Halftime
By Aaron Ziegler
alziegle@norcia.cs.csbsju.edu
http://bingen.cs.csbsju.edu/~alziegle

Chapter 13: Break Time

   "Wonderful, wonderful," smirked Lucca. "By my calculations, we
might find Jusenkyo in, oh, a decade or two. IF we refrain from
staying for dinner at each location." Lucca glared pointedly at
Ranma, Ryoga, Crono, Marle, and Frog, each of whom developed a
sudden fascination with their fingernails. Lucca sighed. "Let's
face it: this isn't gonna work. Searching for Jusenkyo at random
would take way too long."
   "What else can we try?" asked Robo.
   Lucca shrugged. "I don't know. Our best bet, I think, would be
to wait until Magus returns, and ask him where Jusenkyo is.
Hopefully, he'll be willing to tell us."
   "And if he isn't, I'm sure Ukyou can convince him," grinned
Akane.
   Lucca nodded. Then she continued, "For now, however, I'm
tired, and I'm sure that our heroes here could use some sleep to
digest all of that dragon they ate. We'll continue this
discussion tomorrow."
   Late that night, a shadowy figure approached the recently
repaired Tendo front gate. Wearing the night like a cloak, the
intruder vaulted the gate, and was momentarily illuminated by an
unexpected beam of light from a flickering street lamp reflecting
off of a small puddle of water on the ground. Had there been any
to witness this chance event, the identity of the stealthy
trespasser would have been revealed to be that of Cologne. The
ancient woman landed and hobbled on her staff over to the corner
of the house where the Epoch lay shrouded in a nondescript tarp.
With a quick jerk, Cologne pulled the tarp away and climbed into
the time machine.
   Sensing an occupant, the Epoch lit the dim cockpit lights and
illuminated the dashboard. Cologne studied the controls before
her. Altitude dial...ignition...chronometer...all was as she had
expected. The steering mechanism had an additional, unwelcome
feature. There was a long, metal bar jammed through the steering
mechanism. Words along its smooth length read "The Time Club".
The other end of the odd security device was stuck through the
destination dial, keeping the Epoch firmly in the present. But
all this, too, Cologne had anticipated. The Chinese Amazon
reached into a pocket and withdrew an ancient and yellowed
scroll. She unrolled the scroll to the very end and studied the
words written there for a few moments. Then, she pressed an
unmarked button on the dashboard. With a whirr and a click, a
small panel opened above the destination dial, revealing a
numeric keypad. Cologne rapidly tapped in a series of eighteen
numbers. When she moved her hand away, the panel clicked shut
again. At the same time, the apparently seamless Time Club
divided into four segments and receded into hidden panels in the
dashboard without a trace. Now, Cologne was free to pilot the
Epoch wherever she chose.
   The year and place where she chose to pilot the Epoch was,
oddly, the very same year and place Marle had set down earlier
that day. After landing the Epoch in the same clearing Marle had,
Cologne leapt out of the Epoch and hopped purposefully towards
the Amazon village.
   Once inside the village, Cologne had no trouble finding the
house she was looking for. She quickly jumped down from her staff
and tapped on the door with it. Mere moments later, a bleary eyed
and centuries younger Cologne answered her knock. "Hush, you'll
wake the baby," she admonished in Chinese.
   "I wouldn't dream of waking young Eyeshadow," the elder
Cologne answered in the same language. "I know very well how
trying she can be."
   At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, young Cologne's tired
eyes snapped open and focused on the source. "Who are you?" she
asked.
   "That is unimportant," answered Cologne dismissively. "What is
important is that I have a valuable gift for you." Cologne
reached into a pocket and withdrew another scroll. This scroll
appeared identical to the first except for its age. Where the
former had been ancient and yellow, this one was obviously newly
crafted.
