Ok, here's Part Two. It has everything from the breaking point to Sorin's death, and features a list of what we still need to finish. So, without further adieu...is that how you spell it?
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The Breaking Point
The Frozen Flame demonstrates its supreme asstardery by flinging the heroes off to different time periods. There are three groups here. One is composed of Magus, Schala, and Glenn, and they’ve been sent off to a high technological future on the brink of destruction, and are fated to make a grave choice. Another contains Lucca, Marle, and Robo, who get to witness the founding of Guardia firsthand, only to find out that the history textbooks lied to them (OMFGLOL!) Poor Crono is all by his lonesome, and he witnesses the most terrifying thing of all. And when I say it’s the most terrifying thing of all, I mean that Goatse is positively wonderful compared to that shit.
Crono Nightmare #1
Crono goes first in the breaking point sequence. He’s ended up in a nightmarish temporal flux that’s even harder to navigate than the editing program, if that’s possible. He finds himself in the midst of a Porre assault on Truce, much more vicious than the last one. He sees an alternate version of himself being captured, and rushes after him, fighting VERY DIFFICULT battles. At the end of the sequence, he finds a version of William Ishito as the Headsman. Ishito says a bunch of stuff about how he brought this on his country, and how it’s his fault that all those people are going to die. He comments that Crono is the reason he’s in the state he is, and then gives him the guillotine. Temporal flux happens, and the scenario shifts to Marle, Lucca, and Robo.
The Founding of Guardia
The aforementioned three land on a frozen tundra, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Immediately, Marle begins expressing turmoil over Crono's fate; Lucca is disturbed as well, and reveals that she still sort of likes the guy. Girl talk ensues, and the party starts wandering, hoping to find some hint of civilization. Eventually they spot a large mass, which turns out to be a primitive army bearing the brunt of the cold. Before they approach, they notice another army riding up the valley behind them; it is flying the Guardian flag, so they venture over there. The army is dumbfounded and nearly kills the travelers due to the weird robot with them (Robo), but Marle's pendant is the same as the leader - Cedric the Executor, later to become King Guardia I. Marle attempts to catch up, but the approaching army - the primitive tribe of Porre - is ready to fight, with spears armed. A massive battle takes place; as it did historically, it turns in Porre's favor, so Cedric the Executor books it out of there with Marle. Lucca and Robo can't rejoin the main forces; to save the wounded Lucca, Robo lets himself go. He is utterly vicious, protecting Lucca at any cost; he kills a lot of Porre warriors.
Back in an encampment and rudimentary shed, Marle converses with Cedric Guardia about the future. He notes that the divine forces were not on his side at the battle today, but that he shall "bring" them to the next encounter. Marle and the player learn that the angel in Manoria Cathedral is Cedric's mother, claimed to be of divine descent. At night, Robo drags Lucca in, and promptly collapses. Lucca is well-awake, and in a fit of rage; she blames herself for not being strong enough to fight on her own, and is starting to split down the middle between rational thought and her emotions; she feels helpless, and reflects that science did not fail her, but rather her implementation of it. Robo and Lucca have a discussion about the events that just passed; they foist moral responsibility for human actions on humans, even when taking Lavos into account. They’ve seen the face of the devil…or the face of God, depending on how you look at it. Eventually, they fall asleep. In the morning, Lucca and Robo rejoin the main Guardian force and Marle as they ride out to the final battle with Porre. This time, however, Cedric is pulling no punches; Guardia is carrying an Ark of the Covenant type box with them. A custom sprite that resembles illustrations of the actual Ark of the Covenant will be created for this purpose. They've goaded the Porre army into approaching their position in huge numbers; a secret attack from the side routs the army quickly. They stumble onto an encampment; Cedric orders the killing of