Chrono Trigger Invasions Chapter 24
By Jerm
"Magus, where are you going?" Schala asked as she caught up with the sorcerer.
Magus continued ahead of her, not slowing, "I'm stopping this."
"Alone?" her voice sounded either impressed or mocking.
"Unless you feel you can make a difference as well."
"I don't even know what's going on--Could you at least wait up!"
Magus stopped his movement and stood still as she caught up. When she had reached him, she huffed from the exertion and shook the snow out of her hair, "Who are you?"
Magus was taken aback by the question, but concealed his surprise, "I am Magus. You may also call me the prophet if you will."
"I've learned everything about all of the others. But I haven't learned anything about you. Everyone has a past, but all I know of you is when you were the prophet."
Magus was quiet for a moment, so she continued, "Why did you pose as a prophet in the first place?"
"To destroy Lavos--" Magus began.
"Lavos was gone when you rescued me from the Ocean Palace, there's another reason," Schala turned away for a moment, then looked back at him, "How are you tied with Zeal? What were you before you were swept away from that time to another?"
To this, Magus didn't need to think of an answer, "I was a brat," he said, turning and continuing his trip up the mountain, "And I have returned to fix the mistakes of my past."
Schala didn't realize that he was walking away until he was merely a pale 'ghost' in the swirling snow. She ran after him, trying to find a question that would get a better answer.
"What mistakes?" she asked as she reached him.
Magus continued to stare ahead. He seemed to be ignoring her. But seconds later, he surprised her by answering, "They are my mistakes from my past. I must be the one to repent those mistakes, not you. Leave it be."
Schala didn't let it be, however. She pressed on, "You aren't the only person with a dark past. You know very well I haven't lived a perfect life either. In that one moment when Lavos was summoned, I lost everything. My mother, my brother, and my friends, the gurus. I helped in doing that, that is my mistake. Tell me yours."
Magus ignored her this time, she had struck a nerve. He seemed to plow ahead at a much faster pace now, she had to jog to keep up. Finally, he turned to her, still walking, "I intend to forget my past. This is not helping."
"Sometimes, you have to simply accept your past. Accepting is better than trying to forget," Schala argued, "because you can never forget."
"I have found that out the hard way," Magus whispered to himself, then he raised his voice to reply to her, "I was never one to give up."
After that, Schala did relent in her questions. She walked behind him quietly, pondering what he had said. They continued up the hill, into the snow as the sun dropped behind the mountain slowly.
The light was dimming around them, soon it would be dark.
* * * * *
"Why's it always snowing on this stupid mountain?!" Crono yelled, annoyed at the lack of visibility around him.
"It's not snowing all of the time," Marle corrected, "Only half of the time. The other half, the wind is throwing the snow on the ground around."
"I don't care," Crono continued, "It's annoying."
"Do you think we'll catch up with Magus?" Marle asked, changing the subject.
"I don't care whether we do or not. He left us of his own free will. If he wants to try and stop Cid all alone, that's his problem," Crono shot back, "It divided the group, and I'm not happy."
"So we've noticed," Marle replied.
Crono ignored her, knowing that her sarcasm was well placed.
"I hope he hasn't created a large enough gap between him and us," Glenn said, speaking of Cid, "If we don't get to the peak around the same time he does, this world will fall."
There was silence after that, they plodded on with no sign of Magus or Cid.
* * * * *
Marshall felt the snow all around him, cold and biting. He tried to sit up from his lying position, but there was too much pain. His left leg was broken and both of his arms didn't feel to well either. He has bruises all over his face.
Marshall realized he was lying on his face, and that a pile of snow was on him, covering him. He had been buried under snow. Fearing suffocation, though there was no threat, he pushed himself back up, ignoring the pain. Snow erupted all around him as he went into a sitting position. His legs and arms were shot with pain, but he ignored them.
He looked around him, he was lying on a small pathway on the side of the cliff. He had been lucky to land here, if he had fallen all of the way down, he would have been dead.
He remembered the fall after that thought.
After losing his hold on the cliff's edge, he had plummeted down freely. As a last option, he had flailed out his cloak like a parachute. Of course, he had been much too heavy for something like that, but it had slowed down his fall some.
Then, before he had thought to look down, he had hit something. His legs buckled under the impact and one of them had made a snapping noise. He had fallen over and rolled with the impact, finally stopping. He had fallen unconscious like that, face down.
Now he was here.
He would have to do some serious climbing if he intended to catch up to the others. With a broken leg, that was impossible. With the conditions Death Peak was known for, it was beyond impossible.
Marshall sighed, he had no choice but to try. He started limping down the trail, hoping he would be back on the main trail sooner or later.
Snow continued to fall at a tremendous rate. Moments later, the pit in the snow that had once been home to Marshall's sleeping form was filled again.
Far above the snow, far above the top of the mountain was the quickly hiding sun. As the sky darkened, the famous stars became more clear and seeable.
Of the scores of stars in the sky, two of them had become red.
* * * * *
"Well, that went rather well," Morlis said with Cid's mouth.
"Yeah, we got one. Great," Dalack agreed sarcastically, "Stop again five more times and we'll get them all."
"That won't be necessary," Morlis replied, "We stalled them. This will definitely make them more cautious."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then we'll stop again and kill all of them," Morlis said annoyedly, "Well, I'll stop at least."
"What do you mean? I have no intention of going up to that peak without that time egg."
"You won't go up there," Morlis said, shaking Cid's head, "You're going to check on the large man."
"Why? He's dead."
"That's what you're going to check," Morlis answered, "If he's alive, he'll be weak. You can take him easily. Imagine having control of such a large, intelligent man. And did I mention he knows magic?"
"He's dead," Dalack said, but there seemed a look in his eyes that defied his words, a look of hope.
"That hasn't been determined," Morlis replied.
"Fine, I'll go," Dalack said, trying to sound annoyed, but ending up sounding excited.
* * * * *
"What do the radars show?"
"No change in the meteors, sir," replied the man sitting at the console, his face literally up against the monitor.
"They're just getting closer," the president of GCSE (Guardian Coelition of Space Engineering) said sarcastically.
"We have the military to handle them, sir. There shouldn't be any problem." the man turned briefly from the monitor to address his superior before moving his face back against the screen, studying it intently.
"Then start thinking up problems," the president replied, "If something goes wrong, I want to be ready for it."
The man started to say something, but the president cut him off, "How long until they hit the atmosphere?"
"Two hours until they enter firing range," the man said for the tenth time tonight.
It was now nineteen hundred, the sun had disappeared an hour ago and the stars were perfectly visible in the night sky. Even so, GCSE had half of its telescopes monitoring the meteor shower, recording its every move.
"Then you have two hours to brainstorm," the president said, leaving the room with some last words, "If something goes wrong and nobody in this room anticipated it, you're all fired."
When he was gone, one of the men sitting at the video screen that was monitoring the meteors turned to the man with his face near the radar screen, "Hey, Jim. That'll be easy."
"How so?" Jim asked, turning to Brian.
"Just anticipate that anything will go wrong. We have those things cold now." Brian laughed shortly and turned back to monitoring the swarm.
Jim didn't laugh. If something went wrong, everyone might die. He could die, or his family could die. It was no laughing matter.
His radar continued to beep as it scanned the nearing meteors, but his mind went to personal thoughts.
These could be the last days on Earth, his last days on Earth.
Everyone's last days on Earth.
And because this was such an urgent matter, he followed the president's orders, thinking along every line his mind could muster for the perfect, flawless plan.
.