Monsters of deepest dephts of horror; Part 3
by Weiila
Back to part 2
It was a big, dusky room. Well, it wasn't really a room. It wasn't a hall either. But we're getting to that.
From the roof hung several big cages in thick iron chains, and those cages were filled with the kidnapped evil guys, and of course Shadow and Bahamut. The dragon's tail lay on the floor since that wasn't very far away, but that's irrelevant...
Even though they had only been in the cages for a few hours, the prisoners had already begun to turn paler and thinner, becoming mere shadows of their true selves.
All of the captive characters were concentrating on Magus, who furiously hit the buttons of a slightly burned cellular phone. It had hardly survived the last time it had been used. The warlock finished working on it and put it by his ear.
"Are you getting any signal?" Thanatos worriedly asked.
"Yes, finally..." Magus muttered.
Everyone held their breath.
"Hello?" the warlock said, "hi, I'm Magus from Chrono Trigger. Look, I need some help. I would like to sue an author... mhmm, yes that's right. Too small case?!"
His cold, harsh voice turned into a dangerous growl.
"Now listen here, Mrs. McBeal... miss, I'm sorry... have you any idea what she's putting us through?! You haven't? Oh, and that's just great... and the same to you, crap!"
He turned the phone off and surpassed it to some hidden pocket.
"Crap," all the prisoners agreed.
Suddenly a red, glowing portal opened in the middle of the... room, and Edgar stepped out of it with Lucca's hand in his.
"Hey, it worked!?" both of them gasped.
"Gosh, I've never been so happy to see anyone!" Shadow exclaimed.
"Me either! I even missed you crappers!" Jade sighed as the Breath of Fire 1 gang stumbled out of the red light.
The heroes and bad guys that were free assembled and looked at each other.
"Goody!" Marle happily sighed, "we're not pixled anymore!"
"And aren't you a pretty?" Edgar grinned.
Crono reached for his Rainbow-katana and gave the Casanova-king a warning glare.
"This feels really weird," Black wizard said and looked at his hands, "just look at this! I have fingers!"
"Me too, and I think it feels great!" Thief grinned.
Link looked around, frowning.
"You know what?" he said, "we're animated! What is this place?"
"Excuse me," Bahamut roared, "but we're fading away here!"
All of those who just had entered turned their attention at the prisoners instead.
"What has happened to you guys?" Edge asked, "you look like crappy skeletons!"
"Never mind that!" Apocalypse harshly said, "you have to escape from here while you still can!"
"Don't be silly," Mario said, "we've come to save you!"
"That's true," Exdeath snorted, "what do you take us for, amateurs?"
"Thy strength will not help thee!" a purple dragon with strangely small wings shouted, "this peril which we face is too great..."
"Aaargh!!"
Magus lay screaming on the floor of the cage where he was imprisoned, pressing his arms against his head.
"Pipe down, pipe down, pipe down!" he screeched, "I can't take that crapped old-English dialect anymore!!"
"I apologize," the dragon said.
"Who the crap are you?" Duran asked, "I think I would remember somebody mentioning another dragon being kidnapped..."
"I am the Dragon Lord from Dragon Warrior!" the beast said.
"Oh dear," Ryu1 mumbled, "I knew I had forgotten something..."
Everyone stared at him.
"You forgot about Dragon Warrior?!" all of the characters shouted, "are you out of your mind?!"
"I'm sorry..."
Ryu1 looked so miserable that the others just had to forgive him.
"It be all well," Dragon Lord kindly said, "I am the only one from that glorious series."
"Pleeeaaase...!" Magus moaned, "show me mercy..."
Slash patted his boss' shoulder to help him calm down.
"So, why would we try to run away when we had so much trouble getting here?" Edgar asked.
He looked around, noticing the size of the room, the spectator places that hid one of the long walls, that there was a big white circle crossed by a thick line painted on the middle of the wide floor...
"What is this place, anyway?" the king of Figaro wondered, repeating Link's forgotten query, "a basketball stadium?"
