Chrono Cross "Summary"

Chrono Cross Plot Summary
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- Fly by of some rectangular-prism tower surrounded by dragon-like statues. Inside, an elevator drops a trio of intrepid explorers to some unknown part of the tower. They are Serge, the apparent ring-leader and two flunkies, Kid and Korcha. After a bit of proding, Serge finally decides to step off the elevator.

- In a near by room, we see a large crystal switch thing (viewed from a balcony) which is apparantly what we're aiming for. Kid complains that is so close, yet so far... why can't you just jump off the balcony then? It doesn't look far...

- So we have to find our way through the labyrithine interior of the tower - seemingly the interior designer is trying to give M.C. Escher a run for his money. We manage to get to the crystal thing and deactivate it which allows us to teleport up to a platform floating high above the tower.

- Serge walks forward and touches a door which starts to bubble out at him in a way that is not entirely door-like. There is a flash of images, including one with a seemingly dead Kid on the floor, but then the whole thing turns out to be a dream.

- As Serge's mom wakes him up, we hear the enticing ring of Lenne's Bell... er, I mean, it's Arni village! And Serge's Mom informs him that he's late to me Leena, his would-be girl friend, or somesuch, who's waiting on the pier.

- Serge pokes around town a bit before going to see Leena (he's whipped, but not that whipped) and gets a sea charm from one of the local, oogles a poster of hot dancer Miki in the tavern and get a combat tutorial from Cheif Radius, who's pretty tough for and old guy. Also of relevance, a group of thieves, known as the Radical Dreamers, has apparantly been making a nuisance of themselves both here and on the mainland, even Porre's having trouble with them.

- When he finally gets around to going to the pier, Leena's been stuck babysitting. She whines at Serge for a bit then asks him to go get her some komodo dragon scales to make a necklace, apparantly all the rage around here, after which she'll catch up with him at Opassa Beach.

- So serge goes off and slaughters baby komodo dragons (and eventually their mom too, insensitive bastard) to take their scales and trots off happily to Opassa Beach.

- Leena catches up to Serge at the Beach and starts to prattle on about some promise they made many years ago and how Serge almost drowned (she sure is a dull one) but Serge is more interested in some unknown voice whispering his name and some large, incoming tidal wave.

- Serge's world goes a bit wonky - he gets a flash of various disjointed images including a scary looking black panther thing as some vortex opens around him at which point he then collapses on the beach. Next thing he knows, some person is waking him up, thinking he might have been a dead body. When asked, it turns out Leena's back at the village babysitting. Now why'd she run off and leave Serge lying there?

- Serge also notes that the overworld music has changed. What unexpected events could that herald?

- Regardless, Serge makes his way back to Arni, only things are now subtly different in town, plus nobody seems to remember him and his house is occupied by some dude who gets all annoyed by random people invading his house.

- Leena is still babysitting on the pier, though, and she says that Serge looks like a boy that used to live next door to her. She then relates the tale of how he drowned 10 years ago, and that his name was Serge. Dun dun dun. But Serge is alive and well? What's going on?

- Leena suggests that Serge go to visit the boy's grave on Cape Howl, which is exactly what he does. The tombstone has some poem that might be touching if it weren't so creepy to be reading from your own tombstone.

- As Serge is pondering things, three soldiers show up: Karsh and his two flunkies, Solt and Peppor. They seem to have expected to find Serge there and try to apprehend him, but that girl from Serge's initial dream shows up and instigates a fight.

- After Karsh and his flunkies are driven off, the girl, who calls herself Kid, offers to join Serge. She seems rather violent though so Serge is a bit wary of her and, though she's rather persistent, Serge eventually gets her to go away, though she says she plans to go to Termina before she leaves.

- Serge decides to spend the night in Arni in his old home. In the morning, Leena and some freaky looking dog thing named Poshul show up. Leena seems to feel sorry for Serge, thinking he might have hit his head, and as she has some errands to run in Termina, offers to help him out for a bit. Poshul comes along just because it doesn't know any better.

- Before leaving town, Serge decides to check on that fisherman guy who gave him the charm. Only now he's not a fisherman, but spends his time praying to a straw doll named Lucky Dan, which is kinda creepy. As we leave, the doll comes alive and decides its going to join the party. Great. Bunch of freaks.

- Anyway, to get to Termina we've got to go through Fossil Valley. Some soldiers are doing an excavation but are haunted by some spooky noises. We pose as the excorsist and find a disembodied skull hopping around. It wants to find the rest of its body so we agree to carry it around for a while. So icky...

- At the exit to the valley, the comic relief, Solt and Peppor are waiting for us, but they prove just an innefectual as last time.

- In Termina, we walk around and talk to people, sticking our noses where they don't really belong. Here's the salient points:

- There's a festival coming up. The singer, Nikki, has gone missing and the dancer, Miki, asks us to help look for him. His last known location was the Shadow Woods.

- The young knight, Glenn, and young lady Riddel are visiting the grave of Glenn's older brother, Dario, former Deva of the Acacia Dragoons. Apparantly, not all is well in Viper Manor since "he" came along. "He" being the one who sent Karsh "ghost hunting" to pick up Serge.

- Lord Viper apparantly has jurisdiction over this area and is supposedly responsible for keeping everything peaceful and happy.

