FicWad

Disclaimer: Chrono Trigger and all its attendant goodies belong to Square-Enix. I'm just playing in their sandbox. Further information can be found in the header for Chapter One.



"Your mother," Taban continued, with no sign of being appeased or even appeasable, "has been absolutely frantic. She wanted the castle guards looking for you. The guards, Lucca! If they weren't so busy trying to find the princess, they would be combing all of Guardia for you!"

His face was turning an apoplectic purple, so Lucca said, "Breathe, Dad."

Taban's nostrils flared like a bull's as he did so. "And I," he went on, his voice falling with each syllable, "have been so worried about—" Abruptly he snatched her up in a rib-splintering hug, all but sobbing into her shoulder. "Oh, sweetie, I'm so glad you're safe!"

"Er, I missed you, too, Dad."

While the wrath of Taban was great and terrible to behold, it had the sort of half-life usually reserved for elements found at the bottom of the Periodic Table. Lucca wriggled to make room for her lungs to expand and said, "Really, I'm fine. You know I—" No, actually, I don't just take off sometimes. I only leave the house to go hiking with Dad or to terrify the local merchants. "You know I can take care of myself," she finished instead, lamely.

Her father gave her a skeptical look as he set her down. "Where on earth have you been all week?"

"Dancing topless in Porre" was on the tip of her tongue, but Lucca suspected that now was not the time for sarcasm. "Making friends," she replied instead, which was at least partly true. She just hoped that it didn't sound too far-fetched.

There was a stiff pause. "That's wonderful, sweetie," Taban said at length, in a tone that added, "Criminals and drug addicts are taking advantage of my baby."

"Nothing's wrong," Lucca insisted. Making a clean getaway was becoming increasingly unlikely. "There's just something that I need to take care of."

The look that darted over that her father's features told her that this had been entirely the wrong approach. "I think you should come home for now," Taban said, catching her hand in a grip that was only slightly too gentle to be vise-like. "I'll make you some dinner, okay? Then you can lie down for a bit."

Having ruled out escape, Lucca turned her thoughts to subterfuge. Oh, the hell with it. He already thinks I'm crazy.

"You know what I like?" she said, talking as loudly and emphatically as she dared as Taban led her down the steps. "I like those romance novels where the guy WAITS outside the WINDOW after DARK and maybe brings some ROPE."

Taban gave her a concerned look. "Er, why's that, sweetie?"

She shrugged and forced herself not to glance back at Frog and Nadia's hiding place. "I dunno. Hijinks usually ensue."

He set his free hand on her forehead and frowned. "You don't feel feverish."

"Maybe it's a STEALTHY fever. Like the kind of fever that DOESN'T GET CAUGHT."

By the time they made it home, Lucca was struggling not to peek over her shoulder with each step to make sure that Frog and Nadia weren't following her in the open. If the princess caught the eye of any guards, trying to retrieve her from the castle would probably make breaking Crono out of prison look like a quiet game of bridge.

Lucca considered, then retracted the comparison on the grounds that she had once walked in on her mother's bridge club.

Hoping that Nadia remembered the path to her house well enough to find it again on her own, Lucca put on her best well-adjusted face as her father opened the front door and ushered her into the kitchen.

"Lucca!" Her mother was sitting at the table, her eyes red and rimmed with dark circles. "Don't you ever run off like that again! We've been so worried about you!" The next sentence was garbled by sobs as Lara caught her daughter in an iron embrace.

"Mrmph," Lucca said into her mother's neck, hoping that it would be interpreted as an apology.

Grabbing her daughter by the shoulders, Lara held her at arm's length, sniffled, and said, "I don't know what got into you, young lady. We give you everything we can, and I don't know why you—"

"Lara," Taban warned.

"Well, for God's sake, dear, it has to be said." Lara's fingers dug in tighter. "She needs some of kind of help, and I just don't know what to do. She's my own daughter, and I don't know what to do with her."

As the ranting and crying began in earnest, Lucca's least favorite set of memories told her that this was by no means an isolated outburst. Guilt squeezed her chest.

