glow, walked the forests with it following between the branches, timed his life not to the seasons like humans, but to the waxing and waning of each month. In human years, he was around twenty three. Mystic time was harder to reckon, especially since there was no way to count his moons before he arrived in Guardia, but all told he was a few moons shy of three hundred, very old for a mystic. When life could end in a claw's swipe or an arrow's strike, a moon was a long time.

And tonight the moon looked close enough to touch. Though tempted to pass the castle and find out what the moon was made of, he stopped himself at the roof and landed on the spire's top, sitting down on the rounded surface carefully. He unstopped his first ether bottle and held it to his lips, taking a quick taste to make sure it was ether before drinking. Less like water and more like light, he tipped his head back and let pure magic flow into him. The rush from an ether was always heady, but the children in this era must have added something to it, something that left a vague warmth in his stomach. Still, it wasn't the strongest kind of ether; he finished it quickly and set the bottle aside, already bringing out the next one.

Once he finished all but one, he spread his new cloak out and unstopped the last bottle. Drizzling ether across the cloth, he poured magic across its surface and set about casting the proper spells, one for durability, one for warmth, and one that would keep it out of his way while fighting. With so much ether in and around him, the loosed liquid rising like vapors and sparkling in the moonlight, he used little of his own magic. He breathed in the escaping fumes and relaxed, immersed in his own element for the moment.

Task completed, he set the bottles aside and lay back, watching the moon cross the sky. The night felt empty without the wild calls of mystics in the forest. All the sounds that were left were the hoots of owls and a few insomniac sparrows. Nights in Zeal had always been full of the noise and lights of strange experiments in magick, and the stars had never dimmed or darkened. In Zeal, night was sacred, the natural time of dreams. No other kingdom had ever cherished darkness like it, before or after.

He turned aside and his gaze fell on one of the empty ether bottles. He gate it a nudge and set it rolling over the edge of the spire. After several seconds, he heard the faint smash of glass on the ground. Waiting a few more seconds for the guards to get there, he nudged another bottle off. This time he heard shouting, but then the wind picked up and he couldn't hear them anymore. He wondered if the glass had cut any of them and imagined their blood dripping on the ground.

The blood he'd taken from the naga should have sated him, but as he grew older, he found that large amounts now made him crave more. Stranger when he considered that small amounts like in a carafe or, on occasion, an animal, didn't leave him wanting more. And on the rare occasion he tasted human blood...he smiled at the memory. Better than any ether, though not by much. His hand accidentally knocked over the last bottle and sent it over the edge.

"Magus, art thou the one up there?" On the balcony, Frog glanced over the railing at the soldiers scouring the courtyard. "I can hear guards approaching our door. Get down here before they see thee."

Moving slow enough to make sure Frog knew he was doing this because he wanted to, not because he was ordered, he jumped off the roof and landed on the balcony, his cloak swirling around him.

"Why were thou outside?" Frog asked, ducking back into the room with him and closing the doors, drawing the curtains shut. "I'd feared the worst."

"Didn't have time to go shopping after the fight," Magus said. He glared as Frog started to ask questions. "No, no one's hurt. Although if you don't shut up, you'll find yourself flying out the window."

"Thou could'st have said something," Frog said, ignoring the threat.

"I don't need your permission," Magus hissed.

"Thou hast already drawn the king's ire upon us. Wouldst thou jeopardize our journey?"

"I'm only here to get rid of Flea and Slash. And I could probably do that best alone. I already know which time to look in--"

"Thou knowest the era," Frog said smugly, "but thou dost not know what date. King Cassio ruled nigh fifty years. Wilt thou simply wait for thy mystics to appear?"

Magus scowled. "I don't know what I'm sick of more, your arguing or your accent. Play dog to a king that hates you if you want, I don't care." Without waiting for an answer, he turned and went into Lucca's bedroom, closing the door behind him. Alfador slept on the spare pillow, curled into a ball with his tail touching his nose, but when he heard his master come in he looked up and mewed, blinking his eyes sleepily.

