Author's Notes: Hey people. :) Gotta love my author's notes. I'm tempted not to say anything useful in them this time around, but I actually do have a few things...

First, a quick plug for Reunion 5. Things are gonna get *really* interesting, *really* quick. Just wait til its finished. It will rule. :)

Secondly, there is a little contest thingy involving this chapter. Explaining it here would be a spoiler, so I'm going to explain it at the end instead. Enjoy :)

******

Reunion 4: Ill Omen By Bart Kelsey and Nich Maragos

It was just past noon when they set out into the woods to find where the Epoch had last been parked. The sky had a few scattered clouds, and the air around them was a pleasantly dry seventy degrees. Their conversation, like the weather, was generally high-spirited, although that particular analogy only extends so far; if the weather were an *exact* representation of their conversation, there would have been an occasional lightning bolt springing from cloud to cloud.

Bart in particular seemed in a good mood, relating the stories of his recent adventures to whoever was listening. As they strode through the forest, he passed the time by telling them about his meeting with the handsome young Yeslek Trab, and the zany hijinx that had ensued.

"So," Bart was saying, "Marle, who still thought this Yeslek dude was me, asked him to land the Epoch. Of course, he'd never *seen* a time machine before, let alone *flown* one."

Crono peered up ahead through the trees. "Are we going to be listening to this all day?"

"Not much longer," said Ayla. "Just up ahead."

"*It is* just up ahead," Robo chimed in.

"It is just up ahead," Ayla repeated.

Bart cast a glance back at Crono. "And you call *me* irritating."

"Did you ever see Yeslek yourself?" Lucca asked, before Crono got a chance to reply.

Bart nodded. "Yup. He's my spitting image. Real handsome dude, I might add. Looks just like me, except he wears his hair down and walks around in a suit of armor all the time."

"And you mentioned he was stupid as well?" Crono asked, with a self-satisfied grin. "In addition to being handsome, I mean?"

Bart grumbled. "Be careful what you insinuate, Spike. I said he *looked* like me."

Crono was going to reply, but a sharp elbow from Lucca convinced him to keep quiet.

Bart, meanwhile, stubbed his toe on a tree root as Magus floated up alongside him, two feet in the air. "It may interest you, Bart, to know the legend of the doppelganger."

"Hm?"

"The doppelganger is your twin," Magus explained, "a being that looks just like you. If you see him, it means your death will be at hand shortly."

Bart shrugged. "My mother told me never to put any stock in Legends ... and besides, if that were the case, I'd be dead twice by now."

Marle giggled. "The *real* doppelganger screwed up when he tried to kill Bart. I think Bart's indestructible or something."

Crono made a face. "I'm confused."

Bart lifted up his shirt, exposing a three-inch scar in his torso. "It was right after we got to Harlequin. Some doppelganger stabbed me in the gut, thinking it was my heart, and tried to take my place in the group. Yeslek is something different ... he's a real person, and not just some monster who takes my form."

Lucca adjusted her glasses. "Wow. Looks like it was a pretty nasty wound."

"Well, it was, but fortunately for me, there was a master healer on hand. She took care of it." Stubbing his toe again, Bart turned and glowered up at Magus. "Do you *always* float around like that?"

"Only over rough terrain," Magus replied. "You should try it sometime. It might save you a few toes."

Bart shook his head. "Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah ... the Epoch. Somehow, totally by accident, Yeslek and Marle managed a pinpoint landing right onto the roof of some Shinkyan restaurant."

"And you yourself had nothing to do with this?" Crono pressed.

"Can't say that I did. I was riding a chemically-enhanced chocobo at the time."

"Chemically-enhanced?" asked Lucca, furrowing her brow at the concept. "How so?"

"Chocaine. And let me just point something out ... I recommend that none of you ever ride a chocobo on speed for more than 15 minutes at a time, or else you'll end up with blisters on your butt that'll make it so you can't sit down for three days."