- There is an object known as the Frozen Flame that is considered to be quite valuable and at least one person (including the Radical Dreameres) wants to get their grubby little hands on it.

- Various other characters are introduced. Since they've got portraits, many of them will probably be important later on.

- Kid finally joins up with us. Or, rather, forces herself upon us. She has "business" in Viper Manor (I suspect it is not really legitimate business since she seems unable or unwilling to use the front door). She also encourages Serge to go there in order to find out why he "died" 10 years ago and why Karsh was sent to retrive him.

- So we start by chasing AWOL singers into the Shadow Woods. Inside, we find Nikki who is trying to talk to plants. Well, lure them to their doom is more like it since we've got to feed these plant things to a monster blocking the path to proceed.

- Nikki wants in the manor because he believes his sister is in there so he tags along with us. The woods leads to an underground stream which brings us inside the walls of the Manor. We duck inside the dragon stable to avoid the search lights and help the aging groundskeeper feed the dragons in return for a key to the manor. He's far too trusting, that one.

- We now proceed to run amok inside the manor. A trap door drops us into a trap (duh), but Kid, whose been sneaking along after us, lets us free. She warns us not to interfere with her work. The party decides to walk around in the outfits of the unconcsiouc guards.

- Glenn has the memory of a seive and writes down the code to get past the trap door which we dutifully copy. We also stumble upon the research lab of one Dr. Luccia who's content to do a combat trial with us and let us go.

- We get a chance to talk to Zoah and Karsh of the Dragoons and question them about the goings on in the manor. Then we wander into the library where we find Marcia, the last of the living Devas, who's just a little girl and eager to fight us. Nikki is also convinced that she's his sister.

- Before we fight Marcia, an old man who appears to live in the Library and calls himself "The Prophet of Time" (hmmm...) gives us a lesson in parallel universes and suggests that something important happened involving Serge that caused the worlds to split - one in which he is alive, the other in which he isn't. He also tells us how to get to the top floor of the manor.

- After Marcia's had her taste of combat, we proceed up to the top floor of the manor (after a brief introduction to the flirty Harle) where we find some glowy object in General Viper's room (the dragon tear) which seems to give Serge a headache (better not sit too close to the TV)

- The General seems perplexed at Kid's varoius outbursts, but a cat-man, Lynx, the General's mysterious "guest" shows himself and Kid starts a fight, as usual. However, it turns out to be just a shadow.

- General Viper's daughter, Riddel, chooses this moment to come see her father so Kid takes her hostage and we escape to the roof. Only there's nowhere to go from here and Lynx and the others advance menacingly on our party.

- Well, nothing to do but jump and hope for the best at this point. Before they leap, Lynx manages to stab Kid and also calls Serge the "Assassin of Time" and the "CHRONO TRIGGER". Sheesh. No need to be so melodramatic there, cat-boy. (And don't talk in all-caps.)

- Anyway, everyone plumets into the water at the base of the cliff (somehow managing to avoid getting bashed to bits on the rocks) and are picked up by that Korcha guy who's there for some reason with his boat.

- Serge regains consciousness in the little village of Guldove where he soon meets up with his companions. Tragedy strikes quickly, however, when Kid collapses. Is she dead? We don't know so we drag her to the local doctor's (aptly named Doc) for a diagnosis.

- Turns out Kid's been poisoned by Hydra venom and Doc gives her about two days. She could be cured with Hydra humour (laughter is the best medicine, after all), but hydra's no longer exist in the El Nido archepelago and travel to the mainland is dangerous this time of year and would likely take too long, regardless, so we're at an impasse.

- Serge is at a loss for what to do next and refuses to go on a wild goose chase looking for hydras, partly because Kid's just been forcing herself on us, but mostly because Korcha's annoying.

- Korcha refuses to play ferry man for us now, but his mother, Macha, commandeers his boat (boat? more like a glorified canoe) and offers us a lift.

- Before leaving the village, we stop by the temple where we learn a bit about the Dragonian ruins that can be found around the archapalego, including the mostly intact Fort Dragonia for which the dragon's tear is apparently a key of sorts.

- Anyway, Macha ferries us back to Termina where we overhear Glenn talking about how Lynx and General Viper are headed to Fort Dragonia and that Lynx is probably up to no good.

- Glenn is looking for a ship of sorts to take to follow Lynx so he enlists our help so he and Macha now join our motly crew.

- Glenn wants to stop at a small island where Radius is living in his retirement in this world. However, when we get there, its been razed to the ground by Harle, who is waiting for us with orders to delay us, which she does, despite not being too tough.

- All is not lost, however, as Radius has built a secret underground bunker where he was able to take refuge. We go talk to him where he tells us a bit about Porre's military and how the General probably wants the Frozen Flame to use its power to impose peace. We're also warned about fog enroute to Fort Dragonia.

- Make a quick detour back to Viper Manor and talk to Dr. Luccia who is now willing to join our increasingly unweildly large group of adventurers, in the name of science!

- Now we get to sail headlong and recklessly into the fog near the shores of Mount Pyre (where Fort Dragonia is located). In the fog we encounter a ship - could it be the ghost ship we've been warned about? There is naturally no possible choice but to board the ship and loot it, running does not even cross our mind.

