Week #17

Azala pressed a button on his desk and the floor promptly disappeared from below Crono and the gang.

When they had recovered from their fall, Crono, Frog, Lucca, Ayla, and Magus found themselves in a room closed off by a gate. The gate slowly lifted, revealing a giant furry creature with an army of cats dressed in tuxedos.

"What abomination is this?" Frog gasped.

Azala laughed. "Behold, my latest creation, the Furby! Tremble in fear as it utters gibberish and acts adorable!" he cried.

In response, the Furby opened it's giant beak and spoke something so cuddly it could not be put into writing.

All five of our heroes clasped their ears in pain and collapsed from the horrible sound.

"We must...destroy this!" Lucca said, fighting to get the words out. She pulled out her box of Chrono Trigger Cereal and a carton of milk. Immediately, the cats threw themselves upon Lucca and began drinking up the milk.

"NO!! That cereal was our only hope!" Lucca cried.

Azala gave a hearty laugh. "Fools! Did you really think you could turn my own product against me? Now prepare to die!"

"We fight now!" Ayla said, struggling to her feet. "Crono, Froggy, together we fight!"

"Yes, we must!" Frog said in agreement, retreating to a safe corner of the room.

"We must be brave!" Crono added, curling himself into a protective ball.

The giant furry horror loomed above them and prepared to release another fearsome vocal attack. Just as things looked the bleakest, a happy squeal came from above.

"Oh! How furry!" Marle screeched, jumping down and landing on the Furby's head. She began hugging bits of its fur and cooing with joy.

The Furby cooed in retaliation, but it was drowned out by Marle's screams of delight. A torrent of cutesy words poured from Marle's mouth, vastly overpowering the Furby's own cuteness.

The other party members suffered greatly, but at last the terrible Furby blew a fuse and died from cuddle overdose. Marle was left squeezing a bundle of fur. With its leader defeated, the army of cats retreated into a corner to nap.

Crono and the others slowly regained their hearing.

"Forsooth Marle's voice is the most fearsome weapon I have ever seen," Frog said in awe.

Lucca shook her head to get rid of the ringing in her ears. "Who would have thought that Marle would actually be of use," she said.

Crono uncurled himself and cried, "yes! Another brilliant triumph by Crono and his party!"

"Curses," Azala hissed. "It seems the Furby wasn't as perfect as I thought. Good thing I have more things planned for you. Will you agree to promote my products or shall I make you suffer some more?"

Shivering at the thought of facing another cuddly toy, Crono quickly answered, "we agree to your proposal. We'll agree to any of your terms, just no more of what we went through, please!"

"Yes," Frog added. "I beseech thee, no more of these monstrosities!"

"No, you two cannot agree to this!" Lucca cried. "Will you be able to hold your head up high if you give in to his demands? When you've already saved the world from total destruction, how can you be afraid of a giant furry toy?"

"Very well," Azala fumed, "you had your chance."

"What?! Nay! The girl is mad, she does not know what she means," Frog said.

"Magus, listen!" Azala ordered. "Schala is hiding inside one of your fellow party members."

Magus's eyes glazed over. He turned towards Crono.

"I wish I had gagged Lucca," Crono said.

Week #18

Magus slowly walked up to Crono and whipped out his scythe from nowhere. "Schala...Schala..." Magus chanted in time to his stabs at Crono. Magus actually had a pretty good grasp of rhythm.

Not wanting to be Magus's next victim, Frog dug himself into the furry mass of cats already napping there and stuffed two cats into his nonexistent ears to shut out the chanting.

Azala laughed cruelly from his desk above the doomed party. "This is your punishment for refusing to join my evil Malt Dizzy empire! Now I shall destroy your heroic coolness forever by making you die a most unstylish death -- death while doing the Twist! MWA HA HA HA!"

So saying, Azala threw a record player into the pit. Scratchy Twist music began to play.

"Magus's chanting will make your minds blank and vulnerable to this evil music. Succumb to the music of the Twist!" Azala exclaimed triumphantly.

Try what they could, Lucca and Marle were unable to block out Magus's terrifying chanting of his sister's name (they couldn't stuff cats into their small ears). Though they had no wish to succumb to an uncool death, they could do nothing but the Twist.

"Somebody do something!" Crono screamed. He took out his sword, but his fighting edge was so dulled by Magus's hypnotic chanting, it was all he could do to avoid impaling himself on his own weapon. "PEOPLE! I'm gonna die here!" He cried again as he twisted to dodge Magus's blade. It was the first time Crono noticed that he was great at doing the Twist.

