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The Wizard and The Genius
Spell 01: Cosplay
As he walked in the territory of the Kingdom of Guardia his ego was quite happy. It didn't come as a surprise that young women turned their heads to look at him but today they did so more often than ever before. Of course they had no idea of who he was, for he was supposed to have died over four hundred years ago or so said the history books.
Regardless of the mood his ego was in, Magus himself was mostly annoyed. He was fine at first but after a little while, the constant stares started to get on his nerves. It had to be those clothes. Lucca had sent him the black leather outfit as a Christmas gift. He had to admit he was quite surprised when he heard the doorbell ring and by the time he answered it, he found nothing but a gift wrapped package.
Lucca was smart, she knew that she had a better chance of having him accept the gift and actually open it if she didn't stick around to personally hand it him. It worked because Magus curiously opened the gift and didn't realize who it was from until he saw the card inside.
The gift itself wasn't bad. The clothes looked cool for lack of better term. Black leather pants, boots, gloves and a long coat to match. There was also a rather big belt. The coat was a bit complicated, at least for him. It took him a moment to figure out that the small belts went in the shape of an X across his chest instead of two straight lines. He was tempted to hang a cape from the silver armor that rested in the shoulders of the coat but decided against it.
You must wonder then, why would he be wearing Lucca's gift in the first place? The answer was in the card. Lucca had dared to challenge him to wear those clothes. She was as aggressive as the written word allowed and declared in more ways than one that he was a coward if he didn't wear them. Normally, Magus would disregard the challenge as unworthy of his time but something about the fire user just pissed him off and he wanted to wear those clothes if only to see her expression when she was proven wrong.
So there he was, strolling across Lenne Square, looking for the purple haired young woman. Lucca just happened to be passing by chatting with Marle, about technical things the princess did not understand. They were searching for Crono, with whom they were supposed to meet, in the crowd of girls that for a reason so far unknown to them had gathered in the square.
"Look!" Marle suddenly squealed when she found the cause of the female gathering.
Lucca stared, eyes wide, jaw slightly dropped. She couldn't believe her plan to make Magus accept the gift had worked, but she was certainly glad it did.
"It's so ironic" Marle commented. "Because he hates the Masamune..."
Magus saw the princess and the inventor and walked towards them ignoring the random girls who tried to make conversation. He seemed rather satisfied by Lucca's expression.
Spell 02: Daughter
She attempted to power up the machine by sending small flames into the power capsule. The glass heated but didn't melt as it was fire resistant, a design made by her grandfather. However the flames proved to be too strong and the machine's internal battery over loaded and blew up.
The girl's father casually walked by on the stairs above and stopped to look at the work of his daughter, the room was a mess. He wasn't surprised really; he was used to the frequent explosions by now.
With a look of determination the girl examined the power capsule. The glass was scratched but not cracked and the mechanisms on the top and bottom were apparently unharmed. The invention itself however was a definite do over.
Once again she continued working apparently oblivious to her father's presence on the stairs but in truth sensing his presence. She collected the parts that were still good from the rubble of her invention, discarded the metal that was too broken or charred to work and collected a few new parts from the many boxes around her. She was then set to continue working.
Hours passed and soon the girl's mother joined her husband watching from the stairs. Finally, the girl had put the machine together once again. This time the charging process would be different. This time she would use electricity.
'Beep!' went the machine.
She smiled victoriously, the charging process into its new internal battery had been successful and it didn't blow up this time. She looked at her parents who were on the stairs. "Come try it!"
As the couple approached she pushed a few buttons indicating for the machine to do its job accordingly to her specifications. The machine then produced two cups of coffee, one of them with a good amount of milk and a little sugar, the other hot black coffee with no sugar or milk, just how her mother and father liked them. It was her aunt that liked to drown her coffee in sugar instead of the other way around. She handed the darker coffee to her father and the other to her mother. "Well?"
"I like it" her mother happily said.
"It's pretty good" her father added.
"And I built it all by myself" the girl proudly declared.
Lucca smiled. "You inherited your father's stubbornness but you also inherited my genius."
Spell 03: Quiet Afternoon
All was silent in Magus' castle. Today was a calm, quiet afternoon and the wizard was experiencing what is known as a 'lazy day'. He sat in a big comfy couch with a small orange book in his hands. He was so focused in his reading that he did not hear the soft foot steps that melted the silence of the castle. Then he felt a presence behind him. He turned his head slowly and came face to face with a purple haired young woman. "Lucca?" He tried to speak in monotone and hide the surprise in his voice not only because she had made it that far without alerting him of her presence, but also because she was there in the first place.
"That's an interesting book" Lucca said. Magus wasn't sure how he should take that comment. She walked around the furniture and sat down next to him on the couch. "Everyone seems to be busy these days," she began to reply to his silent question of why she was there. "Crono and Marle always invite me to tag along but I don't want to be the third wheel. Ayla's always off in the hunting range with Kino and I don't think they're even hunting. I found that Robo now has Atropos too. The future really did improve. Frog... well Frog isn't very social to begin with, then again to be honest neither am I, but he gets a bit gloomy sometimes which adds to my already gloomy mood."
“Did you come here to be cheered up?" Magus asked. The sheer irony of it was too much.
"Well no, I was just bored and I was visiting everyone so I came to see how you were dong," Lucca replied.
"As you can see, I'm doing just fine and f you want to continue doing fine too, you'd best leave right now. I trust you already know where the door is, just leave the same way you came in," Magus informed her.
