(Author's notes: This is an idea I've hard for awhile, but decided to express it in fanfiction form. A question that sometimes arises in Chrono Trigger is the possibility that the Time Egg/Chrono Trigger could be used to save Schala and what Magus was thinking at the time it is used in canon.

Since this is based on the DS version, I do use DS and direct-translation terminology and dialogue if I think it sounds better than the NA SNES/PS terms. However the pivotal line "No More, no less" only appears in the NA SNES/PS version, and I felt it was thematically important so I dropped it in, and because of nostalgia reasons Frog still has his pseudo-Shakespearean accent.

For those not familiar with all the translation differences that show up in this work, I will just state them here: the "clone" used for saving Crono in the original Japanese version was "doppeldoll" which I think is more fitting. I use both the term "fiend" and "mystic" interchangeably but I think "mystics" are the term that the people would use moreso themselves (in the Japanese version, they are called demons). Schala and Janus are not half-siblings, they are full siblings in the DS/Japanese version and Janus hid his magical talent to avoid being used by his mother. Taban is also a blacksmith and Crono's mom is named Gina.

If you find any of this confusing, don't worry just read on, it's not really important to the story.

I appreciate feedback and am willing to edit this and the other chapters accordingly!)

"The Chrono Trigger represents potential. Results require action."

"The egg will have an effect equal to the effort you put into your search. No more, no less."

The man once known as Janus Zeal pondered these words as he stared into the eternal darkness that was the corpse of existence.

He had already spent much time looking for Schala back in his home time period without any progress and had started looking in other times. An encounter with Lucca flying her time machine in the era got him in contact with some of his former traveling companions; they aided him in his search, but results still turned up short. Desperate for answers, he decided to visit Gaspar for any advice, and had recalled the old man's prior words about that enigmatic artifact known as a time egg or "Chrono Trigger". It was a work of miracles, a testament to human will defying fate. Had he believed such a thing was possible, could he have...found her?

There was only one way to find out.

A rough nudge on the man once known as the Guru of Time aroused him from his dream.

"Gaspar, I need to know if I could have saved Schala with the Time Egg." The wizard commanded.

"Janus...I am sorry. I know you must have felt terrible re-witnessing your failure at the Ocean Palace, but paradoxes are a real hazard when using the Time Egg. You might negate your own existence or die of you where to pull out Schala from a moment she ought to continue existing in."

"What about just before she exited time?"

"You mean, just before she vanished into the Darkness Beyond Time?"

"Did I stutter?" Magus snapped.

"Well...you'd have to know that exact moment. Even so, I do not know what consequences could occur, or even if a doppeldoll would suffice..."

"Then I will know."

"Janus...your ambition consumes you..."

"So be it, Gaspar. I know where Schala is, and it makes my failure worse." He scowled.

"Janus...I...what?"

"She is suffering. Consumed by despair and welcoming the end of everything." Magus grit his sharp eyeteeth.

Gaspar's eyes grew wide.

"I saw her there connected with Lavos. I don't know what happened, but it seems even after killing Lavos it somehow survives somewhere, and with Schala imprisoned within it! I saw myself trying to rescue her but she told the other me that there was nothing I could to save her!"

"So Lavos remains in the Darkness Beyond Time, and so does Schala..."

"Tell me everything you know about how that happened!" Magus demanded.

"It seems that Schala vanishes from the time stream right before the Ocean Palace became the Black Omen. I would postulate that shortly after her teleporting you and the other time travelers was when it occurred."

"But…but how?"

"Lavos may have swallowed her because she was the arbiter of the Frozen Flame. Queen Zeal may have punished her for teleporting away you and the others."

Magus grew paler than usual. His eyes wide and withdrawing from his surroundings.

His hands shook and he brought them close to his face. "You m-mean that maybe in the original timeline she…could have just died…but…but because she saved us she suffers a fate worse than death?" He slammed his left hand on the cold metal of the lamp post right above Gaspar's head.

"THAT BECAUSE OF MY FAILURE AND THE INTERVENTION OF THE OTHERS SHE SUFFERS A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH!?" He screamed right at Gaspar's face.

The back of Gaspar's shoulders clung onto the lamppost as Magus's imposing figure trapped him there. Gaspar wiped his face and then sighed.

