Continuing Conversation with Boo...

[skylark]

Okay, you were asking who this guy I thought up was?

His name is Cain Cray, and technically he's been the go-to guy I make in games with character creation for years. It was only natural he would be my first choice for a fanfic protagonist.

For the two fic projects I've done, he's played different roles (hell, even different species), but the one constant was that he always hooked up with Schala at the end. (I guess that childhood crush from when Trigger first came out never went away. Who knew?)

Anyway, this version borrows heavily from his Children of Zeal version, with a couple of differences.

You know, this might be a story worth telling over a campfire. But this would be a story of tragedy, one that would last past the end of Chrono Cross.

That is, if anyone wants to stop by and listen...

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

*grabs up a sawn log and plops it down*

I hear this is the place for stories. Dreams and stories and tales...

*sits on the log, leaning forward towards the flames, hands open taking in the warmth*

Tell me a story.

[skylark]

Our story begins during the days of the mystical kingdom of Zeal, but not when one thinks. No, our story begins much earlier, during the reign of King Victor, predecessor to King Alphard.

Victor had been a wise ruler... once. Until one day, he decided on a soujourn from the kingdom to search for a treasure of humanity's ancestors. He returned... a changed man. No one noticed anything wrong at first, but over the next year, paranoia, dimentia, a series of increasingly brutal and maddened laws and decrees, and a platform of utter magical supremacy...

Many in Zeal had come to buy into Victor's new regime, especially the sudden persecution of those without magic, one in particular being a Duke of the noble house Cray who became Victor's staunchest supporter. Needless to say, the kingdom was nearly split in two over Victor's actions.

But there was one man who could not allow Victor's tyranny to continue, even if the stain of regicide would haunt him for the rest of his life. That man was Alphard, commander of the Royal Guard and betrothed to Princess Samaela. Upon learning that Victor planned to sacrifice his daughter to a being whose name has been lost to time, Alphard knew he had to act. Alongside his trusted companion Abel, the deed was soon done.

By the death of Victor, Alphard rose up as King, attempting to undo the damages Victor had caused. He was met with... fierce resistance.

It is here I must stress one of Victor the Mad's laws. 'By decree of the Kingdom of Zeal, any who would endanger or take the life of our sacred scholars will be shown no mercy, no quarter, their names forever black'. One would think that would be a standard, if rather specific law, but it failed to account for many factors. Acts of nature, suicide, actions beyond the control of anyone else... none were spared the consequences, as proponents of the law would easily find the nearest scapegoat to punish. Not even age was a factor, as anyone from the oldest man to the youngest child could be considered guilty.

This... became the unfortunate fate of the first and only son of the aformentioned Duke Cray. His crime: his mother's death by childbirth... and to the people of Zeal, the loss of such a taented scholar was a crime. It was only through cooler heads prevailing that the Duke didn't kill the newborn child on the spot, instead waiting until he was of proper age to be tried.

The boy was given the name of Cain... which in the ancestral tongue means 'murderer'...

[CptOvaltine]

I'm intrigued.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Yeah, sounds like a cool start!

So in this tale, what becomes of Cain? What is his part in the story?

[EgyLynx]

I'm intrigued.

Yeah, sounds like a cool start!
So in this tale, what becomes of Cain? What is his part in the story?

Good episode... hmm... Is name is omen now? are Cain sister/brothers? that open questions...

[skylark]

So our story continues. Cain's childhood was not an easy one. Very few people were sympathetic to the boy's plight, the Duke's slander ensuring his isolation from society. Whole-heartedly did the populace believe in the Duke's slander that they cam to see the boy as a 'demon incarnate'.

As such, he was also never given a proper schooling under the belief that criminals didn't deserve the right to knowledge. One even recalls an incident where the young Cain passed by the schools of learning only for the headmistress to have her younger students use him for target practice for their budding magical powers.

Such was the growing lack of empathy amongst the kingdom.

Life continued to be a struggle as what little support system the boy had dwindled down to nothing. It was at the age of ten that the Founding Festival happened...

...as well as the first meeting with someone who would change his worldview forever.

Trying his best to remain inconspicuous, the young Cain was surprised when he was pulled away from the back of the crowds. He was even more surprised when he realized it was a young girl nearly no older than he was.

The girl would drag him all around the festival. Apparently, it had been the first time she had been allowed out of the castle. From that, Cain wondered if she was part of the nobility.

He was half-right.

For the girl was none other that the young Princess Schala, exploring the world outside the royal palace for the first time, and assuming Cain to be a guide... or at least someone around her own age she could finally play with.

Because she had never left the palace, she was completely unaware of the stigmas surrounding Cain, and led him to the royal gardens to watch a fireworks display of Zeal's founding.

