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| Key Of Chronos | |
| Creator | Father Time |
| Purpose | Time Travel |
| First Appearance | "Smurfed Behind: The Departure" |
| Universe | Empath: The Luckiest Smurf |
The Key of Chronos was a magical device used by the Smurfs in Vic George's fanfiction story "Smurfed Behind: The Departure" for time-traveling. It is a Smurf-sized key with a clock on one end of the key that the time traveler places his hands on and says "Key of Chronos, open the doorway of time" to activate its power. When the device is active, it inserts itself into an invisible lock and turns itself in it, opening up a vortex that the time traveler can enter to whatever time period the traveler wishes to go to -- with the traveler's clothes modified according to gender and to whatever specific time period (and geographical location) the traveler arrives in. The device is powered by rare chronosyte crystals that would render the key useless if they were lost; however, if the key itself was lost but the crystals weren't, they could still be used by the time traveler to travel through time by arranging them in a specific order, but they will not take the traveler back to his or her own time period as easily as they would if the key was not lost in the first place.
Papa Smurf received the Key of Chronos from Father Time (who kept it hidden within a magical clock that would de-age anything or anyone except a guardian of time that entered into it) when the other Smurfs found a baby dinosaur named Crinkles that they needed to bring back to the prehistoric period in order to save his life. Initially, Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf were the only ones who were supposed to travel through time using the key. However, after the two Smurfs and Crinkles have disappeared into the vortex that they have opened up, the other Smurfs as well as Puppy and Smoogle have also started being sucked into the vortex. Polaris Psyche and Traveler Smurf tried to keep Smurfette from being pulled into the vortex, but were unable to save her. Just as Traveler's powers were failing and Polaris was being pulled toward the vortex, the vortex closed up and vanished, leaving Polaris in the present time to tell Empath what had transpired.
Papa Smurf is left with the dilemma of arranging the crystals in the right order so they can get back home.
In the story "Smurfed Behind: Smurfs Of The Stone Age" Grandpa Smurf attempted to use the Key Of Chronos to bring all the Smurfs back to their own time period, but the untimely reappearance of a giant dinosaur who chased after Papa Smurf, Grandpa Smurf, Snappy, and Crinkles caused him to lose his grip on the key. Though the Key Of Chronos has apparently melted when it fell into an open crater full of molten lava, the Smurfs have managed to salvage the crystals that power it. Papa Smurf was now faced with the difficult task of finding the right combination of arranging the crystals so that he could bring his little Smurfs back home to their time and to the Smurf Village. This basically leads to the events that follow that were chronicled in most of the Season 9 episodes of the Smurfs cartoon show, albeit with many additional Smurf characters. The amount of time Papa Smurf would spend arranging the crystals to open a vortex would vary from one time period and geographical location to another.
In "Smurfed Behind: The Return", it is revealed that the Key Of Chronos was somehow copied and transported through time into a cave somewhere in North America where it was stuck in the ground. A copy of Baby Smurf had left the timeloop that the time-traveling Smurfs were stuck in to discover this truth and report it to Empath and Polaris in the hopes that they would have found the chronosyte crystals which the other Smurfs had now lost. Empath realized with his constant encounters with the Schliphargons during his worldwide travels that they were carrying the crystals and thus with the help of Polaris, HoloSmurf, and the mysterious Lone Smurf they extricated the crystals from the Schliphargons. However, they soon appeared in the cave to block the Smurfs from ever using the crystals with the key. As Empath, Polaris, and the Lone Smurfs kept most of the Schliphargons busy in combat, HoloSmurf inserted the crystals into the key in a completely different order and opened the vortex which both sucked the Schliphargons into it to be transported through time and also brought the Smurfs out of their timeloop into the present. After the vortex had closed when every Smurf had traveled through it, the Key Of Chronos had self-destructed, preventing anybody from ever using it again.
The Key of Chronos also appeared in two alternate timelines: the "Empath Goes Wild" timeline in which Papa Smurf used it for bringing Crinkles back home to his own place in time, and the "Papa Smurf & Mama Smurfette" timeline in which Empath and the other Smurfs used it for the same purpose. In both timelines, the Key of Chronos was lost and the Smurfs that used it were unable to return home to their own time.
In the Mirror Universe, the Key Of Chronos was once owned by Father Time, but it ended up in the hands of Gargamel, which he protects and ends up using to seal away the Smurfs of his universe so that they can no longer pose a threat to anyone.
- The Key of Chronos is used in place of the Time Scrolls which were used by the Smurfs in the Season 9 cartoon episode "The Smurfs That Time Forgot" for time-traveling.
Time Travel Clothing[]
The following is a gallery of time travel clothing that has appeared on the Smurfs during The Lost Year, with Empath as a model.