"That is one possibility, but it could have happened regardless…my sight does not look well into what occurred inside the Ocean Palace because of the heavy temporal distortions around it."

Magus withdrew from Gaspar and folded his arms. "I'll have to find out myself then."

"And then what will you do?"

"Whatever I can." He looked down at the floor morosely.

"Schala would be proud to have you as a brother, even if you are hardly recognizable to her and even in spite of your failed attempts. I have something for you."

The morose expression on Magus's face lit up as Gaspar presented him with a tiny spotted egg—just like the one that the time travelers had used earlier to snatch Crono from his doom.

"You..you had another?"

"No. But Lucca was eager to create one herself for any reason that could come up. I taught and guided her through the process as she learned how to weave magic and physics together. After we finished, she let me keep it safe for any of you if needed. I think this is reason enough to use this egg—your spirit is strong, and the Chrono Trigger would certainly respond in turn."

Magus took the Chrono Trigger and carefully cradled it in his hands. He started at the simple form in front of him, so full of promise and potential to do the work of miracles and gods. It had the power to do things that if this treasure where widely known, whole armies and civilizations would have been obliterated for it. Yet it was in the form of something so innocuous yet fittingly symbolic as a plain egg; from a plain egg could come the birth of something powerful if properly cared for. Magus closed his eyes for awhile and concentrated on the object, trying to feel for what would be needed to hatch the miracle he needed to happen.

After a solid few minutes, his crimson eyes opened again. He carefully pocketed the egg in his small dimension where he stashed his things, so careful as not to even come into contact with his other belongings. He wrapped in a protective spell just in case it was fragile—he would dare not test its endurance even if he had remembered from experience that a Time Egg was durable enough to be taken in a satchel while hiking up a mountain.

He nodded at Gaspar and gave a traditional Zealian bow of reverence. "Thank you."

"I will be watching. I can only hope for the best."

Magus nodded, then turned away to head for Epoch.

Magus handed the keys to Epoch back to Lucca.

"For someone who grew up with little machinery around, you picked up familiarity pretty quickly."

Magus glared at Lucca. "That machinery was built in a lost future, but was designed by someone from my homeland. You saw the Blackbird, didn't you?"

"Oh, but you were just a-"

"I hung around for awhile as a prophet, you idiot."

"Hey, I was just complementing how you picked it up fast! It even took my father awhile to teach me how to use a drill!"

"Well, you better pick up to think of what you say better."

"Hey, you know I'm not the most social person around."

"Neither am I."

Magus sighed deeply and sat on the couch of Lucca's home. There were various pieces of hardware and electronic components in disarray; the interior landscape of a household of machinists was completed with random piles of books and diagrams. Despite these obstacles to normal movement, the cozy hearth and the earthy wooden walls added an inviting warmth to the home. It was cozy unlike the vast marble corridors of the Zeal Palace and the dank, dark halls of his old castle. He couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy around Lucca when he was at her house.

"What is it like?" He said softly.

"What is what like?" Lucca quirked an eyebrow in confusion.

"What is it like to…never mind." He stopped himself from revealing too much.

"Oh come on, say it!"

"Nothing."

"Oh come on….say it! You're putting me on a cliffhanger!"

"Then I'll have to drop you." He retorted.

Lucca pouted for a moment, then went back to her chair in defeat, and continued sipping her tea.

Magus looked back behind the couch to watch Lucca's mother prepare refreshments, then looked across the room to see Lucca's father repair something. His face fell rather noticeably.

After biting into some sandwich slices, Magus went to the topic he had planned.

"Lucca, I have spoken to Gaspar about the fate of Schala. She is in a place known as "The Darkness Beyond Time", a place that exists outside of the known space-time continuum."

"Go on…" Lucca was captivated by the anticipation of exposition.

"I don't know how she got there, but it was sometime between when she teleported us away and when the Black Omen rose. Lavos is there somehow as well, and the two have been bonded."

Lucca went pale. "Lavos…still exists somehow?"

"Lavos's…soul, or whatever equivalent. Maybe something about Lavos's extra dimensional nature allows it to survive in some way like that. I wish I had the answers too but I do not. All I know is that Schala is out there suffering at its hands and I dare hope that it was not because of our intervention."

