Part 3
The queen woke up, feeling groggy. Her head ached, and she couldn't remember where she was. She reached for the comfort of Lavos inside her, and felt...nothing. "Nooo! Where... Where is my love?" she whimpered. Then it all came back to her. Lavos leaving her for her daughter, and then trying to kill her. She drew the only conclusion her befuddled brain would let her - "Schala must have confused him! That girl put a spell on him, I'm sure of it!" Zeal growled and jumped to her feet. "That wicked child will pay!!"
Despite her years of the influence of Lavos, she remembered bits of her old life. In that time, she had overseen the construction of the Under Sea Palace (Black Omen), and she knew everything there was to know about it. She even remembered (by luck) where all of the secret passages were, and where they led.
Zeal began to feel the walls of the area around her. She stopped when she found a tiny replica of her old pendant, and she backed up an kicked it. With a groan, the wall moved away.
"Yes! I Shall have Lavos back, and he will thank me for freeing him!" Zeal ran into the passage, and then stopped. The wall behind her closed, leaving her in almost complete darkness. With a stifled curse, she brought a small ball of witch-fire in front of her, but without Lavos's support, she couldn't sustain it for more than five minutes. Before it disappeared, she got a clear look at her hand.
Zeal's scream echoed along the hallways, filling the ship with an eerie howling echo. Zeal began to shake. Her mind drew a quick and deadly accurate conclusion. "With out Lavos, I'm aging.. and fast enough to catch me up to now, which means in less than and hour without Lavos, I'll be dust!".
The Queen of Zeal broke out into a run, heading towards the deck of the Black Omen. Her skirts, now black from Lavos's bolt, swirled behind her. Her skin sagged against her bones, wrinkling and cracking, while her eyes seemed to shrink into her head. With her pale blue hair streaming behind her, she looked like the angel of death heading for a kill.
Zeal stopped when her foot came in contact with the skull of a dead worker. She smashed it with the heel of her shoe, and picked up the largest shard she could handle. She ran again, the light in the distance much closer and much brighter.
She reached the door and saw her daughter frozen. "Perfect... If I kill her, Lavos will come back to me!" Zeal failed to see the energy flying from her son's fingers, and ran forward with a scream to would rival that of a banshee.
* * *
Schala turned in shock and saw an impossibly old woman sprinting towards her, wrinkled hands clasping some sort of a knife. "Shit!" shouted Lavos, quickly taking over Schala's body. "That Queen will spoil my plans AGAIN!" He took a deep breath and used his famous attack. "Needle Death Rain!!!" shouted the irate parasite.
The Queen froze at the look in her master's eyes. In that second, a needle crashed into her, burrowing into her head and, using momentum, ending at her feet. The impaled queen twitched, and then a clarity came into her eyes. "Lavos...you...bastard...I...think...you're going...to..get...what... you deser ~" she said, and then her body convulsed. With the last bit of strain, she crumpled to dust, leaving only the poison needle where she had been.
Lavos looked at the dust unmoving, then shrugged. "She was a fool anyway." With a wicked grin, he turned around. The gloating smile froze on his face as all of Magus's hatred, pain, and anguish, exploded in his face in the form of a pulsing black beam of energy.
Lavos was knocked to the ground and the smell of burning flesh filled his nose. He stood up, shaking, and had an awful premonition - If he stayed, he would die. "You cannot beat me! This isn't FAIR!" he shrieked.
The party below each took up their position and began their most powerful spells. As each finished, at exactly the same time, their magic combining. A multi-colored blast sped towards Lavos, faster than the eye could follow. Unless, that is, you aren't human.
Lavos jumped out of Schala's body and into a passing bird. He crowed an insult at them and sped away, leaving a groggy Schala to her fate. She looked at the blast, and stood up. "Au revoir, my dear friends..." she whispered.
The bolt hit her, but instead of what everyone expected, Schala exploded into a shower of leaves, dirt, and sticks. A burned piece of leaf landed in Crono's hand, and he sniffed it. It was the same that he had found in the guest room at his castle.
Magus stared in shock as his sister became no more than a pile of plants, and tears dripped unnoticed down his face. "Schala, what happened to you..?" he murmured, not expecting an answer.
"You did." said a familiar voice.
"Schala?" asked Magus, hoping it was she.
The party turned around and saw a small glowing dot behind them.
"I finally understand!" it said.
"Then, please explain it to me..." begged Magus.
"I was trapped in a void after you killed Lavos. There, I was only a soul, not anything remotely solid, like a body. When you called me that night, you were in so much pain that I couldn' t leave you. I used my magic to manipulate the plants around you and I made myself a body. When I entered it, though, I lost all memory of what had gone in."
The group looked at the sphere of light, not understanding completely.
"Oh, Magus, don't cry... Please, I'm not really gone, I'm just waiting for you!"
Magus slumped his shoulders, utterly defeated. "But... Oh, Schala, now I have no hope left. Finding you is what kept me going all of these years, and now I can never ... never..." Magus's voice caught in his throat.
Schala's spirit dimmed, which meant it was feeling awful. Then it brightened. "I can do one thing for you!" it said.
The party looked up.
"I could send you all back in time, to when you were young. You'd have no memory of this, but you could all be happy again!" said Schala.
Marle ran a hand across her cheek. "I could be beautiful again.." She looked at Crono. "And I could fall in love again..."
Crono reached out and held her hand, nodding.
Lucca thought hard, and said "I would have another chance to save my mother from that awful machine! I'll do it."
The rest of the party thought it out, and in the end, they all wanted to go. Schala's spirit enveloped them, and the all felt dizzy for a moment. "Until we meet again!" cried Schala, and they all disappeared.
* * *
"Crono! Crono, wake up! You must have been so excited about the fair that you didn't sleep at all last night. Well, hurry up, you don't want to miss it!"
A small burst of light appeared over Crono's house, and a rather singed bird materialized. It looked around, and, just for a moment, it's eyes glowed red.
The End...for now.