The Artifact

By Moonraker One

 

PROLOGUE

 

                “I am forever in your debt for rescuing my wife, Leene,” exclaimed the King of Guardia, whose worst nightmare had been settled in the best possible way. He could not thank whatever god ruled from Heaven for delivering the punk-haired teenager to his step, for the unlikeliest of heroes came through in the clutch where soldiers failed. “However can we repay you?”

                With a broad smile on his face, Crono replied, “Don’t worry about it, sire. I’m just glad this whole ordeal’s over with.” A truer statement he couldn’t have said. Despite the fact that rescuing Queen Leene of the middle ages and Princess Nadia of the present being the most excitement he’d had in quite a long time, he didn’t like very much of it. Now, the trio had been gathered and were prepared to return to the present.

                “I…I failed you,” Frog said to the royalty he served. What got to him was that he didn’t predict the enemy’s movements and actions in regards to the queen. Turning his back to them, he solemnly headed towards the exit. Crono, however, stopped him halfway down the stairs. Unfortunately, his words would not get through to the amphibian knight. He turned to his temporary comrade in arms. “Thou art a good swordsman and kind of heart, but I am a failure.” Marle moved in front of Lucca to see who was talking, and shrieked when her eyes met the biggest frog she’d ever seen. Frog ignored her frightened cry. “Your resemblance to the queen is uncanny.” Quietly, he strolled away.

                Lucca couldn’t help but smile as she lowered her head out of respect. “Froggy,” she whispered, “you weren’t such a bad guy.” Pressed for time, the heroes left the castle.

                The clear grass plains came after the semi-thick Guardia forest, creating a noticeable feeling of nostalgia from the trio of Marle, Lucca and Crono as they ambled on towards the hill. It didn’t take too much in the area of struggling against enemies in order to make it to the point where they arrived in this time period, so their trek quickly came to an end when they arrived at the gate.

 

CHAPTER ONE - A Mysterious Pyramid…Surrounded by eyes…

 

                This certain day would mark a special occurrence in Lucca’s life.

                Never before had she gone backwards in time in order to correct a problem. For that matter, never before had she gone backwards in time. Her calm, quiet room awaited her as she entered the door to the house she had lived in since birth. Taban, her father, sat at the table, finishing a project he’d put off for what seemed to be forever. She waved to him as she dashed through the door that led to the stairs to her room. “I’m gonna work on something, and then I’m gonna go see a friend. Okay dad?” her question seemed out of place, at least in Taban’s eyes, for he never worried about where she’d gone in the past. Lucca just happened to be one of the kids that never caused trouble.

                At the moment she moved her hand to open the door, a series of events transpired all at once. In the time it took her to reach for her doorknob, a purple-colored time gate opened up directly over her bed, dropped a small artifact and a piece of paper, then vanished as though it never existed. When she opened her door, it wasn’t the first thing she saw. Ah, my beautiful, disorganized room, she thought. Many an experiment had been conducted here. A sparkle at the corner of her vision grasped her attention, turning it to the bed. The small piece of paper that had been ravaged by time still had one part of it readable; in a language she could read—she believed it to be Arabic—the paper read, “The Artifact can have a powerful effect on time. Even more so than the Chrono Trigger. Do NOT misuse, and try to word wishes carefully.” Chrono Trigger? Wishes? This seemed hard to believe or understand, at least to Lucca. Somehow, though, when she turned the golden-colored pyramid in her hand—its size was remarkably small, enabling it to easily fit within her hand—she noticed that she could understand the symbols on each side. On each side, there was marked a distinct eye, with a different colored gem for the eyeball. She turned it to the side with the blue gem for an eyeball.

                “Person,” a symbol above the eye simply read. Trying hard to think of what it meant began to give her a tickle of a headache.  From her history books, she remembered the wizard, four hundred years prior that waged war on Guardia. It was from that and from talking to natives of the time that she knew of his existence. However, she found she could not place his name. The pyramid seemed to pick up on her trying to think of the wizard’s identity. Magus, it placed as a thought in her mind.

                “That’s right!” she quietly announced. “Magus!” A brilliant flash of light emitted from the very tip of the pyramid, lasting only a second in duration but bright enough to momentarily blind her. Exactly what had been different she could not tell, even when her vision returned. A sound from downstairs came to her ears; her father, wishing to borrow a wrench from her that she’d used, knocked on her room door and eagerly pushed it open.

