I still haven’t had time to get back into my Final Fantasy novelization (I really need to get some organization up in this thing I call my life), so for the third week in a row, here’s a clip from my Chrono Trigger novelization. This one is from the scene when Chrono and the girls first discover that they have truly traveled to the future and that it has been destroyed because of the evil creature, Lavos.
Enjoy!
*Spites via http://www.videogamesprites.net
“Lucca…” he whispered, “What year are we in?”
Lucca shook herself back to the moment, her eyes wide and mouth dry. She examined another console for a few moments before finding the answer. “We’re…” she stumbled, “We’re in the year 2300 A.D.”
Chrono could barely stand under the weight of the words. “2300…” he whispered, “That thing screwed up the world so much that the survivors couldn’t drag themselves out of it in 300 years?” He couldn’t help imagining it…that awful creature rampaging through the lands…all the survivors holed up in the domes, hiding and scared…slowly, over time, they would begin to run out of supplies. For a while they probably went out in search of new supplies, but the land wasn’t helpful and people began to die…soon there were only a handful of survivors in each dome, struggling just to keep moving forward.
“No!” Marle cried suddenly, “No way! I refuse to accept it!” She jumped to her feet, tears of anger streaming down her face. “This…this can’t be the way the world ends!”
Lucca looked at her with miserable eyes. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t figure out what to say.
“Marle…” Chrono sighed.
“Chrono!” she shouted back. She stomped up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “There’s only one thing we can do! We must change history! Just like you did when you saved me!” Her eyes were so full of light and hope that Chrono couldn’t look away. “We have to figure out how this happened, and we have to change it!” She ran to Lucca and shook her. “Okay Lucca?!” she cried.
“I…” Lucca stumbled, “I…guess so…” She seemed uncomfortable and unsure of herself.
Marle ran back to Chrono and grabbed him by the face, forcing him to look directly into her eyes. “Chrono…” she said quietly, “Please…”
Lucca was starting to come into the idea. “We can’t just go back to our own world and live comfortably after seeing this…” she spoke to herself, “Especially since it’s going to happen in our time…really, it was a stroke of luck that the Gate sent us here…”
Chrono was still staring into Marle’s eyes. There were so many emotions there…fear, desperation, sorrow…and hope. Slowly, Chrono raised his arms and mirrored Marle’s stance, holding her face in his hands. “Let’s do it,” he whispered with a smile.
“Chrono!” Marle sobbed. She collapsed toward him in a huge hug before stepping back and swiping the tears away from her eyes. “Chrono, Lucca…” she said, “We can do this together…I’m sure of it!”
Lucca nodded, suddenly very sure of everything, and grinned. “There is absolutely no way we will fail!” she insisted, “We know about Gates now, and we have the Gate Key. All we have to do is find an era with answers about where that creature came from.”
Normally it would have sounded like an insane statement, but somehow Chrono knew they could do it. “Then we’d better get going!” he announced.
“Next stop, Proto Dome!” Lucca cried, pumping a fist into the air.