everyone, including the women and children. Marle cannot stand this slaughter; Robo points out that changing things now might have an adverse effect in time, and Lucca notes that since Lavos did have the power to alter time, this could all be a fake timeline fabricated by the Frozen Flame. Cedric reiterates to them that this is war, and that “the Porre savages” need to be sent a message. Robo disagrees with Cedric’s implementation of military tactics, but before they have time to argue about it, Porre attacks again with a surprise retaliation. Guardia currently occupies an inferior position, because of Cedric’s bloodlust. This time, the Porrean leader is there personally; his name is Antaeus. He wields an artifact called the RivenCrimse; Lucca and Marle both recall that this battle, recorded in ancient lore, is the founding of Guardia, but this situation is much different than had read about. Porre appears to be far stronger than they were previously, and each side has some magic-users at its disposal. Lucca reasons that in the original timeline, Guardia was intended to be a prime source of Lavos’ DNA acquisitions, but Crono, Marle, and Lucca resisted his whims and through their efforts transformed Guardia into a peaceful country rather than a conquering empire as Lavos wished. Porre is the next best thing, but it’s still a mystery how they suddenly managed to acquire a ton of magic users in the present. The powers Guardia uses are mostly spirit-based, whereas Porre uses both elemental and Lavos energy. This will end up playing into both the El Nido scenario and Sorin’s backstory, but for now Antaeus taunts Cedric the Executor, remarking that with the RivenCrimse, he just finished slaying a pack of Dorino filth escorting a Guardian chieftain. This sends Cedric into an all-out fury, but rather than fight, he decides to use his secret weapon; the Frozen Flame! Marle cries out, and a light floods the battlefield. Robo is alarmed, however; while rumors have always been passed down that Guardia used an artifact to establish its kingdom, some of the energy emanating from the Flame registers in his Chronometer as originating from far in the the future of the Flame itself. Robo then remarks that Antaeus isn't being owned like he should be by the Flame. The Porre leader then appears in front of the party. Instead of dying, though, he is possessed by the Flame. Time itself freezes and the Flame then begins to speak through him, saying that this timeline is indeed real, how much he loves and hates them in his own sadistic way, and using the following pre-battle trash talk:
"A thousand fires have sparked within my mind! I see everything! I know all! And I know this: you must perish!"
…Jesus Christ, that line is fucking awesome. After that, the Flame pumps several fucktons of energy into Antaeus, and the crew has to fight a boss battle with him. Before he dies, Antaeus makes a comment about the “legend of El Nido” and how it holds the key to the ultimate magic. This naturally is used to further the plot, as Lucca, Marle, and Robo wonder what the hell a backwater Porre colony has to do with anything. When the time warp subsides, Cedric is confident that his use of the Frozen Flame has defeated Porre. He then declares to his armies (in a very Palpatine-like fashion) that he will found Guardia and that they will have peace. The team gets the RivenCrimse, Antaeus’ scythe, out of the fight; it’s a good weapon for Magus once they reunite. They then duck into the forest, away from the Guardian armies. Lucca reasons that if this timeline is a current one, Belthasar will have noticed the temporal disturbance caused by the Flame and detected them there, and will activate a Gate in a temporal coordinate only slightly ahead of the battle. A few seconds later, a Gate appears, and they dive into it and return to Chronopolis. Once there, they talk with Belthasar about what happened during the original timeline; they theorize that the Flame’s history with Guardia might hold some clue about how to defeat it. They also ask Belthasar to do some research into the legend of El Nido that Antaeus mentioned. However, that will have to wait a bit longer…
Crono Nightmare #2
The player doesn’t actually play during this one. Instead, he/she bears witness to Crono getting assaulted by various team members and NPCs saying angsty goth shit about how Crono is a dick. Then it cuts to a much less goth (or more? you decide) sequence with Glenn, Janus, and Schala.