"I'm really sorry," she managed, but her voice was drowned in a sea of arguments. Her mother's grip was beginning to hurt.

Events began to fall together in her mind, filling the gaps left by Crono. There had been enough notes from teachers to wallpaper a room, all beginning, "Your daughter is academically brilliant, but we're worried..." There had been innumerable conferences with coaches who despaired of sparking any enthusiasm for teamwork in her. And there had been far too many complaints from peers and parents and anyone else unlucky enough to be standing nearby when she decided to conduct an experiment. As far as Lucca could tell, few incidents had been followed by an apology, let alone an admission that human welfare should ever impede scientific inquiry.

Of course Mom's a nervous wreck. Anyone would be.

Lara's hold slackened amidst a series of whimpers. "What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to help her when I can't even—"

"Shh," Taban soothed, lifting her in his arms. "We'll talk about it tomorrow, okay? We can work through this." With a small nod to Lucca, he carried his wife toward the upstairs bedroom. Lara sounded too exhausted even to protest that he was patronizing her.

Lucca touched the sore spots on her arms, then sat down heavily at the table. There were practical reasons not to get up and sneak away now (among them, the problem of finding Frog and Nadia before her father went looking for her again), but they weren't as compelling as the ones that made Lucca sink further into her seat.

Several minutes later her father returned, looking haggard. "It's okay, sweetie," he said, patting her on the shoulder. "Everything looks better in the morning. Let me heat you up some dinner, and then you can get some sleep."

As he rummaged for leftovers in the fridge, Lucca drooped over the table and sighed. "It's not okay, Dad. I've been so wrapped up in myself that I've been destroying your lives."

"Lucca..." Taban sighed as he set down the plate he'd been preparing. "Nobody's life is easy. But your mother and I love you very much, and we never want you to blame yourself when times are tough."

Nesting her head in her arms, Lucca muttered, "But it really is my fault. All of this is my fault."

She felt her helmet lifted from her head, followed by a gentle tousling of her hair. "We can talk about everything tomorrow, sweetie. You just get some rest tonight." There was a rattling sound before he added, "And you should take your medicine now."

Lucca's head shot up. A protest almost made it past her lips before the relevant memories began to leak through, reminding her that she was supposed to swallow a little white capsule every morning. "I don't need medicine," she said, in a tone that neatly undermined her point.

Taban sighed. "Sweetie, we just tried that, remember? We let you go a whole week without your pills, and then you ran away from home."

"I didn't— I'm not—" Lucca paused to collect herself. Okay, so throwing a fit isn't going to help my case. In what she hoped was a calm, reasonable tone, she said, "I'm just really tired tonight, Dad. Could we start the pills again tomorrow?"

"Lucca, you know how you get when you don't—"

"Please."

With another, longer sigh, Taban said, "Well, if that's what you think is best. First thing tomorrow, though."

Neither of them spoke again until Taban set a plate of steaming vegetables and casserole in front of her, along with a glass of orange juice. Not even the heavy feeling in Lucca's stomach could overcome the need to eat something other than muffins. Despite her hunger, everything tasted bitter.

Taban escorted her up to her bedroom in what Lucca felt was an annoying show of concern. Once he had tucked her in and turned out the lights, Lucca waited to hear his footsteps disappear down the hall, then crept out of bed and dressed herself in the dark. As comfortable as her pajamas were, she didn't intend to save the world in them. The forces of space and time would not bend for orange tartan.

After fishing the keyring out of her desk drawer, Lucca donned her helmet and eased open her bedroom window. Her backyard was silent save for the singing of crickets and frogs, and the moonlight only vaguely delineated the trees, bushes, and almost barn-sized shed.

Just as she was settling in to wait, Lucca noticed that one of the frogs sounded a little... off. She reached back for her pillow and waved it out the window like a flag.

Rustling came from the bushes nearest her window, followed by two moving collections of highlights and shadows. Lucca waved the pillow in a way that, in her opinion, represented a query about rope.