                “Lucca, could you let me borr…AH!” His unexpected outburst caused her to blink a moment. Her appearance hadn’t changed from the morning, had it? He gathered his breath and pointed in her direction. “Lu…Lucca? Have you…taken an interest in…horror movies?” The question did not make right sense to her. Then, almost by accident, she looked at the image of herself in the mirror. And her facial expression instantly changed to match her father’s. My…my look changed! Was it really the artifact? The way she looked had drastically changed. Her outfit had changed into a dark-colored, caped outfit she didn’t have before. The tone of her skin had now become as white as a sheet of unlined paper, and her ears came up to a point, making them look quite elfish.  Her hair, once short length, now hung beneath her shoulders and had a navy shade of blue for a color. While her facial features and the physical structure of her body otherwise remained the same as her usual self, it provided for a very unique outward appearance nonetheless. She did not know precisely if Magus looked similar to the way she did now, but if he did, she looked like it. Much to her delight, her thoughts as well as most of her wants remained her own, save for the addition of much knowledge of magic use. “How’d you change your look so quickly?!” she tried to think of a way to answer his question, and landed on one option.

                The truth.

                She reached over to her bed and took the pyramid in her hand once again, and tossed it to her father. “This thing did it,” she explained. Inspecting it gave him even more confusion than he initially started with. The symbols were in a language far too ancient to be read, yet he could understand them as if they were speaking to him. Did some ancient culture create a language that anyone could understand no matter what? Such questions didn’t matter to him as he turned it to a side that had a pink gem for the eye’s iris. Above the eye, the symbol read, “Object” or “Item.” He could think of only one object. Refined Coronite, he thought. The very tip of the pyramid flashed a brilliant light for only an instant. He noticed on Lucca’s dresser next to him, lie a four kilogram chunk of Coronite crystal. The mere sight of such a rarity almost caused his eyes to glaze over as he ogled at it. He put down the artifact and took the crystal in his hand. From his prior knowledge, the Earth ran out of the stuff close to fourteen thousand years ago. It had been hugely harvested by extremely primitive civilizations that didn’t have efficient ways of using its power, and inevitably it got used up far too quickly. Later cultures had the technology to use it far more effectively, but had almost none to work with. From knowledge of the mineral, Taban knew a small portion of the crystal he had could power all the kingdoms of Earth for at least a few dozen months. This provided him with another challenge.

                “Uh, Lucca?” he said. She rolled her eyes, for she knew what he was going to say next. “If you’re not into any bad stuff, I don’t really care if you change your looks a little. I have a project to work on, so please don’t bother me.” She took the small pyramid off the floor where he’d dropped it, and held it in her hands. Scientifically, she figured if it did a few things, perhaps she could manipulate it to do more. She turned it to the side for “Person.”

                “Okay, artifact?” she questioned the object, not sure if it would do anything. “Now, for a person, I’m going to say Crono. Don’t make me look like Crono, or give me his abilities, TAKE ME TO Crono. Understand?” It did not respond, just as she anticipated. “Right-y then.” Closing her eyes seemed to be the best possible motive, so she did it. Then, opening them, she looked directly into the blue gem and whispered, “Crono.” All at once, the room spun around while she maintained a motionless position,  it carefully encircling around her like a merry-go-round. The instant before it stopped at a full hundred-eighty degree turn, the appearance of her room had drastically been altered, or as she otherwise suspected, she’d been teleported to his location. Instead of being in either his room or Castle Guardia, she stood at the doorway to a dungeon. She could see her punk-haired friend standing on the inside of the first cell, with two guards watching to make sure he didn’t escape. The two guards, both ugly and decrepit as hell, turned in her direction.

                “Is that the supervisor?” inquired one.

                “Naw,” answered the other, spitting on the floor disgustingly. “Just some goth chick.” This warranted laughter from the other.

                “Ain’t it a bit early for Halloween, dear?” Although she pointed at the guard with intent to merely say her peace, a bolt of lightning came out and hurled the man against the far back wall, leaving quite an impression. The other guard hastily drew his sword and charged her, but using her magic, she thrust him against the other cell and ultimately, hurling him against the wall next to his partner. A quick press of the switch next to the cell opened the bars.