"No, and that's why you must escape!" Amon2 shouted, "this..."
He began to cough violently. Rubicant kindly hit his back to help him get over it, while Amon1 continued:
"This is too horrible to bear! You can't fight our guard, nor his master and his allies!"
"Oh, come on," Celes said, "haven't we faced a lot of horrors before and taken care of them?"
"Nothing like this!" Black Knight desperately said, "look what they've done to us just by being in the same area!"
"Now stop this menace," Bleu snorted, "nothing can be that scary!"
"Oh gods..." Jade whispered and weakly pointed downwards over the edge of the cage's floor, "there he is again..."
Everyone looked down. For a moment nothing moved at all, time ceased to exist as the overwhelming fear kept everyone bound in horror. Then:
"AAAAHHH!!!"
All of those who had come from Bowser's castle pressed their backs against one of the short walls, shivering like trees in storm.
"It's... it's... it's a... a... a... a..." Gilgamesh stuttered.
"Told you..." Ganon moaned.
"It is hideous..." Frog whispered.
"I've never been this afraid in my whole life!" Maxim shuddered and swallowed hard.
"It's the embodiment of evil!" Terra whispered, "Kefka is a puppy in compare...!"
The crowd by the wall was merely a shivering lump of fear. Since everyone's voice was harsh with terror, it was hard to tell who it was that said what. But in general, it was something like this:
"Oh, God..."
"It's my worst nightmare..."
"It's a-a-a... a..."
"What are we going to do?"
"Good grief, I never thought the end would be like this!"
"A... a... a..."
They all tried to become flat against the wall as the guard wrinkled is small nose and said:
"Pika pika!"
"Ahhh! Nooo!!"
There was a merry laughter. Even though it wasn't screeching, mad or evil, it was the worst thing that the shivering men, women and general creatures had ever heard.
"Note to me," Exdeath mumbled, "that's a scary laughter..."
"The same goes for me..." Ganon stuttered.
There where three people laughing. One of them was the freaky kidnapper. He still wore the robe, but had pushed the hood backwards and revealed an honest face. On his head was a red and white league-cap, which kept his wild, black hair partly in place. By his right side was a young girl with orange hair; half of it was kept in a ponytail on the side of her head. She wore shorts and a top, and in a safe grip against her chest she held a small creature that seemed to be a mix of an ice cream and an Easter egg. The third one was a tall boy carrying a backpack. His eyes were constantly closed below a brown, pointy crown of hair.
"Y-you!" Fighter growled, "you and your spawns of crap itself!"
"Hey!" the kidnapper snapped, "are you saying bad things about my Pikachu?!"
"Pika pi!"
"Aahhh!!" all of the RPG-characters screamed.
Cecil swallowed hard, summoned all the courage he could bring forth and tried to put up a wall against the paralyzing fear. Using all his might, he forced himself to look at Ash, Misty and Brock.
"You are parasites!" the paladin called, "you are taking peoples time and money, making them addicted to a pointless hunt for strange creatures in an adventure based on nothing but egoism! You're not even trying to be heroes; your battle against Team Rocket is merely a veil to hide the truth!"
"I'm so happy I have such a brave enemy!" Rubicant sobbed, rubbing a drop of molten lava away from his eye.
Link clenched his fists and tried to assemble enough strength to follow Cecil's admirable example.
"Parasites!" the elf called, "that's exactly what you are! You infest our domains, and now you're even stealing and tormenting our enemies too? How dare you!?"
But both Link's and Cecil's courage fell to pieces as Pikachu waved with his small paws. The two heroes drew back again.
"Think logical!" Rydia whispered, "it's only a cat-sized, cute, yellow rat with a tail that looks like a lightning! Zeromus is a demon, he is worse... oh gods, it's gruesome...!"
"I would gladly try to defend you, Rydia," Edge harshly said, "but I'm far too afraid..."
"Oh, how sweet of you!" the caller with green hair and matching clothes mumbled, trying to smile.
Celes managed to take a step forward.