The odd croak out developed an apologetic pitch.

After a speculative glance at the nearest tree, Lucca stripped the sheets from her bed and began tying them together at the ends. At least her love of hiking and camping had been consistant throughout her realities; she had no trouble remembering how to tie a good square knot.

Careful not to make any suspicious noises, she secured one end of the makeshift rope to her bed, tossed the other out the window, and started to climb. She managed it easily except for a sudden vertiginous moment halfway down. The sheets ran out several feet too soon, but Frog obligingly caught Lucca when she let herself drop.

"You okay?" whispered Nadia. "We know you wanted rope, but we couldn't find any on the way here..."

Lucca shrugged. "I'm just glad you didn't get yourself caught. And I'm about as okay as anyone can be after finding out they're a clinically insane homewrecker. You?"

"Dwell not upon it," Frog said gently. "What doth it profit thee to contemplate guilt when the time hath come for action?"

"You're one to talk."

Nadia shook her head. "Don't beat yourself up over it. The stuff crazy other-Lucca did isn't your fault."

Her words hit the raw part of the issue, and Lucca couldn't stop herself from snapping, "Yes, it /is/. It's not like Crono made me a completely different person— he just brought out the best in me, and it looks like loneliness brought out the worst. This thing I'm turning into is still /me/."

"Verily," replied Frog, over Nadia's protests. "Yet nary a soul on this earth is free of inner darkness. 'Tis choice that secerneth the blessed from the damned."

"Exactly," said Lucca. "And I chose wrong."

Nadia looked thoughtful. "I'm not really sure what he just said, but I think he means you still have to choose who you are /now/. Maybe it's really hard, but you have a choice. Otherwise, I'd be wearing a froofy dress and watching people bow all day."

Lucca looked from one friend to the other and managed a quirk of a smile. "Okay, guys, no fair ganging up on me. And we need to get moving. The shed's—" she had to glance around— "this way."

"And what's in the shed?" asked Nadia as they stole toward it.

The accepted change in topic came as a relief. "Our big source of electrical energy. Unless my memories are seriously getting warped, I built the Telepod in this timeline, too. So we're going to move it somewhere more convenient and see if we can't make a Gate."

Competing recollections told Lucca that the shed door was both squeaky and well-oiled, so she decided to err on the side of caution as the group reached it. "Anyway," she continued, digging the key out of her knapsack, "Dad and I did a lot of work on combustion engines, and I'm pretty sure we put together at least one working transport vehicle. So first..."

Lucca trailed off, finding it suddenly difficult to fit the key into the lock. The flashes of moonlight on the doorknob were almost dizzying.

"Art thou unwell?" asked Frog as Nadia took over unlocking duties.

"I'm fine," Lucca replied, shaking her head to clear it. "It's been a rough day." Keeping a steadying hand on the wall, Lucca pulled the door open and slipped inside.

The only light came in through the window, creating a jumble of shadows that seemed almost to squirm. Lucca had trouble focusing away from them.

Telepod, she reminded herself. That's what we're here for. Squinting at the crazy pools of light, Lucca discerned the shape of the pods near the middle of the shed. She stumbled over to them and clapped a hand to the left one.

"This is the..." Lucca trailed off as something fuzzy snaked through her brain, temporarily disorienting her. "This is the Telepod," she managed once she'd shaken her head. "We need this, so let's load it up."

"On what?" asked Nadia.

It didn't seem important. Taking long, languid, steps, Lucca made her way to the nearest successful-looking vehicle, a steam-powered wagon. The Telepod would probably fit on it, but Lucca was having trouble believing that the Telepod wouldn't fit in her pocket, if she could only be bothered to pick it up.

The image amused her, so she laughed.

Frog gave her a stern look. "Thou art most certainly not well."

"She's acting a little crazy," Nadia agreed. "And not just mad-scientist-crazy, either."

Dad drugged me, Lucca realized, and the sheer absurdity of the thought made her laugh again.

Nadia caught her before a bench ran into her shins. "Seriously, what's wrong with you?"