                “What did you do to your hair and skin, Lucca?” he asked, then hastily ignored it at the sound of more soldiers approaching. “Never mind; explain later. We gotta get the hell out of here.” The sound of nearing soldiers caused the two of them to take up running and not to slow down for anything. Crono looked momentarily at the object in Lucca’s immediate grasp, not knowing whether or not it was a new invention of hers, a discovery, or if she simply had it given to her by her father. The fact that the very tip of it was glowing seemed to signal to him what he already knew; there was a problem.

                “You wanna know what this is?” inquired Lucca, not slowing up as they raced past two shielded soldiers in their mad dash to escape. “I wish I knew. Just…materialized on top of my bed.” The main entrance to the dungeon zoomed by in a hurry as they left the supervisor in a cloud of dust before he could see what went by him. He had buried himself in reading the document on his desk to see them anyway. Cold air met them as they whooshed past the door, quickly headed towards the sight of the very next problem; a large tank in the shape of a dragon rumbled out an opposing door. Staring at the newest foe in his path, Crono drew his sword. He’d have to fight, but also he had to remain careful due to the narrow path he currently stood on. One false move and he’d plummet quite a bit to his death.

                “Go, Dragon Tank!” shouted the chancellor as he jumped up and down like a madman. “Go forth and crush those rebels!” Crono barely dodged an attack from the tank as he kept his sword at striking length. Lashing out at the vehicle, his sword managed only to be turned away at the surface. Right before he could land on his feet, a sharp movement of the tank’s head slammed against his abdomen and threatened to hurl him off the edge. Fortunately for him, Lucca was there to grab him. Crono noticed, almost as an afterthought, a slight indentation that was barely visible on the head of the tank. Clutching his blade tightly, he leaped into the air and with a shout, brought it down to hit the indentation carefully in the middle. The force of the swing happened to be enough to cleave the head in two. Lucca, taking advantage of the situation, summoned a field of dark energy, and ensnared the tank in its torrent fury. Moving the field with her mind, she lifted the tank off of the walkway, then let it drop a thousand feet or so to shatter into a thousand pieces on the ground. There stood in their path at least a few dozen soldiers, but Lucca was able to push them aside with her dark power.

                “There they are! Don’t let them escape!” the soldiers’ cries as the duo fled from the castle did not distract them from running. Carefully, the soldiers attempted to surround Crono and Lucca, and the girl prepared to send them flying with a  surge of lightning.

                “Stop this at once!” their attention turned to Marle, who strolled down the stairs. The king, a man who seemed to care quite more about his kingdom than his daughter, ambled down the stairs shortly after, to dispute his daughter’s command.

                “Nadia!” he cried. “You’re supposed to act like a princess! These hoodlums are a threat to the kingdom and deserve to be punished!” Flabbergasted at his stubbornness, Marle turned to her father.

                “But father! They’re my friends!”

                “Friends?! Don’t be ridiculous! Guards, get them at once!”

                Seeing an opening in between two guards, Lucca and Crono burst forth, pushing soldiers out of the way as they dashed out into the forest. Marle hastily left in pursuit, not wanting to stick around. Once the three of them were out into the apparent safety of the forest, the soldiers ran quickly into the area and formed a human wall, blocking their path. This action left the now-trio with only one direction; towards a dead end. With an enclosed field of trees quickly approaching, their options seemed to run out. A disturbance in the corner of Marle’s vision caught her attention. The blue, swirling mass of time disturbance could only be one thing: a gate. In good time too; the soldiers surrounded the exit of the small enclosing.

                “Now, there’s nowhere to go,” reminded the chancellor. “Guards!” Seeing one guard pounce in her direction, Lucca quickly pulled out the gate key and touched it to the edge of the gate, opening the portal to large enough for people to enter. Crono and Marle leaped into the time gate, and Lucca proceeded as well, except that a soldier latched onto her left foot the instant she entered the portal. Thus, the trio of time travelers had an unfortunate guest.

                “What is this?!” screeched the guard, accidentally taken into the portal with the other three. “Are we dead?!” Lucca turned to him.