- It turns out that the ship is just a run-of-the-mill pirate ship (the S.S. Invincible) whose crew seems to be hiding from Lynx and are, hence, masquerading as a ghost ship. They seem to believe our story about what we're up to, but decide they need to test us in combat to see if we're up to snuff.

- We are victorious in battle, but the pirates play dirty and managed to slip us some tranquillizers unnoticed at some point and drag us off to the brig. While we're locked up a REAL ghost ship emerges from the fog and attacks the Invincible.

- In the ensuing mayhem, we escape our cell, find some creature named Pip (which we'd previously released from one of Luccia's cages), defeat the ghost ship's boss, thus driving it off.

- The captain, Fargo, tells us that Mount Pyre is really, really hot (temperature wise) so we'll need some sort of protection. He suggests visiting the Water Dragon, only nobody's really heard from the Water Dragon (or any of the other Dragons) is some time, so who knows what's up. Still, guess it's worth a shot.

- So we head over to Water Dragon Island, except that everything's dried up due to recent inclement weather, the dragon's lair is sealed off and the Water Dragon is apparently nowhere to be found.

- At a bit of a loss, Serge heads back to Guldove to check on Kid. It turns out that she's up and about. The Doc informs us that some anonymous benefactor from the mainland provided some hydra humour, so that's all resolved. But it doesn't help us with our missing dragon problem.

- Kid suggests that if Serge uses her amulet, he might be able to cross between dimensions, the theory being that the Water Dragon might still exist in th other world. Seems a bit dubious, but there aren't any other leads so it probably won't hurt... The Doc decides to tag along since he's bored.

- Serge returns to Opassa beach and finds a swirly thing in the sand. Using the amulet pulls us through the dimensional vortex to Serge's home world. Ducking into Arni village, one of the fishermen offers to take us to Water Dragon Isle for a small fee. How thoughtful.

- This version of Water Dragon Isle has lots of water and lilypads to jump on. Not all is well, though, as some beady-eyed, big-nosed dwarves are attacking the helpless fairies who live on the island. We retaliate by killing off every single last dwarf we can find.

- Pursuing the dwarves into the caves and slaughtering them mercilessly leads us to the Water Dragon who's just sitting around, frog-like, letting all this senseless slaughter occur. He seems to know what we want, however, and gives us his ice breath (how the heck do we carry breath around?) so that we can freeze the lava on Mount Pyre.

- We go back to the other world and head to mount Pyre. The Water Dragon's ice breath does the trick nicely and lets us freeze the lava so we can avoid burning our feet off.

- Pretty soon, we have another encounter with the comic relief duo of Solt and Peppor and they're still as dumb as always. After that we fight some random little red dragon guy and finally, just before the exit, we fight Karsh, Zoah and Marcy. Marcy doesn't seem to like us very much, but it doesn't really matter as we defeat them and go on our merry way.

- This brings us out into a plain in the middle of the mountains where stands Fort Dragonia which turns out to be that structure from Serge's dream way back at the start of the game. From the looks of it, the fort is going to be some annoying puzzle dungeon. Fun fun fun!

- Anyway, we manage to climb to the top of the tower - that floaty platform with the door from Serge's dream. As in the dream, the door bubbles out and Serge has that recurring vision of him with a bloody dagger in his hand standing over a prone Kid and looking awefully pleased about himself.

- Then the door opens, ominously. NO! DON'T GO IN THERE SERGE!! Unfortunately, his party members have a different idea.

- The Dragon Tear is on a pedistal in the middle of the room with General Viper and Lynx waiting for us. The General decides to give us a bit of a warm up, but he's old and not very tough. Then Lynx stabs Viper in the back and we fight him who, whilst acting intimidating, turns out to be only moderately dangerous.

- However, Lynx is resilient and starts babbling about how defeating him is like Serge denying his own existence. This is about when Kid bursts in demanding vengance for Lynx's past wrongdoings.

- It is, however, also when the Dragon Tear starts to go glowy again and Serge needs to get his migrane medication. There's a bit of a twist, though, as some morphing goes on in the reflection in the Dragon Tear, then Serge starts looking kinda evil.

- And then Serge talks, urging Kid to defeat Lynx, who backs away and says nothing. No this is officially very bad (tm). You know when the Silent Protagonist actually says something that it's a sign of the apocalypse or something. Serious stuff is about to go down.

- So, Kid and crew fight "Lynx", who really doesn't stand a chance. Three on one, afterall. Not even remotely fair.

- Then Evil Serge tries to goad Kid into finishing "Lynx" off by mocking her memories of Lucca (not Luccia), only Kid never told Serge about Lucca. Oh snap! Since Evil Serge has blown his cover, he does the only thing possible: he stabs Kid.

- In one last act of vandalism, Evil Serge blows up all the statues in the room and tells Serge-Lynx to come to the Sea of Eden if he wishes to learn what the hell is going on. Then things black out for a bit.

- Then Lynx wakes up in a dimensional vortex that looks like a wonky impressionist painting. He sneaks into the house of a green-skined goblin thing named Sprigg whilst she is out chasing nuts. She seems to take pity on him and allows him to stay the night.

- Sprigg decides to tag along the next morning since she thinks we might be able to help her escape the vortex. Also, she can let us into a tower, though she doesn't explain how.