Lucca nodded. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

"Anyway," said Bart, pointing through the trees at the emerging Epoch, "there it is. It could probably use a little body work. And some rewiring."

Lucca gasped as the remains of the time machine came into full view. The front was smashed in several places, and one of the access panels, which used to close by itself, was now held in place with a bungee cord. The left wing looked slightly bent in the middle, and somehow the top of the tail appeared to have been torn off. One of its three landing legs had a nasty bend and wasn't folding out right, causing the time machine to tilt at an odd angle where it sat on the ground.

"Oil change, lube, new shocks...and I think some of the hydraulics are shot."

"What did you *do* to it?" Lucca asked incredulously.

"Oh yeah," Bart continued, "and the left aileron gets stuck sometimes. *Someone* ran it into a tree. And a roof. And *another* roof."

Lucca gave Marle a look that, if looks could kill, would have left a smoking pile of ashes in her place. "Cant you leave anything alone?"

Marle just cleared her throat nervously.

"Of course," said Bart, "in her defense, she was trying to avoid running into me the first time, and the second, it kicked out in midair. Anyway, Luccs, think you can fix it?"

Lucca looked at him as if he'd just asked her to add one plus one, or recite the alphabet. "Of *course* I can fix it. It might take a little while, but there's no question I can do it."

Bart shrugged. "Anyway, it still flies, sort of. We can always fix it when we get back."

"You're sure you want to fly overseas with it in this condition?"

Bart grinned. "Done it before."

"Oh well, then," said Lucca with a shrug. "I suppose it can wait." She turned and looked sternly at Marle. "But I *insist* on piloting it."

Marle stepped back slightly. "That's perfectly alright by me."

Without wasting any time, Lucca turned and hoisted herself up into the pilot's seat. "Alright! Everybody in!"

The remainder of the group clamored in as well, finding that the time machine did not seem quite so roomy when it was occupied by seven people.

"Wow!" Bart exclaimed. "There's a party in my time machine, and everyone's invited!"

Crono groaned inwardly as Lucca revved up the Epoch's main engine and brought the machine shakily into the air.

"Oh, hey, Crono?" said Bart at length.

"What?" he snapped.

"Could you turn your head a bit? Your hair's poking me in the eye."

Crono glared. "I'll poke you with something else if you don't stop complaining."

Bart decided to let that one slide.

After that, they were strangely quiet as the Epoch sailed across the ocean. Bart turned to face out of the time machine's bubble cockpit and leaned on his armrest, thinking. His few weeks with Marle, Ayla, and Robo had been fun, certainly, despite the fact that he liked complaining about his life so much. Once Crono and Lucca came back, though, Bart suddenly found himself feeling as if he were trying to fill two positions--leader and engineer--that were no longer available.

Shaking his head at the thought, Bart delved into his backpack in an effort to find something to keep his mind off of his problems. His graphing calculator presented itself, so he pulled it out and pressed the ON button. Surprisingly, it still worked, despite the beating it had taken since Bart's arrival on Nu. Smiling, he ran a Tetris program that he had downloaded off of the internet while still on Earth. Ironically, despite the hefty cash expenditure he had endured to obtain said calculator, he rarely used it for anything else.

Crono, Marle, Ayla, and Magus took little interest in the device, and Lucca was too busy keeping the Epoch in the air to take any notice. Robo, however, seemed rather curious, and leaned over to peer at the calculator's three-inch screen a few minutes after Bart started playing.

"What is that?" he asked.

"This? It's a little game called Tetris," Bart explained without looking up. "These blocks drop, and you try to fit them into the bin without leaving any holes."

"Understood," said Robo. "May I try when you are finished?"

Bart nodded. "Sure thing."

Bart's game lasted several more minutes, during which time he became steadily more frantic in his attempts to move the blocks into their rightful places. Finally, Bart cursed quietly and let out a sigh, handing the machine over to Robo.

"There. A hundred and eight lines. Don't get discouraged if you don't do very well the first few times through--it takes some practice to get good."