                “No, you moron!” she shouted. “This’s the time stream! We’re going through time!” Shortly after speaking, a black hole in the stream opened up, and they were pushed in. They appeared high above what looked to be the ground, and before they could even shout, they were plummeting rapidly. The soft landing caught the better of their attention. “Wh…where are we?!” Lucca’s question rang through the other three’s minds as well. They stood in a platform that rested on a pillar that extended downward into infinity, with black emptiness surrounding them. Three distinct pillars of light streaked out from the ground, and a walkway led down to a main platform. They strolled down the path and saw a man, leaning against a pole, fast asleep. Marle reached up and pulled gently on his overcoat, startling him slightly.

                “Ah, more guests!” he cheerfully announced. The man noticed the artifact in Lucca’s hands, and his cheery expression drastically changed to a serious one. “Young lady! Do you realize what that is?!” She looked questioningly at the pyramid in her grasp.

                “This…just seemed to materialize on my bed,” she told him. “It seems to have a mysterious power.”

                “Before I explain the Artifact,” he said, “let me explain where you are. This is the End of Time. All time periods connect here, and you arrived here because you traveled here in a group of four. You may visit your friends whenever you wish! But never can you travel time in a group larger than three. One must stay.” This didn’t please the unfortunate guard.

                “Bull crap!” he announced, backing away from the man. “I’m not staying anywhere!” Slowly he backed away from four pairs of eyes watching him. He didn’t know how the hell he got dragged into this conundrum, but he knew he was going to think of a way out. There seemed only to be one problem; he did not see he was backing towards a certain bucket.

                “NO! DON’T FALL IN…” The old man shouted, hoping to get the guard to notice he was dangerously close to the bucket, but it was too late. Before he even realized it, the guard tripped and fell backwards into a time portal emanating from the bucket in the corner. “…the bucket… Oh no. He‘s probably dead now.”

                “What do you mean?” inquired Marle.

                “In 1999, a creature named Lavos burst from the ground after millions of years of resting beneath the Earth, draining the planet’s energy. In a single devastating incident, it annihilated every government, every city, on Earth. Only a few humans survived the massive onslaught. That bucket leads to the very moment before it escaped from the ground.”

                Hoping to change the subject, Lucca lifted her artifact to show the old man. He took it in his hand, and examined it carefully. “This thing,” he explained, “was created at the same time as the universe itself, at the Beginning of Time. The Entity, the being that died creating the universe, fashioned this as a way of finding his replacement as ruler of time and space. However, two major components, which even I haven’t seen, were crucial to its full power and have been lost to time. Find them and supposedly, you become a god.” Crono, noting the artifact’s power, took it in his hand. Of the four sides on the pyramid, two of them had become known. The side of “Person” enabled one to give commands relating to people. The side of “Item” or “Object” enabled one to give commands relating to physical items. The third side, as he saw, had a symbol directly above a eye that had an orange gem for an iris. According to Lucca, the symbol read, “Place” and the very last symbol on the fourth side read, “Idea.”

                Lucca thought it rather strange, then it hit her. “Wait a minute!” she shouted. “Person, Place, Thing, Idea! Four aspects of a noun!”

                “I know,” concurred the spiky haired warrior, “but why?” He looked on the bottom of the pyramid, and to his surprise, it had a symbol and an eye as well. But unfortunately, the gem for the iris had long since been lost. The symbol read, “Action.”

                “Nouns and verbs,” realized Marle. “The entire universe is composed of nouns and verbs! People who live, places they go, things they gather, ideas they get, actions they do!”

                “Brilliant,” the old man acknowledged. “Whomever created this must be a wise individual indeed.” The three remaining time journeyers looked at each other, then the artifact carried by Lucca. Crono seemed also to notice a rather unique symbol on the face of the tiny pyramid for “place.” next to the archaic symbol, a separate one read, “time.” A realization hit him.