"Ayla strong, me save Crono!" Ayla yelled, dashing towards Magus. However, her mind was weak and simple, and she quickly succumbed to Magus's chanting. She stopped before jumping at Magus, and began to also do the Twist.

Frog, his non-ears stuffed with cats, was unable to hear Azala's most vile scheme or Magus's most vacant chanting. He was only aware that he was no longer part of a cool team. He was part of a team that was doing an outdated dance.

"This cannot be," Frog murmured to himself. "They have lost their coolness...'tis a fate I would not wish on my most hated enemy." Frog thought that somehow this sad state of affairs was due to Magus's chanting.

Frog leaped between Magus and Crono and dropped to his knees. Magus stopped in mid-slice to look at Frog, his mouth never ceasing to chant.

"I beseech thee," Frog said with tears in his eyes, "spare our coolness. Take our lives, if thou doth wish it, but end this inhumane torture! No more! No more!"

Week #19

Magus glanced at Frog. Half expecting to simply have his head sliced off, Frog was surprised to see Magus's mouth stop moving. Indeed, some life returned to Magus's eyes. Magus shoved his scythe back into his invisible bag and tears welled up in his eyes.

"Is it possible my words have moved thee?" Frog asked, slowly getting to his feet.

Magus slowly stretched out his hand to Frog's head.

"Alfador..." Magus sobbed quietly, removing the unnatural tuxedo from his purple cat. "Oh, Alfador...Schala is gone...Schala is gone...you're the only family I have left. Alfador...don't leave me again...I have no one else, no one else to comfort me...oh...Schala is gone, Alfador..."

Without Magus's chanting, the evil music slowly lost its effect. Lucca, Marle, Ayla, and Crono regained their original level of coolness and took turns destroying the record player.

"NO!!!" Azala cried in frustration.

Crono turned to Frog. "My cat!" Crono exclaimed, yanking it from what Frog called his left ear. He hurriedly freed it from the confines of its tuxedo.

"Frog, what did you do to Magus?" Lucca asked, staring at Magus, who had stopped sobbing and was now cradling his abnormally-coloured cat.

"I do not know," Frog answered.

"Allow me," Magus said. Everyone was shocked to hear such natural speech flow from his mouth. "The loss of my sister in my childhood had left me psychologically scarred and emotionally crippled. What I really needed was someone who had known me since childhood who could share my grief with me. I needed to know that I wasn't alone in my pain. I needed someone who could release my pent up sorrow. My cat was the one who freed me from the past and gave me hope for the future."

"I see," Crono lied.

"My friend Frog," Magus said, "I know I have wronged you in the past. Yet today you have been my saviour. Let me remove my curse from you. That shall be my thanks."

So saying, Magus gave a stylish sweep of his arms. Frog was immediately bathed in a pool of glorious light. All in the room had to shield their eyes from the brightness emanating from Frog. Crono was slightly embarassed how very cliched this was.

When the light finally disappeared, Lucca saw the new improved Frog and gasped in wonder.

"Frog, y-you...you..." Lucca stuttered.

Ayla and Marle simply stared in wordless surprise.

"You haven't changed one bit," Crono observed.

Week #20

Frog snatched a stylish pair of sunglasses out of thin air and placed them over his eyes before giving Crono a cool smile.

"Froggy not same..." Ayla said in what might be a thoughtful voice if it didn't come from Ayla's mouth.

"Of course I'm not the same," Frog said with a smooth Italian accent.

"He...he speaks Modern English!" Marle screeched in shock.

Crono could only gasp in astonishment at the emergence of another challenger to his spotlight. No one thought to wonder why Frog had an Italian accent.

"W-what happened?" Azala cried in confusion. "Why hasn't Magus cut everything up into bite-sized pieces?"

"You sad lizard," Crono replied with all the bravado he could muster, "Magus's appetite for his cat has been satiated and he is no more your sock puppet! Instead, he has un-tied-up Frog from the cutely horrible curse of speaking Olde English!" Crono was still a little too shocked from Frog's new image to deliver coherent lines.

Crono gestured towards Magus. In one hand Magus carried his scythe menacingly, but the effect was ruined by the other hand which was cuddling his cat. "Behold!" Crono exclaimed. "The very feline you sent to trouble us has become our salvation!"

Azala glared at the purple cat in fury. "TRAITOR!" Azala finally managed to screech. "And after I got you that beautiful tailor-made tuxedo!"