Up to this point, Cain had known only suffering and scorn, for reasons he never understood and was never told. This was the first time in his life he had ever been treated with genuine kindness. This day was a memory that would stay with him forever.

Unfoertunately, all good things must come to an end.

The pair were soon found by Schala's retinue, led by King Alphard himself... and among them was Duke Cray with guards of his own. Cain was dragged away, with the Duke's curses following close behind.

Little did anyone expect that the Duke, amongst many others, had held True to King Victor's beliefs to the point of revolution. Wether Cain realized it or not, his day with the Princess had now put the Duke on Alphard's radar, derailing his plans for a coup by many years.

It was now or never. In the Duke's eyes, the 'demon child' needed to be taken care of now... and he had an idea of just how to do it...

As of late, there had been a series of kidnappings across the kingdom. People were taken from their homes and forced to the surface, all of them being people with no aptitude for magic. Aside from King Alphard and others who still shared his morals, these illegal exiles while frowned upon, were not stopped.

And thus Cain, who until this point showed no aptitude for magic, was taken from his bed and tossed in with the latest group of 'exiles', to his new life as one of the 'Earthbound'....

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Fun read. So is this pre-Chrono Trigger timeline? Post Chrono Trigger? Is there time travel!

Inquiring minds must know!

[skylark]

Fun read. So is this pre-Chrono Trigger timeline? Post Chrono Trigger? Is there time travel!

Inquiring minds must know!

It's Pre-Trigger. At least this part of the story. It's more or less basically how Zeal ended up the way it is when Crono and co first arrived.

The second part of the story is Post-Cross where I hope some of the more controversial elements of the game are resolved.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

And does Cain end up with Schala, Kid, or do you plan to go with the merge theory?

[skylark]

 

.....you remember what started this, right? About my theory that Kid wasn't a daughter-clone, but Schala's actual daughter?

....I'll give you one guess as to who the father could have been. >_<

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

.....you remember what started this, right? About my theory that Kid wasn't a daughter-clone, but Schala's actual daughter?

Yeah, but this was a little unclear with all the time travel shenanigans. Not sure if this was a new timeline or just sort of retconning what already happened. Either way, of course I'm enjoying this fan fiction, thus why I keep asking questions.

So Schala and Cain have a daughter: Kid. Does all this happens before Crono and friends arrive in Zeal in 12000BC, right? Where are Cain and Kid during that time?

[skylark]

Well, this isn't a new tieline. This story is canon-compliant.

Kid is 'born' the same way she is in canon; Schala using the power of Lavos to create the life within after being briefly awakened by Serge's cries in Chronopolis.

As for Cain... there's an unfortunate reason you never see him in Trigger.

But that answer will come in time. Just need to get off my butt.

[CptOvaltine]

Let the man write, Boo! 

[skylark]

Yes. Let the man write!

….after over a year. *cough*

Where was I?!

——

It always took too long to adjust to the cold, wether in the frozen wastes below or above the kingdom. A cursory scrying revealed that the Duke was not guilty of fillicide when King Alphard made his inquiries, leaving the fate of young Cain out in the cold. It was among these inquiries that he learned of the boy and unfortunate miscarriage of justice that was his conviction.

Why would the King go through all this trouble for a child he had never met, you ask? Because for the next two years, little Schala would sadly ask her father what became of her first friend.

Unknownst to the 'Enlightened Ones', Cain would ultimately thrive amongst the Earthbound as a capable hunter, training himself in the ways of ambush tactics and the spear. His willingness to prove himself, once born of a desperate desire of acknowledgment, became an asset, as his group would always bring in the most food for Algetty.

Everything would change again in the third year, and to understand why, one must explain the theory of the Six Gates…

Every man, beast, and creature in this world carries the potential to awaken to at least one of the six great elements of the planet. Those who have opened one of the Six Gates shall become gifted with the power of magic, anything from mundane utility spells to devastating destructive powers.

…and then there are those who stand above them. Very few have ever been gifted with the ability to open more than two of the gates, but they exist. Of the few in recent memory, at least four Gates are mandatory if one wishes to count themselves amongst the Three Gurus, Princess Schala had opened three, both Dalton and the man who identified as Zeal's Prophet count the Fourth Gate opened, and both the King and Queen were among the few to open the Sixth Gate.

Thus, a first since the days of Zeal's founder, Cain Cray was the third in a generation to open the Sixth Gate.

But something was wrong. Cain never had the training to deal with the sudden awakening of magic power, and now it threatened to consume him. It would have too, if not for said backlash of power providing a convenient beacon for King Alphard to know his exact location. With the wild magic quelled, Cain was presented a choice: either stay amongst the Earthbound and inadvertently risk their lives with uncontrolled power, or become a ward of the Royal Family and learn to control his power for the good of all.

And so Cain made his decision…