   Young Cologne accepted the scroll dubiously. A quick scan
revealed that the scroll was filled with sentences and short
paragraphs, each entry marked with a date. She read a few at
random. "'Blush's husband-to-be is reluctant. Prepare love
tonic.', 'Teach Ryoga the Bakusai-Ten-Ketsu technique.', 'Bring
warm water to the Dojo for Robo.'" She looked up with a confused
expression. "I don't understand! What is this?"
   "You hold the future in your hands," Cologne answered,
somewhat cryptically. "What you choose to do with it is your
concern."
   Young Cologne was no fool. She suddenly realized the power of
the words before her. She turned her eyes back upon them, and
suddenly noticed that some of the dates were hundreds of years in
the future. "Perhaps I will live to see my great-granddaughter,
after all," she murmured. But there were none left to listen. In
Cologne's absorption with the scroll before her, her elder self
had slipped away without notice.
   As Cologne flew through time and space, she wondered about
what she had just done. It was going to be strange, living
without the comforting advice the scroll had provided--the
instructions on how to arm and disarm the Epoch's security
measures had been the last entry. Cologne had grown used to the
bits and pieces of advice the scroll had provided. Not dependent,
of course. Cologne had occasionally feared that she had become
so, but had reassured herself that the actions she took were her
own. Never had the scroll prompted her to take any action she
would not have considered taking on her own. It merely helped her
to decide which of many actions was the best to take to overcome
a problem. It was no worse than a fortune teller studying her tea
leaves, or a sorcerer consulting the spirits of nature. Of
course, she thought with a grin, the scroll was a good deal more
reliable. Besides, Cologne frowned, there were so many problems
that the scroll had provided no help with at all.
   For instance, Ranma's fear of cats had been a real
disappointment. With the possible exception of that annoying
Kodachi, cats were the only thing that Ranma feared--and he
feared them with a passion that more than made up for the myriad
fears he did not possess. If only Cologne had known that before
throwing her great-granddaughter into the Spring of the Drowned
Cat at Jusenkyo!
   It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. For one
thing, giving Shampoo a curse of her own stood a good chance of
inspiring sympathy in Ranma. Shampoo and Ranma might form a bond
of friendship inspired by their shared hardship. Such friendship
could easily lead to love, especially with an expert guiding hand
such as her own in play. Second, as Shampoo's cursed form was
obviously more limited than Ranma's, Ranma might pity Shampoo,
and humor her more than he might otherwise. Of course, Cologne
thought with a wry grin, there was also the issue of dominance.
What man could resist a woman who he could turn into a 'helpless'
kitty at will? Not that Shampoo would ever allow herself to be
dominated, of course. Still, the illusion was there.
   It had seemed a sound plan. Unfortunately, the moment Ranma
had been presented with cute little Shampoo-cat, he had flown
into a mindless, unreasoning terror. When he learned that Shampoo
could now become a cat without warning, rather than feeling
sympathy, pity, or dominance, he developed a lingering
nervousness around her. A more open problem would have been much
easier to overcome than this ingrained fear. As things stood,
finally convincing Ranma to take his proper place as Shampoo's
husband had become a much more difficult proposition.
   There were many things that the scroll hadn't revealed that
Cologne would have liked to know. Before writing the new scroll,
she had considered adding a few things, but decided against it.
In her centuries of life, Cologne had gained a lot of knowledge.
On the subject of time-travel, she knew several things. First,
some events in history, large or small, were absolutely
unchangeable. Any attempts to change them would have no effect,
and often the attempt itself would help to cause the event. Other
events could be changed, but to do so was very, very risky.
Sometimes the attempt would succeed beyond one's wildest dreams.
Just as often, however, the changes made would have dark,
horrible side-effects and repercussions that would make things
unspeakably worse. From what Cologne had learned of Crono and his
friends, their success at time-travel stemmed partly from the
fact that they rarely tried to change anything. For the most
part, they interacted with history, rather than trying to mould
it, and so avoided nasty problems like writing themselves out of
existence (well, Marle had done that once, but her friends had
fixed that problem). The one major change they had attempted, the
destruction of Lavos before he could ruin their planet, was a
pretty safe one--frankly, that particular event couldn't really
get much worse, no matter what they did. As things turned out,
the operation was a spectacular success. Unfortunately, Cologne
could imagine a thousand things that could go wrong if she
altered the scroll in any way. If she added too many new entries,
she might truly have become dependent on it, for one thing. She
might have lost the ability to think on her feet, to pursue
problems and deal with them.