"I think," Lucca began, then decided that she'd reached a good stopping point.

There was an intriguingly liquid pause.

"She speaketh as one ensorcelled," Frog said, frowning in a way that Lucca found almost giggle-worthy. "Dwelleth a warlock nigh?"

Nadia shook her head. "We don't have warlocks anymore. I think they're extinct."

"Nope, no warlocks," Lucca agreed. Something nipped at her mind, and she decided that it was important to add, "Dad said I take medicine. I think he put it in my food."

Nadia winced. "Um, what kind of medicine?"

Lucca tilted her head from side to side as she considered. "Sedatives," she said at last. "And maybe something... for my mood." Holding out words pleased her on a level she couldn't quite understand. "I think he gave me extra."

"Oh, dear." Nadia waved her hand in front of Lucca's face, which seemed to call for an agreeable smile. "Lucca, we really need your brainpower here! Frog and I don't have a clue how any of this works!"

"Right. Riiight. Right-t-t." The "t"s were especially fun. Still smiling, Lucca walked her fingers along her chosen vehicle and idly released the handbrake. "This works. Unless the boiler's empty. Emmmpty. Hmm."

Moonlight fell in around her, gleaming as it tripped across the various metal surfaces. When Lucca moved her head, she felt as if she were inside a monochromatic kaleidoscope. Insignificant background noises lulled her toward a deep, warm darkness.

Sharp pats registered on her cheeks. "Wake up!" said a silvery smear that seemed to have Nadia's voice. "We don't even know what this thing is! Is it some kind of carriage or— are you even listening to me?"

Lucca smiled. "Everything," she announced, "is very simple right now."

It became even simpler when it all went black.



A sharp movement jarred Lucca awake. The first thing she noticed was that the sun was glaring directly into her eyes; the second, that her mouth felt as if she'd spent the night chewing on dirty laundry. It took her a moment to work out the third thing that was wrong, until another jolt went through her and Frog's voice said, "Mine apologies! 'Tis an uneven road we now tread!"

"Hna?" Lucca inquired. "Whazz?" Sitting up made her dizzy, but it also gave her a view of the wooded countryside, the dirt road, and the steam-powered wagon, on which she was crammed with the pieces of the Telepod and the Masamune and behind which Frog was acting as an external motor.

"Good morning!" Nadia chirped. Lucca turned to see her sitting in the driver's seat, where she had a death-grip on the tiller. "I think we've got this thing figured out, so— left turn!— so you can go back to sleep if you want."

Before Lucca could say anything, Nadia yanked the tiller hard to the left. The Telepod rattled as the wagon turned to follow the trail deeper into the forest.

It was probably best to start with the obvious. "Where the heck are we going?"

Without taking her eyes off the road, Nadia replied, "Well, you were kinda off in happy-drug-land last night, so we had to kinda guess what you were trying to do, and we kinda figured Sandorino had something to do with it, so..."

Lucca blinked. "That's... actually not a bad idea. As long as we're playing with wacky metaphysics, it couldn't hurt to go to the source of the problem." Not to mention we've got a head start before Dad tracks me down.

"Good," replied Nadia, "'cause I think we're almost there." After curving left with the road, she added, "I don't get what's so great about this thing. I mean, I have to steer it for Frog, and it's got that huge metal thingy stuck on the front."

A glowing lecture on the benefits of automated motion filled Lucca's brain, but it was hushed down by visions of trying to demonstrate the technology on a narrow road and consequently crashing into a tree. Besides, she wasn't certain that she'd chosen the functional steam wagon instead of the entertaing-in-retrospect prototype.

Lucca shrugged. "Well, I wasn't exactly in my right mind when I picked it."

The road smoothed slightly as they continued, until it merged with one of the outlying streets of Sandorino. Dim memories told Lucca that this was the northern edge of town, not far from the Zenan Strait, and that she had only mildly disturbed the nice old man at the camping supplies store.

As the wagon coasted to a stop, Nadia asked, "Okay, now what?"