"Don't do it, love!" Locke whispered, "it's not worth it!"
"I have to, dearest!"
The female magitek knight faced Pikachu and then turned to his master, pointing at the cages.
"Why did you do this?" she called out with loathing making her clear voice a bit unsteady, "how could you?!"
"It's simple," Brock snorted "you have all these cool looking, planning enemies that keep their head calm and can think of devilish weapons and traps that actually can work for at least ten minutes! We have Team Rocket!"
"Yeah, and we have to eliminate your strongest points if we're going to take over the world of games completely!" Misty said with a lovely smile.
"Pikachu!" the little rat said and nodded in an awfully cute way.
But Mario was now too angry to allow the fear to keep him trapped.
"It's not the enemies that makes a game funny, you crappers!" he exclaimed, "it's the game-feeling, the will to actually conquer the challenges and get to see the ending!"
"Yes!" Guy shouted, "a good RPG will bring the player to understand how the characters feel; share their hopes, dreams and pain! Such a game will make legends and never become forgotten!"
"And you mean that we won't be remembered?" Ash scornfully snorted, "you're such losers!"
"We're not saying that people will forget about you," Liam growled, "but you will never reach our glory, because your cause is based on nothing but a selfish wish not to help, but to win for nothing but yourself!"
Ash, Misty and Brock sighed.
"This is so boring!" Ash said, "that's why I hate other RPGs, so much important information, so much talking! Well, I guess we'll have to take care of you too to achieve our goals..."
"You might defeat us," Angela called, holding Duran's hand in a safe grip, "but there are others who aren't here!"
"Yes!" Nina2 yelled, "like all of the Dragon Warrior heroes! And Hero... Arec from Terrangima!"
"Indeed!" Frog shouted, "not to keep all the heroes of the Playstation off this battleground, mayhap I should remindeth thee of Cloud, Squall and Zidane?"
"There will be new, epic RPGs everyday," White wizard growled, "and they will fight you back in the memory of us! You will never be victorious!"
"But you will never get rid of us either," Brock snapped, "so let's just make the outmost of this."
"Yeah!" Ash merrily said, "Pikachu, take care of them!"
"Pika, pikachu!"
The heroes pressed themselves against the wall again as the little pokémon moved closer.
"For Heaven's sake!" Garland shouted, for a moment escaping the fear, "fight it!"
"You fight first!" Thief shuddered.
"Exdeath!" Jerin desperately yelled, "try with saying the forbidden words, you're a bad guy!"
But the evil tree-spirit helplessly shook his head.
"It won't work, I'm afraid," he said, "I'm not on the dark side here..."
"What?" Ash, Misty and Brock stupidly said.
A lot of eyebrows went up. Suddenly, Ganon began to grin.
"Just look at that!" the hog in the dark robe sneered, "they don't even now the forbidden words, eh?"
"I guess it's because their own enemies are so pathetic," Thanatos said and slowly stood up, "what a group of losers..."
"And you want to conquer our platforms?" Magus said with a vile smile, "you don't even know the basics!"
The three trainers glared (well, Ash and Misty did, but it was hard to tell if Brock did so since he never opened his eyes. At least he turned his face towards the cages) at their prisoners. The absence of Pikachu seemed to give the cool guys an opportunity to regain their strength. They were recovering more and more for every seco...
Ash:
"Charmander!"
Prisoners:
"Oh no, craaaahhh!!"
"What are we going to do?!" Gilgamesh screeched, "we can't fight Pokémon, it has to die by itself, like Power Rangers!"
"Whatever happens," Ash sneered, "we will never be defeated by you!"
"Hey, maybe there is hope!" Maxim said.
Nothing happened, even though Ash had used a saying that evil guys should keep away from.
"Je suis afraid they are too unfamiliar with the laws of real games..." Jean sighed.
"We must fight them in their own way!" Bleu said, "Rydia, turn into your girl-form! 1, 2, 3 and 4, be as cute as you can!"
"Alright, it's worth a try..." Rydia mumbled and began to shrink.
