Chapter 10 - Not two ducks, a paraDOX!
I was continually surprised with how peaceful 999 was. Nary a random encounter or monster in sight on our path to Truceburg. It might have been because we eventually intersected the path west out of the city, and traveled along it, or perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we were in the griffon's country, and they dealt with such things a bit more permanently than ponies did.
Whatever the case, I certainly wasn't complaining. Peace gave us time to talk along the road.
"So tell me," Zehan started. "What does a biped, a mechanic, and a golem the likes of which the world has never seen before have in common?"
"A foe," I replied. "A mighty foe that we seek to undo at every possible juncture."
Justice merely nodded, content with my answer. Zehan hummed a bit at the reply he'd gotten before he asked a new question.
"And what sort of foe warrants the three of you going after him, armed as you are? I doubt that my case is in any way relevant."
"You'd be surprised," I quipped, not divulging what I knew as to how this all might interweave. Ponyland had also done things differently to the game so far. I'd not place any major bets on minor details. "Regardless, it doesn't hurt to help others when you can."
"True," Copper nodded. "I'd have remained where I was, hopeless, if it wasn't for you kicking me into gear."
"And I gained two allies out of it, so clearly my line of thinking has value," I said, earning a small chuckle from the mare and the zebra.
"True enough," Zehan finally conceded. "Ah, I doubt we will make Truceburg tonight, though. Shall we make camp once it begins to turn to dusk?"
Looking up saw the sun approaching the west horizon, and I nodded as we neared a bend in the road. "Just off the beaten path, then, so we don't draw too much attention to ourselves and invite looters."
My fleshy companions nodded, while Justice just beeped. One of these days, I hoped to understand that robot.
Setting up camp was easy enough for the four of us, it wasn't too hard to find an adequate clearing in the forest, and a nearby stream would serve for water. The three of us that needed food foraged for it in the forest, running across a few fruit trees and berry bushes nearby. We gorged on our bounty before taking up separate positions around the glade for our slumber.
It was still relatively warm in the griffon kingdom, so I figured I'd be able to sleep as I was and not be too uncomfortable. Plus we had Justice to keep watch.
Imagine my surprise when I woke up to Copper lying next to me. I made a note of it, then gingerly removed myself and headed to the river. We lacked soap, but I still wanted to wash up. And process what had just happened.
By the time I returned to the site of our impromptu camp, Copper and Zehan had also awoken and were stretching in the early morning light. Copper didn't mention what she'd done, so I didn't either. Zehan did raise an eyebrow at seeing where the mare had been, but also held his tongue.
"Well, once you two are ready, we'll keep going on to Truceburg," I said. Zehan nodded and made his way towards the river, where I'd just come from, while Copper just shrugged her combat harness on.
It never hurt to be too careful, after all. Zehan eventually returned from the stream and the four of us resumed our journey.
When we arrived in Truceburg, I could already tell that there was something dreadfully, dreadfully wrong.
It was far too quiet, after all. I didn't see so much as one other being in the area, pony or griffon. The only thing to indicate that we were on a right course was that same set of tracks I'd seen back at the castle.
"I don't like this," Copper hissed. "It reminds me way too much of home."
"What, you get unnatural silences there often?" Zehan quipped as he readied his staff, eyes darting from one house to another.
"Something like that," I said, taking note of one important fact.
All the front doors were ajar, and I couldn't see anyone inside. Something had transformed this town into a ghost town. And done so very quickly. I both did and didn't want to meet whoever had done this.
Did, because it would be a chance to repay whoever did it. And didn't, because they might try whatever they'd done on us. It was a toss up as to which one was winning out at the moment.
Then I saw that the tracks were leading us to the local inn, also known as the one building in town that had its door closed. Motioning towards it with one hand while my other gripped the hilt of my katana, the four of us neared the building. I gingerly reached out with one hand and tapped the door, before pushing on it, forcing it to open wider.
The hinges creaked, but that wasn't the only thing we heard once the door was open. There was a fluttering, like there was something winged inside the room...
Before the four of us were assaulted with flying monkeys. A whole pack of them, screeching and howling and flying around us. And I don't care what anyone from home might have thought about monkeys. Winged flying ones were not cute or cool to watch. Especially when they were trying to go for your eyes.
"Winged monkeys!" Zehan said as he pulled his staff out and beat a few away. "Fiends from so long ago! I know not what they are doing here and now, but show no mercy! They have none for those that are not holding their leash!"
That stirred me into more firm action than just trying to bat them away with my hands. I drew my katana then, and began slicing wildly at the air around me. Pained shrieks erupted from the creatures, and after a minute of my slicing, Copper's flamethrower, and Zehan's staff, the monkeys flew off and let us be.