"If 'twould be not too troublesome," said Frog, hopping into the seat beside Nadia, "I should confess to a rather pressing thirst."

"Er, sorry about that." Lucca dug a water bottle from her bag and passed it to him. "And thanks for doing the leg work." After taking a quick inventory of the Telepod's parts and confirming that they were all present, she said, "We need somewhere with plenty of space to do this. It'll take me a while to hook everything up, so it can't be somewhere where people could interrupt us. Especially not people who've already had the Lucca Ashtear experience."

Frog looked up from his water. "Nor guards, I might venture, lest Nadia be identified. Indeed, if I am to be at thy side, 'twould behoove us to avoid all observers."

They both turned expectantly to Nadia.

After a moment's thought, she brightened. "Oh, I know just the place!"

Efforts to get more information were met with a smile and "It's a surprise," so Frog hopped down to push the wagon again while Lucca took up a look-out position in the back. Fortunately, Sandorino's population was concentrated toward the south, and the northern shore made too poor of a beach to attract visitors. Only a few scattered houses were visible through the trees.

If Lucca's sense of direction was at all accurate, they were heading east, toward the Denadoro Mountains. The already sparse settlements dwindled further as they went along, as if the people instinctively knew better than to live in the shadow of the peaks. And two timelines ago, they'd have been dead right.

The trail grew rougher, wandering deeper into the woods and farther from anyone who cared how overgrown it had become. At last, with a cry of "Surprise!" Nadia steered the wagon into an open area.

The remains of a large house lay a short distance to the east, but Nadia's destination was probably the large, untended park that lay just before them. Multiple species of vines wound their way up a tall, wrought-iron fence that extended into thick patches of trees, and the gate hung halfway open, as if it had been caught in an eternal moment of indecision.

An iron frame arched over the gate, and the rusted words wrought into it proclaimed the area to be the "Sarah J. Arden Memorial Park." Smaller lettering beneath it added, "Est. 823 AD. 'Every child deserves love'."

"No one ever comes here," Nadia said as she and Frog navigated the wagon through the gap. "There's a big park in the middle of the city where everyone hangs out, so I guess they just forgot about this one."

"The gardeners certainly did," Lucca remarked. There were still a few polite suggestions about where everything was supposed to go, but the flora couldn't be bothered with them.

From behind the wagon, Frog said, "Yet 'tis a welcoming place. I feel mine heart at ease."

Lucca's heart wasn't at ease, but she didn't see any reason to share that.

Eventually Nadia called for a halt. They had reached a less wildly organic field at the center of the park, where the wooden benches were well on their way to mulch and a number of playground attractions were following close behind. The grass was shorter here, and oak trees both shaded the area and blocked the view from every direction but the one from which the group had arrived.

Near the center of the field was a bronze statue, half-obscured by the shadows of the trees. Between the dappled light and the distance, it took Lucca a moment to realize that the figure depicted was an elderly woman with a variety pack of children gathered around her. The plaque on the base was too small to read from far away, but Lucca assumed that it contained a platitude of the pithiest order.

"I've always liked her," Nadia said, gesturing at the statue. "She just looks so happy to see those kids, and you're going to think this is silly, but I used to come here all the time after I got into fights with my father."

Lucca shook her head. "That's not silly, that's... kind of sad."

Meanwhile, Frog made his way to the statue and polished the plaque with his glove. "By this account," he said, "being ne'er blessed with babes of her own, she did turn to the fostering of those bereft of family."

Nadia joined him and nodded. "Yep. I think that old house outside was her orphanage."

Great. Why couldn't Sandorino be a town full of baby-eating lawyers? Crossing her arms against the tightness in her chest, Lucca said, "Okay, good for her. Can someone help me unload the Telepod?"



Untangling the wires was difficult under the benevolent gaze of Sarah J. Arden. Frog and Nadia had gone to keep watch at the gate once there was nothing else that they could help with, leaving Lucca to curse under her breath and swat away the occasional insect as she took care of the detail work. By the time she had the twin power generators connected, Lucca had the bizarre sense that the bronze children were staring at her back.

