The Artifact
By Moonraker One

NOTE: Some parts of this chapter (i.e. Flea’s defeat), are not for the kiddies.

CHAPTER TWO – A Gift Undeserved

	Once the room finished spinning around, and slammed to a stop, the three warriors of time looked all around them at the dark, dank surroundings; they were obviously in the front entrance to what had to be a rather large castle or fortress of some variety. The eerie blackness suddenly found itself penetrated by a slightly pudgy, green presence. Two beady pairs of eyes focused on the three warriors as they attempted to gather their bearings.
	“Who are you?!” demanded the rotund figure. Lucca forced her eyes into a squint slightly while she focused on him, his fat form floating in the air. Somehow she knew him; she realized she knew him from Magus’ memories.
	“Why don’t you bugger off!?” she didn’t hesitate to reply. She didn’t care that he was floating high above the ground; she and her friends would not be afraid of Ozzie. “Let us through so we can kick the crap out of your master!” To this, the fat green servant of Magus only laughed.
	“You think you’re so tough because somehow you got my master’s magic. Well, little missy, the clothes and the hair don’t make the skill yours.” With that, Ozzie summoned a small gathering of skeletal demons and sent them charging at the three. Not hesitating for an instant, Crono drew his katana and made a sharp swipe from where he stood; the shockwave of the swing traveled across the dark chamber and neatly blasted all the skeletons in two. Shocked but unfazed, Ozzie put more of his magic than before into the second attempt, summoning this time a veritable choir of skeletal demons with spears charging at the trio. Marle put her hands together and recited an incantation that she’d learned, opening her eyes with a flash of light emitting from them, and out of nowhere two gigantic blocks of ice materialized and flattened the creatures into dusty piles of bones. The green servant floating above the battle scene couldn’t believe it; one of his most infamous spells defeated not once, but twice! This time was it; he channeled every bit of magical power he could, summoning a seemingly endless army of skeletal demons, closing in on the trio from all sides.
	“CRONO!” shouted Marle. “I don’t think my magic can do this! There’s at least a thousand of them!” Crono knew his options weren’t much better; his strongest magic attack would possibly drain all his magical power and leave him defenseless against Magus. Lucca was the only one to seem unfazed. Making several rapid hand signs, she suddenly drew a single index finger outward and thrust it high above her head.
	“LIGHTNING 2!” bellowed Lucca. Bolts of pure electricity shot off of the tip of her finger and surged throughout every inch of the chamber, effectively incinerating all the skeleton creatures at once, barely missing Ozzie as he desperately dodged left and right to avoid the surges. Smoke permeated the room as bones and dropped spears began to shower the floor around her. Crono and Marle couldn’t believe what they’d just seen, but the one most distressed by this change of events had to be Ozzie himself. He’d just used most of his magic trying to stall these three only to see them turned aside as if they were ants.
	“Man,” he whispered to himself. “I can’t believe these wimps’re this powerful!” With that, he did his best to escape, only to see both of his escape routes blocked by a last-minute ice shield courtesy of Marle. Suddenly he found that he was alone against three especially powerful beings of magic. “Crap…gotta think of something…”
	“You’re gonna take us to Magus or ELSE!” Marle instructed him. “Don’t forget; we can barbecue you faster than you can blink!” Just as he was almost surrounded, he did the only thing he knew; encase himself in his nearly impenetrable shield of ice. “Arrgh! Don’t think you’ve gotten away with this just because you sealed yourself up!”
	Lucca threw a fire spell at the ice block, only for it to be turned aside. Trying again, she swung her fist at the shield of ice, but found out only that it caused her hand to hurt. Marle blasted it a few times with her crossbow, but the arrows were almost no match for the ice. Crono took a few swings at the block, and almost broke his sword without even making a single dent. Suddenly, he had a plan. With the tightest possible grip, he focused his mind on Ozzie’s shield of ice while he slowly drew his sword back. His muscles tightened as he let out a loud warrior’s shout and swung his katana with the force of a tornado. Even though he was aiming to crack the ice a bit, Crono didn’t realize his own strength and thus, the shockwave from his sword swipe blasted the entire block of ice in two, Ozzie included.
	“Uh, Crono?” Marle calmly uttered, “I think you killed him.” Two pairs of eyes focused on her, then on the exit. Assuredly, they apprehensively entered the second part of the castle. Unlike the initial entrance, this section of the castle of Magus was teeming with the latest in technology. Robots rolled left and right, beeped and scanned, while a figure stalked down from the far back staircase. This one could easily be judged as a Mystic, for his rather unnerving sword at his side symbolized the fact that he had mastered the art of the blade. Eager to test his might, he drew his rapier and leaped down the tall stair.
	“It is by the will of my master, Lord Magus,” introduced the thing, “that you die here. My name is Slash, and I will now show you why that is my name!” Not a second wasted after introducing himself, the Mystic named Slash pounced in a semi-predictable style at the trio, holding his blade in a straight attack formation. Crono had been the valedictorian of his sword-fighting class during military school, so he perfectly had his opponent’s attack analyzed in his mind in time to move to the side and parry with his own weapon. One of the main lessons he’d learned came in handy at this point; his opponent had a superior weapon, so the best way for victory to remain his own, he’d have to outsmart—and out-parry—Slash. Sure enough, his foe threw another series of predictable swings at him—almost to an avail.