All Justice had to do was stand there and let them hit him, lucky robot. They stopped soon after realizing he was harder than they were.
"Well," I said, putting my katana back in its sheathe for the moment. "Do you think a flock of monkeys that large could have kidnapped the local princess?"
Zehan nodded as he re-secured his staff. "Properly directed, yes, they very well could carry off a pony or two, or even a griffon. They would merely have to make sure their captive could not fight back, possibly by clinging so that they could not bring their claws or wings to bear..."
"Then this abode contains the missing princess, along with her abductor," Justice commented. "Let us liberate the one and punish the other."
Searching the upper floors of the inn proved fruitless, sadly. It was only when we looked in the basement that we found our quarry.
A zebra mare, a bound griffon, a circle with more than a few runes drawn around it, and a dark sphere with a spark in the center hovering over everything. I didn't know what was happening, but I knew what was likely about to happen, what with a Timegate hanging overhead. The zebra mare turned to us and, I kid you not, tutted. Like we were schoolchildren she was scolding.
"So you're the ones that let loose my monkeys," she said, shaking her head. "Do you have any idea how hard they were to find, much less tame in this day and age?"
"Be on your guard," Zehan said as he drew his staff. "This one is strong in the ways of zebra magic."
"It's no use warning them," the mare said, smiling wickedly. "My plan is nearly complete as it is. With this captive, I can change the world."
I drew my katana then, sending electricity down the blade and causing her eyes to widen. "And who said you were going to get to do that?" I asked. "First and final offer. You let her go, I don't see how many volts it'd take to cause you to lose control of your muscles."
Internally, I really, really didn't want to fight her. I didn't want it to come to blows. I didn't want to kill anyone. So I was slightly relieved when she gulped and nodded, before she backed up and turned to the griffon in the circle.
Those hopes were dashed when she started chanting something, causing the Gate above us to ripple before it slowly started expanding.
"Oh no you don't!" I said, leaping forward and hitting her with the flat of my still-charged sword, causing her to spasm and stop in her intonation. Far too late, though.
With a roar, the Gate expanded even more before it sucked the griffon in, then started to shrink.
"Oh hell no," I said, sheathing my blade and yelling over my shoulder at my companions. "Get close to me! We're only going to get one shot at this!"
Copper and Justice were by my side in an instant, whereas Zehan took a little longer to join our formation. "And what is this?" he asked.
By that point in time, I'd already drawn the Gate Key from my belt and was thrusting it at the shrinking Gate. "We're going after her, whenever she ended up!"
The Gate paused in its retreat, before it accepted the fact that I was trying to open it again. With a howl of wind, the thing consumed the four of us, right after Zehan asked, "Whenever?!"
The world faded around me...
When I next opened my eyes, I was surprised to see that we weren't at the End of Time for this one. I decided to chalk it up to the zebra meddling with the Gate beforehand and gathered up my other allies from around the glade I found us in. Justice, apparently, had the same idea, and walked over to make sure Zehan was okay. I gently roused Copper from her brief spell of unconsciousness, and found the griffon we'd come here to rescue not too far away. It was a good thing indeed that there weren't any other ponies or griffons around, because then I'd have to explain where we all came from. And when.
"Oh, my aching head," Zehan moaned as he stood up. "What...happened? I recall you saying something about...whenever the princess had ended up, but that's crazy..."
"No more crazy than any other day with me," I quipped before I dragged the still bound griffon over to the others. She'd apparently tumbled quite a ways away when she landed, and wasn't too happy I wasn't cutting her loose. If her struggles were any indication, that is.
"Hey!" I said, looking the lion-bird-hybrid in the eyes. She returned my look with a glare that would kill, if looks could. "I'm not letting you go just yet. For all I know, once I do, you'll run off and get in trouble right away. I'd rather you hear this explanation first, before I untie anything of yours. You're in strange territory, miss, and I'd prefer it if you stay put for the talking."
After a few more seconds of glaring, she sighed and rolled her eyes. Figuring that was about as much as I was gonna get out of her, at least until I untied her beak, I decided to roll with it and turned to Zehan. "Okay, so the others already know, so you're the only one that needs to be brought up to speed." I paused for a moment before continuing. "Hi, I'm Crono, I'm a time-traveler. These are my friends from the future, Copper and Justice. And if I had to guess, I'd say we're currently at about, oh, 599 or so. Justice?"