Crono took a step forward and shook his head in what he hoped was a wise manner. "Azala, when will you realise the folly of your ways? Will you never learn that the only creature that can appreciate the feel of a well-made tuxedo is a human being? And...since I don't want to see you naked, I guess giant lizards as well."

Lucca, tired of standing silent, spoke up. "Did you never wonder why your malt products never caught on? Malt Dizzy can never be the malt empire you want it to be if you rely on spokes-animals that dress in a way nature abhors. Your mascots, with their keen sense of fashion, were never meant to be!"

Azala dropped to his knees andcould and shook his head in grief. "How could I have been so wrong? So wrong? It took a mentally unstable man with a scythe to make me realise my wrong-ness..."

Lucca's heart was slightly touched at the sight of this broken reptile. She fought back a tear.

Crono, however, was the quintessential hero. "The party is victorious!" he exclaimed, holding his sword high in triumph.

Week #21

"Crono, how could you..." Lucca said, wiping her eyes. "Can't you see the man's broken?"

"Man?" Crono replied, "I see no man, only a foul lizard who has paid the ultimate price for doing evil!"

"Yes, Azala was evil, but not even the most evil creature deserves to see his own empire crumble at the feet of Magus and his discoloured cat," said the suddenly soft-hearted Lucca, who just minutes ago was an eager evil-killer (that's evil-killer, as opposed to an evil killer...see the difference?).

"B-but...he's evil! I must rid the world of...evil!" Crono said, unable to forget his ultimate duty as the hero. He was getting conflicting messages from Lucca and his own calling.

Lucca put a comforting arm around Crono. "There, there," she said in an utterly uncomforting way. "I know you're having a deep emotional struggle here. I wish I could say that I've been through this and can help you, but I've honestly never had to choose whether or not I should kill a giant lizard who is also the Chair of a malt empire. So...there, there."

As Lucca eased Crono's sword from his hand, Crono managed to force out the words, "but...he's evil...I'm the hero. Heroes defeat evil, don't they?...Lucca? Heroes...I'm a hero...I should defeat him...he's evil..."

As Lucca listened to Crono go on and on about his deep emotional and psychological struggle that no one really cared about, the rest of the party was trying to get out of the pit by climbing on top of each other.

They were having quite a bit of trouble because Marle refused to be anywhere but at the top, and Frog refused to have his coolness ruined by letting people stand on his shoulders.

After about 20 minutes of jumping as high as they could and still missing the top of the pit by some 10 metres, Ayla, Magus, Marle, and Frog sat down to catch their breaths.

"How can this be?" Frog asked nobody in particular. "We've clearly won, so how come we are stuck in a pit instead of marching home in triumph?"

Lucca finally saw the source of their dilemma. "It's Crono! Crono! Darn it, it's CRONO!!"

"Huh? What?" Crono was brought out of his inner struggle by the sound of someone calling his name at the top of her voice.

"See, the reason we can't get out of here and triumph is because you, the hero, haven't done your little victory dance. The party must follow the hero, and we can't triumph if YOU don't triumph," Lucca explained patiently.

"Well, then, triumph already!" demanded Frog.

Week #22

Crono gave Frog a sad look. "Oh, how I wish I could triumph...but stupid Lucca here is too merciful! She won't let me kill Azala just because he's now a miserable wretch of a lizard, a shell of his former evil self."

"Sure, go ahead, blame me," Lucca replied.

"That's what I'm doing!" Crono screamed back.

Marle curled herself up against Crono's arm. "Oh, don't be such a sourpuss, Crony. No matter what happens, you'll always be my little hero."

Crono shuddered violently, trying to shake the blonde leech off himself. What sort of demented creature would consider "Crony" to be a pet name? He gave Frog a look of desperation, silently begging him for help.

Frog tossed Ayla a crowbar, turned her towards Marle, and began to think.

Azala's moanings of, "I've failed...I've failed...my empire of well-dressed animal mascots is crumbling..." drifted down, doing nothing to lighten the mood of the party.

Frog stuck his hands in his non-existent pockets glumly. He was surprised to find a note there, especially since he had no pockets in which this note might have been hiding. He read the note and his face immediately lit up.

Frog slipped up next to Magus. "Say, why don't you just fly us out of here?"

"Right!" Magus said in astonishment. "I almost forgot that I can fly. However did you remember?"

