The Aftermath Of Mount Woe Chapter 49
The Blackbird
By Nanaki
12,000 B.C.
Glenn, Marle, and now, Ayla, wandered into the commons, which were really just a snow covered forest clearing. Glenn saw that a few Enlightened Ones had survived, and he went to talk to the first one he saw. "How can I survive in this land without my magic?" He complained. Glenn was about to say something, when an Earthbound man broke in.
"You don't need magic to survive. Besides, you're not alone!"
The Enlightened man brightened up. "You're absolutely right! We're alive, and there's always hope."
"The sea of clouds has parted and the blizzard has finally abated." An Earthbound woman observed. "Could the long winter finally be over?" Glenn looked around. Although it was still plenty cold, the sun was shining. A fair portion of the world HAD just been blasted by fire. Perhaps that had been enough to change the climate.
"All rested up?" The elder called to them. Before anyone else could see anything, a rough voice filled the commons.
"Bow, and pay homage to our new liege, King Dalton!" A fireball flew into the middle of the clearing, and Glenn jumped back. Dalton and three of his soldiers arrived on the scene.
"You there! What's wrong?! You're lucky to be alive!" He addressed the crowd. "The old crone and the pesky Gurus are gone. I now rename Zeal, the Kingdom of Dalton!" Then his eyes widened as he spotted Glenn. "YOU! You're alive!? Ah! That vehicle outside must be yours! It's just like the one Belthasar was building..." He paused for a moment. "I've decided you don't deserve such a splendid toy! Henceforth is shall be my personal chariot!"
"Come again, Sir?!" Glenn asked in a steely voice.
"You'll have to come with me! You might start a rebellion or something!" Dalton looked at them wickedly. "And now, as a token of my esteem for you... ..take this!!" He hurled a fireball at Glenn, which the frog easily deflected. "What? Grrrr." He growled angrily. "Ha! How's this?!" He quickly nailed all three of them with three huge fireballs, and they all collapsed. "Mwa, ha, ha! Enjoy a little taste of my true power!"
Glenn awoke in the middle of a sparsely furnished room. "Huh...?"
"Where are we?" Marle rubbed her head.
Ayla's eyes widened in sudden realization. "Weapons! All gone!"
"Our items too...!" Marle cried as she reached for an alternate weapon, only to find none.
"Confound it! The money too!!" His idea of buying weapons from a disloyal soldier went out the window.
"What do we do?..." Marle asked hopelessly.
"Ayla fight! Get all weapons back! Destroy bad man!!" Ayla shouted angrily.
Glenn noticed a ladder leading up out of their room, and he climbed up. His eyes bugged out in surprise as he saw a sea of clouds below them. "We're going up!"
"The sky!" Marle exclaimed. "So we're inside... ..The Blackbird?!"
Glenn didn't think they would survive jumping off the side, so he crawled back down the ladder. Ayla sniffed the air, then ran over to a section of the wall. "Breeze come in here." Glenn ran over, and spotted and air duct. He quickly jumped up, and discovered that they could move fairly freely in the darkness, as well as spy on their enemies. As they were running over the ventilation shafts, Glenn noticed the Epoch through one of them. He peered down to look. "They change Epoch!" Ayla cried.
"Shhhhh..." Glenn told her. Underneath, Dalton was supervising his soldiers.
"Pay close attention to what you're doing!" He yelled at them. "This will be my royal "Airthrone!" The world now belongs to me! Mwa, ha, hahahaha!"
'That evil laugh is getting really old, really fast.' Glenn thought. The trio travelled throughout the rest of the ship, slowly finding all of their possessions. It wasn't easy fighting without any weapons, but luckily, it seemed that all of Dalton's best men had gone down with the Ocean Palace. Soon, they found themselves on the Blackbird's left wing. They raced out and destroyed the gun turrets, and walked further out. Glenn hoped to spot some means of escape from the ship, or at the very least, to shut down the engines and force it to land.
Ayla suddenly sniffed the air and looked around.
"Something cometh!" Glenn too, felt growing unease.
