Miguel (Chrono Cross)

"People are dragged into playing this game...forced to put their own lives on the line...without even knowing the rules. Without even being allowed to complain, they try to do their best under the conditions placed upon them... The only alternative is to give up and leave the playing field in a forfeit..."

- Miguel

Miguel is a game-changer boss in the J.R.P.G. Chrono Cross, sequel game to Chrono Trigger. Miguel is the echo of a man bound against his will as a guardian of the Frozen Flame, a central plot element of the game. Miguel is a somewhat infamous boss across the medium if for both the tonal shift he facilitates in the game and boss-battle he offers.

Past
Miguel was originally a sailor from the village of Arni in El-Nido archipelago. Miguel was the life-long friend of a fisherman called Wazuki. One day Wazuki's son, Serge was attacked by a demon-panther, such creatures have claws with an exotic poison on them and Serge required special treatment to be saved. Miguel offered to sail Wazuki to the town of Guldov, home to master doctor - Doc. Miguel's raft was tossed in a massive storm and thrown far off-course, winding up at the fabled Dead-Sea. The Dead-Sea, normally closed off from the outside was pierced in the storm and inside Miguel and Wazuki found an advanced scientific facility, seemingly centuries more advanced than any other. While Miguel questioned the environment, Wazuki did not stop to do so, instead frantically searching for anyone or anything to save his dying son. Wazuki would find advanced medical pods to restore Serge but in trespassing at the facility, all three became the instruments of FATE. Miguel and Wazuki would not return from the expedition, but Serge would be delivered back home, with no awareness of what had happened to his father or Miguel while he was in the throws of the fever.

Encounter
Serge is pulled into the events of the game when he finds he is thrown between worlds, to an alternate one where he is dead. The only person who seems to know why or how Serge shifted to a new reality is the villain Lynx, who had sent troops to kidnap him to use in some scheme. Serge pursues Lynx to find out what he knows, eventually chasing him to Fort Dragonia, a temple to the Dragon Gods of El-Nido, representatives of nature's will. Lynx had a gem called the Dragon's Tear, one he needed to use in the temple. Once Serge is there, Lynx demonstrates what the Dragon Tear is for, it switches souls, and Lynx and Serge are each transferred to the other's body. Lynx (in Serge), had noted previously Serge was touched by Fate and could cross worlds but had neglected to elaborate on why or how he had known about him. With Serge's body, Lynx has access to similar properties and begins on a quest to use it. Lynx destroys the Dragon's Tear and the chamber that houses the power of the Dragon Gods, the blast-back of which traps Serge between dimensions. Though Serge eventually gets out, he arrives in his home-world, Serge needs to get to Lynx, who is in the other version of the world. In order to get his body back and stop Lynx Serge must find the "Frozen Flame" an artifact Lynx had stolen his body to get. The only indications of the Frozen Flames existence in his home world, speak of it existing in "The Dead-Sea. Upon hearing of the Frozen Flame, Serge begins on a trek into the Dead-Sea.

After a long series of events Serge arrives in the Dead-Sea. The Dead-Sea was once a great facility, many years advanced of the rest of the world, but it is in currently in ruins. The water is frozen, the buildings mostly destroyed and the make-shift ground is infested with malfunctioning robots and ghosts. At the center off the sea is the Tower of Gideion, what remains of the area Miguel and Wazuki had landed to heal Serge. Along the way Serge sees the fates of the alternate versions of some of his friends and enemies he had made in the other world, all dead, killed in a betrayal by Lynx. Within the deepest parts of the tower is a monument called the Bell of Nadia. At the Bell of Nadia, protagonists of the previous game, Crono, Marle and Lucca, stand as ghosts/temporal echos. The three accuses Serge of being the reason for the Dead-Sea before fading away, at which point Miguel appears.

Miguel knows that "Lynx" is if-fact Serge and is glad to see he is alive after all the work he and Wazuki put into saving him. He proceeds to explain to Serge what had happened to bring him and Wazuki there. Miguel also states that all creation is the subject of Fate, and fighting it is a futile endeavor. Miguel is overcome with nihilism when encountered and notes how all that lives is slowly dying, that all that is created eventually fades, but that it the Dead-Sea, time stands still, time (in the conventional sense) has ended there. Miguel is bound to the Dead-Sea's time stream and can not leave. He invites Serge to stay there with him to give up on life and remain part of eternity. Even if the player accepts, Serge's traveling companions will snap him out of it, pointing out Miguel is trying to convince him to give up on life. Miguel is bound to prevent Serge from leaving, while he wished to do so by offering him eternal peace, with Serge's refusal Miguel instead must kill him. Thus begins a somewhat infamous boss battle amongst J.R.P.G.s*.

