"Ya'know, I still have lots of questions."Zinc looked out the turret scope for Ranter while Thomas relentlessly harassed him for answers. "Listen, Tom, there's still a lot you won't understand until you get your memory sync. If you're a little patient, we can answer a few questions when Ranter get's back. I can see him coming now. He's lugging back what's left of the worm for me."
"Why?"
"I study what he brings me. See the huge pod in the corner?" Zinc gestured to the huge glass cylinder in the corner. Thomas remembered seeing the huge red beast that Chrono killed in the memory sync, "I keep monsters in there for short periods of time. The formula that fills it repairs the body into perfect form so I can take parts from them and multiply them, or so I can find out why they run rampant like they do. That worm was a rare case of my lab being attacked."
Thomas' mind was stuck on the thought of the huge red beast. "I want to ask about something I saw in the memory sync," he said.
The door flew open and Ranter, who had seemingly kicked it open, stood with one foot in the air. He was carrying one part of the worm over his shoulder, and the other was being dragged on the ground. "Ask away, I'm back," he exclaimed. He stomped his foot down and dragged the already rotting carcass of the dead worm behind him. "Open up the pod real quick, would ya Zinc?"
"Sure thing, thanks," Zinc said happily, as if he was waiting for this moment his entire life. He pushed a few buttons on his computer and the pod opened quickly.
Thomas watched as Ranter flung the pieces of worm corpse into the pod. The pod closed and it began filling with a clear liquid as it did in Thomas' and Ranter's own pods. "So, anyways, I was wondering about what you said about multiplying parts?"
"Oh, yeah, that," remembered Zinc, "If a monster has a repaired body part, I can cut it off and it will repair itself in the pod."
"That's why you wanted to keep the tail on that big red thing, then?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Thomas, I know you don't remember much, but you're going to have to be more specific than 'big' and 'red,'" Ranter cut in, while putting his sweater back on.
"Alright, well it kinda looked like a huge rat standing on two legs, it was taller than buildings and it had a mane and a tail with long fur on it."
Ranter and Zinc thought about it for a few seconds, "I've got it!" cried Ranter, "It was the Ifrit Rat."
"Oh, I remember that," replied Zinc, "We never did find another one of those."
"All I saw was Chrono fighting that thing," interrupted Thomas, "and then he sent it back here, and then it cut off. Zinc mentioned something about the tail being a catalyst."
"Right," replied Zinc, "The tail of the Ifrit Rat is a very powerful catalyst. If break it off and use it, it will burn up slowly as you use energy. In exchange, of course, you can use more energy at once than you normally can. If Chrono would have brought the whole thing back instead of leaving the tail to threaten other monsters and save the town from future attacks, we could have multiplied the tail."
"Why didn't you just go back and get the tail?" asked Thomas.
"What kind of message would that send?" demanded Ranter, "It helps to come off as a peace keeper in times of war, you know. People trust you a little more."
Thomas thought about it for a few more seconds. Then, he realized another question he wanted an answer for, "Who's Chrono?"
"I thought you would never ask," replied Ranter, chuckling, "Chrono is you and me."
"Thank you for the vague answer, Mr. Ass Hole, you wanna tell me what that actually means?"
"It means, that we, together, were Chrono. We split into the two of us because that's who we originally were. When we were strong enough to split I went ahead and split so we could be ourselves again. This, however, comes with side effects, like your memory loss and both of our severely lowered 'power levels' as Zinc describes it."
"There's no other way to, if you ask me." Zinc laughed.
"We also lost access to certain weapons, sadly. We can fix everything over time except for the weapons."
Thomas thought some more. All he could do with this information was think, because he still didn't remember who he was, "So, what are we gonna do? Memory sync again?"
"That's the plan," Zinc jumped in, "We can do that right now, probably. I don't see any more attacks on the lab in the near future."
"After that, we can get to some training to build our strength back up," said Ranter.
"Alright then, we might as well start now then," said Thomas, now a little more confident about what he was doing. He went in to the next room ahead of Ranter and Zinc and stepped into the pod. The bottom was completely dry, as if there was never a single drop of water in the first place. Ranter hopped into his own pod, and Zinc started up the machine. Thomas watched the formula flow into the machine quickly, and as it rose above his head, he took a deep breath. This time, he was ready.
KingRanter
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