"The door was locked so I used the window," Lucca replied. She immediately regretted it since it sounded as if she was breaking in or something. But she had no choice; after all, she didn't think Magus would actually open the door if she knocked.
"Then use that same window to get out and stay out," Magus’ temper was rising to a new level. He was close to throwing a little shadow magic at Lucca, oh so close.
"Can I borrow a book?" Lucca asked suddenly and Magus wasn't pleased that she had ignored his warning.
"Don't you have enough books at home, four eyes?" Magus asked in ultimate annoyance.
"Science books yes, but not like the one you're reading" she ignored his comment about her glasses and continued the conversation as if they were two civilized people with a reasonable relation of friendship and no intentions of throwing destructive magic at each other. "Who's the author?"
Ah, the author, that was an irony in itself that Magus would be reading a book written by someone that had so much in common with a certain frog knight yet at the same time was the exact opposite. Different personalities both related to amphibians. "The author's name is written on the cover. If you can't read why would you want to borrow a book?"
"I'm just trying to make conversation like civilized people do," Lucca retorted. "Are you going to let me borrow the book or not?"
"Fine," Magus tossed the orange book into her hands. "Read from the beginning." She gave him an obvious look and started to silently read. "Aloud so I can hear," he added.
Lucca raised an eyebrow. "You think I won't?" She correctly concluded.
"I'm not letting you enjoy that book in private, if you want to read it so badly you'll read it loud enough for me to hear," Magus insisted. Maybe then she'll refuse and leave him alone. Surely she wouldn't...
Lucca cleared her throat and read. "Ming Ling's adventure started when she left her village. It was then that she met that man and her life took an unexpected turn. But a story like this one should be told from the beginning. Let us start with their first meeting on that sunny afternoon."
"Skip head," Magus interrupted.
"But I want to read all of it," Lucca protested.
"You can read it later, just skip to the... interesting part," Magus’ glare was challenging and Lucca did not back down.
She turned the pages and spotted a few words that looked like the beginning of a promising paragraph; then she read. Magus' constant stare brought a pink tint to Lucca’s cheeks or maybe it was the book's contents, she didn't know, but she didn't stop reading. Ming Ling certainly lived an interesting life to say the least.
"You can stop now, read it to yourself," Magus spoke with a hint of frustration in his voice. He could just throw some magic at Lucca to force her to leave his castle but that's not what he wanted. He had always thought that reading Icha Icha Paradise in private was one thing but reading it to someone else was very different. Yet the stubborn genius read quite fluently ignoring the pink tint on her cheeks.
"In that case I'll read it from the beginning," Lucca grinned victoriously.
Time passed slowly as Magus sat there apparently spacing out and Lucca quietly read. Even if he wasn't hearing the novel anymore he knew very well what Jiraiya had written in there. "Leave."
Lucca paused in her reading and looked at Magus. "Huh?"
"Leave," Magus repeated.
"But I'm not done reading," Lucca complained.
"Take the book with you, just make sure to return it when you're done, Ming Ling." Surely calling her by the character's name would be a clear enough hint that if she didn't leave he might start to get ideas.
"Ming Ling is staying right here, and she's going to finish reading," Lucca remained firm.
Magus did not reply. What exactly did she mean by that? An almost irresistible need to recreate Ming Ling's adventures hung in the air.
Spell 04: Celebration Interrupted
"Why won't you tell us?" Marle insisted in that annoyingly cheerful voice of hers, which contrasted terribly with his usual gloomy mood.
"It's not your concern." So far Magus had been trying to place the idea in Marle's head that his age was none of her business. In one ear and out the other, she failed to retain the concept.
"Of course it is! You're our friend!" Marle insisted, and at that moment Frog cleared his throat. "You are!" Marle reaffirmed her point, addressing Magus, but meaning her answer to be directed at Frog.
"Blue hair one friend!" Ayla decided to give Marle a little support, not that he cared too much. But the heroes of time had all been dragged to invade Magus' castle in an unannounced visit with the promise of food, and Ayla had not yet had a single bite since she got there. There was food alright; food brought from Guardia, and it was all beautifully set up on the table. But Marle insisted that they would not eat until the party had officially started, and that could not happen until Magus blew the candles, which would not be possible until they were lit, and they would not be lit until Marle knew how many candles to put on the cake.
"See? We're your friends," Marle gave Magus a big smile, while Lucca battled to keep her amusement hidden.
However, the inventor was unable to hold it in for too long and exploded in a fit of laughter, soon to be joined by Chrono. Ayla didn't get the joke but she laughed as well. Robo beeped, slightly confused, Frog shook his head and Marle didn't realize that the joke was all about watching her annoy Magus.
Hearing Lucca's laugher brought something to Marle's attention, "I get it!" The princess spoke as if she had suddenly been enlightened. "It's okay, we all know you're older than Lucca, but you don't look that old. Besides, age doesn't matter in love, so you shouldn't try to keep it a secret from her!"
Lucca and Magus let out a chorus of "what?" After the little outburst, Magus remained serious and composed. While Lucca became increasingly embarrassed by the curious stares of her comrades and considered assisting Magus in ridding the world of Marle.
"I know you two like each other. Magus didn't go to any of our birthdays but he went to Lucca's and he even brought a present!" At least that was how Marle interpreted it.
"You kept coming over to invite me to birthdays and parties and I kept saying no. You said that you would stop asking if I went to at least one, that's why I agreed," Magus explained.
"I only said that because I knew you would like our parties so much you would want to go to all the next ones. Besides, you still gave Lucca a present." Marle remained firm in her interpretation of the situation.