- In the tower we encounter Harle who gives Lynx an existential lecture trying to convince him that he is, in fact, Lynx now and not Serge. Lynx doesn't fall for it and presses onward.

- Lynx enters a strange Escher-esque landscape and Harle decides to be helpful and join up after all. We soon find our way out of the vortex and wind up in the Hydra Marshes in Serge's home world. Sprigg seems happy to be back in some form of reality.

- Harle suggests we should go back to the distortion on Opassa Beach to begin our investigation, so we do, but it proves unresponsive. Harle claims this is because Lynx is not Serge, or something.

- At a loss for what to do next, Lynx decides to impose himself on his mother's hospitality. She seems willing to believe his story, but then Radius bursts in and demands Lynx to "step outside", identifying himself as a former Acacia Dragoon.

- Somewhere in there, Serge's mother tells us about how Leena's father, Miguel, and Serge's father got lost during a storm on a fishing trip and wound up in the Sea of Eden (now the Dead Sea). Miguel did not return.

- After beating Radius into the ground he decides we're not so bad after all. He seems to take hope in the fact that General Viper and Riddel are still active in the Other World and decides to join us, seemingly to help the General in this world. He demands we go to Termina, and, oh, maybe we'll find something to help our situation somewhere along the way.

- The Porre military has overrun Termina and seem to recognize Lynx, though the common folk don't seem to take too kindly to him. Snooping around town we add a couple new faces to our entourage: Zappa, the blacksmith who's shutting down his smithy and is also Karsh's father (who's missing in this world) and Van, son of Gogh, who tags along just because.

- We traipse on over to the ruins of Viper Manor, which nobody has apparantly thought to repair, to talk to the Porre Commander, Norris, who is hiding out in the basement (which we have to go through a well to get to)

- Norris seems willing to answer Radius' questions. The Porre Military had come to the manor because they thought the Frozen Flame was there, only it turned out not to be and they don't know the current whereabouts of the General.

- It is thought that the Frozen Flame and/or general might be in the general vicinity of the Dead Sea, only there's no known way in, though it is thought that the people of Marbule might have some connection. Norris also offers to tag along to learn if the Frozen Flame really exists or not.

- It's off to Marbule, then. The town is deserted except for some spooky ghost things and the great explorer Toma and his assistant. Toma gives a little history lesson and explains that the people of Marbule are now working on the S.S. Zelbess. We then decide to take a nap.

- At night, we overhear a mermaid weeping, but she flees. In the morning, she approaches, introducing herself as Irenes, and basically orders us to take her to the Zelbess. The nerve!

- Well, off to the S.S. Zelbess, I guess. It's a cruise ship and is this world's version of the prirate ship Invicible. What a difference! A ship belonging to the Magical Dreamers (that's Nikki's band) is sailing along side the Zelbess. Seems like a concert's in the works.

- On board we meet dynamite dancer Miki who claims the Magical Dreamers are about more than just looks. Sure, you believe that...

- Anyway, we try to locate the Sage of Marbule, only the guy is all mopey and depressed and pretends he doesn't know what we're talking about. We only learn the truth after he goes down to the lower level where you need the captain's permission to go.

- So we go talk to captain Fargo, only the others blab about our real reason for wanting access (shut up guys, sheesh!) and the captain turns out to have a grudge against the people of Marbule and denies permission, at least until he decides it would be more fun to gamble on it.

- Well, we lose, initially, but through a series of events that involve getting turned into cats for a brief spell by the hapless magician Sneff, we uncover Fargo's dirty secret: he's a cheater! We also find out that he's the father of Nikki and Marcy, their mother being Irene's deceased sister, Zelbess, the ship's namesake. Which, by the way, is the source of Fargo's gruge: he's emo and wants Marbule to die along with his deceased lover.

- (And, by the way, this world's version of Solt and Peppor are hanging around in Sneff's green room.)

- When we confront Fargo with his secret, he relents and lets us do as we please. Yay for blackmail!

- Down below, we find the Sage mopping floors. He tries to play hard-to-get at first, but we beat him up and he admits knowing about how to get into the Dead Sea and gives us a fiddler crab. Is this some kind of joke?

- We don't get a chance to pummel him for further information as Nikki decides to show up and convinces the Sage to teach him the Song of Marbule so they can restore the village. They go off to Nikki's ship and invite us along.

- On the ship, Nikki unveils his mad plan: they must somehow get the Zelbess within shouting distance of Marbule and play the song which will allow us to beat up those ghost things. Miki is behind the plan, but the only problem is it requires Fargo's cooperation and, so far, he's having none of that.

- Since Fargo won't oblige and move the ship, we give up for now and go looking for the entrance to the Dead Sea. Turns out that fiddler crab is an explosives expert or something as it manages to demolish a section of the coral reef around the sea revealing a passage.

- The passage, however, is blocked by the Masamune which is giving off seriously evil vibes. Masa and Mune must be pissed about something! According to Radius, the only thing that can counter the Masamune is the holy sword, Einlanzer.

- Flashback to Radius training with Garai and an expedition to the Isle of the Damned to retrieve the Masamune. Something is not quite right about Radius' story, but it seems we now have to take a field trip to the Isle of the Damned to get the damn sword back. Meaning the Einlanzer, of course.