Zehan's jaw went slack as we all turned to the robot, who beeped a few times before nodding. "Records indicate that the truce that Truceburg was named for was not signed until late 599 AD, while the town would be built at 600 AD. That is the latest we could have been transported to."
"This is absolutely crazy," Zehan muttered. "You know how mental this all sounds? A way to travel through and across time itself?"
"Just another day in my life," I said, holding up the Gate Key. "This is the key, and those things," I then pointed upwards, indicating the sphere that hung over us all. "Are the gate. Put the two together and hey presto, we can journey through time. It's a limited form of time travel, but it's still time travel."
"Still crazy," the zebra muttered.
"Oh?" I said, indicating the lack of any buildings around us. "Care to explain just how we lost an entire village without using the phrase 'time-travel' then?"
The zebra opened his mouth a few times, working up a word or two before falling into silence. "Fine," he eventually muttered. "So, what's the plan?"
"The plan," I said, before doing something that was probably very ill-advised.
I took the Gate Key and gave it to Justice, who blinked.
"The plan is, send Justice back through the Gate with the princess here, so that we avoid any paradoxes forming because of her being here. Then we can explore around here, see what's going on. Oh, and Justice?"
"Yes?" the robot asked.
"If that zebra is still moving on the other side of the portal, feel free to paralyze her a little before you let the princess go," I said as I dragged the griffon to be directly below the Gate.
The robot let out a chuckle, an actual chuckle, before nodding. "Understood. I shall make sure this scenario does not repeat itself before releasing the princess."
The robot put one hoof on the bound griffon before waving the other one around in the air, eventually contacting the Gate with the Key. With a roar of wind, the thing grew into existence and swallowed the pair of them up, before shrinking again.
"And now we wait," I said, getting comfy.
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Oooh, a second update fairly quickly. I still recognise actual events from the game, even after you've mixed it up some (a Cathedral-esque runthrough in the 'present day').
Did he just send the freaking key away?
... call me a Murphy zealot but that simply can't end well.
Looking good. This is quite a clever crossover.
Tagging this to read as soon as I have free time. Chrono Trigger will always be one of my favorite games, and the general consensus is that this is awesome too.
So, yeah. Looking forward to it!
6434309
Normally, I would agree with you, but he sent it away with a robot. A very well-armed robot.
He won't have any difficulty in holding on to the key.
6434313
Thank you, I try~
6434319
I have plaaaaans for this story. Very elaborate plans.
Once we get past the starting hurdle of Griffonheim, we should see the fun I'll have in writing this story~
Sweet, Thadius, you are actually taking into account paradoxes, and aren't going exactly to scrip with Chrono Trigger! That is great, I see to often people just running along the original story rails, so lets see where (when) this will take the story, I'm super excited about it, especially since I was a huge fan of your Auric series.
6434408
Yeah, I mean.
I could have done something along the lines of there not being a Gate there, or even the Gate not cooperating, but that just added time and trouble, and it wasn't how 'Crono' would have done things.
Plus I would really rather not drag alternative universes into this, one where she causes a grandfather paradox, and one where she didn't.
Much simpler to just stop this right now.
You know, there are worse ways to deal with crazy Zehan. Accepting that it just might be true is actually fairly mature. Then again, welcome to time travel, paradoxes are now your bread and butter. And your jam. And everything else you care to eat.
6434814 But wacky sitcom shenanigans!
Ahh, I kid, that's the way to go. ^_~
6434814 I would have been disappointed if you had stuck strictly to the Chrono Trigger story, great though it may be.
On the other hand, my understanding of the Chrono-Trigger time travel is explicitly linear through the same timeline, with the time-travellers only experiencing the effects of any significant changes once they revert to their normal time: IE, the bonus endings that you can unlock by defeating Lavos at certain points with a New Game+.
So if they went back in time and planted a seed, and travelled forward, there might be a tree there. Pick an apple from it, go back in time and remove the seed, and the apple would vanish once they return to the present.
Still, I can't weigh in on the story until I read it. So I'll shut up now and get to reading.
6435722
I like to think of it in simpler terms.
There normally would be alternative universes, branching off of the main one to help deal with any paradoxes you create.
Normally.
But because Lavos is straddling the time-stream, it's stopping alternative worlds from branching off because of its sheer presence on the time-stream.
So paradoxes and rewriting history and the present become more pertinent, because he won't let you not affect the main time-line.
6436094 Whatever the reason for it, that's how it works out in the end. Which is still niftier than DBZ's time-travel by multiverse, I always thought.
The story was good stuff, and I'm quite enjoying it.
Plenty of parallels, but it's not an exact cookie cutter copy/paste. Really looking forward to more.