Zeal, 12000 B.C. - The Underwater Palace

    Magus crouches beside the fallen Frog, and whispers into his amphibious ear, "Having fun?" Magus sure was. Frog glares at him coldly, and curses something in his medieval tongue.
    Everyone, Frog, Crono, Ayla, and even his sister, Schala, are slowly being dragged across the whirlpool-energy nexus towards the monstrous spacebeast Lavos.
Upon Lavos' spikey back rides the queen of Zeal, his own mother, laughing maniacally. All except Magus were effected by the blast of gravitational energy Lavos unleashed.
    Schala slides past him, bent double with pain, her eyes screaming for help. It almost drives the Dark Mage to tears.
    He draws his scythe.
    He charges at Lavos, using the only attack he knows can hurt the beast, charging his scythe with all the magics he comprehends. He slashes once, upon reaching the horrible, demon-esque head. The scythe's blade is jammed all the way into Lavos, and energy is unleashed all through the beast, tearing it apart. His mother is thrown to the ground, terrible dark magics of her own creation devouring her, because of her sudden seperation from Lavos.
    Lavos screams a scream that could only be emitted by whatever huge, high pitched vocal cords are within it. It bites at Magus, but he spins aside, his black cloak tearing off in the creature's muzzle.
    He grabs the handle of his scythe.
    It's blade is lodged in the neck of the beast, and he tears at it forcefully, his blue-black raven hair falling over his eyes. Crono rises shakily to his left, and Magus smashes him over with a Dark Bomb before he is hit with a blast of lightning. Magus shrugs off the attack, and Crono falls to the ground, stiff. Marle and Lucca rise somewhere behind him, and he senses their weapons being loaded. Frog and Ayla rise near Crono, and Frog draws that dreaded sword of his. An arrow stabs into Lavos beside Magus, and he knows Marle has taken his side in fighting the alien entity. Robo charges behind him, utilising amazing stealth, and grabs Magus around the chest and arms in a metallic bear hug.
    A single shot is fired, and Lucca gasps in terror. It hits Robo in the back of the head, and massive amounts of electricity are unleashed, smashing through him, then Magus, then into the scythe, then to Lavos, then back into Magus again.
    Magus's entire body's muscles all go tense, and he tears from the robot's grasp. Robo falls to the ground, all in
a heap, a sound like whirring telling of the loss of power.
    Magus glances at Frog, who was charging at him from the left, the red blade Masamune twirling expertly, and sends the amphibian smashing into Ayla, who was also creeping at him. He feels like a god. An arrow strikes him in the shoulder, and he feels the warm blood running down the inside of his dark mail. Nothing else. No pain, he thinks, and tears the feathered arrow out effortlessly. A Wonder Shot hits him in the side, and smashes him into Schala, who was at last shakily rising. She in turn hits the monstrous spiked hulk of Lavos, which has finally gone still. She doesn't get up. Magus gasps in terror, and puts his hand
over his mouth, tears rolling down his face. He is struck in the back, from someone using fists.
    Magus turns, and smashes Ayla across the face with the handle of his scythe, and she is knocked down, but rises quickly, and uses her dinosaur summoning powers on him. He is smashed into Lavos' gaping maw from one sweep of a giant tail, and feels a huge, metallic quill stab into his back. He doesn't care. He raises his mail-covered arms, and Ayla goes screaming across the battle field, and goes still.
    Magus tires of the battle. He has over exerted himself, but can’t tell very well. Schala is still laying there, against Lavos, maybe dead. The same goes for Crono. He doesn't seem to be breathing, and Marle is holding him, crying, and kissing his face. Robo's limbs twirl in circles, and Lucca is upon him, attempting to repair him. The Dark Mage glances at his mother, the Queen. She is standing now, facing Lavos. She looks half dead, most of her face eaten away, and replaced by something dark and hideous. She glances at him, and her eyes narrow with anger. She dissapears in a heat wave that tells of teleportation.
    He looks around himself once again. Frog is now standing beside Ayla, and chivalrously helping her rise to her feet. Marle has risen above Crono's still body, a terrible killing lust etched in her eyes and her face. She holds her crossbow steadily, aimed square at his chest.
    Magus looks deep into her eyes. Crono's dead. He can tell.
    He looks at Lucca. Robo's quit moving, and she is propped against him, crying.
    Magus raises his scythe, and everyone is gone, but he, his sister, and the dreaded Lavos. He walks to Schala, and picks her up. She is still breathing, and he leaves this god-forsaken place for his old home, back in Zeal.