The Vanguard Apocalypse
Magus, Glenn, and Schala awaken to find themselves trapped in a maximum-security prison. A guard promptly comes in and starts questioning Magus, kicking the living shit out of him. He’s angered, but powerless to do anything; apparently, the guards have injected him with a powerful sedative that shuts down the neural pathways to the parts of the brain that allow him to use magic. Glenn and Schala are also tortured for a while. After the guards leave them alone, Glenn and Janus reflect on what an odd and generally sad pair of individuals they are. They joke away their entire history, mentioning Cyrus, Zeal, and all the other things they’ve lost. Glenn reflects that hate is built not on circumstance but on selfishness; when they went to see Cyrus and free his spirit with the Masamune, Cyrus was not infuriated with vengeance against Janus, but rather empowered with love for his friends. Glenn says that perhaps Cyrus knew what the former Magus had lost. Glenn was selfish in his hate, which might have gotten in the way of defeating the greater enemy, Lavos. Janus says the same thing; he didn’t care what he destroyed just so long as he got back at the demon. They even reflect on Lavos’ selfishness; he was the ultimate manipulator, and possibly still is, but Janus is no longer able to treat Glenn or any of the others with contempt. This is partially because he recognizes their valor in combat and extreme courage; they were all willing to give their lives for an ideal they believed in. While the Magus generally scoffs at the notion of “high-minded ideals” as Anakin Solo put it, Janus reflects that his entire life thus far has been lived in service of a secret ideal; that of the family and love. Though he respects Glenn, he makes it clear that he did not abandon the ways of war for him or any of the other team members, but for Schala alone. Glenn, on the other hand, embraced the ways of death in memory of Cyrus. Truly, the two are not all that different; they openly wonder whether, if their places had been switched, events would have played out the same as they did before. It isn’t a question of individuality, they decide, but of the nature of sentient beings to be attached to people or things. Schala reflects on her attachment to life itself; she feels that she was never meant to live again, that Lavos should have taken her in the Ocean Palace. Janus cannot take this, and summons up enough strength to smash his hand into the camera’s glass lens. Cutting himself in several places with its shards, he bleeds the sedative out of his body, and slowly feels the power of magic returning to him. When a group of guards comes to investigate, Magus uses Black Hole on them. Schala winces at the loss of life, but Glenn reminds her that sometimes there isn’t any choice. They agree that they have to get back to Belthasar in Chronopolis, but first they have to figure out where they are. Upon making it to a computer terminal and letting Janus access it, they learn that they’re in 2102 A.D. A strained geopolitical situation is the norm in this era; several world powers have built up nuclear arsenals, and another Cold War is currently in progress. There are no Mystics in this time; human imperialism killed them all off many centuries ago; the implication is that one of the holy wars in the Middle Ages did it. Janus notes that they are only 200 years before Belthasar’s time, and that he said the world’s unified government was what allowed him to build Chronopolis, but the governments of this time are nowhere close to unified. After this, a mysterious yet familiar enemy steps in. He congratulates them on escaping, even though he expected them to be able to do it. He then steps out of the shadows and reveals himself as Serran. He came here using his miniature and much more archaic-looking version of the Epoch. He relates that while the Masamune was in his hands, he was approached by a dark warrior, whom the player knows could only have been Sorin. Sorin communicated the will of the Frozen Flame – the will of Lavos, who Serran sees as an Almighty God – through the Dreamstone of the Masamune. Glenn remarks that this must be the origin of the strange visions he’s been having periodically of a city vanishing in time; Sorin imparted his dreams to the Masamune when he held it, and the echo of the Frozen Flame’s will lingers on it. Serran then reveals two crucial secrets. Number one is his mission; he’s going to start a global nuclear apocalypse. The survivors will be forced to band together, just as “the Master” wishes, and that said Master promised him that by doing this, Serran will help him get revenge on the humans who destroyed his life. Number two is the origin of this group; it’s the Vanguard. Now a far cry from an order of noble knights, it is a secret paramilitary organization devoted to creating a new world order; the Central Regime. According to their beliefs, it’s for the good of humankind in general. Serran knows this, but doesn’t believe that that will be the end result. However, the Crew knows better. Janus remarks that such a maneuver would provide Belthasar with the necessary resource base to create Chronopolis, so technically they’re right. However, it’s disturbingly similar to how he justified the first few times he killed someone; the thought that humanity would be better off in the end for him having done so, because of the eventually removed influence of Lavos. Serran also speaks about the legend of El Nido, which he’s heard about both from Porre in 602 A.D. and from his Master. In the end, both the path through and the item obtained from Serran at the end of the scenario is a consequence of what the player picked way back in Scenario 8. One of the scenarios even has the party aiding Serran, because it allows Chronopolis to be constructed.
Option 1: All Your Base Are Blown The Fuck Up
This option will result in the party attempting to self-destruct the base they’re in so as to stop the nuclear war. It’s the surest option they’ve got, but the base is under a populated zone and thousands of people will die in the process, and the chances of them making it out are slim to none, and slim just passed out from a heroin overdose. If the player elects this option, they will overload the reactor core and then have 10 minutes to escape the base. If they don’t get out before then, the last saved game reloads. At the end of the path, they’ve got to fight Serran one last time, but he’s a pushover. They use the parts of the Epoch Serran stole to take a hike back to Chronopolis. A cutscene of a city blowing up then occurs, and the scenario moves on to Crono Nightmare #3. Picking the ‘fight the Mystics’ option in Scenario 8 will make the scenario take this path, and for your trouble you’ll be granted Lucca’s second most powerful weapon early (the one that can eventually be modified in Calasperan to be the ultimate).
