A lingering scowl made its way across Ludo's face. He sat in his chair and looked around at the various members of his army disparagingly. He tried to grasp just how far he was from achieving his life's goals. He tried to come up with a reason why all of his attempts to purloin Star Butterfly's magic wand had gone horribly—and in some cases, catastrophically—wrong. But no matter what Ludo did, all he encountered was anger and disappointment.

"If only one of my plans would work!" he groaned. "The whole multiverse would be mine!"

It was the design of the evil schemes that caused them to fail—and result in the kappa's perpetually mounting frustration. His plans were predictable and trite; Ludo and his army would attack Star and her best friend, Marco Diaz, in broad daylight. And yet every time Ludo and his army would strike, the same things always happened. Star would cast spells to quickly incapacitate Ludo's minions, and Marco would use his karate to help her beat them even deeper into the pavement. After a few minutes of fighting, Ludo would humiliatingly defeated and would find himself having to open a dimensional portal, take his minions back to his castle, and restart the process all over again a few days later.

Ludo sighed with contempt. "If only there was an easier way!"

While Ludo sat around ranting and feeling sorry for himself, Toffee, a recent hire of Ludo's, felt an idea enter his mind. An idea that felt like it should be shared.

"Perhaps if we were to take a vote, we could see if anyone else has ideas for a new evil scheme." he plainly suggested.

"Okay, everyone!" Ludo shouted, pointing towards his cronies. "A quick show of hands! Anyone know how we can steal Star's wand without losing?"

No one dared raise a single hand. Ludo immediately became distraught.

"Aargh! Why do you have to be so difficult to work with? Can't you at least come up with—"

Before Ludo could finish his rant, Buff Frog walked into the room carrying a large, black, rectangular machine. As usual, he performed his customary salute before speaking. While doing so, he unintentionally dropped the machine on the floor.

"Ludo! Master!" he cried. "Look what I've found!"

"What is that thing?" Ludo asked as he pointed to what Buff Frog had brought with him.

"Star Butterfly watches it all the time. It may hold key to her secrets."

Ludo scrunched his eyebrows in scrutiny. "Secrets? Like what kind of secrets?"

"Maybe this machine will tell us about Princess Butterfly's personal secrets." Toffee speculated. "Maybe we could find out a better way to steal her wand. Then we could finally bring an end to this arduous war."

Buff Frog plugged the machine into the projector and turned it on.

Toffee cleared his throat and began a speech. "Gentlemen. I would like you to direct your attention to the screen in front of you. What you are about to see will change you life forever."

Ludo pressed the play button on his remote control and after a few seconds, a visual image appeared on the screen. But it wasn't what anyone had expected. It was a black screen with white text on it, with the sound of clocks ticking in the background. After a few more seconds passed, a logo appeared on the screen. It read:

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Ludo slammed his finger down on the stop button. "Are you kidding me?! You went out of your way to steal what could have been the key to getting Star's wand, and all we get is this?"

"Master, I thought that—"

"Hold on." Toffee interrupted. "This might not be as big of a let-down as you make it seem."

Ludo sneered sardonically and slammed his fists down on a nearby table. "How will this machine help me get her wand if the disc inside it doesn't tell me anything about her secrets?!"

"Sadly, it won't." muttered Toffee in a dark voice. "But at least we can have fun watching whatever is inside the machine."

"Ah, fine." Ludo sighed as he pressed the play button and resumed watching.

About an hour into the film, they reached the scene where Doc Brown warned Marty about interacting with people in 1955, claiming this would have repercussions on future events. Marty handed Doc the family picture from his wallet, and then Doc pointed out something serious.

"Just as I thought! This proves my theory! Look at your brother!"

"His head's gone! It's like he's been erased!"

Toffee, who had been watching the film in a somewhat inattentive state since its beginning, immediately began to study what he was seeing on the screen. He realized that because Marty accidentally prevented his parents from meeting earlier in the film, his parents wouldn't fall in love, so Marty wouldn't have existed in 1985. A bright idea formed inside Toffee's head.

"Stop the movie," he announced, arousing the numerous minions around him, who were so interested by the film that they were in a trance. After a fifteen second wait, Ludo managed to press the stop button.

"Why are we stopping the movie?" asked Ludo. "We were just getting to the good part!"

"Your army can keep watching if they want. You and I are going to have a brief discussion about this movie." Toffee explained.

They both stood up and walked toward Ludo's desk. Ludo sat back in his chair while Toffee took the same seat he sat in during his initial interview days prior.

"Your minions have told me some rather interesting stories," Toffee claimed. "For some of them, working for you is like taking an insanity test every week."

"Insanity test?" Ludo chortled. "How do you think I feel? I've spent the last two months trying to steal a wand which may be forever out of my grasp!"