2300 A.D. - Keeper’s Dome

    Belthasar, ancient guru of reason, looks around himself fearfully. His Nu assisstant walks up behind him. “You heard that, too?” he asks the Nu. It nods.
    It had been a sound like thunder, though quieter, more controlled. It hadn’t echoed around the large Dome rooms. The air itself had gone dark for a moment...
     “Well,” Belthasar says, lying through his teeth, “It was obviously nothing. Back to work, old friend. Don’t be slow now! Hup-two, hup-two!”
    He turns stiffly, and slides past the chubby Nu. It watches him with it’s pale eyes for a moment, then waddles after, it’s blue arms dangling lazily, near to the ground.
    Belthasar turns and waits for his assistant to catch up before resealing the door. he knows it was a time portal. He knows that he’s doomed. He smiles bravely, and puts his arm on the chubby creature’s wide shoulder.
    “All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu, my chubby blue friend.” He says, and chuckles. The Nu lets out a deep belly laugh.
    “It’s been nice working with you, B-e-l-t-h-a-s-a-r.” The Nu says. For some reason, he could never pronounce the guru's name right. Belthasar didn't mind.
    “You too, old friend. You too.” He looks at his final creation, the “Wings of Time”. “Wish Gaspar could see me now, eh?” The Nu is silent.
    “Gaspar was my friend, master.”
    “Mine too.” They reach the other end of the long room, and Belthasar begins inputting flight commands at a console. He hears the royal seal shatter, and the door slide aside.
    “Plan B, my friend.” Belthasar whispers. “Keep working. Remember, 65 000 000 B.C., where lavos fell.”
    The Nu nods solemnly. It’s eyes well up with tears. “I will miss you, B-e-l-t-h-a-s-a-r.” It says.
    “Don’t look back. No matter what, don’t look back.” The Guru whispers, his eyes sorrowful.
    Belthasar fondles his white beard. He walks toward a figure standing erect in the shadows.
     “See you in the afterlife, my chubby blue friend.”

Zeal, 12000 B.C. - Royal Temple

    The Dark Mage sits beside his sister unmoving. He looks at her, and watches her breathe. She's going to be fine.
    Magus looks down at himself. No cloak, a gaping wound in his shoulder, and jammed into his back, one of Lavos' teeth. He scowls, and reaches behind him. He tears the long, sharp object out, not caring about all the blood on the bedding, furnishings, and carpet. He looks at it. It's red with blood and gore, so he wipes it clean with a peice of his tattered clothing. It looks quite like Ivory, though with the small pricks of a porcupine's quill. Schala coughs in her sleep beside him, and he decides that she could wake up at any moment. He walks to the indoor bathroom and bandages himself up, but he knows that she has seen most of the wounds inflicted upon him anyway.
    He looks out the window, down, down at the huge, blue, arctic ocean. He sees the Undersea Palace pulsating with power with an eagle's sight, that could only have come from Lavos' amazing energy. Something stirs down there. He can feel it's energy. He stares harder, and sees Masa and Mune running quickly up a long flight of stairs.
    The Dark Mage turns away in disgust, and his sister is propped up in bed, looking at him. "Janus..." she says quietly, "I knew the prophet was you."
    Magus forces a smile, and sits on the bed by her feet. "You look awful." He says, noting her tossled, bloody, blue-black hair, and her bruised face.
    "I had a dream." she says, obviously ignoring his comment. "It took place here. Huge, yellow lightning bolts shot from the earth, and Zeal was torn apart. Almost everyone died. Zeal's magic was broken, and it fell into the water, creating earthquakes and tidal waves which crushed the land. Hardly any survived, and they lost ther magic."
    Magus looks at her. He knows that was what was supposed to happen. But, because of him, things were changed.
    "I know." She says reassuringly.
    "What?"
    "That that was supposed to happen."
    She looks at him, then changes the subject. "So... what happened to you?"
    "I was pulled into a portal like the Gurus."
    She nods. She knows full well what happened to them. They were the only ones who opposed the Queen, and they paid for it.
    "We must change things back, brother." She says suddenly, breaking the silence.
    "But I won't find you..." The Dark Mage objects.
    "And the world will be saved. Think about it. Lavos has planted his spawn. It happened in 65 million B.C. They will be born in the year 1999 A.D. And, without the time gates of Lavos' creation, none shall save the world from them. You will be saving this place, and me, for the cost of an entire world?"
    “I will oppose them.” He says. She laughs.
    “I’m sorry brother, but not even you can live that long.”
    He has Lavos' energy within him. He feels invincible, but he knows that cannot be.
    "But the Time Ship!" He says with a start.
    "The time ship is gone." Schala says sullenly, and Magus realises he must have spoken out loud. "Mother, with all her accursed power, has killed the Guru. So, he never finalizes the Epoch. It was destroyed after mother escaped. All this was done because Lavos is still within her."
    "How do you know so much?" He asks timidly. He thinks she knows far too much.
    "How do you think?” She asks. He remains silent. “I was the one who controlled the Mammon Machine. I was the one who could hear Lavos' thoughts as it lay in sleep. And I was the one to know that it would pass these thoughts to mother, should anything happen to it."
    Magus doesn't know what to do. He thinks to himself, So the world is doomed, and all because of me, all because of my love for my sister, I must destroy her?
    "I have an Idea!" he says. "Lavos' powers are stored within myself and mother, correct?" Schala nods. "So where
is mother?" Schala realises what he means.
    "So you're saying, that if we combined your power with mothers, and then within the mammon machine transfer it to Lavos, everything would be back to normal..."
  They gaze into eachother's eyes.
 