"W,what's going on?" Marle demanded. Then, a huge black portal appeared in front of them. A Golem appeared in it, but something was different about this one. It had a reddish brown armor instead of the normal yellow. Marle and Glenn recognized it as the Golem Boss.
"Chew on this!!" It yelled in a gravelly voice, then began counting down from five. It got to zero, then looked over the edge of the wing. "Um..." Then he started counting from five again, amidst their attacks. He got to zero once more, then stopped again. "Impossible! I'm...s...scared...! I HATE heights!" He roared. Finally, Marle and Ayla nailed him with a Cube Toss, and he jumped into the air and disappeared.
"Ayla don't give up!!" Ayla shouted. Glenn nodded, but did not sheath his sword.
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"Mwa, ha, ha..." Dalton was happy with himself. "It's complete! I've done it! See these beautiful wings! Now THIS is a King's throne. I now name it... The Aero-Dalton Imperial! And THEY'RE gonna be my first victims! Aero-Dalton Imperial, engage!" Dalton pressed the button, then got an unhappy look on his face. "No, no, no, no...! Stop the music!"
"What music?" One of the soldiers demanded.
"He's got a few screws loose, if you know what I mean." The soldier next to him said.
"Ha! There we go!" He looked much more pleased with himself now. "Ready for takeoff!" The bay doors opened, and sunlight streamed inside. "The Aero-Dalton Imperial! We have lift-off, Houston!!"
"Houston?" The soldier asked again. The one next to him just shrugged.
.
Marle was surprised to see the Epoch roaring past underneath the wing. "Look!" She pointed wildly.
"Epoch fly...?" Ayla was surprised too.
"It's flying?!" Glenn couldn't believe his eyes.
"It's not Epoch!" Dalton shouted at them. "It's the Aero-Dalton Imperial! Mwa, ha, haha!! You are excess baggage! Make like the wind and blow outta here...!" He pushed a button on the controls, and yellow laser impacted into the Blackbird wing just in front of Glenn. "Mwa ha! You are like insects to me!"
"Epoch...go...now!" Ayla gestured for them to jump.
"It's all your fault!..." Marle yelled at Dalton. "Crono... Give back Crono!!" With that, she jumped off the wing of the Blackbird as Dalton circled around again, and landed roughly on the wing of the Epoch. She levelled her crossbow at Dalton's head. Dalton gulped. He had felt the fury of a woman scorned once before, and he didn't want to go through it again. With a loud thump, Glenn and Ayla landed on the nose and wing of the craft, respectively.
"You, you...!" He yelled at them. "Take this!!!" Dalton launched his most potent magic at them. But his weasly skills were no match for Marle and Glenn's powerful water magic combos. Ayla's physical skills weren't too shabby either. Dalton used his strongest fire attacks, but soon collapsed under the onslaught. He raised his fist in the air, and a black portal formed behind him. "Go! Golem Boss...???" But no Golem Boss was forthcoming. Instead, the empty portal sucked him inside, to whatever odd zone the Golems inhabited.
"Pant... wheeze..." Marle breathed heavily as she calmed down.
"That groundling thief!" Glenn growled.
"Epoch, okay?" Ayla was concerned. "Epoch...steer okay?"
"Is everything okay?!" Marle asked Glenn. "Quick, check the controls!"
'I don't remember seeing this before...' He thought, pushing a button. A laser shot out of the Epoch and ran all along the Blackbird's left wing. Explosions erupted along the wing, and the plane went into a nose dive, crashing into the ocean.
"Yea! Justice! Dalton got what he deserved!" The people in the Last Village shouted.
"Whoah! That ship can fly!" The elder observed.
"Fantastic!" Glenn smiled. "We are actually in his debt!"
"Epoch in good shape!" Ayla smiled as well. "Epoch... become bird!!"
"Crono..." Marle's thoughts had never strayed far from him.
"That poor lad..." Glenn bowed his head.
"Crono strong! Crono won't die!!" Ayla said, as if that ended the matter for her.
"Crono's gotta be somewhere! I'll find him!!" Marle exclaimed adamantly.