"Pika?" Pikachu said, hesitating.
"Don't make me laugh!" Ash snorted.
"We'll see about that!" Cecil sneered as Rydia turned to him and threw her short arms around his waist, not reaching any higher than that.
"You protected me against the bad guys!" the small caller said, "thank you so much..."
Meanwhile, the four onionkids sat down and began to cry.
"Aww..." all of the RPG-characters + Mario sighed.
"Pikachu...?"
The little monster drew back a little.
"Don't be silly!" Ash shouted, "Squirtel, go!"
He threw another pok‚ball, sending a third cute monster into battle.
"Oh, crap..." Rydia mumbled at the sight of the blue turtle.
She turned back into her grown form and pressed herself against the wall again, unable to fight two lovable creatures.
"Pi!" Pikachu grinned.
"I can't take it!" 3 sobbed and backed against the wall.
His brothers helplessly had to follow.
"It looks pretty dark, doesn't it?" Nina1 sighed.
"Get them!" Ash commanded.
"Crap!" Edge said, "hey Rydia, I always wanted you to know that you make me hotter than a bottle of Tabasco..."
"Oh, Edge... if only you hadn't been such a moron..." Rydia sighed and embraced him, "I should have ignored that and told you that you're a great guy anyhow."
"You do!?" Edge gasped, "crap, couldn't you have told me earlier, sweetheart?"
"And I only wanted to kill the Sinistrials and wished that Lufia would love me..." Liam sighed.
Lufia leaned at him at that. Jerin sighed, but then Aguro kissed her cheek, to her great surprise.
"Good-bye, angel-elf," the soldier whispered.
"Link, did I ever tell you that I'm the biggest fan you'll ever have?" Cecil said.
"Oh, now I can die a happy hero..." the male elf of the doomed crowd said with a bitter smile.
"Exdeath, your taste for clothes is admirable!" Amon2 called and began to cough again.
"Oh, chucks..." the tree-spirit smiled, a bit embarrassed.
"Stop it!" Brock shouted, "we're falling asleep over here!"
"And that's another thing about you; no respect whatsoever!" the trapped characters grumbled.
"Enough!" Ash said, "Pikachu, Squirtel, atta..."
KABOOM!!
The short wall on the other side of the arena broke because of an explosion. Everyone stared at the enormous cloud of dust and at the three shadows that could be vaguely seen inside of it.
"Prepare -cough- for trouble!"
"-Cough- And make -cough- it -cough, cough- crappy dust -cough-!"
"I don't believe it..." Bahamut mumbled, covering his yellow, lizard-alike eyes with his big claws.
"Team Rocket!" Ash, Brock and Misty exclaimed.
"Pika pika!!"
"I think that the exclamation marks are getting pretty worn out..." Rosa sighed, rolling her eyes.
Coughing and rubbing their clothes/fur to get rid of the dust, Jessie, James and Meowth stepped out of the cloud.
"Just look at my hair!" Jessie moaned, "do you have any idea how long it takes to wash it?"
"What are you doing here?" Ash snapped, "you'll never get Pikachu..."
"We don't want Pikachu!" Meowth yelled.
Everyone except Team Rocket:
"Come again?!"
"That's right!" James shouted, "we came to stop you; we won't let you destroy and stain the true game-spirit!"
"Yeah!" Jessie growled, "you think we want to get our backs kicked in the Gameboy, NES, SNES, Playstation, Playstation 2, N64 and the cartoon?"
She looked closer at the dumbfounded characters and shrugged her shoulders.
"OK, so what only the NES, SNES and the cartoon are properly represented... that's not the point! You can't do this!"
"And you mean that you would stop us?" Misty scornfully said, "you've never experienced a successful battle in your whole miserable lives!"
"That's true," Meowth grinned, "but this time we'll try something completely new!"
"Oh, goody..." the bad guys and heroes from other games than Pokémon sighed, not too impressed.
"Fair battle!" the cat-monster proudly said.
"Huh?"