"It was some stupid shiny stone that I found on the way. I picked it up out of curiosity because it seemed to be charged with energy and I allowed Lucca to keep it because I have no use for such things." Magus was at the end of his rope, it seemed that logic was not Marle's best subject.
"You don't have to make up stories because you're shy. Besides, Lucca really liked the shiny stone. She put it on bracelet." Marle continued trying to force Magus into a corner where he would have to admit the infinite love he had for Lucca, which Marle was certain he did and no one could tell her otherwise.
"This thing absorbs electricity; I wear it so I don't shock myself when experimenting. Then I use the electricity it absorbed to charge batteries. It's useful that's all." Lucca tried to reason with Marle so that she would shut up and stop embarrassing both her and Magus, but it wasn't working.
"Either way, you two like each other and I know it," Marle nodded to herself; there would be no way to convince her to change her mind.
"Ayla want eat!" The war cry of the cave woman silenced the arguments. Marle automatically placed a candle on the cake, Lucca lit it and Magus blew it out, all three actions taking place in a few seconds.
Unknown to most of the party guests, while they enjoyed their meal, Magus glanced at Lucca as if silently asking 'why did you bring them?'
And Lucca replied with her eyes, 'Marle caught me trying to sneak to this time.'
Nothing went past Marle when it came to relationships. After that day, some would see Marle as having too much of an imagination, but she was smarter than she was given credit for.
Spell 05: Not What it Looks Like
Lucca's Point of View
"It's not what it looks like!" Usually when you say this phrase with such insistence, it's about something that's very hard to prove false; and I found myself in that situation where the words flew out of my mouth before my brain could fully process what was going on.
Now the four of us are sitting in the living room in the early night, with me in my pajamas, and my dad dramatically throwing his arms in the air and repeating, "I can't believe it!"
Just as I had went to bed, fully intending to get up inhumanly early the next morning, a gate appeared right above my bed and Magus fell out of it on top of me. I was so surprised I didn't even yell and a good thirty seconds passed before I managed to gasp, "Magus!" Yes, gasp, because he knocked the air right out of me when he fell.
Magus must have been running before he arrived, or more likely, his exhaustion was due to the fatigue of using too much magic. Either way he was out of breath and that did not look good from my mother's point of view, passing by down the hall and peeking into my room from my three inch opened door.
"Oh my goodness!" She pulled the door shut and that's when I blurted out those six little words that no one believed even if it really wasn't what it looked like. But our breaths were loud, the room was dark and it was hard to see what was going on.
Now here we are, sitting in the living room while my father continues his dramatics; waiving frantically like a starving castaway on a desert island would wave to a ship in the distance. "I can't believe this!" Neither can I, dad, neither can I.
Magus' expression is unreadable as usual. I can't tell if he's amused by my family's freak out, nonchalant, or simply angry and annoyed. But this is Magus we're talking about, so I'll go with the last two. The wizard gets up and walks only a mere step before my mother pulls him back by the arm and pushes his shoulders down, causing him to sit again.
"Don't worry dear, my husband won't hurt you." That's a rich one, mom, Magus is annoyed, definitely not afraid. She then pushes up his chin with her fingers, examining his face like one would examine a fruit in the market. "You're so pale," how observant, "don't worry, I'll be a good mother in law to you. Would you like some milk and cookies?" She doesn't wait for a reply before announcing, "I'll go get them."
Dad's arms fall to his sides, his expression revealing disbelief, "she didn't..." oh yes, she did. Mother did just jump to conclusions and offer an evil wizard from the past milk and cookies. Pouting and glaring daggers at Magus, dad headed for the door, "I'm going for a walk; I need some fresh air." I do hope he's only going for a walk and isn't actually going out to round up an angry mob.
"Why are you so quiet?" I look at Magus, waiting for some kind of sarcastic comment that never comes. Instead he points at his throat.
"Poor dear," mother, who had without a doubt been listening long enough to hear my question, proceeds to... well, be all motherly. "Do you have a sore throat? I'll get you something for that." She sets the tray containing two glasses of milk and a plate of cookies on the coffee table and disappears into the kitchen to fetch some kind of home made remedy, which I'm sure will taste sour.
I look at Magus, then at the snack on the table, "help yourself!" I force a smile, but it comes out as sarcasm and I think I saw Magus roll his eyes before he did, in fact, have some cookies and milk. I suppose he figured if he's kind of stuck here for a while, he might as well eat. My eyes gazed upon the notepad and pen left carelessly on that same coffee table, and I immediately picked them up and handed them to Magus.
The wizard finished the cookie he was eating and set his glass of milk down. He took the notepad and pen and wrote the word "antidote."
I blinked and read aloud, "antidote?" Then Magus placed the note pad and pen on the table, clearly showing his intentions to write no more, and kissed me out of the blue; reinforcing the misunderstanding that was already too big to explain.
When the kiss ended, and I'll never admit it was good, mother was staring at us with starry eyes. "Here you go dear," she handed Magus a foul looking tea admitting that, "it's sour but healthy."
That's when I choose to kick myself out of my silent shock and open my big mouth, promptly inserting my foot into it. "C'mon Magus, take it like a man!"
That comment earned me a murderous look from the wizard, which my mother conveniently missed, as he downed the entire contents of the cup in one gulp. His pained expression said it all, but somehow Magus managed to mutter a "thank you ma'am," most likely just to annoy me by playing along, because he has no other reason to be polite than to annoy.
"You're welcome dear," my mother beamed, and you can call me mom," it took every once of willpower in my body not to slap my forehead at that moment.