"Oh, this note from a Concerned Magus Freak told me," Frog replied. "But what concerns ME is why there is such a thing as a Concerned Magus Freak. Why have I never heard of a Concerned Frog Freak?"

"Because you didn't have a mental instability to be concerned about!" Lucca yelled over her shoulder as she attempted to help Ayla pry Marle off Crono. She was a little annoyed that Magus and Frog were just standing around talking instead of helping to free Crono.

"True, true." Frog took a moment to consider whether becoming insane would help increase his fanbase. "Say, Magus, how did you like being a babbling psychotic? Was it fun? It got you lots of fans, didn't it?"

"Frog, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking maybe if you were insane your fan club might increase its ranks. Well, I have been over the edge, and I can assure you that it's not worth it. Think about it: small vocabulary, vacant eyes, complete inability to appreciate good style..."

"All right! Enough! It's too horrible to even hear!" Frog exclaimed.

A weak sob from Azala jolted Frog back to his situation. Looking up at the shattered Azala, an sly grin suddenly popped onto Frog's face. He whispered something into Magus's ear.

"How'd you like that?" Frog asked. Magus's response was an evil grin in return. "Good," Frog continued. "You know the plan. Hurry up and get us up there while everyone's too busy freeing Crono to stop us."

Magus returned a conspiratorial nod and drifted upwards, with Frog dangling at the end of his scythe.

At this moment, Ayla finally succeeded in her task, and Marle came loose from Crono with a satisfying "pop." Crono looked up from knocking Marle unconscious just in time to see Magus and Frog landing in front of Azala.

Lucca saw what was happening as well. "I have a bad feeling about this," she said.

i>Week #23

Crono, Lucca, and Ayla stood at the bottom of the pit, staring up at Azala, Frog, and Magus. Feeling that this was an important event that even Marle should participate in, Ayla grabbed Marle's consciousness-deprived body by the back of the neck and lifted it to face in the general direction of Azala. The thought that Marle might better appreciate the significance of this event if she was aware never crossed Ayla's mind.

"What are they doing?" Lucca whispered with dread in her voice.

"I'm not sure, but why do you have dread in your voice?" Crono replied in a more audible volume.

Lucca turned to Crono with the gravest concern in her eyes. "Think about it, Crono. We all know that a party can't triumph without its hero. That's why we were stuck in this pit. Yet Magus and Frog have openly defied this most sacred rule. They've escaped the pit, and I bet that they plan on triumphing without you!"

"They plan to usurp my throne as hero!" Crono exclaimed in both anger and fear.

"No!" Ayla cried. As a trusted ally, she had cashed in on Crono's hero status, but she knew that Magus and Frog would never let her cash in on their success, especially since she had tried to eat Frog for supper.

"We might stop them yet, if we can get up in time. We mustn't let this evil deed take place, for we are the defenders of righteousness!" Lucca cried. She was the only member of the party who didn't have her fanbase on her mind at this point. The reason was probably because she didn't have a fanbase to be worried about.

"Quickly now!" Crono exclaimed. He rolled Marle's body against the wall of the pit and stood on it for a little extra height.

Lucca scrambled onto Crono's shoulders and Ayla jumped onto Lucca's head. She made a bold leap off Lucca's head and managed to catch the edge of the pit.

Using her inhuman strength, Ayla pulled herself over the edge of the pit. She saw Magus, Frog, and Azala huddled around a piece of paper on Azala's desk.

"STOP!" Ayla cried, throwing herself in the general direction of Azala.

Azala looked up from the paper long enough to point at Ayla. "Stop that berserk woman," he ordered.

A cuddly stuffed dog swiped at the airborne Ayla with its bat, knocking her to the side. Ayla landed in a soft, furry pile of homicidal teddy bears. She was too busy tearing the deadly toys to stop Magus and Frog's treacherous scheme.

"No, Froggy! No!" Ayla cried through a haze of tears and stuffing.

Suddenly Azala stood up, the paper held firmly in both hands. Lightning from a mysterious source flashed in the background.

"Behold! Malt Dizzy products shall henceforth be endorsed by Frog, a stylishly-dressed animal with an Italian accent; and Magus, an ex-psychopath. These two very socially acceptable spokespersons shall make Malt Dizzy a commercial global power! These two shall be pronounced the true and only heroes of the world."

"What about me?" Crono whimpered from inside the pit.

"You?" Frog said, peering into the pit, "you can be our sidekicks."

"NNNOOOOOO!!!!" Crono screamed, clutching his head with both hands.