"Yes, I'm back," Magus said softly, loosing his cloak and dropping it on the floor. He sat down on the edge of the bed and kicked off his boots, but he didn't lay down, instead staring out the small window. The city's light washed out the night sky so that all he could see were one or two bright stars in a field of blue. At least in more familiar eras, what the humans called medieval and prehistoric, the sky was black with thousands of stars spreading a comfortable glow across the forests and prairies. He reached over and rubbed the top of Alfador's head, making him purr.

Was there a point to any of this? Beyond the loose ends of killing Flea and Slash, of course. Time to face facts, he thought. His sister had to be dead. There was no other possibility. He'd searched every era, every archive, from the beginning of the world to the end of time. By now Schala was surely no more than a skeleton covered in sediment at the bottom of the ocean, inside the innermost chamber of the sunk Undersea Palace.

Their mother's pride became his sister's tomb and his downfall. So he had destroyed Lavos. So what? Would that be the sum of his life, the forgotten prince of a forgotten realm who needed the help of a handful of children to destroy his enemy? Even Cyrus could boast a better epitaph. And when he died, would there even be a grave stone? Who would mourn his passing? Frog?

"Should've turned that knight into a lap dog," he muttered, pausing as he pet his cat. "Alfador, what should I do?" Beneath his hand, Alfador rolled onto his back so Magus could pet his stomach. Well, not quite the answer he'd wanted, but he obliged anyway.

Schala was dead. He groaned and looked at the ceiling. But if that was true, why were there gates again, and all of them leading him to the eras he wished to travel to? Why this new fragmentation of history? If the world was unraveling again and the entity Lucca's pet robot had referred to was remembering parts of its life, then what was supposed to change? If he fit into the puzzle, and indeed he seemed to be a key player, then Schala had to have something to do with it. She was too much a part of him to be otherwise.

But another night of thinking about it wouldn't help. He sighed and lay down, resting his head next to Alfador, who started to snore. Magus watched his cat for a few seconds, then noticed Lucca on the other side of the bed, snoring as well. She looked odd without her glasses. Not better, just odd. He wondered if she could coax information out of this era. All the computers and officials seemed bent on opposing him but they leaped to obey her commands. In a way, she worked her own kind of magic made of gears and spells made of information bits, just as comfortable surrounded by machines as he was by true magic.

He closed his eyes and waited for sleep. While she and her robot worked out a chronology of his enemies' actions, he would scour the city. They wouldn't need him for awhile and there were other sources of information that he had not yet checked. In every era, the castle stored all of its information in the basement, but considering how Cronopolis sprawled over the land, the archives had to have grown with it. Perhaps he might even find a central mainframe now that all the technicians would be busy repairing the damage he and the naga had done to the main room. He reached up and lightly pet Alfador again, and the soft purring sent him to sleep.

Used to Alfador sleeping beside him every night, he didn't wake up when he felt a gentle nudge against his side or a light touch on his arm. But Lucca's startled gasp and sudden scramble away made him sit up before he was fully awake, wondering if she'd seen something crawling in through the window. All he saw were a few rumpled blankets, Lucca on the far side of the bed, and Alfador with wide eyes, also startled awake.

"Are you all right?" Magus asked on a tone that sounded more upset than curious.

"Sorry, yeah, I'm fine, sorry 'bout that." Lucca climbed out of bed and stepped into her shoes, already pushing her hair back. "I just forgot I wasn't home and then I woke up next to you...sorry. I didn't mean to freak out like that. Sorry."

He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged and ran one hand through his hair, straightening the loose bits in the back. With a brush from the night stand, Lucca tamed the worst of her own hair but gave up on the frizzles and tucked everything under her hat, which explained to Magus why she always wore that helmet.