Lucca shook her head. "So...so it is true. I was hoping what you were going to say wasn't what I heard from Crono. I…I wasn't there, but he told me more about what you, he, and Frog saw that day and it still gives him the chills thinking about it. It took a lot of effort to destroy Lavos, and Schala doesn't deserve that terrible fate."

"That's why Gaspar gave me the Chrono Trigger."

"So he did give it to you. Well, if it can rescue Schala, then you may have it."

"I didn't ask permission from you. When Gaspar handed it to me it was all the permission I needed. If he somehow refused, I would have taken it from him without hesitation." Magus snapped.

Lucca felt her heart jump a little at these icy words, but she quickly calmed down after she remembered that this threatening tone was actually normal for Magus.

Taban stopped polishing the rust out of a wrench. He was about to call out on Magus for yelling at his daughter, but Magus's imposing presence and wicked glare shot back at Taban before he could say a word. Taban shook his head lightly and looked at Lucca with an eye twitch upon seeing her calm around this fiendish man. He sighed and went out of the room.

"I know, but you know, just a formality… " Lucca broke the tension with a smile.

Magus sighed, took a warm cup of tea from the table and brought it to his lips. He wondered if Taban had any idea what the two were discussing or if he just heard the biting tone of Magus's statement.

The warmth of the house, the sofa, and the tea put Magus at ease a little—at ease enough to let something slip.

"I'll ask again. What is it like?" He asked, eyes closed in contemplation.

"Oh no, not this again." Lucca sighed.

"What is it like…to have…" He was holding his words back, but then they came out anyway.

"What is it like to have…parents…who…care about you?"

Lucca was wide-eyed at the question. She remembered that of the family of Janus Zeal, only Schala was loving to him. Maybe his mother had been warm to him much earlier in life before the activation of the Mammon Machine. He probably did not remember his father much before he passed away. Ozzie was more like a distant step parent or awful coach until the day when Magus usurped his position. That part was conjecture for Lucca, after she saw how Magus turned against his former minions so easily she thought that maybe they were never close to begin with.

Lucca then thought of her own parents. Without their support she wouldn't have become the great inventor and scientist she was today. Without her father to teach her these wonders she who knows what she might have become instead. Lara tolerated Taban and Lucca's mess around the house and provided a solid foundation of comfort. Much of her own work involved collaboration with her father. Inventing and experimenting was expensive and not very profitable, so she was thankful of her father's income from his regular job as a blacksmith.

It just occurred to Lucca that Magus might have been envious of her, maybe even jealous, but hopefully not spiteful. She had to choose her words and gestures carefully.

She looked down and pursed her lips in hesitation. She gripped her own mug of tea and glanced at the kitchen, then at where her father was working.

"Well…it's like having a cushion where you can land on whenever you need to fall. It's like…having two best friends who will always be at your side no matter what and have always been there with you since you could remember." She looked at him with a cheesy grin that said "don't hurt me".

Magus had not moved a muscle. He was still sitting with his eyes closed in quiet contemplation. After a nervous minute that seemed like a torturous hour for Lucca, Magus finally replied.

"I see. I asked because you know well that is not a luxury I was fortunate enough to have, despite having other other luxuries when growing up. It would be useless to dwell too much in an alternate reality in which I grew up with loving parents. When I see your parents and Gina, it does makes me wonder how my life would have been. I admit it does make me feel jealous to an extent, but jealously is useless. Being jealous of you won't bring back my parents nor Schala, and it certainly is not any will of your own to be born to caring parents."

Lucca was confused at this tiny exposition of Magus's internal world, but her confusion was from this tiny bit of exposition of his internal world in the first place rather than the words of that exposition itself. She wondered if his goal-focused practicalness that became his bread and butter was also a shield from malingering thoughts that would threaten to tear his psyche apart.

She caught that those last words also vaguely echoed Frog's when he decided to spare Magus's life that fateful day. She wondered if a little bit of Frog's honor and restraint had rubbed off on Magus.

"So, you're not mad at me, you're just curious?"

"Yes." Magus shrugged.

Lucca sighed.

"Be thankful of what you have, Lucca." He said in a barely audible whisper.