"Look," she said aloud, turning to face the statue and feeling quite stupid for it, "I'm sure you made the world a better place and all, but that doesn't matter if Lavos ends up destroying everything. If I have to choose between a nice old lady and all life on this planet, I'm damn well going with life." As she went back to her calibrations, she added, "It's nothing personal."

After double-checking all of her connections, Lucca plucked an acorn from the waves of grass and set it on the left pod. For the sake of showmanship, the halves of the Telepod were meant to be placed up to thirty feet apart, requiring two people to man them. But as long as the pods were side-by-side, they presented no particular challenge to a single operator. Lucca cracked her knuckles and set to work.

As energy crackled through the machine, the acorn spun as if it were in a centrifuge before bursting into a shower of lights, which reassembled themselves on the right pod. Lucca allowed herself a small grin of triumph. Sarah J. Arden was unimpressed.

Bad Lucca, she chided herself as she went to fetch her friends. No fuzzy thinking. But living in the middle of a massive paradox made it difficult to keep things in focus.

She found Frog and Nadia hiding behind separate bushes, keeping an oddly somber vigil over the park's entrance. "The Telepod's ready," Lucca said as brightly as she could. "All we have to do now is crank up the power, toss in some magic, and channel it all through the Dreamstone."

The heavy mood persisted as they rose to follow her. Clenching her fists, Lucca stopped and said, "If you've got something to say, just go ahead and say it."

"Well, you know," began Nadia, in a voice that promised another revolution through a hopelessly circular argument, "if the planet gave you that Gate, it probably wasn't trying to kill itself, right? So saving Sandorino must have been okay. It must have been something else you did."

Lucca turned to face her and sighed. "You still think it was Ozzie, don't you?"

"Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe his grandson saved Crono's grandfather or something."

"In my experience, the Ozzie family doesn't go around saving humans."

"Maybe it was an accident."

Before Lucca could point out how ludicrous that idea was, Frog said, "I must agree with Nadia. Should her intuition prove true, countless lives might be spared."

Lucca consciously relaxed her hands and forced her voice to stay level. "Look, I can't just risk the whole world on a hunch. The only thing we know for certain is that if Sandorino burns, the world is saved. We may not like it, but that's just how it is."

Frog shook his head. "Nay, for more is at stake in this matter than thou hast acknowledged. Evil begetteth not righteousness, nor can justice come of murder."

"Do you think I want them to die?" Lucca's fists re-clenched without her permission. "Do you think I don't hate this? You can go on all you want about good and evil and all that crap, but something's got to be sacrificed."

"People," said Nadia sharply. "Not something. People."

Lucca turned and resumed walking. "You know what? None of this matters. We don't even know where the Gate's going to lead. Heck, we don't know if there's going to be a Gate. So let's just concentrate on making on a path to the moment that has to change, and we can argue once we find out what that moment is."

There was a pause before Nadia rested her hand on Lucca's shoulder. "Um, one thing. You said someone had to grab the Dreamstone and hope, right? So maybe—"

"I shouldn't be the one to do it?" Lucca glanced back at her and managed a smile. "Yeah, I know. I figured Frog should be the one, since the sword likes him best."

"'Twould be an honor," he replied, "though 'tis no stain upon thine."

Yeah, right. But aloud she said, "We should get going. Sure, this place is in the middle of nowhere, but there's no way Dad isn't already looking for me."

Once they arrived back at the Telepod, Lucca swept the acorn off the right pod and gestured for Frog to set the Masamune on the left. "Your pendant?" she said before noticing that Nadia's eyes were watering.

"Right here," the princess replied, slipping the necklace over her head with a tiny smile. "And I—"

Lucca held up a hand. "Woah, there. If this doesn't work, we'll feel pretty stupid about—"

"Oh, I don't care." Nadia's arms darted in and caught her in a quick but powerful hug. "You're the best friends I've ever had! No matter what happens, I'm really happy I met you." As Lucca tried to get her breath back, Nadia bent down to embrace Frog. "I mean it. Even with all of the really terrible things, this has been the best week of my life."