He watched her squint and fumble over the nightstand for her glasses and slip them back on her face.

"How come your hair doesn't get all messy?" Lucca asked, peering at him.

"I don't move when I sleep," he said. Sunlight reflected off the surfaces of her glasses and he looked away.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine," he said, not about to tell her that too many potent ethers at once gave him, among other things, a headache resembling a hangover. "It's nothing."

Not pushing for answers, she picked up her utility belt and strapped it on. Digging through the compartments, she grabbed two small pills and pulled them out. "Here," she said, offering them.

He narrowed his eyes but still held out his hand. "What are they?"

"Pain killers," she said. "I process these from the bark of the trees around my house."

Dismayed that she'd noticed, he swallowed them anyway, grimacing at how bitter they were.

"Uh, sorry 'bout that," she said. "I'm still working on the taste."

He waved her off and stood, heading towards the door. Behind him, Alfador jumped off the bed and walked at his heels, following him into the dining room.

Breakfast was already served. A silver tray cart stood beside the table, half of its covered dishes unloaded. On the couch, Crono watched the television as Marle flipped channels. Frog stood at the balcony door, watching flocks of birds wheel through the sky, and he smiled as they came in.

"Fair morn'. I hope thy night passed well."

Lucca smiled back but Magus ignored him, deciding that his head was pounding too much to deal with Frog's accent. He instead picked over the breakfast tray, wondering if Frog had pulled another favor out of a castle cook. One crystal decanter in the center looked like it was filled with wine, but he doubted it'd be served so early. He picked up the decanter and unstopped it. Blood. He glanced at Frog, who smiled far too smugly for Magus' taste.

"Aye, 'tis amazing what pleasant words can bring that threats and jeers cannot."

"You might be surprised," Magus answered, finishing the decanter. He set it down, about to say something, when they heard a knock on the door.

At the same time, he held one hand up, ready to cast a fire spell, while Frog put one hand on his sword. There was no way of knowing if the king had decided to get rid of the two supposed mystics under his roof and neither was willing to take any chances.

Lucca didn't notice them and opened the door wide. A glint of light reflected off Robo's hand as he waved a greeting, and she hugged him in return. "Robo, I missed you!"

"You were only gone a month," he answered.

"It always feels longer there," she said.

While the two exchanged hellos, Magus lowered his hand and glanced over the robot. Despite the future's radical change, little had changed in Robo. He was polished, his gears ticked and clanked a little quieter, but the original design remained the same. Magus drew back a few paces, standing against the wall as the others greeted the robot. When addressed, he merely nodded once. He had never minded Lucca's toy as much as his other traveling companions.

It was decided that they would accompany Robo downstairs to the archives, confirming Magus' suspicions about a large central mainframe. He followed after them, bending and picking up Alfador before he'd gone very far. The halls were now choked with courtiers and guards, and he had no reason to trust any of them. In fact, as they came to the main floor and headed towards the stairs that would take them to the archives, he noticed the guards following behind them in pairs, moving quietly as if he might not notice them. Fools.

As Robo led them around a corner, Magus sped up just enough to move out of sight for a split second. He vanished as they came after, and when he reappeared, he found himself in a dark corridor not far from the main. He looked around slowly. After using hidden passages in his own castle, especially the corridor hiding his most powerful weapons and armor, he instinctively sensed halls most royalty thought were undetectable. No doubt this one was accessed by a secret door he'd bypassed.

"Shall we see what's inside?" he whispered to Alfador. He curled his hand in the air, creating a blue flame to light his way, and walked steadily down the path, ignoring how loud his footfalls sounded on the slick stone. Obviously no one came through often, or at least no one willing to clean. The walls were damp and puddles dotted the floor. But it had to lead somewher or else why keep a passage at all?