	“You fight quite well for a human,” Slash continued.
	Saying nothing, Crono blocked or dodged the Mystic’s blows with upwards and downwards parries from his blade, waited for the opportune moment, and launched into his own counter attack. Using a stance unique to his particular style, the punk-haired warrior rapidly took ground away from his enemy, inevitably delivering a small cut to Slash’s hand that caused him enough grief to drop his sword. Crono didn’t hesitate to hold his weapon up to his enemy’s throat. “Remind me why I shouldn’t kill you,” he warned.
	“Lord Magus is up through that hallway,” Slash caved in and explained. “You haven’t seen anything ’til you’ve seen what’s in store for you next.” Having heard enough, Crono whacked the Mystic on the forehead with the handle of his katana, knocking him out. Smiling, he dropped his blade, picked up Slash’s weapon, and replaced it into his own sheath. The trio then continued through the doorway—the robots, having been witness to the fight, computed it best if they left the time travelers alone.
	Of the four sections of the fortress, this part obviously had the appearance of a dungeon. The robots of the previous section were here as well, with the possible addition of several new types that had to have been just recently created. Two of the three adventurers had their attentions focused on the exit at the far end, but not Lucca; she kept her vision glued to a bat, whose peculiar pattern of encircling them struck her as bizarre. Neither Crono nor Marle sensed anything unusual other than the obvious, but finally Marle turned to look at her friend.
	“Lucca?” she finally asked, as seemingly countless robots kept their sensors active on the trio. “What’s up with the bat that worries you?” Lucca said nothing, just kept her eyes on the creature. Suddenly, though, she put her hand on Marle’s shoulder, bringing the trio’s brisk walking pace to an abrupt halt. When the bat’s flight slowed to a stop, some suspicion of Lucca’s had been confirmed.
	“Why don’t you show yourself…Flea!” announced the goth-clad time traveler. The bat descended towards the ground, a spiraling column of energy swirling around it, changing its shape rapidly. By the time its feet touched the ground, no longer did it possess the shape of a bat. It had thus become…what looked to be a female magician. “I expected you to be cleverer than that.”
	“Yeah, well,” the magician replied in a sharp tone. “My cleverness doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re going to die.”
	“That woman looks like trouble,” Marle replied. “Do you think we can take her out?”
	Something in Marle’s sentence offended Flea. “W…WOMAN?!” she shrieked, clasping her hands together in baroness style. “I’M A GUY!” Crono flinched to such a degree that he almost dropped his sword.
	“No way!” he shouted. “She…He…has the shape and…ick…I don’t even wanna think about it.”
	“You’ve made me MAD!” Flea screeched, and then magically summoned a rain of spears materializing out of nowhere and coming down in sheet-like patterns upon the three adventurers. Seeing an opportunity, Crono drew back his weapon and began to slash away at the spears, hurling fragments of wood and speartips in every direction. Quickly, he found out that he couldn’t block them all, as a third of one ricocheted off his blade and implanted itself into Marle’s shoulder. She screamed instantly as blood began to drip from her wound.
	“GUYS!” Crono yelled. “There’s too many!”
	“HAHAHAHAHA! That’s what you get for messing with FLEA!” Right before a spear would have gone straight through Lucca’s forehead, a thick blade swung seemingly out of nowhere and cleaved the ball of magical energy in Flea’s grip that allowed for the never-ending rain of spears, causing all remaining to dematerialize. “F…FROG?!”  Quickly searching for something to use as a shield, Flea saw a little bit of fluid dripping from a pipe damaged by a spear, and called upon it to surround him. It seemed to be impenetrable, as Crono swung his blade but the ball of liquid surrounding the magician turned it aside like it was nothing.
	“Frog!” Marle cried. “You came to help us!”
	“Certainly, madam Marle,” he said. “T’was a strange lack of activity arising from Magus’ lair that stirred my suspicions. Came did I to find out what the cause was. I’m glad to see thou here.”
	Suddenly Lucca had an idea. Wait a minute, she thought, taking a smell at a distance of the liquid shield. That smells like…ethyl alcohol! If Magus has my knowledge of science, that’s his fuel source! She correctly recognized the liquid in Flea’s shield as the type of alcohol most often used as fuel. “Crono!” she shouted. “Strike at the pipe that’s feeding his shield with liquid!” Immediately acting without question, Crono took a quick swipe at the pipe and cracked it wide open, spewing Flea with ethanol, just before a fail-safe system kicked in and shut off the pipe.
	“ICK!” Flea uttered. “You’ve soaked me in this smelly stuff!”
	“Goodbye, Flea,” Lucca whispered. Summoning a ball of flame on the palm of her hand, she gave a fastball pitch, with the fireball sailing across the room and striking Flea directly in the chest.
