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=== Plot ===
In 1000 AD, Crono and Marle watch Lucca and her father demonstrate her new [[Teleportation|teleporter]] at the Millennial Fair in the Kingdom of Guardia. When Marle volunteers to be teleported, her pendant interferes with the device and creates a time portal into which she is drawn.<ref name="portal">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=Leene Square |quote='''Taban:''' What's going on Lucca? WHERE IS SHE? / '''Lucca:''' The way she disappeared... It couldn't have been the Telepod! The warp field seemed to be affected by her pendant...}}</ref> After Crono and Lucca separately recreate the portal and find themselves in 600 AD, they locate Marle, only to see her vanish before their eyes. Lucca realizes that this time period's kingdom has mistaken Marle (who is actually Princess Nadia of Guardia) for Queen Leene, an ancestor of hers who had been kidnapped, thus putting off the recovery effort for her ancestor
After the three part ways with Frog and return to their present, Crono is framed for kidnapping Marle and sentenced to death by the current chancellor of Guardia. Lucca and Marle help Crono escape prison, haphazardly using another time portal to evade their pursuers. This portal lands them in 2300 AD, where they learn that an advanced civilization has been wiped out by a giant creature known as Lavos that appeared in 1999 AD, and find the last remnants of humanity living in undergrowth domes subsisting off of machine energy in place of food.<ref name="dayoflavos">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=Arris Dome |quote='''Marle:''' Say, what does this button do? / '''Lucca:''' 1999 A.D.? Visual record of The Day of Lavos... / ''''Marle:''' Wh, what...IS that? / '''Lucca:''' Lavos?... Is that what's destroying our world?! / '''Marle:''' We must truly be in the future...}}</ref> The three vow to find a way to prevent the future destruction of their world, even if it would be a [[grandfather paradox]]. After meeting and repairing Robo, Crono and his friends find Gaspar, an old sage residing in an atemporal space known as the End of Time, who offers them the ability to travel through time by way of several pillars of light. (The party is able to challenge Lavos at any point after this scene, with completion of the game prior to its final chapter unlocking one of twelve different endings.)
The party Entering a time gate created by Lavos's impact, the party arrive in the ice age of 12,000 BC. There, the utopic Kingdom of Zeal resides on islands raised above the icy surface using energy harnessed from Lavos's body beneath the earth's crust via a machine housed on the ocean floor. The party are imprisoned by the Queen of Zeal on the orders of its mysterious Prophet, and are ultimately banished, with the time gate leading to 12,000 BC sealed by the Prophet. Seeking a way to return, the party discover a time machine in 2300 AD called the Wings of Time (or ''Epoch''), which can access any time period at will. The party return to 12,000 BC, where Zeal inadvertently awakens Lavos, leading the Prophet to reveal himself as Magus, who tries and fails to kill the creature.<ref name="magusrevealed">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=Heckran Cave |quote='''Magus:''' I've waited for this... I've been waiting for you, Lavos. I swore long ago... that I'd destroy you! No matter what the price! It is time to fulfill that vow. Feel my wrath, Lavos!! [...] / '''Magus:''' Aaah!! My powers are being drained!}}</ref> Lavos defeats Magus and kills Crono, before the remaining party are transported to the safety of the surface by Schala, Zeal’s princess. Lavos annihilates the Kingdom of Zeal, whose fallen continent causes devastating floods that submerge most of the world's landmass. Magus confesses to the party that he used to be Prince Janus of Zeal, Schala’s brother, and that in the original timeline, he and the Gurus of Zeal were scattered across time by Lavos's awakening in 12,000 BC.<ref name="janus">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=North Cape |quote='''Magus:''' Behold. Everything's at the bottom of the sea. Gone is the magical kingdom of Zeal, and all the dreams and ambitions of its people. I once lived there... But I was another person then. [...] / '''Marle:''' You're... ...Janus, aren't you? [...] / '''Magus:''' Ever since Lavos's time portal stranded me in the Middle Ages... I have waited to even the score.}}</ref> Stranded as a child in 600 AD, Janus took the title of Magus and gained a cult of followers while plotting to summon and kill Lavos in revenge for the death of his sister. Magus tried once more after the party's battle in his castle returned him to Zeal, where he disguised himself as the Prophet. At this point, Magus is either killed by the party, killed in a duel with Frog, or spared and convinced to join the party. The ruined Ocean Palace then rises into the air as the Black Omen, Queen Zeal's floating fortress. The group turns to Gaspar for help, and he gives them a "Chrono Trigger", a device that allows the group to replace Crono just before the moment of death with an identical [[doppelgänger]] (doing so is optional, and the game's ending will change depending on the player's decision). The party then gather power by helping people across time with Gaspar's instructions.<ref name="itll-help">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=The End of Time |quote='''Gaspar:''' Just as you touch the lives of every life form you meet, so, too, will their energy strengthen you.}}</ref> Their journeys involve defeating the remnants of the Mystics,<ref name="generals">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=Ozzie's Fort |quote='''Ozzie:''' Magus! You lied when you said you wanted to create a world of evil! You used me! / '''Magus:''' Oh, how dreadful. Say, can you hear that? It's the sound of the Reaper...}}</ref> stopping Robo's maniacal [[artificial intelligence|AI]] creator,<ref name="extermination">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=Geno Dome |quote='''Mother Brain:''' Listen well humans. [...] / '''Mother Brain:''' We robots will create a new order... A nation of steel, and pure logic. A true paradise! Our «Species» will replace you... So stop your foolish struggle, and succumb to the sleep of eternity... [...] / '''Marle:''' What IS this?! We have to do something! / '''Magus:''' Hmm... A human processing plant? / '''Frog:''' What be this?! We must rescue them!}}</ref> giving Frog closure for Cyrus's death,<ref name="cyrus">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=Northern Ruins |quote='''Frog:''' Dear Cyrus... Thou must...think ill of me. / '''Cyrus:''' On the contrary! You have come far, my friend. When Magus defeated me, I thought of all those whom I had left behind. King Guardia, Queen Leene, and of course, you... Your skill and dedication is superior! I can rest now, knowing that everyone is in good hands. Good bye, my friend!}}</ref> locating and charging up the mythical Sun Stone, retrieving the legendary Rainbow Shell, unmasking Guardia's Chancellor as a saboteur, restoring a forest destroyed by a desert monster,<ref name="entity">{{cite video game |title=Chrono Trigger |developer=Square Co |publisher=Square Soft |date=August 22, 1995 |platform=Super NES |level=Fiona's Forest |quote='''Robo:''' After 400 years of experience, I have come to think that Lavos may not be responsible for the Gates. / '''Marle:''' What do you mean? / '''Robo:''' I have come to think that someone, or something wanted us to see all this.}}</ref> and preventing an accident that disabled Lucca's mother. The party then enter the Black Omen and defeat Queen Zeal, after which they battle Lavos. They discover that Lavos is self-directing his evolution via absorbing [[DNA]] and energy from every living creature before razing the planet's surface in 1999 AD, so that it could spawn a new generation to destroy other worlds and continue the evolutionary cycle. The party slay Lavos, and celebrate at the final night of the Millennial Fair before returning to their own times.
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