Though confined in the narrow passage, the light now seemed to expand as the passage opened into a large chamber. As damp and murky as the hallway leading up to it, this room contained what he was looking for, a large computer like the one he'd seen in the original future, the bleak wasteland. He set Alfador down and pressed a button, remembering a little of what he'd seen Lucca do with these things. The screen flickered a few times, then hummed steadily and showed him a long menu of key words. He skimmed them, hitting the down arrow past each one, a few words standing out among the rest. Andirath, Ashtear, Ayla, Bedonan, Cassio, Crono, Delax, Glen, Kino...

"It's a royal database," he said softly. "Every member of the royal family. But why is Lucca's name written among them?"

He decided he'd ask her later. No doubt his absence had been noticed by now. If more than a handful of people knew about this room, he wouldn't have much time to look. He selected Cassio and clicked the retrieve button. Another menu came up, listing various religious ceremonies, agrarian accounts, and military campaigns. He selected the military campaigns and faced another menu, this time listing Cassio's achievements and losses on the battlefields. Magus raised an eyebrow at the losses. "So, this is the repository of accurate information, not the cleaned up version I read before."

Numerous campaigns were listed, each with a sublist of battles and skirmishes, and Porre_Mystics sat in the middle. He clicked it and found a single slim paragraph, happily in plain English and not the flowery work the scribes were so fond of then.

Five hundred citizens missing, presumed dead, and several hundred mystics discovered to be alive in the surrounding forest and swamp. A few were discovered stark mad in the houses of humans, and were put to the sword. All others fled and escaped. A scorched earth policy is in place, but the swamp resists burning.

That was all. He checked the date at 30 A.D. and frowned. Lucca's archive held much more information than this. What had happened between her time and now that affected their database so much? He returned to the main menu and found a chronology, but instead of an easily navigable line, he found a confusing jumble of keywords linked through time. He decided to start at the year 2300 A.D., guessing the change would happen closer to this time. Less than halfway through he found it, an earthquake that originated in the ocean, pushing up a long submerged coliseum, and a sudden surge in the mystic population. He clicked on it and blinked. Aside from the year, 2100 A.D., the entire text read "no information available." He clicked ahead. The next block of information dated a full three years after the earthquake, a mere notice that the castle had been rebuilt. He clicked through the next several stories, but nothing of relevance appeared. Back to the chronology, then, and he skimmed ahead in time, looking for any mention of mystics. Random hunts and slaughters on both sides were listed, and the last one was only twelve years before Robo's time. All the mystics were reportedly slaughtered, but the bottom of the article mentioned something called the Mystic project--

Footsteps echoed from down the passageway. He turned and spotted torchlight coming towards him, and he turned back to the computer. Covering his tracks, he clicked back deliberately to the main menu. They might be able to discover what he'd read, but not until someone examined the logs, and for now he had only to stall them long enough to escape. He had what they'd come for, the year of Flea and Slash's main attempt, and he looked up one more time at the screen to make sure he was back at the list of royal names. He froze, staring near the bottom of the list.

Janus Zeal.

Schala Zeal.

The guards were coming closer but he didn't move. For a moment he stopped breathing. Impossible. The current monarchs had not even known who he was, what the Zealan kingdom was. How could their names be on this list? How could her name be on the list? Ignoring the guards, only yards behind him now, he clicked her name. All he found was a year, 1010 A.D., but it was something at least.

A yell, and someone fired a bolt from their firearm. He recognized the crackling sound of superheated light burning the air as it shot towards him and sidestepped it. He put one arm over Alfador, shielding him with his cape as the cat disappeared to safety, then turned and answered the attack with his own lightning.

The guard who'd shot was flung back into the narrow corridor and into his comrades, a few of whom accidentally shot their own blasters. Their lasers flowed over the damp walls and back over the entire lot of them, dropping them in a smoking pile like gasping fish. Magus spared them no attention, looking for another way out. He found it to his left, more a crevice than a passage, but he ran through it, turning the sharp corners and avoiding the jutting stones left in the walls.