"It's late, I should be leaving, mom" Magus announced, much to my mother's disappointment. I'm more than certain that he added that last word there to annoy me further.
"Aw, so soon?" As Magus got up, mom locked him in a motherly hug, "you're welcome to come back any time."
Determined to find out what was going on, I threw on a coat and announced, "I'll walk you home," ignoring how odd and backwards it sounded. Mom paid me no mind, I've always been a tomboy, in fact, she was probably glad I found a man who apparently doesn't mind having his supposed girlfriend walk him home. Thus we left the warmth of the house to go into the cold of the night.
"I already explained, I needed an antidote," Magus spoke when we were out of mother's ear shot.
"For what? Did it have anything to do with falling on me?" I inquired.
"I was supposed to emerge in front of your house, not in your room. I finally mastered the ability to call forth red gates, but my aim needs work. As for the antidote, it was for my voice. I accidentally cursed myself during my magical experiments and needed a kiss to recover my voice."
I blinked at Magus' explanation, it made sense somehow, in a strange and twisted way, it made sense. "Why me?"
"Any kiss would have done."
"But why me?"
Magus shakes his head, "no reason, I didn't think about it too much."
"There must be a reason," I insist, no knowing why I'm being so stubborn. Maybe I'm just getting back at him for all the trouble.
Magus doesn't give me a straight answer, "if it was that much of a bad experience, then block it from your memories and get on with your life." He begins to cast a spell to summon a red gate.
"That's not what I meant!" I argue, and unknowingly make myself sink deeper.
"Well then, if you liked it, don't complain." Magus jumps into his red gate.
As he fades away I blush, he smirks, and for the second time that night I blurt out, "it's not what it looks like!"
End of Lucca's POV
Spell 06: Don't Apologize
It only took a small accidental bump to knock the glass down, spilling its contents all over the table. "Crap!" Lucca rushed to pick up her blue prints and soak up the milk with the first available piece of cloth, her sleeves and the end of her shirt, which were no where near as precious as the blueprints.
"Language, language!" Lara shook her head disapprovingly. "Traveling so much has given you the mouth of a sailor."
Lucca finished cleaning and rolled up her sleeves to safely carry the precious blue prints to her room and change into a shirt that wasn't soaked in milk. Now that her mother had woken up from her nap, Lucca couldn't allow herself the liberty of occasionally cursing when her calculations didn't match up on the first try.
Though Lara did have a point, Lucca's vocabulary had been extended thanks to her travels, and she learned a variety of ways to verbally express frustration in many different eras. To cure her daughter of this 'terrible curse' Lara always insisted that she should "apologize."
Sighing hopelessly as she made her way up the stairs, Lucca conceded, "sorry mom, I thought you were still taking a nap."
"No, no, sweetie, even if there's no one there to hear you, you must watch your language!" Lara insisted.
Lucca felt her eye twitch. "Sorry," she repeated, and that finally seemed to satisfy Lara. The genius inventor had lost count of how many times she had said 'sorry' on that day alone.
As heroic and noble as Crono was, and above all as quiet as he was, he did process the ability to speak and a variety of words of frustration to go along with it, even if his voice was seldom used.
Marle was a princess, sure, but that didn't mean her speech lacked her fair share of curses, and she was quite open about using them when she got the chance, since she couldn't express herself so freely within the castle walls.
Robo found no offense in certain words that could sound offensive to others. Though he did not loudly curse or complain when there was an annoying situation at hand, he did express himself rather literally with no need to soften his speech.
Ayla was a cave woman, thus her language wasn't extensive. She often skipped over words, saying only the necessary words to be understood, and sometimes barely understood. However, even if she was far from mastering modern speech, she was a fast learner when it came to updating her prehistoric words of frustration and adding new words to that particular part of her vocabulary.
Magus was a case of his own, possessing a vast variety of insults and curses as harsh as they come. In fact, Lucca was the only one that could keep up with him when he decided that he needed to lose his temper and start cursing everything from his companions, to the ghost of Cyrus, to the planet he stood on along with the parasite within it, and even himself. The only one who remained safe from the wizard's sharp tongue was his beloved sister Schala.
Then there was Frog... Frog scolded everyone who dared to use foul language. He tried to express the proper way to say things, but that didn't stop him from throwing out a few outdated curses himself, mostly directed at Magus. The point was that none of them apologized from their language, even on the occasions when they were scolded by Frog.
Then one fateful day, when the group of time travelers were having one of their random little reunions at Lucca's house, the purple haired young woman was having trouble with a stubborn bolt while maintaining Robo and she let a few curses escape, automatically apologizing afterwards.
"It's okay, you don't need to apologize!" Marle gave her a bright smile.
"Oh right, sorry," Lucca replied.
"You're apologizing for apologizing?" Marle giggled at the irony.
In his little corner Magus rolled his eyes, but in the back of his mind he certainly hoped that Lucca's apologies were not so automatic that she would start saying 'sorry' in the wrong moment. She was quite vocal and not always in a polite way, which wasn't a problem since no one could hear them in his secluded castle in medieval times. But none the less, 'sorry' would be a very odd thing to say if it escaped her during one of those moments.
End?
Disclaimer, I do not own Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, Naruto or Saiyuki. In Spell 01 Magus was cosplaying as Sephiroth. The orange book in Spell 03 is Icha Icha Paradise by Jiraiya and Ming Ling is a character from Kenyu (young Nii)'s story. Spell 04 was written as a birthday gift for Zipis1. Spell 06 was inspired by Zipis1.