He held out the Chrono Trigger from his pocket dimension and examined it wordlessly. Lucca stared in amazement of that tiny miraculous object, and remembered the excitement of putting it all together. A silent minute passed by and he held it close to his heart, then slipped it back into his pocket dimension.

"I will." Lucca replied at last.

Magus stood up and left the house without any goodbyes. Something about this conversation bugged Lucca, she wondered if Magus didn't require her permission to use the egg, why did he want her to know what he was going to use it for?

The man once known as Janus Zeal stayed over at Melchior's cottage whenever he spent an extended amount of time in the era of Crono, Lucca, and Marle. Melchior was happy to have him stay over, to him it felt somewhat relieving to finally have a familiar face from his own past appear again. The unfamiliarity of that era compared to Zeal made Melchior feel like he was stuck in a dream or been flung into another world entirely. Even if Magus did not look at all like "little Janus" it was still a confirmation that not all was lost since the day Lavos flung the three gurus and the little prince far into the future.

Magus in turn liked having a place to rest and research esoteric topics without the ceaseless snoring of Gaspar.

Magus was almost finished with breakfast when Melchior piped up with the question he was anxious to ask.

"So, you are going to use the Chrono Trigger to save Schala?"

"Yes." Magus answered flatly over waffles.

"Does that mean there is another way to save someone besides replacing them?"

"That is what I have been looking into. First I have to understand the nature of it before considering that course of action might be."

"I do know some about it, but not a lot. That was more Gaspar and Belthasar's expertise."

"The Chrono Trigger is essentially a simulacrum of the universe that can break into a specific point in time and space of the real universe using Alister's Law of Synchrony and Recursion Theory. It is a powerful device that requires tremendous magic power to work and tremendous dedication of the heart to guide. It is merely a vehicle of altering the universe, not something that alters the universe itself, it just gives the potential to do it." Magus stated with a whiff of scholarly poise that proved he had indeed researched on it.

"If I understand correctly, Belthasar guided you and the other time travelers to Death Peak and to replace Crono with a doll."

"Yes, I was there when Crono was retrieved from the time stream." Magus paused to chew the last morsel of waffle. "From what I have researched, this is the only way to save someone using the Chrono Trigger."

"So you do have a doll of Schala? I can help you even ma-"

"It's going to take much more than a doll to replace Schala in the time stream." Magus interrupted.

He continued, "This is now the focus of my research. Crono was to be obliterated by Lavos and already had been favored by the Entity. Retrieving him due to such factors was relatively easy—but Schala is an altogether different case. Schala's connection with Lavos might make it more difficult, the Entity may even stop me and consider Schala a threat. I am the only one with a deep connection to Schala, Crono had the will of si…five friends backing him up, Schala has not traveled through time and so I am not certain if she is considered 'important' to the time stream."

"Janus. I too have a deep connection to Schala. Crono and his friends cared about her even if they hardly knew her. I am sure Belthasar and Gaspar also care deeply for her. She doesn't just have you, she has the hearts of all of us backing her up, and thus backing you up."

"Maybe there is some way of manifesting your good intentions into something usable I can take with me." He said sarcastically.

"Oh, but maybe there is!"

"I was just kidding."

"You know I have crafted among the greatest magical artifacts of Zeal!"

"I need to get back to my research."

Magus stuffed himself into a quiet area surrounded by books and magical tools. The most useful books where those retrieved from stasis vaults from the ruins of Kajar, but they were more scarce than more recent books written by mystic authors. Mystic authors seemed less concerned about the cosmos and more about warfare and survival. This made sense considering their state throughout history in this region, when those two were the most important aspects of using magic. What was written by mystic authors on magic involving time and space was extremely primitive by Zeal standards.

Either way, the vast majority of it did not help very much. Magus hoped that at least if he pored through these esoteric tomes, it would spark the right solution to him—even those tomes that were difficult to understand through layers of purple prose and jargon that he had not had the opportunity to learn much at Zeal.

By afternoon, Magus had become frustrated enough to leave Melchior's cottage without a word. Melchior just sighed when he heard the door slam from his foundry.

He decided that being fixated on the dearth of magic research hardly even remotely related to his goal was not helping him at all. Magus was one to learn magic more from experimentation and field experience rather than theory written by other wizards. So the way to rescue Schala would have to rest on his own methods.