His cape snagged several times and he wasted precious seconds pulling free. Not long after his initial escape, he heard more people after him, and their own tighter clothing gave them an easier time through the crevice. He couldn't turn easily so he risked setting a dark bomb off in front of himself, passing through it before it was fully formed and rushing forward. He was in luck, the corridor turned sharply and opened into a small room. As he stepped clear, the explosion sent bits of shattered stone after him, but the footsteps stopped. It would take them awhile to climb over the fallen and continue the chase.

He turned and studied this new room. Completely subterranean, the only light came from the rows of torches along the walls. His eyes needed no time to adjust and he saw that this was not simply a room, but a circular chamber with large wooden doors spaced evenly along the wall like spokes to a wheel. A long table filled the center of the room, holding a few scattered items that he recognized as similar to tools in Lucca's house, along with a handful of small computers. He walked closer to the table and found immaculately clean scalpels, needles and other medical instruments, as well as a magic tab on a microscope and...he frowned and looked closer. If the smell wasn't enough to identify it, he certainly recognized the remains of the upper body of a goblin.

Its head was gone, though he'd bet the lump beneath the black cloth beside the remains was the head, or at least the brain. The chest had been broken open and the heart taken out, and the intestines were clearly exposed and trailed a bit from where the body had been cut in half. He looked around at the table again. This wasn't the clean slaughter of an army. This was slow, methodical. A stack of notes lay beside the body and he picked them up.

He didn't have time to read much. By the time he'd scanned the first page, more people were coming through the door. Their forced approach through the cramped door gave him an easy target, so without bothering to look where he was aiming, he raised one hand to send a fireball towards them. A loud explosion and a second fireball coming towards him made him turn, and he barely dodged the flame in time.

"The only reason I didn't fry you," Lucca yell, "is 'cause I know you didn't think it was me you were aiming that piddly little fireball at!"

When she came close enough to reach him, he tossed the bundle of notes on the table for her to see. As she picked them up and looked over them, he walked towards the nearest door and, when it wouldn't open, blasted it in. The stench of rotting flesh pushed him away from the door. He put his hand over his mouth and peered inside. Several mystic corpses lay on the floor, as mangled as the one on the table. They looked as if they'd been tossed haphazardly inside, probably for disposal.

"Mystic project," he heard Lucca mumble, and he turned around. She looked up at him with wide eyes.

"They're trying to find out where their magic comes from," she said. "So they're dissecting...pithing...oh my God...they vivisected these ones."

"They'll never find the source," Magus said, turning his back on the small chamber. "It's not inside them."

"This is why there are no mystics around the castle," Lucca said. She looked around the room again. "But why are they doing it here? Underground, in such medieval conditions. It can't be just secrecy, they could hide it in a tower."

"I'd hazard the scientists just cut their specimens up for show to keep the royals off their backs," Magus said, "and being down here lets them hide from the king that much better. Palace bureaucracy, Ashtear. That's all it is."

She looked at him, then at the room he'd opened. The rest of the rooms were probably the same. There were no other sounds beside their own. The notes in her hand started to smoke and the edges caught fire, startling her. She blew them out quickly. One of the computers on the table, a tiny handheld screen with a few buttons along the side, caught her eye and she picked it up.

"I built these things," she said, turning it over. "Robo and I spent a month perfecting them. They sell them in that big mall you ran through..." She stopped talking and dropped it.

It shattered on the floor into a dozen circuit cards and plastic pieces. With a swift motion, she rolled the notes up and tucked them into her shirt. After squaring her glasses on her face, she glanced at him. "We found the date we need. We can leave now. You said mystics should burn when they die?"

He nodded once. "Go on. I'll do it."

"Then I'll meet you in the throne room."

As soon as she had left, the echoes of her flames scaring off guards trying to waylay her, he looked around the room. Good thing he'd taken those ethers, otherwise he'd be running on fumes when this was over. He jumped on top of the table and put out his hands.