   So, when Cologne had finally set down to copy the scroll, she
copied it word for word. It was somewhat eerie, though not
unexpected, how each stroke of her pen exactly matched its mate
on the ancient scroll with an exactitude that no machine could
hope to match. It was odd; though the handwriting was her own,
Cologne knew that she never would have written as sloppily as
whoever had composed the scroll. Often, the sentences were badly
written grammatically, or entries seemed vague and inexact. But
really, no one had ever composed the scroll. She was copying it,
as had the ancient woman who had given it to her, and as had the
ancient woman who had given it to that ancient woman. Cologne bit
back an ironic laugh.
   Idly, Cologne wondered when she had realized that the aged
woman who had given her the scroll was, in fact, herself.
Probably the very day that she had looked into the mirror and
seen that woman looking back at her. It was somewhat ironic that
in her youth, Cologne had worried about becoming as unappealing
as the ancient visitor who had delivered her future to her. Now,
of course, Cologne realized that such thoughts had been silly.
She was still as lovely as she ever was, and was fit as a fiddle
to boot. Of course, Ranma thought she had the sex appeal of a
prune Danish. For that matter, so did Mousse. And Ryoga. And
nearly all of the other males Cologne had interacted with. None
of them had any taste to speak of, naturally. After all, Happy
still found her appealing...Of course, Happosai would probably
find a tree stump appealing if it wore panties and a bra.
Obviously, none of them could appreciate true beauty when they
witnessed it. It was on that thought that Cologne set the Epoch
down in its resting spot beside the Tendo Dojo.
   Even as Cologne scrambled off into the darkness, another
figure approached the time machine. This figure, however, had no
intentions of stealing the Epoch. Magus carefully studied the
intricate device, and wondered what would be the best way to
sabotage it.
   It can't be too obvious, thought Magus, or Lucca will find it
too quickly. More importantly, it cannot be mere physical damage.
Lucca could probably fix any damage I could deal in a week, and
I'll need at least that long for my plan to succeed. Of course!
   Hastily, Magus flipped open a panel near the rear of the
Epoch. He formed a magical probe attuned to the substance he
sought, a substance that had to be a part of any machine used for
time-travel. Within moments, he found it: a fist-sized box
composed of a shiny red metal. Dreamstone. Properly forged,
dreamstone could be many things. It could channel or disrupt
magical energy. It could assume a hardness greater than that of
diamond. Here, it served to tear the fabric of space-time just
enough to allow the machine and its occupants to slip from era to
era at will.
   Magus loosened the connections that held the dreamstone cube
in place, and carefully pulled it free of the wires and cables
attached to it. He pulled the cube out and held it before himself
with a mixture of reverence and distaste. He didn't care much for
dreamstone in any form. On Magus's own world, dreamstone had been
a metal far rarer than platinum. Here, apparently, it didn't
exist at all. This suited Magus just fine. It had been through
the use of a sword composed of dreamstone, the Masamune, that
Frog and his friends had toppled him from his empire of monsters
and shattered his attempt to draw Lavos forth. It was, he
granted, a blessing in disguise. He could never have defeated
Lavos then, not by himself at any rate.
   Ha! thought Magus, Phase one complete. As he crept away from
the Epoch, he threw a rueful smirk at the closed panel that hid
his theft for the time being. He was sure that Lucca would find
out what he had done in no time at all. Fortunately, there was
nothing she could do about it, whether she found it or not. He
had the box, after all.