- We navigate the Isle of the Damned and come to Garai's grave where Radius has a flashback to being overcome by the mind-altering powers of the Masamune (or so he claims) and killing Garai by stabbing him in the back. We then have to beat up a noticably cheesed off spirit of Garai, but after that we get the Einlanzer and all is happy and sunshine. Well, not really 'cause the Isle of the Damned is still made of piles of bones and is burning, burning, always burning!

- Anywho, we can now get into the Dead Sea which... is very interesting looking. It looks like ruins from the future are locked in a frozen sea. We wander through the ruins, half expecting to see Johnny of the Robo Gang, and find a terminal with data on our dear old friend, Lavos. Mayhap this is what the Frozen Flame is refering to. Hmmm...

- We get to the centre of the Dead Sea and the Tower of Geddon. In here it looks a bit like a shopping mall, but Serge-Lynx starts hallucinating about ghosts of three children who look familiar. Also, it seems this world's Acacia Dragoons came here and are now frozen in time. Or lost in time or something.

- After napping in an Enertron (still hungry), we find ourselves in what seems to be the ruins of Leene's Square where the ghostly visages of child versions of Chrono, Lucca and Marle accuse Serge-Lynx of destroying the future they worked so hard to save.

- Then, a guy steps out from behind the decrepit remains of Lenne's Bell and gives us a quick summary of Chrono Trigger and explains that the future that was prevented in the first game is trying to reassert itself. This is Miguel (Leena's father) who has been stranded here since he and Serge's father stumbled upon the place when trying to find help for an injured Serge (though it was in better repair then).

- We then have to fight Miguel over the fate of the future. While he looks like he's just some guy, Miguel is no slouch, but we emerge victorious.

- Things start to get a bit shakey then. Miguel says that the ruined future is starting to disappear back into the void again, but he suggests that FATE is doing whatever it needs to do to prevent the Frozen Flame from being found, taking as if Fate is some sort of physical entity.

- Miguel tells us to run to save ourselves and, having a healthy dose of self-preservation, we do just that. However, things look grim but a silver dragon (the Sky Dragon) swoops down and saves us from certain doom. He (or perhaps it) tells us that if we wish to challenge FATE then we will need to seek the blessing of the six dragon gods of El Nido. Great, fetch quest time.

- Serge-Lynx's hangers on suggest trying to go back to the other world so we head to Opassa Beach and find that the dimensional portal is back in working order. Visiting Arni Village reveals that Lynx, in the guise of Serge (this could get confusing...) has been running amok and terrorizing the countryside.

- We wander up to Termina to find that the Porre military has invaded (the world seems to have gone to hell quickly in our absense) and also taken control of Viper Manor.

- In the back of the pub, Karsh and Zoah fill us in on what happend in Fort Dragonia after Serge and Lynx played switcheroo with their bodies. Seems the Dragoons burst in just as evil Serge disappeared with Kid. The dragoons then took the wounded Viper to Hermit's Hideaway along with the shards of the Dragon Tear.

- Serge-Lynx decides to team up with Karsh to invade Viper Manor and rescue Lady Riddel, leaving Zoah in Termina for, uh, delicate undercover work whilst Marcy is still at Hermit Hideaway protecting the General.

- Leaving Termina, we encounter this world's Norris who admits that siding with Lynx was not the brightest thing they've ever done. He offers to help as he apparently believes our story that this Lynx is not the real Lynx.

- The soldiers at the manor let us through with no problem since they think Lynx is Lynx. Following Norris' advice, we infiltrate the prison complex via the sewers and free the pirate captain Fargo (who went and got himself captured somehow) in the process.

- When we find Lady Riddel, she is about to be interrogated by the "Hell" cook, Orcha (the Manor's cook who has undergone some major Pavlovian conditioning). But we put a stop to that nonsense and free the General's daughter.

- Norris escorts Riddel out of the manor, but we get stuck fighting the bosses on the way out. Figures, leave us to do all the dirty work. This includes fighting the Porre Army's new killing machine cyborg thing, Grobryc. (And after defeating him he decides to tag along since he only takes orders from those "stronger" than him, ie. us.)

- After defeating all the bosses, we jump through the fancy stain glass window in the library (ala Nadia in Chrono Trigger) and land in the stables. We instigate a dragon stampede which we use as cover to flee the manor. And hey! There's a boat all nice and ready for us. Time to go sailing!

- Head on over to the Hermit's Hideaway where General Viper is recovering nicely. Riddel joins our party out of thanks for rescuing her, but then evil Serge and brainwashed Kid attack! Someone must have tipped them off to our whereabouts...

- Things look grim, but Fargo rescues us with his oversized parrot monster and takes us back to the S.S. Invincible, leaving evil Serge to shake his fist. "I'll get you next time!" or something.

- On the Invincible, Serge-Lynx mopes around and daydreams about Kid. Except he focuses on all her violent tendencies. Makes you wonder a bit about his "preferences."

- Below deck, Fargo and Viper are posing for a duel over some long running fued betwixt them that they don't have the courtesy to explain just yet. In light of the current situation, they decide to put aside their differences for the time being and both join our party. Then Marcy and Zoah (he of the tin can on the head variety) also join up. Wow, everyone's being so helpful...