When Miguel is beaten, he begins to fade. Miguel wishes Serge all the best but warns him how Fate will not let him leave. Miguel says Fate would choose to destroy the Tower of Gideon rather than see others possess the Frozen Flame and the entire facility begins to shake. Miguel says that Serge is the one chosen by the Frozen Flame, so he must survive, and encourages him to run. Serge is rescued by The White Dragon, one of the Dragon Gods, apparently enemies of Lynx. Serge escapes but a dimensional distortion swallows up the entire Dead-Sea, including Miguel.

Function
Late in the game the Echos of Crono, Marle an Lucca return to explain what Miguel was. He was bound there by FATE, a computer Lucca had built to assist her with time-travel and reality warping research after he expeditions through time. The Dead-Sea, having once been her lab, created using insights into the future Lucca had encountered. FATE went off-line in an electrical storm and while healing Serge during the time, he was prioritized as a human interface for the facility as it came back on-line. FATE, unable to acess the Frozen Flame without the Arbiter of Fate to unlock the research chamber. As researching the Frozen Flame was FATE's primary function had to completely re-prioritized all other functions, going so far as to kill Lucca for trying to shut it down. FATE re-wrote Wazuki's brainwaves, downloading it's A.I. into the man while he was under in Lucca's med-lab. Wazuki's DNA would be re-written, assuming the form of panther based on the primitive fear Serge had in his fever dreams from the poison, this creature was Lynx. FATE downloaded Miguel's mind as a security protocol in retribution for trying save Wazuki. Lucca had seen to it Serge was returned home before she was killed and Lynx went on to hunt down the Dragon Tear in order to become the Arbiter of Fate, allowing it to by-pass the security preventing it from getting back to the Frozen Flame. The alternate fates of Serge, either dead (killed by Lynx) or alive and well in a world where Lynx had died from attempts to use the Frozen Flame, caused the two realities to co-exist just in different dimensions.

FATE decided to leave the reality up as a pocket-dimension locking Serge in place. Miguel was the protocol preventing Serge from accessing the rifts between the two worlds but with Miguel defeated, his program automatically collapses the dimension in on it-self - destruction of the Frozen Flame preferable to Serge accessing it. As a side-effect of this though Serge can again travel to where he first discovered the rift between worlds, and use it to return to the other-world where Lynx/Dark Serge/FATE is.

Personality
Miguel has come to accept Fate, both the computer and the concept, as inescapable. Years spent in a reality where the normal laws of time no longer function has given Miguel a peace and resignation to being the play-thing of the universe. Miguel still thinks, acts and feels as he did back when he was a normal human, but as those thoughts and memories were attached to a security feature controlling the Frozen Flame, he is still bound by FATE's directives. Given the opportunity, Miguel would just have Serge stay with him in the Dead-Sea removed from the normal world but upon refusal of the offer, Miguel is forced to resort to violence to maintain FATE's directives. Miguel can no longer separate his own desires from FATE, maintaining his individuality through pensive reflection. Miguel is the father of Leena and Una, two of Serge's friends from Arni. Miguel's final words are that of hope that Leena is doing well - though as Una was still in conception at the time Miguel vanished he seems unaware of him.

Skills & Abilities
Miguel is infamous as a boss due to his stats, battle A.I. and skills. Miguel has nearly 2,000 health, more than six times the health of players on casual play-throughs of the game. Each of Miguel's attack will do between 75-120 damage - enough to put nominally leveled players at half health in a single round. Miguel's real skills are his magic/counter magic. Miguel is has the White element as his Innate - countered by the Black element Innate. Lynx's body is Black Innate, making Miguel and Serge weak to each-other. However Miguel has AntiBlack, a spell that locks Black elemental spells, making Serge weak to Miguel but unable to exploit Miguel's weakness to him. Miguel also stacks StrongMindeds - white spells which increase magic resistance. Removing any of Miguel's buffs or de-buffs will prompt him to use his Holy Dragon Sword, which will do 275-350 damage, massively injuring if not outright kill any party member. Miguel will use multiple spells at once if he is weakened in any way, potentially dooming the entire team.

The easiest tactic to defeating Miguel is to simply avoid using magic, only using physical attacks, or possible healing spells. Miguel is neither immortal nor undead, but rather exists outside the normal laws of time/age, frozen in place as a temporal echo, as such though he will not die on his own, he can be killed. When Miguel acted as a stabilizer, killing him activates a dimensional trap which collapse's the Dead-Sea's localized reality in on itself - deleting it as a possible future as the time-stream corrects itself.

Trivia

 * Due to his attack style and the tonal change, Miguel became some-what infamous as a main source of stress for combat and story comprehension amongst J.R.P.G. fans.