"Let's fight!" James shouted and attacked Ash with his bare hands. Meowth rushed at Squirtel and kicked him at Pikachu. The two cute pokémons were sent flying through the air, ricocheted against the wall and was lost among the many spectator places.
"Come on, hurry up and save your enemies while we keep Ash and his allies busy!" Meowth shouted at the people by the wall, "we'll seal their warps to you permanently when you're gone!"
After announcing that, the little cat being ran over the floor and attacked Charmander. The two of them rolled away from the cages, spitting and snarling. Meanwhile, Jessie was punching Brock's stomach and pulling Misty's hair at the same time. James was still wrestling with Ash, and surprisingly enough it seemed like fair battle was what the Team should have tried long ago.
Frog managed to shake off the amaze and pulled out the Masamune.
"Come, comrades!" he shouted and leaped forward, "we musteth take action!"
He easily cut through several bars with just one powerful slice. Then he noticed who was among the prisoners in the cage, and landed on the floor with a wicked smile.
"Tell me, Magus," he said, "how great is thy wish to escape this torment?"
"Alright, alright!" the warlock said with a big deal of panic in his voice, "I won't kill, torture or even think of harming you in any way, I swear it by Schala, my dark cause and Slash's head!"
"Hey!"
"Oh, shut up, Slash!" the other prisoners in the cage snarled, "Frog, get us out of here, please!"
"'Tis the spirit..." the knight grinned and jumped to cut through the upper part of the whole line of bars.
He then hurried on to the next cage, which Link and Kevin already were working on.
"Lord Exdeath, words could not express my gratitude..." Apocalypse weakly mumbled as his companions reached into the cage and helped him to get out.
"Nothing to talk about, my friend," the tree-spirit said and threw the monster over his shoulder, "come on, let's go home. Gilgamesh and Catastrophe, won't you help Dragon Lord?"
"Can we really do that?" the many-armed monster said with glowing eyes, "I mean, he's one of the first major bosses of the RPG-worlds... are we worthy?"
"I bid of thee to help me escape from here, my suffering is great," Dragon Lord sighed.
He glanced at the fighting trainers on the floor and continued:
"Not to mention the great feeling of amaze I experience... oh, I apologize, lord Magus."
"We have to bring him out of here or he'll break down completely," Thanatos concluded, very concerned.
The necromancer and Bahamut helped each other to push the weakly moaning Magus towards the broken bars, where Crono and Lucca carefully grabbed the warlock's arms and helped him stumble towards the portal. The four onionkids morphed (oh, good grief!) into ninjas to help Bahamut. While his friends took care of Jade, Ryu1 turned into a gold dragon and helped the poor Light Crystal Warriors to carry the massive, black beast. Gilgamesh and Catastrophe rushed past, carrying Dragon Lord. Now there were enough dragon's around to cause a major mix up, but at that point everyone was too tired to compete with such a thing.
"What the..." Shadow said as he was brought out of his cage, "you've teamed up with emperor Gesthal just to save me?"
"Well, he forced us to bring him..." Locke grumbled.
Shadow burst into tears.
"You guys are fabulous," he sobbed, "and I thought you always considered me as a silent, murderous moron with a mysterious past that drove everyone crazy!"
Celes hugged him and patted his back while still walking over the arena floor.
"There, there, Shadow," she said, "just because you have us paying you for being in the troop and run away all the time in the beginning of the game doesn't mean that we don't like you."
"Come on, Amon!" Maxim shouted, "we have to get out of here!"
Amon1 and 2 looked at each other.
"Which one of us do you want?" the first one stupidly asked.
"Oh, come here both of you, we can sort that out later..."
"But we're not that alike..."
Growling, Selan and Lufia climbed into the cage and dragged the two sinistrials out to freedom.
"Do you want to escape or not?" the two women snapped.
"We never said anything about that, but..."
"Shut up and walk!"
"Thanks a lot, Team Rocket!" Marle shouted over her shoulder as she carried the weakened Slash through the portal.
"Take care!" Jessie yelled back.