- It's imperative to prevent evil Serge from getting to the Frozen Flame so we wander over to try to get into the Sea of Eden, but like its cross-dimensional counter part, it is sealed tight. Harle informs us the "Pearly Gates", as they seem to be called, require the blessing of the six dragon gods of El Nido and implies that Serge-Lynx has to regain his proper form to enter.

- Harle returns to the Invincible briefly where she decides to part ways with Serge-Lynx. Oh well, the party was starting to get a bit unwieldly anyway.

- So, off to track down those dragon gods. We wander over to Guldove to see if anything interesting is happening there and, oh look, some Porre Soldiers are being beat up by one of the local ladies.

- One of the soldiers recognizes Lynx and so the violent woman decides we must be an enemy as well (this could get annoying...) but we fight her off and convince the half-wit soldiers to leave her in our care.

- The woman, Orhla, along with the locals, buys into the story that Lynx is actually Serge and gives him a brooch so that she'll know its him when he gets his real body back at which point she promises to help out. Nothing else seems to be going on here at the moment so we resume searching for the dragon gods.

- Well, we know where the Water Dragon was hanging out since he gave us his breath earlier, so we go back to the appropriate island in Serge's home world and challenge him to a duel. Victory earns us his blessing in the form of the Blue Relic. One down, five to go.

- Poking around, we also find Earth Dragon Island where some explorers are wandering around on the surface with no idea of how to proceed. Being the intrepid adventurers we are, we walk into the quicksand without a second thought (or any sense of self-preservation) and let it suck is down.

- Under the surface, we soon run into some immovable objects. Returning to the surface, the astounded explorers set to work and tell us to come back later.

- So we go explore the El Nido triangle and find a star fragment which we take to Sky Dragon Isle where, after a brief fight, we are able to recruit the petit alien Starsky.

- We then return to Earth Dragon Island where the explorers have removed the blockage from the caverns allowing us to make our way to the Earth Dragon's chamber where he challenges us to a duel. Victory rewards us with the Yellow Relic. Two down, four to go.

- Next we go visit sissy-Fargo on the S.S. Zelbess. With pirate Fargo in our party, he tells off his sissy counterpart and takes control of the ship, rechristening it the S.S. Invincible. The ship gets steered over towards Marbule and Nikki and the Magical Dreamers get to put on their show.

- The show is a melodramatic reenactment of the meeting between a mermaid and lost sailor. Full of thees and thous and sappiness. Some neat muzak though. Anyway, this music renderes the ghostly monsters in Marbule into corporeal entities which we then have to beat up. Defeating them all wakes up the Black Dragon - in the other world. To punish him for taking
a nap at an inopportune time, we go and defeat him. Three down, three to go.

- While in the other world, we go visit the Red Dragon in Mount Pyre whom we encountered here earlier on our way to Fort Dragonia. But this is no fire side chat, we've come to beat up the pesky dragon and abscond with his pet salamander. Well, actually he gives it to us, but we'd rather just take it, so nya! Four down, two to go.

- Going back to Serge-Lynx's home world, we terrorize some innocent marshland creatures and ride a giant insect over to Gaea's Navel where we encounter what seems to be a chibi-Ayla. She's gotten separated from her tribe, though she doesn't know how - she's just a kid after all. Since she's never been taught not to go places with strangers she decides to tag along, but she carries an axe that's as big as she is so she can probably take care of herself.

- The ironic thing about Gaea's Navel, is that it's supposed to be this pristine island, untouched by humans, but to get to the Green Dragon, we've got to go an slaughter all the creatures on the island, destroying it's ecosystem. This coming after a big deal is made about the how the Hydra Marshes have suffered due to human actions. Oh well, the Dragons stand in our path so there's no time worry about moral quandries, we'll just kill things and take their stuff. Much simpler.

- After destroying the island's ecosystem we then burst in upon and defeat the Green Dragon. Five down, one to go.

- With his comrades defeated, the Sky Dragon now consents to our challenge and we show him who's boss and take his relic. Six down, none to go.

- Now that the dragons standing in the way of progress have all been defeated we can access the Sea of Eden, though the strange glowy things therein do not respond to us and Serge-Lynx's flunkies speculate that he needs to regain his human form. Never mind that Serge is getting used to being a large cat-man-thing. Oh well, them's the breaks.

- This means we'll need to go to Fort Dragonia again, but in order to do so we stop by Guldove in Serge's home world and speak to the priestess Steena. Now that we have all the dragon relics she is willing to hand over the Dragon Tear that unlocks the fort and she decides to tag along with our merry band of fools. As a side note, Steena also appears to have stolen Elvis' pants.

- Anyway, we go to home world's Fort Dragonia. Since we possess the Dragon Tear this time, it means that we don't have to mess around with the Fort's annoying puzzles (yay) but we still take a few moments to loot the fort before proceeding into the main elevator thing.

- When we do, it just so happens that evil Serge is waiting for us (how'd he get in here?) and is intent on preventing Serge-Lynx from defurryfication (yes, that's a word).

- Evil Serge is but a minor speed bump and we proceed up to the top of the tower, looting as we go, 'till we get to that floating platform with the bubbly door.