Soon he found himself walking around the base of the mountain nearby. He saw the remains of a sharp chasm that cleaved the mountainside to reveal the entrance of a cave. Ah yes, that was where Frog and his companions broke the seal to the entrance of his castle 400 years earlier. Magus began thinking about that day he met those people, among other memories of bygone centuries. He strolled along the shore's edge around the mountain to see where his castle once stood. Like Zeal, its remains were swallowed by the ocean. He had seen this patch of ocean before from Epoch's cabin and wondered what had become of his former fortification. Perhaps a tidal wave or flood reclaimed it, perhaps a magical accident obliterated it. Perhaps Lavos did rise from beneath the ground and upon seeing that the person who had disturbed its sleep was gone, decided to at least claim the strange place it would have been summoned into.

He finally snapped back to the present when he nearly crashed into a tree. He stopped and cussed in his native tongue at the branch that hung just centimeters in front of his eyes. After shoving the branch away from him, he looked at the stretch of land in the distance.

Across the sea was Guardia. That kingdom rightfully once saw Magus as a monstrous fiend that could kill all who stood in his way. In this time era, the memory of Magus was reduced to a sort of boogeyman that was slain; a boogeyman whose defeat would then be celebrated by building Leene Square. The young prince and princess of Gaurdia in this era knew the truth about that boogeyman and seemed to grow fond of him after that. The thought made him want to smile a little, but instead he let out a proud smirk that he had conquered a little bit of Guardia after all.

He then remembered something else, a detail that he had scarcely thought of but knew needed more attention.

Schala's pendant.

He knew that would be a key component to his quest, but how was he going to convince Marle to hand it over? There was a risk he might never give it back to her.

Years had passed for the prince and princess of Gaurdia, and so have many milestones in their life such as their first child and the intense training Crono had to go through to be proper royalty from being a commoner. Marle's father was aging yet still had many years left on him to rule and to make sure that his successors would take care of the kingdom that his own ancestors also took care of.

Marle and Crono stood in the balcony of their room in the castle, enjoying the breeze of day.

That is, until an ominous cloaked figure landed beside them.

The couple gasped. They were unarmed, so they quickly took on defensive stances with their hands ready to release raw magical energy in defense. But upon closer inspection, the cloaked figure felt familiar.

And let out a familiar chuckle.

Magus lifted his hood and leaned against the balcony rail. Crono sighed in relief and relaxed, Marle on the other tensed her whole body and yelled.

"MAGUS!"

It was enough to summon a few castle staff to their aid, but Crono gave a bashful smile and waved them off to signal that everything was alright for the moment.

"Next time we might as well blast you!" She snarled.

"Well, that wouldn't be the first time, would it? I've endured worse from you." Magus retorted.

"Fine. Why are you here?" She crossed her arms.

"I came to talk to you about the pendant, and know how you two are faring if we have time."

"Well, today we aren't too busy, but we have to make preparations for meetings on the subject of appointing a new chancellor."

"Did one of the Yakras finally get to him?"

"No, he's just retiring soon." Marle scowled a little.

"Do come in." Crono finally eased the tension between Marle's annoyance and Magus's snark.

The royal couple and their formerly royal and uninvited guest took seats in a meeting hall and were served refreshments. Magus contently sipped tea in a very refined fashion that betrayed his royal upbringing. Crono sipped tea in a manner that was refined at first, but then slurped his tea down casually when he was tired of behaving like a proper prince. Marle did the same as well as soon as the last staff member left them alone.

"So, how are things going for you?" Crono broke the ice.

"I am getting close to figuring out how to rescue Schala." Magus said.

"You found Schala? But why can't you rescue her just yet?" Marle asked with a tinge of fright in her eyes.

"Crono you haven't told her have you?"

"I…." Crono fell silent.

"About...Schala being held captive by Lavos..." Magus did not like explaining it again either.

"He did tell me." Marle's face fell. "I just...didn't want to believe it. I feel like it probably could have been our fault that happened to her!" Her eyelashes were wet.

"Schala…" Crono whispered.

"I hope it wasn't my fault either...our fault..." Magus said softly.