   Day dawned on the Tendo household, leaving no trace of either
transgressor. Soon, the delicate sounds of incoherent screaming
and shattering furniture signaled Ranma and Akane's first
argument of the day. "Where is he, Ranma!?" shrieked Akane,
swinging a bokken at a desperately dodging Ranma. Nabiki, Genma,
and Robo (in human form), who had been the first down to
breakfast (aside, of course, from Kasumi, who was preparing it),
watched the brawl with resignation and some amusement. "WHERE IS
P-CHAN?!" Akane demanded. The look on Robo's face turned grim.
   "How should I know where he is?" responded Ranma, barely
ducking a particularly vicious swing. "He's your pig!"
   "Don't lie to me, Ranma!" she scowled in response. "I saw him
follow you into the bathroom!"
   Ranma almost froze (an action which could have proven most
painful at that moment). How could he explain that P-Chan had
come in to change back into Ryoga? He couldn't! "Um...ah...N-no!
It's just that Ryoga, er, P-Chan, he, well..."
   At that moment, Robo noticed Ryoga standing at the top of the
stairs. A grin spread across Ryoga's face as he watched Akane
trying her best to paste Ranma. Then he realized that Robo was
gazing at him with an expression so coldly emotionless that she
might as well have been in robot form. He swallowed involuntarily
as a wave of guilt rose inside of him. "Um, Akane?" he
tentatively asked.
   Akane faltered suddenly, some of her rage ebbing away. She
was, however, still alert enough to trip Ranma as he tried to use
Ryoga's distraction to flee. "Morning, Ryoga!" she smiled
cheerfully, simultaneously stomping a foot down onto Ranma's back
to hold him in place. "I'll be with you in a bit."
   Ryoga swallowed. I've gotta tell her eventually. Might as well
be now. "Akane, there's something important I gotta tell you."
   Akane looked back at him with concern. "What is it, Ryoga?"
   Ryoga began to sweat. "It's just that I-I'm...well, that is...
P-Chan is..." And predictably enough, Ryoga chickened out. "I saw
P-Chan jump out the window and run away." Robo grimaced and
slapped a hand to her forehead. Nabiki looked intrigued. Why
would Ryoga be saving Ranma?
   "From a second-story bathroom?" Akane asked incredulously.
   "He climbed down the side of the house?" Ryoga offered lamely.
   Akane looked thoughtful for a moment. "I didn't know he could
do that," she said. She turned wide, trusting eyes on the
bandana-wearing martial artist, "But you would never lie to me,
would you Ryoga?"
   Ryoga's face twisted into an expression of guilty nervousness.
He chuckled in uneasy agreement, not quite able to look Akane in
the eye.
   Apparently, Akane failed to notice Ryoga's uncertainty. "Of
course not!" She frowned down at Ranma. "I'm sorry I blamed you
Ranma. Still, you shouldn't have let P-Chan jump out the window!
He could have hurt himself." With that, Akane removed her foot
and helped Ranma to his feet. Ranma threw a somewhat confused,
but extremely grateful look to Ryoga. Normally Ryoga loved to see
Akane pounding on him.
   After a reasonably uneventful morning passed, midday found
Ranma, Akane, and Marle walking to Ucchan's to see if Magus had
returned. They hadn't traveled far before Shampoo appeared out of
nowhere and wrapped herself around Ranma with a happy sigh.
"Ranma take Shampoo to date?" Shampoo asked in her customary
fashion.
   Fearing Akane's retribution (and rightly so), Ranma freed
himself and said, "Not now, Shampoo! We're busy."
   "Too busy for your bride-to-be, Son-in-Law?" called an ancient
voice. "Why do you continue to persist in this ridiculous
resistance?" As the voice spoke, Shampoo attempted once more to
throw herself at Ranma, succeeding only in tripping over Akane's
innocently outstretched foot.
   "Cologne," sighed Ranma. Then he perked up. "Hey! You promised
that you wouldn't force me to marry Shampoo!"
   "Idiot!" snapped Cologne, whacking Ranma sharply on the head
with her staff. "If it had ever been my intention to force you to
marry Shampoo, she would be carrying your second child by now."