"Affirmative."

While Bart's game had lasted around ten minutes, Robo's went on for nearly a half hour. Finally, the speed of the game increased beyond Robo's abilities and he stopped playing. "Four hundred seventy-three rows. I believe I will have to optimize my Tetris routines if I am to improve."

Bart shook his head. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, Robo. You're already better than anybody I've ever seen play. Besides, if I didn't waste my own memory on useless things like Tetris routines, I'd probably be able to do some more useful stuff." Bart hit the off switch, slid the calculator's cover back on, and put it back in his backpack. "Anyway," he said, "We're almost there now, if that black thing sticking up out of the water is what I think it is."

Marle squinted off into the distance. "Looks like it."

"That's strange," said Lucca. "We shouldn't be able to see it from this distance ... but there it is. It looks like there's a lot more out of the water now."

Crono nodded. "Yeah, it definitely seems a bit bigger than last time."

"But why would the Omen be rising up out of the water of its own accord, though?" Lucca wondered aloud.

"We ... will find out in minute," Ayla replied.

Bart blinked. "Ayla, was that a verb I just heard?"

Ayla glanced back at him curiously.

"You said 'we will.'," Bart explained. "That's a big step for you."

Robo bleeped. "You still must work on your use of articles, though."

Bart shrugged. "One step at a time, Robo."

"Everybody hold on, I'm gonna set us down." Lucca reached across the panel and flipped a switch. The machine lurched slightly, then slowed, hovering in midair up above the Omen. She punched a few buttons on the command console, and something not unlike a giant inner tube inflated around the outside of the aircraft.

Marle blinked. "Wow, I didn't know we had one of those on here!"

Lucca shrugged. "We never needed to use it before."

The epoch descended slowly and set itself down in the water with a quiet splash. The cockpit's cover, which appeared to be made of some sort of plexiglass, opened up by a hinge in the back, letting the pleasant, salty ocean air blow over them.

Magus stood up and observed the dark construct protruding from the water. It was now jutting out a good twelve feet or so, reveling what looked like some kind of cargo door bearing the Zealian seal. "Perhaps I should examine it first," he offered.

"Fifty bucks says it's sealed with a mysterious magical force," said Bart to no one in particular.

"Well, duh," said Crono. "It's a Zealian door. That's why Magus is checking it out first."

With a leap that rocked the boat slightly, Magus took to the air and floated out over the water toward the door, scythe in hand. Holding his scythe out with one arm and raising his free hand above his head, he uttered a strange, sinister incantation. All at once, the wind around him picked up for a moment, whipping his cape back behind him. Finally, the door let out a massive creak, and slid slowly open.

Cautiously, Magus floated inside, and took a look around. When he was reasonably certain there was no immediate danger, he turned around and waved at the rest of the group. "It's alright, you can swim over."

Lucca began to climb out of the cockpit, and then looked over her shoulder at Robo. "How are we gonna get Robo across?"

"I am capable of making it across on my own, Mistress Lucca."

"But you can't swim," Lucca objected. "You'll sink."

"Your worries," he replied, "are based on the faulty assumption that I was planning to swim. Observe."

What that, he robot climbed out onto the Epoch's fuselage and backed away from the Omen. Turning around to face the open doorway, he set his feet into the ground and then took a running start, leaping off of the epoch as he reached the near edge. His jump carried him at least forty feet by Bart's reckoning--more than enough to get him safely inside the omen.

The rest of them blinked in surprise at Robo's impressive display of agility. Then, one by one, they climbed out of the Epoch and swam over to the door, where Robo and Magus helped them into the large, open chamber that made the entrance to the Omen.

*

Bart staggers back a bit, overcome by a sudden, unnatural wave of dizziness. It fades quickly, but it takes him a few seconds to collect his thoughts. The group has split up; they are exploring the inside of the Omen in an effort to discover what has brought it to Nu.