Option 2: Aid the Vanguard
This option has the party actually aiding Serran and the Vanguard in their atrocity, because they don't see a way out of it. Thus history is relatively unchanged. The party fights Serran out of anger at his obvious immorality and what they’ve just done. Choosing to fight Porre in Scenario 8 will result in this situation; Serran drops Marle’s second most powerful crossbow early.
Option 3: I Was Born Lazy
This option has the party giving up on the conundrum, and a nuclear war unfolds. Thus history is relatively unchanged. Just as in the previous option, the party is angry at Serran and fights him for vengeance. Choosing to declare neutrality in Scenario 8 will result in this situation; Serran drops a Safe Helm.
Option 4: Stop the Missile
This scenario, as in its counterpart, is the most difficult, but it is also the most rewarding. However, it’s no less tragic. This time, the team waits until the missile launches, and then steals Serran’s stripped-down Epoch to go after it. Once Serran figures out what happens, he’s hot on their tail with a fleet of Vanguard jets backing him up. There’s no question that anyone in the vicinity when the missile explodes is going to die. It would be easy enough to pick the missile off with the Epoch’s laser cannons, but it was designed primarily to be a time travel machine and not a superiority fighter. Its targeting systems aren’t up to snuff with what’s necessary to hit the missile, so Glenn volunteers to take a swan dive past it with the Masamune. This will almost certainly kill all of them, but it’s a chance he’s willing to take. However, Janus isn’t; he knocks Glenn out and casts Dark Matter on the warhead, which explodes it. Unfortunately, it’s very close to a populated area by that time, and detonating it kills plenty of people anyway and starts the war all the same. But they don’t have time for mourning as Schala uses all the Epoch’s power to open a Gate and escape, thus presumably killing the Vanguard. Serran, however, follows them into the Gate, intent on doing one last battle with Glenn. He’s much harder this time than in the others, but upon defeating him, a secret compartment within his version of the Epoch opens; it contains a massive hunk of Rainbow Shell! It’s big enough to allow you to make all the characters’ penultimate weapons at this time. The party arrives back at Chronopolis, getting out of the crappily held together ship before it goes BOOMWIG, with Lucca, Marle, and Robo already there, and thankfully nothing’s changed; Melchior promises to get right to work on weaponry of the highest quality for the team. Glenn, Janus and Schala wonder about certain holes that weren’t filled in 2102; why did the Vanguard let Serran take command? And how did they know about the Central Regime and Chronopolis? Moreover, what could have possessed Serran to go along with the Vanguard’s plans if he knew about the possibility of Chronopolis? Belthasar does some research into that. Crono is now the only one missing. All thoughts turn to him, but he’s pretty preoccupied…
Crono Nightmare #3 - Defilement
This is it, folks, the big daddy of all nightmares and the end of the breaking point sequence, as well as the only one of Crono’s nightmares that has a save point in it. ZeaLitY wanted to use the ruined world again, so here's what we came up with. Crono lands in a strange amalgam of a world; it contains varying types of terrain. Ghosts roam everywhere, portals open and close seemingly at random, and strange alien creatures populate the world, including many Lavos Spawns. In essence, it’s a combination of Metroid Prime’s Phazon crater and Chrono Cross’ Isle of the Damned, with a very small bit of Gothic architecture. This world quite literally is a living hell, and it’s Crono’s task to find a way out of it and back to Chronopolis. There are many signs all over the place, and creatures akin to even more perverted versions of the bioengineered monsters Dyasavah was researching in Calasperan. The signs all lead to a large temple, where acolytes are going to present their work to a Dark Lord. The temple is home to highly advanced technology; it’s protected by extremely powerful sentinels and has several spires sticking out of it that appear to be gathering energy from the air. There are several of what appears to be wrecked UFOs and various other starships immediately outside the temple. Crono descends into the perverted temple, which is replete with magickal runes in alien languages – among them are spells that open portals into various limbo dimensions. Crono tries to run for one of these, but some acolytes show up and restrain him. They bring him down a very long series of steps and force him to kneel before their lord…
Guess who’s back? Yup.
