Unnatural Selection?

The Tyrano Lair is up first tonight, and I think I hate it. The encounter rate is higher than anywhere else, and the strategy is repetitive. Have Crono use Lightning 2. Most of the mobs get stunned by it, lowering their defense in the process. It's an easy win. Have Ayla Rock Toss the Volcanos. Try to avoid the Winged Apes; They're not worth it. Fortunately, they're only three of them.

At the beginning, we have to take the right path down. We'll see several villages in a cage. We can let them out, and they'll run off without a word. We're in a hurry, so, rad? Continue going down, and we'll see three Reptites preparing their dinner, Kino. After an easy battle, and despite the lock being beside us, Ayla will panic and try to break Kino out. Crono and Robby comment that it's odd but do nothing to stop her from climbing over the bone bars. The two lovers unite, and Kino wants to join us for the siege. Ayla reminds him that he's the Chief if anything happens to Ayla, so he has to return home. As we return to the beginning of the Lair, Kino opens the left path, and we start our climb.

Take the right path first since it's a dead end. One of those chests is a trap, by the way. The rest of the dungeon is a straight shot, more or less. There is a room with a strange teleport aspect that I didn't understand, but there's a revive in that egg. There are two locked doors the rest of the way, but the switch is nearby both times. Eventually, we'll find a fella who looks like Nizbel, flexing like the muscle saur he is. He lets us know Azela is behind him, and we walk by...

And then he attacks us! The battle is similar to the first Nizbel battle, except he has bigger stats. Volt Tackle does nearly 1000 damage, so there's your strategy. Robby can do whatever, but have him use Cure Beam every other turn or so. Save and climb one more flight.

Azela is waiting for us on her throne, promising this war will soon end. She performs a gymnastics move and flees to where a deep roar came from. The final battle of this war is against Azela and the Black Tyrano!

Lightning kinda works here, I guess. We're going to need to focus Azela first. She buffs the dinosaur and can heal him if we do damage, anyway. Crono should use Lightning, and Ayla can go all out. Robo can do whatever. He'll need to heal every few turns, though. Once the Reptite Queen dies, BT's stats go down. Physical attacks are still pretty useless, though. However, he will often charge up a super move. That'll give us five turns to harm him since he drops his defense. Volt Charge is the move to do again, but make sure you've got over 300 HP when the countdown reaches 0. If you can't remove his 10000 HP in five turns, defend, heal, and prepare again.

Azela is still alive and laments her loss. Before the battle, she called out for the Red Star to wipe out the humans! As she lies dying, I think she always knew she'd lose somehow. She hopes her Red Star will wipe out everyone on the planet and remains obstinate against the apes. Despite that, Ayla, strength recognizing strength, says she respects Azela. We'll cut to space as the Red Star begins its final descent onto the planet. Ayla will call it Lavos... For some reason, she manually translates this word to "Big Fire." It makes me wonder how communication has been working all this time? Lavos' landing pad is the Tyrano Lair, so we'd better move. Kino shows up with the dactyls, and we all jump on. Ayla wants to bring Azela, but she's accepted her loss. Ayla promises to never forget her, but Azella responds, "We... have no future."

Lavos lands with a mighty crater, and we wonder if now's the time to kill it. We head down to see a time Gate. Lavos always dug deeper into the planet. So we jump into the Gate.

On the otherside is a frozen landscape with dust in the air. It's the year 12000 BC, so Lavos' dirt storm caused an ice age that lasted 6500000 years! Travel east until you find a strange, glowing teleporter. It takes us to a green landscape above the clouds. The same song that played when we met Melchior, "Corridors of Time," rings out into the aether of our world.

Welcome to the eternal Kingdom of Zeal, home of magic and dreams. There are several settlements up here, each separated by a bridge of frozen earth: Kajar and Enhassa. Up here, we learn that this is where magic was born. The Zealots have been using the Earthbound ones as slaves. The Earthbound have no magic powers, so it just makes sense in this world. What's most interesting is we'll gather is Zeal is so powerful because they've got the Mammon Machine. The Mammon Machine is an engine that uses the power of Lavos to sustain them. In Kajar, we'll meet a strange boy. He comes up to us and says, "The Black Wind howls...one among you will shortly perish." Our party insults the kid, but he walks off with us trying to remind ourselves we'll be fine. We can also meet a man named Dalton, who lets us know the Prophet knew we'd show up. I'm sure they'll throw us a party.

In the Zeal Palace, we can meet the heirs to Zeal. The buy, Janus, is the one who said we'd die. There's also his older sister, Schala, who is a magical prodigy. We overhear them talking about their mad mother before an attendant calls for Schala to head to the throne room. If we follow her, we'll see her use a pendant that looks like the one Marle has. It opens the door to the throne room but closes behind her. Ours doesn't work, but a nearby maid thinks the Mamman Machine can repower it. The Machine in question is in the left hall. It does work, so we can follow the Princess. The Queen immediately yells at us, and Dalton attacks us at the behest of the Prophet.

We can die, storywise, but I won! I brought Marle and Lucca with me since I wanted to fight level 20 Spekkio. Have Crono and Marle use Ice Sword, but make sure to have Lucca set up a fire strategy. Golem copies whatever was used on him, and I was set up to defend against fire. It also restarts his turn when he copies, so it's an easy win.

Everyone poofs back into the room, and the Queen locks us into stasis with her overwhelming might. Later on, Schala comes to free us because she's hella rad. However, the Prophet stops her. He wants us killed, but he stops when Schala demands we be set free. He, instead, kicks us out of this time period. We then remember that our necklace can open sealed doors. Sealed doors such as the one near the old man who spoke of Schala. And we'll do that...

... tomorrow!

"I'm a bowling ball dreaming I'm a plate of sashimi." This has been how I've described myself for years, and here is its impetus. I opened a bunch of sealed chests, so it's back to the future right away tomorrow.