	“aaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” All watched in shock as the gender-confused Magician became a life-sized ball of flame. Fueled by additional spray that had leaked from the pipe before it was shut off, the fire burned until nothing was left of Flea but a tiny pile of ashes. Frog turned to Lucca.
	“Won us this combat, thou did,” he scolded, “but t’was a bit excessive and painful, methinks. Thou didn’t need to make a roast out of ‘im.”
	“Yeah, but imagine what he was planning to do with US,” she reminded him, a thought which seemed to prove her point rather effectively. Quickly after they defeated the three servants, they rapidly headed upwards  toward the main room where hopefully, they’d find a way to defeat Magus. As they went on, the robots behind them began to slowly encircle them. The team did their best to evade, but their maneuvers only brought more robots, until eventually they were surrounded.
	“Team! We need to attack!” Marle cried. Crono smiled, and began to gather lightning on the tip of his finger.
	“Way ahead of you,” he said, and brought his right hand way above his head. In a second, hasty motion, he brought his hand down to the floor, and screamed, “LIGHTNING TWO!” Out of the ground, electric bolts shot, piercing the armor plating of each of the robots, hurtling them against the wall. A second later, lifeless hunks of metal began to shower the ground. Crono smiled at what he saw before him, as piles of demolished robots littered the floor.
	“You’re really good,” a voice cried out from the room ahead as a giant steel door slid open. “I’m really glad you decided to come and play. I could use some help; thanks for destroying those robots.” Thanks? Didn’t they just demolish his only chance of taking over the world?
	“The heck are you talking about?!”
	“Please come in here now!”
	Apprehensively, they all did as requested and entered the room. What they saw was shocking; Magus was there, and his looked like a male version of Lucca’s previous appearance, but he was chained to the wall with a strange device literally sucking the knowledge out of his brain. “You’re here to stop me, aren’t you? You came from the future and you want to prevent me from ever taking control of the world, am I right?”
	“Y…Yeah,” stammered Crono, not sure what to say. He wasn’t expecting the mage-turned-scientist not to be in complete control of his forces. “What’s that?”
	“Lavos,” Magus responded quickly. “Don’t EVER forget that name.” Suddenly, a new evil materialized out of nowhere.
	“DON’T,” it boomed, echoing a deep bass throughout the castle, “EVER FORGET ME!” They couldn’t believe what they saw; a seven foot tall creature with a strange face, flipper-like hands and feet, and what looked to be armor on. Floating on the left and right of it were two mechanical-like orbs suspended in midair. “I’M LAVOS! AT LEAST THAT‘S WHAT ANCIENT CULTURES CALLED ME!” He seemed to be linked spiritually to another living being, one buried deep within the Earth.
	“You…YOU!” All of Lucca’s friends turned to look at her. “LAVOS! You’re DEAD!” With no effort, he raised one of his flipper-like hands and sent her into the far back wall with a small release of energy.
	“I COULD KILL YOU ALL IN A SECOND,” it continued, “BUT I NEED THE STRONGEST ENERGIES TO PERPETUATE MY EVOLUTION!”
	“What the heck’s he talking about?!” stammered Marle. “He’s not making any sense!”
	“He’s part of a living spaceship. His body serves as the soul of it. With it he can travel to any planet and he manipulates that world’s evolution to his own means.”
	“He grows an entire civilization just to gain more power!?” The concept seemed so foreign to her friends. But through Magus’s memories, she knew all about it. However, before another word could be spoken, a second shot from Lavos’s hand sailed across the room. Not having time to think, Lucca threw up into the path of the beam the only object she had: the artifact itself.
	“NOOOO!” Crono shouted. “That’s our only ticket out of here!”
	However, it did not shatter. What happened was completely unexpected. A giant bubble of energy surrounded all of Lucca’s group and beamed them into a time warp.
	“What is this?!” yelped Marle.
	“A time warp,” Crono answered. “I just wish I knew where we are headed.” A distant white light became ever closer, until all they could see was brightness, and then…
	THUMP.
	They got ejected on the other end onto dirt.
	“Kerekos! C’mere! I found some time travelers!” a voice called out. Looking around, Lucca and the gang noticed instantly that one, they weren’t dead, and two, they were on a desert-like terrain. Crono took the golden pyramidal artifact in his hand.
	“Where are we?” he whispered.
	Planet Nidelos, eighty-five billion years prior to your birth, it immediately answered. Its answer was unilaterally heard by all Crono’s friends.
	“Well, what do we have here?” a voice asked. “Humans.” The four looked up, and instantly freaked out. Six presences surrounded them, each of them looking like variations of Lavos, only with different armor and without the floaty things nearby.
	“Humans aren’t allowed on our planet!” the leader of the group called out. “Take them to the prison, until they’re ready to meet the High Lord Nidelos. AND CONFISCATE THAT GOLDEN PYRAMID!” They all wanted to fight, but found themselves outnumbered AND overpowered.
	“Um, guys?” Marle inquired. “Any ideas?!”
	“Yes,” Frog responded. “Catch me whilst I faint.”