Marle was speechless for a moment, then quickly embraced Magus before he could even react. His first instinct was to push her away, but then he felt something touch his chest. Something cold, yet somehow warm, something familiar…the pendant, and that eased him. He slowly put an arm around Marle for a few seconds, and then she withdrew.

"I'm…I'm sorry. Do you know what happened to her?" Marle asked.

"She somehow was sent to the Darkness Beyond Time, along with Lavos. She remains connected to Lavos, who I think was attempting to absorb or merge with her in some way."

Marle and Crono shuddered at the thought, as well as what terrible things that could imply.

"So…what…what now?" Marle stammered, her face white.

"I am getting close to the solution. I have already been given a Time Egg from Gaspar and Lucca."

"I…I always wondered how you'd felt when we rescued Crono. I saw you pause at the scene of what was to be his death for a moment before we left. How you could have possibly used that moment to save your sister."

"It would not have worked anyway. I might disrupt things too much if I ever rescued her that moment. Even so, I would need more than a replica of her to rescue her."

"Is that why you came to talk to me about my pendant?"

Magus paused for a moment. "I am not sure. I feel it may be necessary to retrieve her. I would like to borrow it, but I must warn you of the possibility you may never have it again."

Marle did not answer, but instead looked down on the floor, then at Magus, then at her pendant. Magus remained calm and stoic—at least on the outside, but his gaze on the pendant betrayed the fact that he was not immune to the tension in the air.

"Well…this pendant is very important to my family. If I loose it, there would be no end to daddy yelling at me about it and an important connection to my ancestors would be lost. Then again…it…it was her pendant, wasn't it?"

"Yes. The exact one. It passed through many hands for thousands of years until it reached the Gaurdia royal line. I never asked about having it back because I know the pendant has chosen its new owners."

"What?"

"The elder at Algetty told me that he saw Schala's pendant on you, as if it were protecting you when I asked if he had seen her."

"I…well…there is probably a reason its with me and my family. Then again…I know how much it means to you anyway." She removed the pendant from her neck and handed it to Magus.

Crono gasped. Even Magus was surprised at this gesture.

The pendant seems to shimmer for a moment in the radiance it once had when fully charged. It was warm, familiar, comforting in his hands. It pulsed with a warmth that interacted with the talisman that Schala gave him on that fateful day. The man once known as Janus Zeal held it tight with his eyes closed. He opened his eyes and then handed the pendant back to Marle, who took it and then blinked rapidly in confusion.

"I want you to come with me instead." Magus said.

"To…to where?" Marle replied.

"To when I am ready to rescue Schala."

Crono nodded. "So will I."

"I'll come back when I'm ready. In the meantime, I still have more business to take care of before I do this. When I return I will be certain about the role that the pendant will play if it does. If it will serve no purpose, you do not have to come."

"Wait, I never said I'll do it." Marle retorted.

"Well, do you refuse?"

"Uhm…no?"

"Then it's settled." Magus pulled and stretched his right glove.

"Do you even know where you are going to rescue her?"

"As of now, it looks like sometime back after the fall of Zeal. I need to borrow Epoch a little more to make sure."

"Well, good luck then. I haven't thanked you enough for telling us how to rescue Crono!"

"At the time I wanted to see if the Time Egg was real."

"Oh come on!" Marle crossed her arms.

Magus smirked. "Crono, I know I called you weak before and after your rescue. I just want to let you know that at the time, I may have been projecting on you because of my own failure."

"It was kinda obvious." Crono stated sheepishly.

Magus shrugged. "I acknowledge you saved my life as well. If you had not stopped me from summoning Lavos, I would have been easily killed. I learned from Gaspar later that originally I was to be obliterated in the same manner that almost killed you as well. I greatly underestimated Lavos and only until after my failure did I realize that I could never have done it alone."

Crono quirked an eyebrow in disbelief that Magus would admit something like this. He then smiled and patted the back of his neck. "Ehehe, well no problem!"

Marle was about to give Magus another hug, but the moment Crono finished his phrase, Magus simply seems to have never been there, except for the empty plates and tea cup.

"Hey!" Marle yelled at nothing.

"I guess telling him how we're doing is going to have to wait." Crono shrugged.