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The Wizard and The Genius
Spell 01: Cosplay
As he walked in the territory of the Kingdom of Guardia his ego was quite happy. It didn't come as a surprise that young women turned their heads to look at him but today they did so more often than ever before. Of course they had no idea of who he was, for he was supposed to have died over four hundred years ago or so said the history books.
Regardless of the mood his ego was in, Magus himself was mostly annoyed. He was fine at first but after a little while, the constant stares started to get on his nerves. It had to be those clothes. Lucca had sent him the black leather outfit as a Christmas gift. He had to admit he was quite surprised when he heard the doorbell ring and by the time he answered it, he found nothing but a gift wrapped package.
Lucca was smart, she knew that she had a better chance of having him accept the gift and actually open it if she didn't stick around to personally hand it him. It worked because Magus curiously opened the gift and didn't realize who it was from until he saw the card inside.
The gift itself wasn't bad. The clothes looked cool for lack of better term. Black leather pants, boots, gloves and a long coat to match. There was also a rather big belt. The coat was a bit complicated, at least for him. It took him a moment to figure out that the small belts went in the shape of an X across his chest instead of two straight lines. He was tempted to hang a cape from the silver armor that rested in the shoulders of the coat but decided against it.
You must wonder then, why would he be wearing Lucca's gift in the first place? The answer was in the card. Lucca had dared to challenge him to wear those clothes. She was as aggressive as the written word allowed and declared in more ways than one that he was a coward if he didn't wear them. Normally, Magus would disregard the challenge as unworthy of his time but something about the fire user just pissed him off and he wanted to wear those clothes if only to see her expression when she was proven wrong.
So there he was, strolling across Lenne Square, looking for the purple haired young woman. Lucca just happened to be passing by chatting with Marle, about technical things the princess did not understand. They were searching for Crono, with whom they were supposed to meet, in the crowd of girls that for a reason so far unknown to them had gathered in the square.
"Look!" Marle suddenly squealed when she found the cause of the female gathering.
Lucca stared, eyes wide, jaw slightly dropped. She couldn't believe her plan to make Magus accept the gift had worked, but she was certainly glad it did.
"It's so ironic" Marle commented. "Because he hates the Masamune..."
Magus saw the princess and the inventor and walked towards them ignoring the random girls who tried to make conversation. He seemed rather satisfied by Lucca's expression.
Spell 02: Daughter
She attempted to power up the machine by sending small flames into the power capsule. The glass heated but didn't melt as it was fire resistant, a design made by her grandfather. However the flames proved to be too strong and the machine's internal battery over loaded and blew up.
The girl's father casually walked by on the stairs above and stopped to look at the work of his daughter, the room was a mess. He wasn't surprised really; he was used to the frequent explosions by now.
With a look of determination the girl examined the power capsule. The glass was scratched but not cracked and the mechanisms on the top and bottom were apparently unharmed. The invention itself however was a definite do over.
Once again she continued working apparently oblivious to her father's presence on the stairs but in truth sensing his presence. She collected the parts that were still good from the rubble of her invention, discarded the metal that was too broken or charred to work and collected a few new parts from the many boxes around her. She was then set to continue working.
Hours passed and soon the girl's mother joined her husband watching from the stairs. Finally, the girl had put the machine together once again. This time the charging process would be different. This time she would use electricity.
'Beep!' went the machine.
She smiled victoriously, the charging process into its new internal battery had been successful and it didn't blow up this time. She looked at her parents who were on the stairs. "Come try it!"
As the couple approached she pushed a few buttons indicating for the machine to do its job accordingly to her specifications. The machine then produced two cups of coffee, one of them with a good amount of milk and a little sugar, the other hot black coffee with no sugar or milk, just how her mother and father liked them. It was her aunt that liked to drown her coffee in sugar instead of the other way around. She handed the darker coffee to her father and the other to her mother. "Well?"
"I like it" her mother happily said.
"It's pretty good" her father added.
"And I built it all by myself" the girl proudly declared.
Lucca smiled. "You inherited your father's stubbornness but you also inherited my genius."
Spell 03: Quiet Afternoon
All was silent in Magus' castle. Today was a calm, quiet afternoon and the wizard was experiencing what is known as a 'lazy day'. He sat in a big comfy couch with a small orange book in his hands. He was so focused in his reading that he did not hear the soft foot steps that melted the silence of the castle. Then he felt a presence behind him. He turned his head slowly and came face to face with a purple haired young woman. "Lucca?" He tried to speak in monotone and hide the surprise in his voice not only because she had made it that far without alerting him of her presence, but also because she was there in the first place.
"That's an interesting book" Lucca said. Magus wasn't sure how he should take that comment. She walked around the furniture and sat down next to him on the couch. "Everyone seems to be busy these days," she began to reply to his silent question of why she was there. "Crono and Marle always invite me to tag along but I don't want to be the third wheel. Ayla's always off in the hunting range with Kino and I don't think they're even hunting. I found that Robo now has Atropos too. The future really did improve. Frog... well Frog isn't very social to begin with, then again to be honest neither am I, but he gets a bit gloomy sometimes which adds to my already gloomy mood."
“Did you come here to be cheered up?" Magus asked. The sheer irony of it was too much.
"Well no, I was just bored and I was visiting everyone so I came to see how you were dong," Lucca replied.
"As you can see, I'm doing just fine and f you want to continue doing fine too, you'd best leave right now. I trust you already know where the door is, just leave the same way you came in," Magus informed her.