Crono expresses incredulity at seeing Lavos again, and he certainly never expected to see him in the exalted state that he’s in. This form of Lavos is that of the demon-figure on top of the altar Magus was using to summon Lavos in CT. Crono asks Lavos whether this place is Hell; Lavos says that it is, but not in the way Crono envisions it. However, this doesn’t stop Crono’s courage. He steals one of the acolytes’ weapons, knocks them all out, and proceeds to do protracted battle against Lavos. If he hasn’t gotten it already, he gains the Luminaire technique when the battle starts. Once sufficient damage has been done to the monster, he remarks that Crono thinks in incredibly physical terms and that Lavos is far more than just a body. He says that this is true of all the life he watched over, but none of them ever realized it; if anyone, he expected the ones responsible for destroying him to figure it out. But as it stands, Lavos has an uncountable number of acolytes and creatures willing to be remade in his image for his glory, and an uncountable number that already have been. Even Crono is now a part of Lavos, the Dark Lord says, but Crono has other plans. He smashes the door with Luminaire and frantically pushes buttons on the machinery until he realizes that it's controlled by the user's magic; this realization enables him to adjust a portal to remove him from this false timeline and take him back to Chronopolis. Once back there, a frenzied Crono relates his experiences and then collapses into Marle’s arms. The entire team is thrown into a panic as to what it portends. Crono is given time to recover, and the team vows to defeat Lavos, in whatever form he takes. Cutscenes ensue before the next scenario takes place.
Scenario 10 – Evil Seed
Now that Crono’s back in the real world and everyone else is done with their random jaunts through time, Melchior issues whatever advanced weaponry the team got from the breaking point scenarios. If option 4 was picked at the end of the Vanguard Apocalypse, Melchior and Magus will, in a cutscene, develop the Arco Iris, a Rainbow Sword made from much purer Rainbow Shell. If you didn’t pick option 4, don’t worry; you can still fix it. There’s plenty of Rainbow Shell to go around in El Nido as a quest reward, and the party will be going there shortly. First, though, the team acts on Marle’s urge to explore Guardia’s history with the Frozen Flame to look for its weakness; if the Frozen Flame’s master plan is what Crono saw in the Tesseract, it bodes ill for everyone. In order to do this, they attempt to track down the master of random treasure; Toma Levine. Toma’s fallen on hard times in 602 A.D., saying that almost everything worth taking has been found, except perhaps the Valle Crimse. Legend has it that Guardia’s greatest treasure was once kept there; the party’s like “OMG FROZEN FLAME” and rushes to the King for permission to enter it, which he gladly grants. ZeaLitY did most of the work on this scenario; he suggested a tomb something like the Holy Grail’s resting place in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, complete with a really old knight. But this time, there actually is a fight; Crono has to be tested to see if Guardia’s still got the spirit of heroes in it. At the Bottom of the Night plays during the fight, much like in Chrono Cross when Serge fights Miguel in the Dead Sea. If Crono has the Arco Iris, this is an easy fight. Upon being defeated, the knight lets loose some knowledge about the legend of El Nido spoken of by both Antaeus and Serran. He gives the party a priceless yet dilapidated pendant before passing away forever, as well as a map to the place. They take it back to Melchior to have it restored; it’s Schala’s penultimate weapon. Thus ends this scenario.
Scenario 11 – The Unknown Legend
There was previously a bunch of crap here. We got rid of it. This is the El Nido section, where the party fights the Frozen Flame in a hidden fortress somewhere and it runs away like a little pussy. This was the source of the future Frozen Flame that pumped a bunch of energy into Antaeus to make life difficult for the party. When the Frozen Flame is defeated, the fortress begins to disappear into the temporal void; the Flame lets slip that its power was holding the castle in existence. It also coughs up some Rainbow Shell before leaving. The party's like "wtf mate" and goes back to check on the Dragon Tooth in Chronopolis.