Moving his arms in a familiar pattern, he whispered to the darkness around him. Pure magic gathered in the air and floated near him, then spread out in blazing red circle to every corner of the room. A moment later, everything exploded in flames. The room turned orange and black, and the heat made the walls appear to undulate as if underwater. He swept his hand downward and instead of a small flame to light his way, an arc of fire spilled out onto the floor, eating through the doors and into the smaller rooms. The computers melted, the table caught fire. When he was certain that everything was destroyed or well on its way to becoming ashes, he smashed a slab of ice onto the floor and followed it to the entrance. By the time he was over into the narrow crevice, the ice was water quickly turning into steam.

Lucca had left her own casualties on her way upstairs, he saw. Dozens of guards lined the floor from the computer room down through the secret passage. This time he didn't have to transport himself to the other hall since she'd left the door wide open, a well-hidden slab of uneven bricks that swung out easily. Loud voices and gunfire led him straight to the throne room.

That nothing was destroyed surprised him, although he did notice that the draperies were smoking heavily and the thrones had begun to melt. Crono, Marle, Glen and Robo all stood to one side, their wide eyes and indecisive faces telling him they didn't know what Lucca was talking about. He passed them and stood at her shoulder, casting a barrier spell on her in case another soldier tried to get a shot off while she was talking. From the sound of things, she'd been raging for several minutes now.

"--long has this been going on?" she yelled. "Did you think I wouldn't find out eventually?"

The queen glared furiously back, undeterred. "Your accusations are groundless! There aren't any mystics in Guardia--"

"I have the notes right here!" Lucca snapped. "The mystic project, trying to find the secret of magic for yourself. You've probably hunted them down to extinction in this area."

"Lucca Ashtear," the king started, "you have been our honored guest, but you overstep yourself. You hold no authority here. You have no right to criticize our way of life, to force your medieval ideas on us."

"Hypocritical ideas, too," the queen said. "Didn't you kill legions of the pests on your journeys?"

"Only in self-defense," Lucca said. "I never tortured them."

"A rather fine distinction," she said.

Magus held out one hand, lightning crackling over his glove. "Care to experience the difference? You might not think it so fine."

"There's the real reason for your indignation right there," the queen said to Lucca, glaring at Magus. "Your penchant for pet mystics clouds your judgment."

"Would you have cut them apart?" Lucca screamed. The curtains burst into flames, as did the clothes of many guards. The edge of the queen's dress caught fire and she shrieked, kicking at the flames.

Lucca stared at the king, and his robes ignited while his crown melted onto his face. "Would you have vivisected Frog?"

On the sidelines with the Masamune half-out of its sheath, Frog paused . What was vivisection and what did it have to do with him?

Magus frowned. She was worried about the frog?

"I trusted you!" Lucca yelled. She didn't hear the screams of nearly everyone around her. Her rage enveloped her and she turned it outward as flames shot up the walls and out of the room. Only her friends and Magus beside her were untouched.

Wondering why they hadn't stopped her yet, he glanced at Marle and Frog and found them earnestly trying to quash the flames. Frog's water turned to steam before it even touched the fire, and while Marle's ice worked a little better, turning to slush and dampening some of the carpet, Lucca's anger was simply too great.

"I helped you people!" Lucca kept going. "For you to take my work and twist it into that horror I saw--"

"It's not fair that you have this talent and we don't!" the queen said. Her dress was blackened up to the knee. "You're only useful because you have magic! You wouldn't be a genius without it!"

Lucca fell silent, but her gaze didn't waver. At last she noticed the damage she'd caused and the fires still raging out of control. For a moment, Magus thought she might swallow all the fire back down.

"You don't know what genius is," Lucca whispered.

The outer wall turned white hot and exploded into the front garden, taking out two hapless guards. With a sharp turn, Lucca walked out, stepping over the debris as she left. She didn't bother looking if her friends were following. She knew they would.