Shampoo, who was glowering at Akane, smiled dreamily for a moment
at her great-grandmother's words. Akane looked stunned, and
slightly furious. Ranma looked dismayed. Cologne sighed and
continued, "As it stands, however, I will merely continue to try
to persuade you to take the path destiny has chosen for you and
Shampoo." She glanced sharply at Ranma. "Make no mistake, Son-in-
Law, one day, you and Shampoo will be wed, and by your own
choice." She gestured to Shampoo, "Come, great-granddaughter. I
know that you would like to spend some more time with your
husband-to-be, but for now they have pressing business to attend
to."
   Shampoo frowned as she stood up. Then she smiled prettily at
Ranma and said, "Bai bai, Ranma! Shampoo see you later, maybe
after violent girl go away." With that, she hurried after the
receding shape of her great-grandmother.
   Akane, still uncertain whether or not she was furious with
Ranma, with Shampoo, with Cologne, or with some combination of
the above, suddenly realized that Marle was laughing
uncontrollably. "What's so funny?" Akane snapped at her.
   Marle wasn't laughing at her, however. "Oh, Ranma!" she
gasped, "You sure flubbed that one."
   "Hey-" Ranma began to protest.
   Akane's anger faded to curiosity. "What do you mean?" she
asked. "Flubbed what?"
   Marle wiped aside tears of mirth and said, "Back in the past,
he made Cologne promise not to make him marry Shampoo. And it
worked!" With that, Marle collapsed into laughter again.
   "You idiot," sighed Akane.
   Ranma mustered a defense, "Hey, what would YOU call it? I
mean, she's always tryin' to sucker me in with love potions and
stuff. Seems like force to me!"
   "But maybe not to her," answered Akane, pointedly. "If you
were going to make her promise something, you should have made
her promise to stay away from you or something." Then she glared
at him. "Of course, the best way to solve the problem would be to
tell Shampoo that YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED."
   Ranma backed away, sheepishly. "Hey, you know Shampoo! She
won't take no for an answer."
   "I wouldn't know," Akane answered coolly. "I've never seen you
try."
   By this time, Marle had recovered from her laughter. "C'mon
guys. We'd better get going." Without a word, Ranma and Akane
moved into step with her (each being careful to make a big show
of ignoring the other), and the three soon reached the okonomyaki
restaurant.
   Unfortunately, Ukyou had no good news to share, if, indeed,
having Magus around was to be considered good news. Ukyou
evidently thought it was, as she seemed quite worried about the
dark sorcerer who had become so fond of her. Marle assured her
that if anyone could take care of themself, it was Magus. Marle
refrained from adding that Magus had developed the art of taking
care of himself to an exact science. Such a statement would have
been less than tactful, and probably more cynical than Marle
liked to be.
   Whatever Marle's hidden feelings, Ukyou seemed cheered by her
reassurance, and invited the three to share in an okonomyaki
lunch, on the house. The offer of free food obviously brightened
Ranma from the sulky mood his and Akane's argument had put him
in. The offer of free food FROM UKYOU, obviously had the opposite
effect on Akane, who, nevertheless, ate her share.
   Still, the three of them were in relatively good spirits when
they returned to the Tendo home. Naturally, this couldn't last.
"We've got a problem," said a stern-faced Lucca when they walked
through the gates. "We've been sabotaged."
   "Huh?" said Marle. "The Epoch?"
   Lucca nodded. "C'mon, I'll show you." The young inventor
guided the trio over to the Epoch pointed out the gaping
emptiness where the dreamstone box used to be in the guts of the
intricate machine. None of the three had any idea what was wrong.
After a few seconds, Lucca explained the problem. "It's probably
the one part in the whole machine that I can't fabricate with
material and machinery that I can find around here." She shrugged
hopelessly. "Heck, I don't even know if dreamstone EXISTS on this
planet."