"The door was locked so I used the window," Lucca replied. She immediately regretted it since it sounded as if she was breaking in or something. But she had no choice; after all, she didn't think Magus would actually open the door if she knocked.
"Then use that same window to get out and stay out," Magus’ temper was rising to a new level. He was close to throwing a little shadow magic at Lucca, oh so close.
"Can I borrow a book?" Lucca asked suddenly and Magus wasn't pleased that she had ignored his warning.
"Don't you have enough books at home, four eyes?" Magus asked in ultimate annoyance.
"Science books yes, but not like the one you're reading" she ignored his comment about her glasses and continued the conversation as if they were two civilized people with a reasonable relation of friendship and no intentions of throwing destructive magic at each other. "Who's the author?"
Ah, the author, that was an irony in itself that Magus would be reading a book written by someone that had so much in common with a certain frog knight yet at the same time was the exact opposite. Different personalities both related to amphibians. "The author's name is written on the cover. If you can't read why would you want to borrow a book?"
"I'm just trying to make conversation like civilized people do," Lucca retorted. "Are you going to let me borrow the book or not?"
"Fine," Magus tossed the orange book into her hands. "Read from the beginning." She gave him an obvious look and started to silently read. "Aloud so I can hear," he added.
Lucca raised an eyebrow. "You think I won't?" She correctly concluded.
"I'm not letting you enjoy that book in private, if you want to read it so badly you'll read it loud enough for me to hear," Magus insisted. Maybe then she'll refuse and leave him alone. Surely she wouldn't...
Lucca cleared her throat and read. "Ming Ling's adventure started when she left her village. It was then that she met that man and her life took an unexpected turn. But a story like this one should be told from the beginning. Let us start with their first meeting on that sunny afternoon."
"Skip head," Magus interrupted.
"But I want to read all of it," Lucca protested.
"You can read it later, just skip to the... interesting part," Magus’ glare was challenging and Lucca did not back down.
She turned the pages and spotted a few words that looked like the beginning of a promising paragraph; then she read. Magus' constant stare brought a pink tint to Lucca’s cheeks or maybe it was the book's contents, she didn't know, but she didn't stop reading. Ming Ling certainly lived an interesting life to say the least.
"You can stop now, read it to yourself," Magus spoke with a hint of frustration in his voice. He could just throw some magic at Lucca to force her to leave his castle but that's not what he wanted. He had always thought that reading Icha Icha Paradise in private was one thing but reading it to someone else was very different. Yet the stubborn genius read quite fluently ignoring the pink tint on her cheeks.
"In that case I'll read it from the beginning," Lucca grinned victoriously.
Time passed slowly as Magus sat there apparently spacing out and Lucca quietly read. Even if he wasn't hearing the novel anymore he knew very well what Jiraiya had written in there. "Leave."
Lucca paused in her reading and looked at Magus. "Huh?"
"Leave," Magus repeated.
"But I'm not done reading," Lucca complained.
"Take the book with you, just make sure to return it when you're done, Ming Ling." Surely calling her by the character's name would be a clear enough hint that if she didn't leave he might start to get ideas.
"Ming Ling is staying right here, and she's going to finish reading," Lucca remained firm.
Magus did not reply. What exactly did she mean by that? An almost irresistible need to recreate Ming Ling's adventures hung in the air.
Spell 04: Celebration Interrupted
"Why won't you tell us?" Marle insisted in that annoyingly cheerful voice of hers, which contrasted terribly with his usual gloomy mood.
"It's not your concern." So far Magus had been trying to place the idea in Marle's head that his age was none of her business. In one ear and out the other, she failed to retain the concept.
"Of course it is! You're our friend!" Marle insisted, and at that moment Frog cleared his throat. "You are!" Marle reaffirmed her point, addressing Magus, but meaning her answer to be directed at Frog.
"Blue hair one friend!" Ayla decided to give Marle a little support, not that he cared too much. But the heroes of time had all been dragged to invade Magus' castle in an unannounced visit with the promise of food, and Ayla had not yet had a single bite since she got there. There was food alright; food brought from Guardia, and it was all beautifully set up on the table. But Marle insisted that they would not eat until the party had officially started, and that could not happen until Magus blew the candles, which would not be possible until they were lit, and they would not be lit until Marle knew how many candles to put on the cake.
"See? We're your friends," Marle gave Magus a big smile, while Lucca battled to keep her amusement hidden.
However, the inventor was unable to hold it in for too long and exploded in a fit of laughter, soon to be joined by Chrono. Ayla didn't get the joke but she laughed as well. Robo beeped, slightly confused, Frog shook his head and Marle didn't realize that the joke was all about watching her annoy Magus.
Hearing Lucca's laugher brought something to Marle's attention, "I get it!" The princess spoke as if she had suddenly been enlightened. "It's okay, we all know you're older than Lucca, but you don't look that old. Besides, age doesn't matter in love, so you shouldn't try to keep it a secret from her!"
Lucca and Magus let out a chorus of "what?" After the little outburst, Magus remained serious and composed. While Lucca became increasingly embarrassed by the curious stares of her comrades and considered assisting Magus in ridding the world of Marle.
"I know you two like each other. Magus didn't go to any of our birthdays but he went to Lucca's and he even brought a present!" At least that was how Marle interpreted it.
"You kept coming over to invite me to birthdays and parties and I kept saying no. You said that you would stop asking if I went to at least one, that's why I agreed," Magus explained.
"I only said that because I knew you would like our parties so much you would want to go to all the next ones. Besides, you still gave Lucca a present." Marle remained firm in her interpretation of the situation.