Scenario 12 – Origin of Knowledge
When the party gets back to Chronopolis, they immediately tell Belthasar what the Flame told them, and he tries to figure out how to extract all of the Dragon Tooth's knowledge. Lavos, and by extension the Frozen Flame, has a power thought to be exclusive to Chrono Triggers; the ability to summon things out of the Tesseract. However, a Chrono Trigger is better at it than Lavos, because it was specifically designed to permanently restore a given object or organism, “hatching” it with the energy of the Tesseract; Lavos requires continued power expenditures to maintain the presence of whatever he summons. After it's cracked/communicated with (more on this later) the Dragon Tooth reveals that the entire city of Calasperan and everything in it is one of these time-dreams; in the original timeline, the destruction of the breakaway took out Calasperan as well, and King Zeal perished. However, the team’s interference in the Ocean Palace allowed the Frozen Flame its freedom from the Mammon Machine. As it scanned the spacetime continuum around it for purpose, it saw in the recently departed King Zeal a mechanism to carry out Lavos' will; an Arbiter. It resurrected him as such in order to manipulate him. King Zeal, having witnessed everyone he knew and loved die, lost his mind. He became deranged enough to wish the entire city back into existence and pretend nothing was happening, allowing his mind to be taken over by the Frozen Flame. Lavos did consider simply calling up an army of vanquished alien warlords and forcibly taking over Earth with them, but not only would that be impractical, it would not yield the kind of results he wanted; complete control over everything on the planet. Finally, Lavos’ origin and his master plan are revealed:
The Lavos that Crono encountered in his Tesseract nightmare was only an extension of the real Lavos' will; Lavos has placed Crono into his personal dream, which just happens to be a timeline that never came to pass. Lavos is trying to use the Frozen Flame, which is still trapped in the mortal world, to alter time in such a way as to make this dream a reality; he's using it as his One Ring, except infinitely more 1337. In his dream, the Entity itself does not exist; Lavos, using his power and knowledge, has destroyed it and installed himself as the planet's new Gaia, remaking it in His image, which is why it's so twisted. But that's not even the limit of it. I've often said that due to the extreme resilience and knowledge that Lavos -- one single being -- possesses, a ship constructed by an entire crew of Lavoids would be a feat even the Galactic Empire would crap their pants at. This Lavos-controlled version of Earth IS the warship. And there's more of them out there. Earth was a rare find on Lavos' part, in essence a jewel of the cosmos; the number of planets that have the necessary conditions to evolve critically-thinking, technologically capable life is extremely small, at least on a cosmic scale. It's special, and thus he intends to use this planet as his base to conquer the rest of them. And when I say the rest of them, I absolutely mean it. He has designs on the entire universe, and the capacity to transfer his soul or extensions of it into other bodies; hence the Frozen Flame. He can even possess entire planets, rendering him theoretically immortal so long as the planet's star doesn't explode. He can overshadow others' life forces, willing or not. He had planned to possess Earth and use it as his body, but just as Earth itself was a unique occurrence, so was its spirit, the Entity; the only one strong enough to resist him. For sixty-five million years, he waged war on the Earth itself, drawing the DNA and residual spirit energy of the lifeforms on its surface and evolving progressively stronger lifeforms to get more. This was the only flaw in his plan; eventually, beings strong enough to fight and defeat him occurred, partially due to the Entity's own evolutionary imprint, but the vast amount of energy he'd collected enabled him to operate even from the Tesseract, infusing the Frozen Flame with his power. What he's trying to do with all his power is manifest his dream in the very beginnings of the planet, when the Entity was a nascent consciousness. In essence, he's trying to kill the Entity in the distant past, and this course of action is causing a massive tear in time. What this means is that in certain locations, reality and the Tesseract are spilling into each other; such was the case in the Epoch's tomb among other places. But he isn't through yet; with his planet-ship and his timerip, along with the other worlds conquered by his disciples and Lavos Spawns, he's going to systematically take over the entire universe, absorbing the power of each new planet he conquers for himself. That may and probably will take him trillions of years, but he's literally got all the time in the universe to make it happen. When he accomplishes this, he's going to initiate what astronomers and cosmologists term the Big Crunch, and all the planets and stars and galaxies, all of what will at that point be extensions of his will are going to be drawn together, creating a universal point of supergravity and rendering all matter and all possible timelines in the universe a part of Lavos. At that point, you can guess what the universe will be like; Lavos will remake it in His image. However, in order to accomplish this, he needs to fully control the Earth first, and to do this he needs to actually kill the Entity. To do this, he intends to have King Zeal use a weapon known as the Chrono Break on Gaia in the distant past, when it won’t have the strength to resist. The Chrono Break is a weapon designed to instantly banish any being from linear time to the DBT by targeting their spirit energy at a specific instance in time, usually that of the being's birth. It was being developed at Calasperan, but it was lost in time somehow. This is the team’s cue to find the Chrono Break before Lavos’ minions do; if they fail, all will be lost. And when I say all, I mean ALL, as you can read from the story above. The only question is "how distant in the past does he intend to use it?" Or, more practically "when was the Entity born, and where did it come from?"