                “Hey guys!” he cried. “You see this?” Eagerly he pointed to the symbol. Lucca and Marle gazed at the symbol, and saw what he saw. Perhaps, they wondered, it would take you to any place at any time. Figuring out Crono’s plan, they grabbed his left and right arm, respectively. Crono closed his eyes, pictured his house, and said, “My house, the moment after we went into the portal that brought us here.” Just like when the genius of the group had saved Crono mere minutes prior, they stood still as statues while their surroundings whirled around like a top, changing to the immediate outside of his home when a 180 degree turn completed. However, many things looked to be different. For one, no longer was his house the clean, organized wood building it had once been. It stood nearly the same size, however it was a glass-and-metal covered dome. Secondly, outside the house and all over the village, robots rolled back and forth, searching for any who violated the laws. A small one with a rather unruly laser stopped, faced the three, and began to beep uncontrollably.

                “*beep* Tell me at once why you’re not in your house-dome! *beep*” it demanded.

                “Uh, out for a stroll?” Marle’s confused tone almost threw off the robot, but it didn’t. Instead, the tiny droid beeped twice, turned its head around, and rolled on.

                “*beep* Acceptable. Proceed. If you wish to speak with Lord Magus, he is resting and is not seeing visitors. *beep*” Marle and Crono looked at each other.

                “Lord Magus?” they inquired in unison. Lucca gasped. “What’s wrong, Lucca?”

                “I…I know that name!” she yelled. Indeed, perhaps this was why the artifact’s power over time warranted careful wording of wishes. Then again, she didn’t ask SPECIFICALLY for Magus’s appearance or power. “When I took the pyramid, I was just looking at the side for person, and I accidentally said, ‘Magus,’ and it made me look kinda like him and gave me his knowledge of magic in combination with my science. I guess at the same time, four hundred years ago, it made him kinda look like me and gave him my knowledge of science in combination with his magic, and he used the two to conquer the world!”

                “But,” argued Marle, “you still kinda look like yourself…and don’t you still know all you used to know about science?”

                “That’s the bizarre part. I DO still have my facial features and my knowledge, but I know his magic. Freaky.”

                “We gotta change history,” announced Crono. “If he did what you said he did, we have to do like we did when I saved Marle.” Marle, having an idea, took the artifact from her scientist friend’s grasp. She smiled and closed her eyes.

                “Artifact,” Marle carefully whispered, “take Lucca to the End of Time to practice her magic, then bring her back to this very moment in time when she’s done.” No sooner did Marle finish repeating her statement to the tiny gold pyramid, than did the Magus-like girl spin violently around, complete a full three-sixty, and stop. Lucca collected her bearings and faced the two. Although she knew it to be a moment’s ordeal for them, quite a long time had passed since she last saw them.

                “Wow,” she merely resonated.

                “Well?”

                “Well,” iterated Lucca, “I know it was an instant for you two. But, since you don’t age at the End of Time, due to the fact that time stops there, I got forty thousand years’ worth of training from Spekkio!”

                “Spekkio?”

                “You know, the door behind the old man? Spekkio’s in there. He’s the God of War. Oh, and did I mention? I got to see a lot of famous time travelers!” It was such an incredible journey for Lucca, that in the few moments of returning, there was no way she could describe all the wonders of magic she learned. She’d used the time guru’s looking glass, and through it she was able to see wondrous things from all over time. She learned how to manipulate the pillars of light to go anywhere—not just where they were supposed to take you—and thus undid a terrible memory of her past. The guru did not allow her, unfortunately in her mind, to see anything regarding her friends’ lives while she was gone. Perhaps it was for her own good, or their own good, but other than that, she had nothing bad to say about it. It was a wonderful experience.

                Crono took the artifact in his hand, and looked at the side for place. Closing his eyes, he uttered, “Now, artifact, take me and Marle to the end of time to practice our abilities, and bring us back to this very moment when we’re done.” Lucca watched as her two friends whirled around a full rotation, stopping exactly where they’d been before they left. Somehow, she could see years of experience in their non-aged faces. She now was on equal footing with them in terms of experience.

                “That was amazing,” exclaimed Marle. “I never knew my forte was water magic! What was yours again, Crono?”

                “Lightning,” he explained with a smile. He took into account their strategy and brought to mind the thought of Magus having used Lucca’s scientific knowledge to conquer the world.

                The other two in his presence grabbed onto Crono. He looked at the pyramid in his hand.

                “Artifact,” he calmly stated with fire in his eyes, “take me to Magus, four hundred years ago. Before he took over the Earth.”