Good to know I'm not the only dysfunctional one here. Accepting the pendant from Nadia, Lucca placed it on the left pod between the halves of the Masamune. Behind her, Frog said, "Aye. Come what may, I am honored to have traveled with ye."

Lucca felt that something was expected of her, so she looked up with the best smile she could manage. "Thanks. I owe you guys everything." The words felt uncomfortably final. Clearing her throat, Lucca forced some confidence into her tone and said, "Okay, then, kids, we've got three good-sized chunks of Dreamstone, some high-quality science, and the kind of magic that cooked Lavos in his own shell. Seems to me we can make something here."

A quick set of instructions had Frog removing his gloves to hover his webbed fingers over the sword and pendant, while a more detailed, rhyming set had Nadia grasping the basics of the capacitor's controls.

With a short nod, Lucca rolled up her sleeves and said, "Well, this is it."

The whir of the Telepod's generators reached Lucca's ears as she let magic well up beneath her right palm. Taking careful aim, she splayed her fingers and fed three concentrated, continuous lines of fire into the parts of the Dreamstone that were not blocked by Frog's hands. Frying the Telepod would bring all their plans to a screeching halt, and she didn't imagine that Frog would appreciate being scorched, either.

"Right high, left low," Nadia chanted under her breath, "watch the red, take it slow..."

Electricity arced between the generators, eliciting a short scream from their operator. Before Lucca could say anything, Nadia composed herself and continued tweaking the dials.

The moment that matters. But that wasn't how Lucca had phrased it; she had called it "the moment that has to change," because all moments mattered in the same way that every drop of water mattered in a pool, where a single pebble could shift them all away in ever-widening circles.

Frog's eyes were closed. At least, Lucca reflected, she had chosen someone who could focus in her stead. 'Cause I'd have us all hip-deep in a duck pond by now.

Into the edge of Lucca's hearing crept a sharp whine, one that triggered a fractured memory of red hair spinning against a deep blue field. No, we want a red field, a red shift as we all spin away from each other. The Dreamstone glowed white with heat.

Suddenly the glow broke free of the sword and pendant, rising into the space where something should have been breaking down for transmission. Ripples pulsed out into the air.

Almost. Lucca's thoughts tripped over one another in a rush. Almost, almost, c'mon...

"Cyrus," Frog whispered, "aid me."

The ripples turned to throbs, spreading only a matter of inches before they were pulled back to their origin. The distortion took the form of a writhing sphere. If Lucca concentrated, she could almost imagine the tunnel cutting through the timeless plane, rushing backward from its destination, straining against the fabric of reality—

The distortion ripped open with a shriek. Lucca staggered back and covered her ears, trying to ignore the feeling that time was being sucked into a vacuum. As the echo faded, her brain connected it simultaneously to nascent portals, dying aliens, and everyone she never knew enough to save.

There was a long silence as all things living and inanimate were bathed in red.

"Omigod," Nadia squeaked. "Did we—" Apparently realizing that there was no need to finish the question, she shook her head and bent down to retrieve her pendant. "Oh, my God," she said again, more articulately.

Frog lifted the halves of the Masamune with a soft word of gratitude, and it occurred to Lucca that she should do something other than gape.

"We did it?" she said, a question mark sliding out on the end of the sentence. "We really did it." Stating the obvious seemed important, as if the miracle would wither away without a show of faith. Which is even fuzzier thinking than apologizing to a statue. Lucca shook her head. "I mean, of course we did it. No plan can fail with Lucca the Great behind it."


Nadia made a noise that almost passed for a cheer.

"Come what may," said Frog, and Lucca swallowed the lump in her throat as she raised the Gate Key and immersed them all in red.




Author's Note: Lucca's steam-powered wagon is based on the one invented by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1769. Cugnot deserves credit not only for building what is often considered the first automobile, but also for having what is often considered the first automobile accident.