After learning all of this, the party is shocked and awed, and rightfully so. They take a bit of time to think while Belthasar and Melchior study the data on the Frozen Flame and the Dragon Tooth some more. During this time, cutscenes ensue where the characters philosophize and stuff; four separate yet interlinked conversations take place, against a background music of silence. Crono and Marle talk about their role in the original quest to defeat Lavos; Marle relates that she was actually the one that started the entire thing off, both in 1000 A.D. with the telepod and in the ruined 2300 with her idealism in believing they could destroy Lavos. After the Ocean Palace incident, she thought that she should have been the one to die instead of Crono, because she did technically start the whole chain of events, and because she loved him enough. They discuss how odd it is to sacrifice yourself for someone you love, and how many supposed rules of evolution and psychology that act goes against; Lavos, after all, represents a cynical Darwinistic outlook on life. Being emotionally attached to someone entails not wanting to give them up, but in the act of dying we surrender all of our earthly possessions, including loved ones. Crono reasons that he did it not simply because he loved her, but because he was willing to believe that even if death parted them, they wouldn’t be apart forever. Marle compares herself to Glenn and the Vanguard in terms of being a pawn; something she did unwittingly had vast repercussions, but unlike Glenn, she’s got no one to blame but herself. In a way, she is also responsible for everyone that died in 2102. And out of all the characters, Lavos probably hates them the most. But it isn’t Lavos’ respect they’re trying to earn, now is it? Robo and Atropos come next, comparing humans’ souls to data and citing the Tesseract and conservation of energy while doing so. Lucca and Glenn are up third; they discuss love, hate, and how they feel about various people, most prominently including Crono and Janus. There’s a small hint of romance dropped between the two, when Lucca discusses the overall utility of technology. Schala and her brother go last, talking about the nature of God and the universe and citing Crono’s experience in the dream timeline, as well as the information garnered from the Frozen Flame on Lavos’ master plan. Finally, once all these conversations are done, the team meets up again to discuss the plan for retrieving the Chrono Break. Crono relates that he found Sorin in King Zeal’s lab. That’s presumably where the Chrono Break was being developed; they all decide that he’s the key to finding it. And he is, just not in the way they’d expect. However, in order to find Sorin, they have to find the Black Wind. This is precisely what they set out to do, and this time they intend to shut the black ops group down for good.
Scenario 13 – Hearts of Men and Angels
Unfortunately, they can’t just waltz into Black Wind headquarters…or can they? The Vanguard has finally done something good for the party; they’ve negotiated a temporary cease-fire with the Porre government, citing the El Nido breakaway as well as the increasing reluctance of both sides to war. The degree of peace that's able to be negotiated will be determined again by the choice you made as Glenn earlier, and it'll also affect a boss battle this time, too. The party has been invited to a state dinner at Porre, as well as to tour their military facilities. Is it a trap? Of course it is. But it’s also an opportunity to gain valuable intelligence and possibly even infiltrate the Black Wind. However, once they get into the facility, Porre double-crosses them by slamming down blast doors and enclosing them; the party reasons they’d have to have something bad up their sleeve to do that. That they do; an insane Sorin comes out babbling stuff about Lavos and his own broken heart and tears, and swinging with all his might. This is the final battle with Sorin, and he’s a tough customer; he’s one of the very last bosses in the game, and has one of the highest HP totals out of anyone, but the strength of his attacks varies with your choice in Scenario 8; if you chose peace, his attacks will actually be weaker, though he'll drop the same thing every time. He’s so far gone into madness that Lavos’ energy has actually mutated part of his body and given him ludicrous strength. As if that wasn’t enough, Porre is pumping the air out of the room through vents, so there’s a time limit on the fight. (Don’t worry, there’s a Save Point almost immediately before it.) Crono and his friends defeat the mad Sorin in the nick of time. The air, unfortunately, is still being pumped out of the room, but William Ishito orders the controller to let them out. The controller objects, but William tells him that incapacitating Sorin was the chief objective here, and makes some very threatening remarks towards the other officer to be carried out unless he lets them out. The guy complies, and Ishito is able to successfully sedate Sorin and revive the Chrono Crew. He then explains everything about Black Wind and Sorin; first of all, he restates that he doesn’t agree with Porre’s current, warlike regime. William then tells the party that the reason he had Sorin admitted to the program was because he and Sorin had been best friends for a very long time. It was only recently that bad things had begun happening. Sorin had grown increasingly disturbed; he felt as if his own heart was possessed by that of a demon. One day, he just snapped; he murdered his wife, his two children, and many others before Porre army