"It was some stupid shiny stone that I found on the way. I picked it up out of curiosity because it seemed to be charged with energy and I allowed Lucca to keep it because I have no use for such things." Magus was at the end of his rope, it seemed that logic was not Marle's best subject.
"You don't have to make up stories because you're shy. Besides, Lucca really liked the shiny stone. She put it on bracelet." Marle continued trying to force Magus into a corner where he would have to admit the infinite love he had for Lucca, which Marle was certain he did and no one could tell her otherwise.
"This thing absorbs electricity; I wear it so I don't shock myself when experimenting. Then I use the electricity it absorbed to charge batteries. It's useful that's all." Lucca tried to reason with Marle so that she would shut up and stop embarrassing both her and Magus, but it wasn't working.
"Either way, you two like each other and I know it," Marle nodded to herself; there would be no way to convince her to change her mind.
"Ayla want eat!" The war cry of the cave woman silenced the arguments. Marle automatically placed a candle on the cake, Lucca lit it and Magus blew it out, all three actions taking place in a few seconds.
Unknown to most of the party guests, while they enjoyed their meal, Magus glanced at Lucca as if silently asking 'why did you bring them?'
And Lucca replied with her eyes, 'Marle caught me trying to sneak to this time.'
Nothing went past Marle when it came to relationships. After that day, some would see Marle as having too much of an imagination, but she was smarter than she was given credit for.
Spell 05: Not What it Looks Like
Lucca's Point of View
"It's not what it looks like!" Usually when you say this phrase with such insistence, it's about something that's very hard to prove false; and I found myself in that situation where the words flew out of my mouth before my brain could fully process what was going on.
Now the four of us are sitting in the living room in the early night, with me in my pajamas, and my dad dramatically throwing his arms in the air and repeating, "I can't believe it!"
Just as I had went to bed, fully intending to get up inhumanly early the next morning, a gate appeared right above my bed and Magus fell out of it on top of me. I was so surprised I didn't even yell and a good thirty seconds passed before I managed to gasp, "Magus!" Yes, gasp, because he knocked the air right out of me when he fell.
Magus must have been running before he arrived, or more likely, his exhaustion was due to the fatigue of using too much magic. Either way he was out of breath and that did not look good from my mother's point of view, passing by down the hall and peeking into my room from my three inch opened door.
"Oh my goodness!" She pulled the door shut and that's when I blurted out those six little words that no one believed even if it really wasn't what it looked like. But our breaths were loud, the room was dark and it was hard to see what was going on.
Now here we are, sitting in the living room while my father continues his dramatics; waiving frantically like a starving castaway on a desert island would wave to a ship in the distance. "I can't believe this!" Neither can I, dad, neither can I.
Magus' expression is unreadable as usual. I can't tell if he's amused by my family's freak out, nonchalant, or simply angry and annoyed. But this is Magus we're talking about, so I'll go with the last two. The wizard gets up and walks only a mere step before my mother pulls him back by the arm and pushes his shoulders down, causing him to sit again.
"Don't worry dear, my husband won't hurt you." That's a rich one, mom, Magus is annoyed, definitely not afraid. She then pushes up his chin with her fingers, examining his face like one would examine a fruit in the market. "You're so pale," how observant, "don't worry, I'll be a good mother in law to you. Would you like some milk and cookies?" She doesn't wait for a reply before announcing, "I'll go get them."
Dad's arms fall to his sides, his expression revealing disbelief, "she didn't..." oh yes, she did. Mother did just jump to conclusions and offer an evil wizard from the past milk and cookies. Pouting and glaring daggers at Magus, dad headed for the door, "I'm going for a walk; I need some fresh air." I do hope he's only going for a walk and isn't actually going out to round up an angry mob.
"Why are you so quiet?" I look at Magus, waiting for some kind of sarcastic comment that never comes. Instead he points at his throat.
"Poor dear," mother, who had without a doubt been listening long enough to hear my question, proceeds to... well, be all motherly. "Do you have a sore throat? I'll get you something for that." She sets the tray containing two glasses of milk and a plate of cookies on the coffee table and disappears into the kitchen to fetch some kind of home made remedy, which I'm sure will taste sour.
I look at Magus, then at the snack on the table, "help yourself!" I force a smile, but it comes out as sarcasm and I think I saw Magus roll his eyes before he did, in fact, have some cookies and milk. I suppose he figured if he's kind of stuck here for a while, he might as well eat. My eyes gazed upon the notepad and pen left carelessly on that same coffee table, and I immediately picked them up and handed them to Magus.
The wizard finished the cookie he was eating and set his glass of milk down. He took the notepad and pen and wrote the word "antidote."
I blinked and read aloud, "antidote?" Then Magus placed the note pad and pen on the table, clearly showing his intentions to write no more, and kissed me out of the blue; reinforcing the misunderstanding that was already too big to explain.
When the kiss ended, and I'll never admit it was good, mother was staring at us with starry eyes. "Here you go dear," she handed Magus a foul looking tea admitting that, "it's sour but healthy."
That's when I choose to kick myself out of my silent shock and open my big mouth, promptly inserting my foot into it. "C'mon Magus, take it like a man!"
That comment earned me a murderous look from the wizard, which my mother conveniently missed, as he downed the entire contents of the cup in one gulp. His pained expression said it all, but somehow Magus managed to mutter a "thank you ma'am," most likely just to annoy me by playing along, because he has no other reason to be polite than to annoy.
"You're welcome dear," my mother beamed, and you can call me mom," it took every once of willpower in my body not to slap my forehead at that moment.