- Serge-Lynx enters the chamber by himself because the other two are too wussy to accompany him. There's no boss or anything inside, just a brief history lesson from the point of view of the Reptites up to the fall of their civilization with the coming of Lavos. They seem bitter.

- Serge-Lynx is then reborn as Serge by the Dragon Tear and he somehow manages to get his old clothes back too. When he emerges, Steena feeds him some line about Divine Dragon Falls and how the two parts of the Dragon Tear which he now posesses (remember kids, he's still got that one from the other world) could combine to form the legendary Chrono Cross. I dunno. Sounds kind of hoaky to me.

- So, in theory we could go to the Sea of Eden now, but instead we're going to go do some random side quests and collect some extra characters. Oh, and now that Serge is defurried, all the party members he had accumulated before becoming Serge-Lynx magically reappear. Bunch of fair weather band wagon riders.

- A trip to the Isle of the Damned in the Other World with Karsh in tow nets a confrontation with Solt and Peppor who aren't entirely comic relief this time and implies some disturbing things about Karsh's role in Dario's (Glenn's brother's) death. Of course he denies it - convenient that there were no witnesses.

- Returning to Serge's home world, we visit a small shack on a small island where this world's Dario is still alive, if forgetful. It turns out Karsh really did kill Dario's alternate self, but it was only because the Masamune had possessed Dario. The legendary sword just happens to appear and possesses this Dario as well, but we manage to fight him off and purge the evil from the Masamune. Then Masa and Mune (and Doreen) transform into the Mastermune, a weapon for Serge.

- As noted, we also run around collecting characters: skeletal clown Skelly, bunny-girl Janice, plant-thing Turnip, bartender Orlha and baby dragon Draggy. Many of these will never see action, but oh well!

- Finally, it's off to the Sea of Eden. There are 3 small islands surrounding some frozen triangle thing. If it were smaller, perhaps it would be a delectible dessert. But it's not, so we'll cry at our misfortune because it probably means trouble instead.

- We find the three Fate (Atropos, Clotho and Lechesis) on each of the small islands (one per) and on the last one, they combine to form a boss - a floating mask-thing. Well, we smash it's face in and doing so reveals a central island that was hiding under all that curiously frozen water.

- The central island is home to the Time Fortress Chronopolis which is populated by spooky ghost things. The Fortress is from the year 2400 A.D. and the ghosts talk about some sort of experiment they were running that would have allowed them to control time. It seems that, with Lavos eliminated, the people of the future started to develop a god-complex.

- Also of note, it seems that in the future from which Chronopolis hails, the sea of El Nido was empty except for the man-made island on which it was located. Curious. Most curious indeed.

- Snooping around, we learn that Chronopolis' super computer, FATE, has been observing and controlling the two parallel worlds via the "Record of Fate" (ie, save points) scattered around.

- Apparently, the experiment went awry and Chronopolis was thrown backwards in time by 10000 years. As a result, FATE terraformed the archipelago and the fortress' researches went out to populate it. Since then, FATE has been guiding things and preventing the outside world from influencing events in El Nido and vice versa. FATE also created the Element system.

- After messing around for a bit and pressing some random buttons, we eventually gain access to the inner chamber, the security system recognizing Serge as some sort of "Arbiter"

- Inside we find out what we've suspected all along: that the Frozen Flame is actually a fragment of Lavos. Which of course means that things could suddenly get very bad.

- Evil-serge appears and explains that when Serge was bitten by the panther-demon ten years ago and his father and Miguel came here (having been blown off course by a storm), Serge came in contact with the Flame which healed him and identified Serge as the new arbiter. This prevented FATE from being able to intervene directly with the two worlds.

- Lynx is also the phyical incarnation of FATE and needed Serge's form to regain access to the system. And now that that's been done, it's time to remove Serge from the picture, once and for all.

- FATE attacks (though a hidden circuit, known as Prometheus - attributed to the work of a certain Lucca - tries and fails to prevent it) but, naturally, we destroy it, 'cause that's what we do. Fisticuffs, yay!

- Kid, who has been present but unconscious up until now, wakes up and tries to make off with the Flame for her own nefarious purposes, but Harle decides to suddenly reappear and tells her to stop.

- However, it now turns out that the six dragon gods had been sealed by FATE and now that the meddling computer system is gone, they're back at full power and combine into one super dragon and blow the place up - or maybe it just made off with the flame. Also, Sky Dragond Island turns into some floating tower thing. Harle also disappears again.

- We somehow managed to escape the dragons' wrath and are back on the Invincible where all the grumpy old men are debating what to do next. It can be summed up thusly: this is kind of bad, we should do something about it, but we don't know what. Oh, and Kid is unconscious again - sleeping on the job and letting us do all the dirtly work. Figures.

- With the end of the world nigh there is only one logical thing to do: side quests and tieing up loose ends! Yippee!

- We drag Steena to Ancient Dragon Falls (which she alluded to earlier) and use the two versions of the Dragon Tear to create the legendary element known as "Crono Cross". Oooh, sparkly.

- Then we drag the alien Starsky to the El Nido Triangle in the Other World where his spaceship is more or less in tact and he pulls out the anti-gravity unit and attaches it to our boat, allowing us to travel to Terra Tower. (Ok, so we actually needed to do this so it's not a side-quest, per se)

- Then we pay a visit to Hermit's Hideaway where Kid is sleeping on the job. Masa and Mune refer to her as "The Princess" but seem to think they are unable to do anything about the situation. Doreen, however, bullies them into, well, doing stuff.