They landed the Epoch near the commons, and walked back into the clearing. The purple cat Marle remembered as Alfador was following a little boy around. She stopped to pet him while Glenn talked to some of the people. He found out that a stranger had come looking for them, and was up at the north cape now. Without another word, Glenn turned and headed up to the cape. He didn't notice anything unusual, until he walked out to the very end. A small glowing object was sitting there. As he peered closer, he saw it was a sort of amulet. Suddenly, he felt someone appearing behind him. He whirled around, and saw no one, then felt it behind him again. He whirled again, and saw Magus standing at the edge of the cape. "So, it's you..." He growled.
"Magus!" All three of them immediately drew their weapons.
Magus ignored the threat. "Behold. Everything's at the bottom of the sea.. Gone is the magical kingdom of Zeal, and all the dreams and ambitions of its people. I once lived there... But I was a different person then." He bowed his head, then explained everything about the accident that had thrown him into he past, and into Ozzie's clutches. He wasn't even sure why he was doing it, he just knew that things couldn't go on like they had been.
"So! Thou art..." Glenn sputtered. "..thou art that filthy urchin!"
Magus remained silent for a moment, then decided to ignore that remark. "Ever since Lavos's time portal stranded me in the Middle Ages... I have waited to even the score. You interrupted me just when I had summoned Lavos to my castle. How ironic that, having been drawn into yet another portal, I would end up in this age. Being from the future, my knowledge of the past enabled me to convince the Queen that I was a mighty oracle. But no history book could have prepared me for what happened here. Unimaginable is the power of Lavos. Anyone who dares to oppose... it... meets certain doom. At this rate, you too, will meet a hideous fate. Just like that poor fool, Crono!"
Glenn suddenly looked a lot more pissed off then he already was. He remained speechless for a moment, then sputtered, "You dare to insult him?!"
"He's history!" Magus began tugging on his glove, unsure of what Glenn would do. "Play with fire and you get burned."
"Magus!! Hold thy tongue!" Glenn practically screamed.
"You wish to fight me?" Magus asked with a dangerous glint in his eye.
It took most of his self control, but Glenn lowered his sword. "No... Vanquishing thee will neither return Crono nor Cyrus." Magus remained silent, and turned his back on them. He really couldn't understand that sort of rationale. Glenn turned and slowly walked the other way.
"Wait." Magus said simply. "I'll come with you."
"Treachery!!" Glenn screamed.
"You know, there just might be a way to bring him back." Magus ignored his rant.
"Nonsense...!?" Glenn was slow to accept it.
"Gaspar, the Guru of Time, knows how to restore lost or misplaced time streams..." He shrugged. Glenn reluctantly used the gate key to send Ayla back, and croaked the indignity when Magus pushed him back and took the lead. Marle put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Let him be a jerk, if he can get Crono back." Glenn simmered, but accepted it as he came to a slow realization. Lavos had made Magus everything he was. All the evil Magus had caused, had been indirectly or directly because of Lavos. Lavos was the true evil here, not Magus.
"Very well." He croaked quietly. "For Crono's sake..."
They walked back out on the snow filled plains, and boarded the Epoch. Almost no sooner had they taken off, then a blue light began to glow from the Ocean, and the water began to ripple.
"What's that?!" Marle pointed. Glenn's eyes widened.
"That's...!" Magus began, but couldn't finish his sentence. Electricity crackled over the water, and a huge structure slowly rose out of the waves. It was Zealian in design, all right, but did not have the same bright colors as every other Zealian structure. It was as if the architect had been in a very bad mood.
"I think they're calling us..." Marle whispered.
"The Ocean Palace hath risen? Surely, it doth beckon us!" Glenn agreed with her.
"...The Undersea Palace?" Magus gave them a funny look. "This is impossible...!" But as he flew closer to it, he wasn't so sure.
"We have other unfinished business..." Marle said as he began to steer toward it.
"I suppose you two couldn't handle it. Very well." Magus turned the Epoch away, then quickly set the dial to the End of Time. Glenn quickly suppressed the urge to bash his head in.
.
"Now THAT was special."
"Quite. I guess it means a hero's true power comes from within." - Masa and Mune
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