Bart gazes at the room around him. The chamber is vast, lined with strange electronic devices, some functional, some not. Intertwined among the devices are glowing, crystalline tendrils that seem to have grown forth from the direction of the far end of the room. Bart himself, and Marle beside him, are standing on a wide, suspended metal walkway that is at least fifty feet above the floor of the room. There are no banisters on either side; the idea of a fifty foot drop would typically make Bart nervous, but it does not bother him this time, for some reason.

As he turns his head, he notices something strange. His visions seem to have an echoing quality to them, as if his mind is somehow processing what he sees twice.

"You okay?" he asks quietly.

Marle is gazing around the room much in the same way he is, although her face is strangely devoid of expression. "Yes," she replies, nodding in his direction. The sound of her voice echoes in his head in much the same way his vision does. It is disconcerting--or at least, it should be. Something is definitely amiss. It is not important now, though.

Bart reaches over and takes Marle's hand. She looks at him curiously, but does not object. She feels strangely cold, for some reason.

"Let's get moving," Bart states, as he steps down the causeway. "I don't like this place."

"Acknowledged," Marle replies, treading heavily along beside him.

*

Bart crouched down near the corner at the end of the hallway, beckoning to them. "It looks alright," he said, nodding in the dim, flickering fluorescent light.

This particular hallway was one that Marle did not recognize. It was mostly plain metal, with rows of lights running along the ceiling, very few of which worked. A good part of the light, in fact, emanated from the bluish, glowing crystalline tendrils that wove randomly along the walls like a creeping plant. It frightened her terribly; perhaps it was just a trick of her mind, but the passage exuded an air of malignant forbiddance. Something was there, all around them, and it didn't like them at all.

Quietly, she approached Bart and took hold of his hand, more to reassure herself than anything else.

Bart looked back at her strangely. "Is something wrong?"

His glance was not hostile, but held a certain amount of distaste. She let go and stepped back. "I was just a bit scared, that's all. This place is creepy."

Bart raised an eyebrow. "If you say so."

Taken back and feeling even more alone and afraid in the face of Bart's sudden coldness, Marle maneuvered herself so that Lucca was between them. Bart paid her no attention as he stood up and continued on down the hallway, looking from side to side at the occasional dead control stations lining the wall.

The blue tendrils appeared to be thickening as they made their way further down the hall; in some places they grew out of the holes between control keys, or the cracks between the flat metal wall panels. Marle wondered how prolific the strange, crystalline growth was within the floors and walls, where they could not see it.

Bart looked back over his shoulder at Lucca. "Anything you can make any sense of?" he asked.

Lucca surveyed her surroundings, not looking for anything in particular as far as Marle could tell. "No," she replied.

Bart gave a small sigh, pausing to peer around the next corner. "Well, we best keep moving then. Watch your step, though--it's pretty dark past here."

The next passage was indeed dark. The lighting was either completely turned off or broken, leaving only the dim, blue glow of the strange crystalline vines that pervaded the floor, walls, and ceiling.

"Do you still have that flashlight thing?" Marle ventured, once they were far enough down this new passageway that the limited light from behind them no longer did anything to illuminate the tunnel.

Bart looked back. "Huh? No. Everyone just keep your eyes out for a light switch, alright?"

The continued onward; the passageway remained straight for quite some time, the walls becoming progressively more and more devoid of any distinguishing marks. On the other hand, though, as the tendrils continued to grow larger, they gave of more and more light, making it somewhat easier to see, despite the lack of an electric light source. The light was dim, still, but sufficient so that they could clearly make out the passage ahead of them.

"See anything useful yet?" Bart inquired.

Again, Lucca looked around, this time spying a loose steel railing along the wall, about three fourths of an inch in diameter. In a surprising display of strength, she pulled the bar from the wall and held it ready, taking a few test swings as one would try out a new club. "Here," she stated.

Bart looked back and forth between the two women. "What's with you two all of a sudden? We're looking for *light switches* here. And you," he turned to Marle, "you spent most of your life living in that weird castle, and you say *this* is creepy?"