personnel managed to capture his raving, shrieking self. He was slated to be executed for his crimes, but saved by his entry into the Black Wind program as a test subject. This was a result of William Ishito pulling some strings; their benefactor had just granted them the technology for bionic implants. Ishito felt that Sorin’s mind could only be refocused in this way, so he had the operation done; however, he was wary of any secret orders the benefactor might have hidden in the implants’ programming. They still don’t have any data on this, but the team is able to confirm that Sorin does indeed have orders they don’t know about. The implants endowed Sorin with tremendous reasoning, skill, and power, but all of his emotions had been shut off, and he’d always sensed that a part of his nature was missing. He took orders only from William Ishito; the Porre government was skeptical at first, but Sorin’s extreme combat performance was enough to let his existence slide and to broker additional deals with their benefactor, known to the party as King Zeal. However, apparently being exposed to the Elements at El Nido didn’t sit well with him, as he complained about their unsettling effects to William soon after they returned from the archipelago, as well as a presence he hasn’t felt in a very long time, but believes has always been there. Shortly after that, he went nuts and started killing Porre personnel, forcing them to trap Crono and the gang into fighting them; Sorin had become a liability rather than an asset. The Elements represent the planet’s power, while the technology in his body represents the will of Lavos; the two magnify opposite sides of him, causing internal chaos that his technology cannot control. Going from that, as well as what Crono saw in Dyasavah’s lab, they ask William to ask Sorin about the Chrono Break. Upon doing this, the party’s suspicions are confirmed: Sorin IS the Chrono Break, or at least the Chrono Break’s power has become suffused into his own. Sorin holds the Chrono Break inside of him, in place of a heart, for reasons even he does not know. This explains why he was unable to kill Crono, Marle, and Lucca way back in Scenario 3 (flashback included for convenience). According to the Frozen Flame, the Chrono Break banishes an entity from all timelines and permanently casts him into the Darkness Beyond Time. However, if Crono, Marle, and Lucca were banished from history, the Frozen Flame never would have escaped the Ocean Palace and resurrected King Zeal, which would mean that Sorin would never get altered or get the Chrono Break and thus he would not have been able to banish them. It’s a time paradox across multiple timelines; truly remarkable. The team reasons that he could have simply tried to kill them physically, but they are, in a way, the cause of his emotional suffering, and thanks to King Zeal he knows this. Once Sorin realizes that he is unable to make his enemies feel the kind of suffering he feels, he goes into despair rather than anger, because he’s powerless to attack them. Post-that, he vividly remembers his entire life. The party pleads for his forgiveness, trying to convince him that life is about more than just pain, and telling him it isn’t his fault, it’s Lavos. Sorin retorts that no one would believe that he isn’t morally accountable for his actions, but the team believes otherwise, having themselves been on the receiving end of Lavos’ ire. In Guardia, they’re lauded as heroes for it. In the end, William is the only one Sorin trusts enough to judge him, and William communicates that he doesn’t know whether to hold Sorin responsible, but what he does know is that he still cares about Sorin. He knows he probably shouldn’t, and that by most moral standards he’d be shot, but he still does. Immediately after that, Sorin says something final and very childlike, almost like a five-year-old asking if their daddy’s going to be OK and the doctor just came out to tell them that he died an agonizing death. He finally just dissolves into spirit energy, which condenses into the Chrono Break. William Ishito is amazed, but he frankly suspected that something like this was going on beyond his senses. He promises that he won’t tell anyone of what he’s encountered here. He has a reason of his own not to; he fears for the mental and even physical safety of his kid brother Norris after what’s happened (yes, this is the Norris from CC). He also promises to do his best to stop the war, even at the expense of his career, and the Black Wind fiasco ought to forestall it, at least for a while. Now the team can get back to Chronopolis to have Belthasar analyze the Chrono Break and figure out how it can be used against King Zeal without damaging the timeline. In the mean time, the player has the opportunity to do five different sidequests before the endgame.
Slated for further development:
~The Masamune's curse (setup for CC)
~Toma sidequest
~Ozzie, Flea & Slash sidequest
~Magus sidequest
~Robo & Lucca sidequest, Prometheus circuit
~The Fate of Gaspar, Spekkio and the End of Time (Dragon Tooth's power used somehow to effect this)
~The Future of Calasperan
~Final Battle
~Ending
~New Game +
~Programmer’s Ending
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There....whew, that took a long time to proof and edit. The whole thing is over twenty pages long in Word and contains almost 17,000 words, or the equivalent of just under three chapters of a normal book (average chapter length is considered to be 6,000 words or so).
Note: I've since gone back in and changed stuff in both posts because of mistakes DDK caught me on.