"It's late, I should be leaving, mom" Magus announced, much to my mother's disappointment. I'm more than certain that he added that last word there to annoy me further.
"Aw, so soon?" As Magus got up, mom locked him in a motherly hug, "you're welcome to come back any time."
Determined to find out what was going on, I threw on a coat and announced, "I'll walk you home," ignoring how odd and backwards it sounded. Mom paid me no mind, I've always been a tomboy, in fact, she was probably glad I found a man who apparently doesn't mind having his supposed girlfriend walk him home. Thus we left the warmth of the house to go into the cold of the night.
"I already explained, I needed an antidote," Magus spoke when we were out of mother's ear shot.
"For what? Did it have anything to do with falling on me?" I inquired.
"I was supposed to emerge in front of your house, not in your room. I finally mastered the ability to call forth red gates, but my aim needs work. As for the antidote, it was for my voice. I accidentally cursed myself during my magical experiments and needed a kiss to recover my voice."
I blinked at Magus' explanation, it made sense somehow, in a strange and twisted way, it made sense. "Why me?"
"Any kiss would have done."
"But why me?"
Magus shakes his head, "no reason, I didn't think about it too much."
"There must be a reason," I insist, no knowing why I'm being so stubborn. Maybe I'm just getting back at him for all the trouble.
Magus doesn't give me a straight answer, "if it was that much of a bad experience, then block it from your memories and get on with your life." He begins to cast a spell to summon a red gate.
"That's not what I meant!" I argue, and unknowingly make myself sink deeper.
"Well then, if you liked it, don't complain." Magus jumps into his red gate.
As he fades away I blush, he smirks, and for the second time that night I blurt out, "it's not what it looks like!"
End of Lucca's POV
Spell 06: Don't Apologize
It only took a small accidental bump to knock the glass down, spilling its contents all over the table. "Crap!" Lucca rushed to pick up her blue prints and soak up the milk with the first available piece of cloth, her sleeves and the end of her shirt, which were no where near as precious as the blueprints.
"Language, language!" Lara shook her head disapprovingly. "Traveling so much has given you the mouth of a sailor."
Lucca finished cleaning and rolled up her sleeves to safely carry the precious blue prints to her room and change into a shirt that wasn't soaked in milk. Now that her mother had woken up from her nap, Lucca couldn't allow herself the liberty of occasionally cursing when her calculations didn't match up on the first try.
Though Lara did have a point, Lucca's vocabulary had been extended thanks to her travels, and she learned a variety of ways to verbally express frustration in many different eras. To cure her daughter of this 'terrible curse' Lara always insisted that she should "apologize."
Sighing hopelessly as she made her way up the stairs, Lucca conceded, "sorry mom, I thought you were still taking a nap."
"No, no, sweetie, even if there's no one there to hear you, you must watch your language!" Lara insisted.
Lucca felt her eye twitch. "Sorry," she repeated, and that finally seemed to satisfy Lara. The genius inventor had lost count of how many times she had said 'sorry' on that day alone.
As heroic and noble as Crono was, and above all as quiet as he was, he did process the ability to speak and a variety of words of frustration to go along with it, even if his voice was seldom used.
Marle was a princess, sure, but that didn't mean her speech lacked her fair share of curses, and she was quite open about using them when she got the chance, since she couldn't express herself so freely within the castle walls.
Robo found no offense in certain words that could sound offensive to others. Though he did not loudly curse or complain when there was an annoying situation at hand, he did express himself rather literally with no need to soften his speech.
Ayla was a cave woman, thus her language wasn't extensive. She often skipped over words, saying only the necessary words to be understood, and sometimes barely understood. However, even if she was far from mastering modern speech, she was a fast learner when it came to updating her prehistoric words of frustration and adding new words to that particular part of her vocabulary.
Magus was a case of his own, possessing a vast variety of insults and curses as harsh as they come. In fact, Lucca was the only one that could keep up with him when he decided that he needed to lose his temper and start cursing everything from his companions, to the ghost of Cyrus, to the planet he stood on along with the parasite within it, and even himself. The only one who remained safe from the wizard's sharp tongue was his beloved sister Schala.
Then there was Frog... Frog scolded everyone who dared to use foul language. He tried to express the proper way to say things, but that didn't stop him from throwing out a few outdated curses himself, mostly directed at Magus. The point was that none of them apologized from their language, even on the occasions when they were scolded by Frog.
Then one fateful day, when the group of time travelers were having one of their random little reunions at Lucca's house, the purple haired young woman was having trouble with a stubborn bolt while maintaining Robo and she let a few curses escape, automatically apologizing afterwards.
"It's okay, you don't need to apologize!" Marle gave her a bright smile.
"Oh right, sorry," Lucca replied.
"You're apologizing for apologizing?" Marle giggled at the irony.
In his little corner Magus rolled his eyes, but in the back of his mind he certainly hoped that Lucca's apologies were not so automatic that she would start saying 'sorry' in the wrong moment. She was quite vocal and not always in a polite way, which wasn't a problem since no one could hear them in his secluded castle in medieval times. But none the less, 'sorry' would be a very odd thing to say if it escaped her during one of those moments.
End?
Disclaimer, I do not own Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, Naruto or Saiyuki. In Spell 01 Magus was cosplaying as Sephiroth. The orange book in Spell 03 is Icha Icha Paradise by Jiraiya and Ming Ling is a character from Kenyu (young Nii)'s story. Spell 04 was written as a birthday gift for Zipis1. Spell 06 was inspired by Zipis1.
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