"My castle is *not* weird, you jerk! It's a very nice place!" Marle took a breath and looked Bart in the eye. "What's gotten into you these past couple days, anyway?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you mean, what am I talking about? Ever since we met up with everybody else, you've been acting like a complete ass! And here I try to get close to you, and you shrug me off like we've never met!"

"I honestly have *no idea* what you're talking about," Bart replied.

Marle sniffed. "Listen, if you're not willing to have a real discussion about this, then don't bother talking to me anymore."

Bart shook his head incredulously. "Uh, alright. Whatever."

*

Magus blinked, feeling a slight mental touch accompanied by a brief wave of dizziness. "What was that?"

"What was what?" asked Ayla, who was standing beside him in the corridor.

Magus rubbed his eyes. /I just felt some sort of mind magic. Alright ... concentrate. What was I doing just now? Lucca. Lucca and I were heading down this passage looking for computer systems to see if we could gather some sort of clue about the Omen./

"Where's Lucca?" Magus asked of Ayla.

"Same place as ever," she replied, "seeing as how I don't have any teleportation methods handy."

Magus looked at Ayla carefully. Her form seemed to be blurred slightly in some places, as if she weren't entirely there. "Now this is interesting," he said.

"Did you find something?" Ayla asked.

"I'm not sure," he answered. "Do you have a mirror handy?"

Lucca produced a small square of polished steel from her belt and handed it to him. Magus peered at it for a moment, noting that the reflection looking back to him was not, in fact, his own--but rather Robo's.

"Just as I thought," he mused, handing it back.

"What is it, Robo? Need cleaning or something?"

Making a quick decision, Magus nodded his head mechanically. "Yes, Mistress Lucca. I seem to have acquired a few scuffs and scratches over the past several days."

"Well, don't worry about it right now," replied Lucca, who was somehow being made to appear as Ayla would. "We'll get you fixed up once we get back to town."

The passageway they were walking down opened up into a massive chamber that stretched over a hundred yards on ahead of them, and tens of yards both above and below. The passage itself led to a causeway made from a steel grating that was suspended in the air above the chamber. There were some unnatural, bluish crystalline growths lining the walls, Magus noted with a certain unease.

Lucca turned to him. "So, have you worked out where we are yet?"

Magus nodded. "I believe we are on the third west causeway, Mistress Lucca."

The continued quietly on down the causeway, their feet ringing heavily against the metal grating that held them in the air.

The hallway at the far end of the chamber was much the same as the one they had just been in, save for the fact that the crystalline growths seemed somewhat thicker along the walls. "Mistress Lucca," said Magus, "do you have any idea as to the composition of this crystalline mesh?"

Lucca stopped and examined the growths closely. "Phosphorous, maybe. I'm not sure. Let me just chip off a sample, and we can analyze it later."

Taking a small hammer and chisel from her belt, she banged away at a thin strand of crystal, but met with no success.

"Wow, this stuff is really hard." Stepping back, Lucca looked nervously around the passage. "You know, I think we've been going in circles."

Magus knew otherwise, but decided it best not to let on. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

"I've been keeping a map in my head of our position relative to the entrance since we came in. We've definitely been here before."

He nodded. "Well, then, perhaps it would be best to err on the side of caution and turn back. It does not appear that there is anything of import in this area anyway, and perhaps the others may have found something."

"Good idea, Robo." Turning around, Lucca led him back in he direction they had come from. Magus simply followed quietly.

******

Well, that's it for Reunion 4 ... Now for the contest. By this time you should have figured out that nobody looks like themselves; the challenge is to send me an email and tell me exactly who looks like who (even the obvious ones). The first person to get them all right wins--and you only get one shot at this, so be choose carefully.

Hint: No two people look like the same person. In other words, if Magus looks like Robo, then Lucca can't look like Robo.

The prize is an announcement on the ML and the feeling that you've outsmarted everyone else. :) Lurkers are welcome to participate. :)

Peace, Bart