   Akane peered into the tangled interior of the Epoch. "How on
Earth could you tell that something was missing? Did you try to
fly while we were gone?"
   Lucca shook her head. "Nope, I was just making a routine check
when I noticed this." She pointed to one of the three footpads
that served as landing gear for the time machine. The three gazed
once more, and again couldn't tell what Lucca wanted them to see.
Rather more impatiently this time, Lucca shouted, "Look! The
pad's two centimeters outta alignment. It had to have been
moved." True enough, there was an area of flattened grass along
the edge of the footpad.
   "Couldn't I have made the difference in my landing?" Marle
asked.
   "No, I straightened out the grass after that one." Lucca
explained.
   "You what?" asked Ranma.
   Now Lucca looked a bit sheepish. "I straightened out the
grass." Then, defensively, "It was so I could tell if anyone had
taken the Epoch! And it worked."
   "You're really paranoid, aren't you?" stated Ranma.
   Lucca looked irritated. "It's not paranoia when they really
are out to get you."
   "But how could anyone have taken the Epoch," asked Marle. "I
set the Club when I was done with it."
   "The what?" asked Akane, somewhat lost.
   "The Time Club: The ultimate in time machine security," Lucca
explained. "It makes sure that no one takes the time machine
without our say-so. I'm not sure how anyone could have disabled
it without the proper code. Still, the evidence is here."
   Akane tried to regain a grasp of the problem. "So, someone
went for a spin in the Epoch. Then they sabotaged it? Why?"
   Lucca shook her head. "I don't know. My best guess is that
they changed something in the past or future, and don't want us
to change it back."
   "Isn't there anything else you can use instead of the part
they took?" asked Ranma.
   "Nope, it's gotta be dreamstone. Maybe if I had some, I could
build the part that I need..." Lucca's eyes drifted to the
pendant Marle wore around her neck--a pendant Marle and her
friends had discovered was made of the rare metal. Marle started
to protest, but was cut off when Lucca sighed and said, "Nope,
even if Marle were willing to part with her pendant, there's just
not enough there for the part I need. The Masamune won't work
either. The dreamstone in that sucker is so rigid that nothing
short of a smelting plant could even dent it, let alone shape it.
Anyway, I doubt Frog would give that up any more than Marle would
her pendant. Our only real hope is to find the original part, and
take it back from whoever stole it. We do know one crucial fact:
Either our thief is very lucky in their choice of sabotage, or he
or she knew exactly how to cripple a time machine. Who do we know
who could do that?"
   "Well, all of the people who are here from our world know the
importance of dreamstone, and could probably have recognized that
part for what it was," Marle thought aloud, "Other than that I
can't think of anyone."
   "Nabiki could have done it, too," added Lucca reluctantly. "I
taught her enough about the Epoch to do the job."
   "Hey, this is like a detective movie," Akane exclaimed. Ranma
rolled his eyes. She continued, "Okay, so now we have some
suspects. Who had a motive?"
   "Oh, please!" scoffed Ranma derisively.
   Akane flattened him with her trusty hammer. "Try to be a
little helpful, Ranma!" she snarled.
   "Who would gain any benefit from changing the past or future?"
asked Lucca. "Most of us only got here a couple weeks ago.
Nothing really horrible has happened yet."
   "Well, Robo seemed pretty angry about his curse," said Ranma
as he staggered to his feet. It was the first really helpful
thing he had said so far.
   Lucca nodded, "Sure did. Still, he seems to be getting over
it. On the other hand, he wouldn't have anything to get over if
he hadn't been cursed in the first place. I guess that leaves him
a suspect."
   "But why would he sabotage our only way home?" asked Marle.
   "Okay, so he's not a very GOOD suspect," conceded Lucca.
"Still, it'll be easy to tell if he's innocent. Just splash him
with water and see if he turns into a girl or not. Other than his
curse, I don't think he'd have any reason to be sneaking around
in time. So, who else?"
   "We don't really know much about the time Magus spent here
before we arrived," Marle stated. Then she wrinkled her brow, "Or
after we arrived. Whatever."