Our story began in the world of Chrono Trigger, on Lenee square. Let's end it there too.
Where they had found such a long table was a mystery. But the characters of the time-travel based RPG had cleaned up the square and was now sitting down, having a party to celebrate the rescue.
"A toast to Team Rocket!" Lucca cheered.
"Ditto!" everyone shouted and emptied their cups.
"Yummy!" Ayla happily said and took another roasted chicken, "even better than frog!"
"Thank God..." the short, green knight sighed at that.
"Send me the sandwiches, mother," Magus said.
Queen Zeal nodded and gave the big plate to Lavos' robot form, who sent it further down the table.
"You better eat well, son of mine," the queen with blue hair said, "you need to get some color back after that awful event."
Everyone's eyes went between the queen and the warlock.
"I doubt that even paint could bring some color back on his face, Your Majesty," Crono said.
"That's true. And anyhow, what kind of mysterious secret ally would I be if I didn't look like a vampire?" Magus pointed out.
"Well, just eat to regain your strength, then," queen Zeal said.
"Alright, mother."
"So, what are we going to do now?" Robo said, "shall we do the game again from the start?"
"Do we have any choice?" Yakra I sighed, rolling his eyes, "one really have to admire people like Link and Mario who have so many games to change between."
"I had this idea about swapping places with our friends!" Marle excitedly said, "I mean, I could be Selan or Terra if I colored my hair and changed clothes. And Magus reminds of Ryu1..."
"In that case," Schala said, "I refuse to be Sara; I'm tired of that kind of role. But I guess that I could get a tail and play Bleu instead..."
That started an excited discussion about the possibilities of Marle's idea.
"What about me swapping place with that frog-prince Jean?" Ozzie grinned, "and if Slash wore a wig, grew a mustache and took a few speech-lessons from Frog, he could be Cyan of FF3/6j!"
"Suits him right," Flea smirked, "I'm thinking of Kefka, since I'm a transvestite and all..."
"And maybe I could change place with one of the Koopa kids!" Azala thoughtfully said.
They probably could have continued for a long time by themselves, but there was suddenly a familiar shout from above.
"Hey guys! Oaaahh!"
"Teleport!" Magus shouted.
Using a magic he never had practiced during the game, he saved the table and characters around it from disaster. Ryu1 crashed on the paving stones of the square instead.
"Good grief," Karn sighed and jumped off the dragon's back, "we really need to get you a flying instructor!"
"Yeeesss..." the Light Dragon mumbled, shaking his big, red head to stop the world's spinning.
The thief sighed deeply and then turned to the surprised Chrono Trigger people.
"Hi! Oh sorry, are we disturbing something?"
"No, no," Lavos core smiled, "come on and join us, both of you."
The major boss noticed that one of his spawns were chewing on an empty chair and slammed his wing-like hand into the vulnerable three-part shell. The spawn screeched.
"Behave yourself!" its creator demanded, "you know that furniture is dessert! Now eat your plates first, good boy..."
Karn found a chair that wasn't half eaten and sat down. King Guardia XXXIII's chancellor sent the thief the plate of baked potatoes. Ryu1 managed to regain his human form and stumbled over to the table, receiving help from Cyrus to sit down.
"So, what brings you here?" Mother brain asked.
"Well, we were bored," Karn said, "so we discussed and idea that Nina had, about an exchange program. We could..."
"We were just talking about such a thing," Melchior said, "have you made any others interested?"
Karn nodded excitedly.
"Sure, Megaman asked if he could swap with Robo, and if I brushed my hair and piped down, I could be Crono, right? Not to mention that this dizzy dragon here have great potential with his hair and clothing."
"We'd love to be part of it," Dalton grinned, "when do we start?"
"When the hangover is gone," Schala said, rolling her eyes.
"What hangover?" the one-eyed soldier from Zeal said and emptied another cup of wine.
"You'll know..."
"Then it's settled," Crono said with a broad smile, "a toast to all RPGs and classic games!"
"A toast!" everyone cheered.
The end. I promise.