Zeal, 12000 B.C.- The Underwater Palace

 Magus and Schala creep toward the Mammon machine. Magus looks to his left, and there she is, his own beloved sister. She is all that he remembered her to be, strong and compationate.
    There's a small sound to their right, and they both turn. There stands the Queen, her regal gowns torn and dirty, her raven blue-black hair tossled and lifeless. The left side of her face has changed into the very same face of Lavos, and suddenly Magus feels terrified. Would that happen to him?
    The queen walks towards the Mammon machine without seeing them, and Magus leaps after her, catching her by surprise. He lands behind her, and kicks her toward the machine. She spins at him, screaming curses unmentionable, that are warped by her half-alien vocal chords. "So you were the prophet. My very own son, working against me." She screams. Her hands raise from her robes, and Magus feels the life draining from him. Suddenly, Schala appears behind the Queen, and tries to fling her into the machine. Queen Zeal bats her aside like an insect.
    “What? My daughter as well? This anarchy shall not be tolerated!”
    Magus grunts as a wave of nausea passes over him. He can tell he hasn’t got much longer, and then she’ll do the same thing to Schala. A blast of fury blinds him. She can’t hurt Schala!
    He shatters the spell with his burning anger, and the Queen reels back, words in some foreign language pouring from her mouth. Magus doesn’t hesitate. His dark scythe leaps to his grasp, from where it was strapped to his back. He wonders dimly how he did it... he had never mastered telekenesis.
    The scythe flares with white-hot flame.
    He leaps at the queen, bringing the scythe up, his muscles tensing predatorially.
    And then, something strange happens.
    From the drakness behind the queen, two small, elfin figures emerge.
    Masa and Mune.
    “C’mon big brother!” one of them says. He doesn’t know which is which, they look so similar. The “big brother” raises his skinny arms, and Magus, while still in midair, goes flying across the hall, hitting the rear wall of the mammon room. The younger brother raises his arms, and says something in the same language the queen spoke. He now recognises it-- it’s his own native tongue. The queen sounded so different. The queen smashes back and forth into the walls of the long hall, being carried by powerful winds.
    She hits the mammon machine. Hard.
    The Mammon machine shakes, and the Queen dissapears in a blinding flash of light.
    Masa and Mune are gone in a blink, all that’s left being the sword stabbed into the mammon machine.
    Schala rises shakily to her feet.
    "When you get there," She sobs, tears rolling down her face,"Transfer your life force to Crono, and everything shall be set straight."
    Magus walks towards the hulking, fearsome, machine bravely.
    He turns, about to say something to his sister. Her back is turned to him, her hand over her eyes. Her left arm hangs limp, bent where it shouldn’t be. He wants so much to hold her to him, and let her lean on him, but he knows it would just make it harder on them both.
    He walks up to the machine, and flings himself into it.
    Everything dissapears in one huge, burning, blinding, though strangely soothing, flash of light.

Zeal, The Underwater Palace, 12000 B.C.
 
    Everyone, Frog, Robo, Ayla, and even Schala, are slowly being dragged across the whirlpool-energy nexus towards the monstrous space beast Lavos. Upon Lavos' spikey back rides the queen of Zeal, Schala's own mother, laughing maniacally. All except Crono were effected by the blast of gravitational energy Lavos unleashed.
    Crono walks towards Lavos with grim purpose. He is going to save the future now, or die trying.
    Schala slides past him, bent double with pain, her eyes screaming for help. It almost drives the youth to tears. He keeps walking.
    "So, little man," The Queen says merrily, "you've come to try your luck, eh?" She cackles wickedly.
    Crono doesn't answer. He seldom talked.
    He uses all the strength within him for one last, omnipotent spell. He stands there, his arms held high, his hair flowing in a breeze that only he can feel. Schala marvels at how regal he looks. He begins to levitate...