- Kid just happens to be holding a Time Egg (implied to have been made by Lucca which, presumably, is who Kid received it from) so Masa, Mune and Doreen use it to send Serge and his party into Kid's past.

- This turns out to be the orphanage where Kid grew up which is also Lucca's home. Except it's on fire. And Gato looks decidedly... broken (*sniff*). So we run around the burning house rescuing children and killing fire monsters until we find an unconscious Kid.

- Just past Kid are Lynx and Harle, looking evil. (You killed Lucca, you bastards!) They take off and Serge carries Kid out of the burning house.

- On the hill outside, Kid whines about being left alone. Serge, the fool that he is, promises not to leave her alone and then vanishes (seeing as he's got to return to his present and all that) leaving Kid by herself. This just proves that Serge is not to be trusted.

- Anywho, back in the present, Kid wakes up and joins the party for good, or so we assume. Radius informs us that Luccia wants to see her in Viper Manor. So we go there (we've got to pick up plant-thing NeoFio anyhow) and Luccia gives Kid a letter from Lucca which basically implies that Kid is Schala, if Masa and Mune's reaction to her wasn't enough of a clue.

- So, time to go save the world, I guess. We hike our way through Terra Tower and part way through that Prophet guy from way back near the start who was hanging out in the Viper Manor library hijacks us into some sort of recreation of said library.

- The Prophet wants to interrupt our journey for a little chat. Would have been nicer of he'd offered us scones, but can't win 'em all, I guess. Anywho, he is now calling himself Belthasar, Guru of Reason.

- He gives a breif summary of how he ended up in the future, thanks to Lavos. In the future, he discovered something about an entity called the Time Devourer in the distant future and established Chronopolis.

- However, their time experiments went bad, creating the Time Crash, drawing Chronopolis 10000 years in the past. At the same time, a city from an alternate dimension's future, Dinopolis (built by the descendants of the Reptites and is now known as Terra Tower) was pulled back in time as a sort of counter balance.

- The two cities warred and Chronopolis won. The super computer FATE divided and sealed the dragon god (a creation of the Reptites as a sort of biological machine) into six parts and locked down El Nido, guiding its development to ensure history stayed on course, more or less.

- On the night Serge came into contact with the Frozen Flame, the storm temporarily disabled FATE allowing the dragon gods enough time to create a seventh dragon which, it turns out, is Harle. This seventh dragon manipulated Lynx into getting access to FATE so that it could be destroyed, thereby releasing the seal on the dragons so they could seek their revenge. Um... big oops on our part, I guess.

- It also turns out that Lynx was originally Serge's father, remoulded by FATE, based loosely on the panther demon that had poisoned Serge. Somehow, I suspect that Serge is going to need a lot of therapy to work all this out.

- Anyway, we go on our merry way and eventually come to the top of the tower. Belthasar is waiting for us again (he's pretty quick for an old guy) and gives us a new Time Egg which he tells us to use to journey to the Darkness Beyond Time, but first we've got to defeat that pesky seventh dragon thing.

- Which, of course, we do. Terra Tower rumbles like it's going to fall apart, but instead it just does some weird final transformation thing before becoming inert.

- Well, to get to this ominous sounding Darkness Beyond Time we have to go back to where this whole thing started - back on Opassa Beach in Serge's homeworld.

- There, we find the ghostly visages of Chrono, Marle and Lucca, much like when we fought Miguel.

- Ghostly Lucca fills us in on a few details about Schala. It turns out, as the Ocean Palace was crumbling around her, Schala and Lavos merged into a single entity (ewww) which evolved into the Time Devourer and became trapped (more or less) in the Darkness Beyond Time.

- Serge's pathetic wailing when he was attacked by the panther demon got Schala's attention and earned her pitty. First, she created a clone of herself which is who Kid actually is (surprise!) and in her efforts to reach Serge she caused the storm that temporary disabled FATE.

- Schala left her pendant with her clone which was picked up and raised by Lucca. And things unfolded as they unfolded.

- So now it's up to Serge and company to use the Time Egg to travel to the Darkness Beyond Time and try to put an end to Lavos-Schala.

- Which is precisely whate we do by using that Chrono Cross element thing that we made a little earlier.

- Schala is freed from Lavos and, in return, she gets all philosophical about life, death and the nature of evolution. Well, I suppose she's probably had a long time to think about all this.

- Anyway, Schala then tells Serge he's not going to remember any of this now that the two worlds are merging back together again so, basically, from Serge's point of view it will all have been a dream.

- Then, Serge wakes up on Opassa Beach with Leena having apparently just blacked out after having mercilessly slaughtered all those Komodo Dragon Pups just so he could appease Leena and make her a silly necklace from their scales which she's probably just going to forget about after a day or two anyway.

- Serge babbles something half-remembered about his adventures but Leena has no idea what he's talking about and that, it seems, is that.

- We see some scenes that suggest that Schala/Kid is looking for and/or watching over Serge (stalker girl) and lastly we see her standing on Opassa Beach, now in a dress, a bit more Schala-like than the skimpy Kid outfit.

The End