Civilians, guards, everyone cleared the street as they walked past, unwilling to catch the attention of the girl with sparks in her footsteps. Magus fell in step with her, but there was no need to keep a front line. No one dared stop them. He glanced sideways at her. There was no hint of any emotion besides anger on her face.

"You were worried about the frog?" he asked quietly. "He can take care of himself."

"He's too trusting," Lucca said. "I can just hear him. 'Thou needeth me up on yon table with needles poking into mine brain? Very well, if thou wish it'."

The lack of an indignant grumble meant that Frog hadn't heard her.

At the main gates, they saw that the reason they hadn't met any resistance was that the soldiers had massed near the large stone doors, weapons drawn. Lucca tensed, expecting a long firefight, but a solid block of ice smashed through the gates and sent shards of ice through the air like hail, driving the soldiers back. Lucca looked over her shoulder at Marle, who had cast the spell. The princess' look said that she didn't understand all of what was going on but she trusted her genius enough to follow her blindly. Unable to help a smile, Lucca nodded once at her and turned back to the gates, resuming their walk.

Once they were through and across the bridge, both Magus and Marle turned and sealed the broken entrance with ice, stalling anyone who might try to follow them. As they headed back to the Epoch, Lucca cooled down enough to feel the weight of what she had done, slowing her stride and staring at the ground. After a moment, she turned and gave the notes to Robo, silently walking beside him while he scanned them into his memory bank.

After awhile, he turned towards her. "Mistress Lucca," he said, "I'm sorry. I didn't know what was happening there."

"I know," she said. "You couldn't have. They made sure you wouldn't. Robo, I'm sorry. I think I've ruined any hope of staying in Guardia."

"That is no hardship," Robo said. "Our lab on Choras is our most important and our most secure. What concerns me more is if your next actions in the past will affect this future. Adjusting myself to this era was not difficult, but altering time again will be unpredictable at best."

"I wish I knew," she said. "But when even a bit of jerky can change a whole family for generations, who knows what effect we'll have."

"Maybe one for the better," Robo said. "The deaths of these mystics may not happen."

"Or we may prompt an even bigger massacre," Lucca said. "I don't know, and we can't try to second guess our every decision, or else we'll never act at all."

They walked in silence through the forest until they came to the Epoch. While Frog and Crono uncovered it, Marle watched Lucca and Robo speak a few feet away. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but from the look on her friend's face, they were saying goodbye. Marle glanced at Magus. "Why isn't Robo coming with us?"

"Five seats," he said.

She frowned. "That can't be the only reason."

He crossed his arms and refused to look at her. "The last time she took him out of the time stream, she risked his entire existence. This way she knows he'll be here in some form or another."

"Oh..." Marle watched Lucca throw her arms around Robo one more time, then wipe her eyes and come towards them. Robo stayed behind, watching as they all climbed into the Epoch. Even he was wary of Lucca's machine and stepped back several feet out of blast range as Lucca fired the engines and brought the turbines up to speed. He waved to them as they lifted, rapidly becoming a small dot on the ground before the trees covered him up.

From the front passenger seat, Magus watched Lucca put in the year, 2100 A.D. She noticed his look and tilted her head, and when he nodded, she gave the Epoch the command and sat straight. "Do you think he'll still be here when we're done?" she asked in a whisper.

"Probably," he answered. "We altered the future radically, yet he remained."

"Yeah, but still..."

He glanced at her. She stared forlornly at the controls as she took them around the world, gathering enough speed to break through time. She looked as if she had just consigned her best friend to death. Magus snorted and looked out the window. "And they call me arrogant."

Smoke immediately wafted from the controls as she glared at him, ready to singe his skin. After a couple seconds, though, she half smiled and looked back at the screen. The smoke vanished. With a flick of her wrist she sent them hurtling through the time stream, and as they flew between eras, she glanced at him. "Thanks."

TBC...