   "True," Lucca answered. "Who knows what Magus might have done
that he wished were otherwise. Though, Magus tends to be a man of
few regrets, whatever he does."
   "I dunno," said Ranma. "He seemed awfully eager to get home
again. I don't think he'd wreck the machine." Akane blinked in
surprise, and then smiled in spite of herself, proud of Ranma's
unusual helpfulness. She must have hit him harder than she
thought.
   Lucca nodded. "Also true. And if he used the machine to find
his own way home, I doubt he would have brought it back, let
alone sabotage it. Still, we'll keep him in mind if no better
suspect is revealed."
   "How 'bout Nabiki," asked Akane, "I'm sure she wouldn't mind a
quick peek at the stock market of the future."
   "Oh, she wouldn't do that!" exclaimed Lucca. She twitched
uncomfortably for a few seconds under the solemn gazes of the
others. She frowned. "Okay, maybe she would. Still, the same
problem remains. Why would she sabotage the Epoch? It's our only
chance to save her future, and barring that, her only chance at
escape."
   Marle looked uncertain. "I have an idea. Maybe she went into
the past, invested in a lot of good stocks, and intends to
collect now. In the meantime, she doesn't want us leaving with
the Epoch, so she sabotages it. Then, after she collects the
money, she repairs the Epoch and takes it all back to, say, 1950
or so and lives like a queen until the Day of Lavos."
   The four of them pondered that a moment. That pause spoke
volumes more about Nabiki's character than anything more verbal
could. Ranma, oddly enough, was the first to come to Nabiki's
defense, "That seems pretty sinister, even for Nabiki."
   "Still, it's the best we have to go on," said Marle. "Let's go
have a nice, long chat with Robo and Nabiki." They started
walking towards the front door. Then Marle paused and said,
"Well, a short one for Robo, I guess."
   The four amateur detectives disappeared into the house. A
passerby might have heard the sounds of splashing water, a
feminine voice crying out in protest, and a few muted apologies,
in that order. Most passersby, however, had long since learned to
shun the Tendo Dojo.

Afterword:
   Please don't assume that the theories on time travel that are
explained in this chapter are my own. I have tried to construct a
working theory based on the goings on in Chrono Trigger. The game
didn't make a tremendous effort to follow a single cohesive
theory, so I had to do the best I could. How are you supposed to
reconcile the fact that Marle can write herself out of history
simply by being mistaken for her great-grandmother with the fact
that the three Gurus of Queen Zeal apparently die due to Magus's
meddling, and yet seem to be alive and well in the future? (This
isn't even considering the fact that you can do weird things like
going back in time to collect items that you've already collected
in the future, thereby gaining two of that item.) It's enough to
make one's head spin. I do have my own, personal theories
regarding how time travel would work, and they are not much like
this.
   Regarding the Time Club, all due respect is extended to the
copyright owners (whoever they are) of The Club, which the Time
Club parodies.

Chrono Trigger Tip #13:
   I still hate Toma. He's apparently given up on the Sunstone,
and now he's looking for the Rainbow Shell. How can I spite him?
   Sorry, but this time, you're gonna need Toma's help. If you
talk to him in the town just south of Cyrus's Tomb, he'll tell
you that he has a lead on where to find the Rainbow Shell, and
he'll give you a can of Toma Pop, with the instructions to pour
it on his grave, if he should die. His grave will be located west
of that town in 1000 A.D. When you apply the Toma Pop, he tells
you of a cave on an island to the northwest, in 600 A.D. Go
there, and you will have to fight your way through the ruins of
the Reptite's Fortress, which somehow survived Lavos's impact in
65,000,000 B.C. When you make it through, you will find the
Rainbow Shell. Unfortunately, it's way too big to carry.
Fortunately, this isn't a problem. The King of Guardia will send
a regiment of soldiers to carry it for you, and the Shell will be
stored for you in the royal treasury until you need it.