"That's why I'm here. I'm an evil efficiency expert, you see. Your plans aren't working, and you seek revenge on that princess for constantly crushing your hopes and dreams. Not to mention that all-important wand. So here's my latest idea, straight from "Doc Brown" himself: we're going to build a time machine."

"Time machine?" Ludo scoffed.

Toffee began to pace around the room. "It's a machine that allows you to go to the past, or to the future. You could go back in time and witness the Great Monster Massacre if you really wanted to. You could go to the future and see your future unravel if you really wanted to. But that's not our plan. Our plan is to come up with a new way to get that inter-dimensional princess' magic wand."

"How?"

"We are going to make ourselves theoretically unstoppable. In this war against her, we need all the help we can get."

"How will a simple machine make us that powerful?"

Toffee poured himself a glass of West Mewnian Swamp Water as he explained his thesis. "It's no secret that Princess Butterfly defeats you. A lot. I have a solution for that. If we built a time machine, you could recover from your wounds, then to go back in time to the moment you were defeated, and catch her by surprise. No sooner will she beat you, you'll return. She'll eventually have no choice but to forfeit her wand to get the constant attacks to end."

"Sounds amazing! How long will it take to make one?" Ludo excitedly gasped.

"That, I don't know. I don't think anyone's actually built a working time machine yet," Toffee advised. "But we'll find out soon enough."

It was 7:00 P.M. in the Diaz household, which meant only one thing. It was movie night. Because of the fairly light homework rate, Star and Marco were able to watch a movie every single week. The best part about movie night was that it was on Thursday. To Star, movie night symbolized that the end of the weekday was near, and there only one day of school left before she could hang out and fight inter-dimensional monsters all day with Marco.

"Are you ready for tonight's movie?" Marco asked.

"Of course I am! Movies are amazing!" Star yelled as she pranced towards the living room.

"Unless they're bad." Marco added. "Watching a bad movie is like listening to royal lectures."

"Talk about it." Star groaned. "What are we watching tonight, Marco?"

Marco grinned in anticipation. "The movie is called... Back to the Future!"

"Back to the Future?" Star asked. "What's it about?"

"It's one of my favorite favorite movies. It's about Marty McFly, a special DeLorean, and best of all, time travel."

Star gasped in wonder. "Ooh! Time travel! I'd love to do that!"

Marco sighed. "You've already managed to freeze time. I'm not sure how much longer it'll be before you'll try to travel through it."

"Probably not very long!" Star giggled.

"Then again, I'm not sure time travel's even possible. Even if it is, bad stuff might happen if you try." Marco cautioned as he followed Star into the living room.

But there was a more important question on Star's mind than the feasibility of time travel.

"Are we gonna get any food before the movie?" she asked curiously.

"Of course! Look what I made!" Marco shouted as he sat down next to Star on the couch. He was holding a plate of his famous nachos.

"Marco's Super Awesome Nachos!" Star sang as she reached for a chip and scarfed it down. She smiled as the fantastic taste of warm, gooey cheese and corn chips rocketed throughout her mouth. There was no other food that came even close to making her feel that good—aside from Mrs. Diaz's pancakes.

"Wow, Marco! They taste soooooo good!"

"Thanks, Star." Marco asserted. "My parents taught me how to make them. That's why they're Super Awesome!"

Star laughed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, if only I actually knew how to cook!"

"Yeah, but don't eat too much! We need to save some nachos for the—"

Marco looked towards the television. That was when he noticed that the DVD player was missing.

"Uh, Star? Where's the DVD player?"

Star shrugged her shoulders in confusion. "I don't know... usually, it's right there, under the TV."

"Well that's strange. We'll have to look for it." he advised.

"Yeah. Where should we search first?" Star inquired.

"Let's check my room." Marco suggested.

Star followed Marco up the stairs to help him search for the missing DVD player.

Over the past few hours, Toffee and Ludo's minions had begun work on building a time machine. It consisted a five foot tall rectangular cardboard box with a chair mounted inside of it. The box had one flap cut open that could function as a door. The interior had been retrofitted with a few switches to allow the user to select the time where they wanted to travel to. The switches were connected by wires to a large, rectangular stack of car batteries; it was the closest they could get to a flux capacitor. The time machine, by any standards, was crude, but would serve its purpose.

"Now, exactly how much power do we need for this box to work?" Ludo asked. "Are these batteries gonna cut it?"

"I believe the movie will give us the answer." Toffee grumbled as he pressed the rewind button on Ludo's remote. After holding it down for about 20 seconds, he released his finger from the button and let the movie play.

"Marty, I'm sorry, but the only power source capable of generating 1.21 gigawatts is a bolt of lightning." said Doc Brown on the TV.

Ludo grinned. "You hear that? All we need is a storm to come by, and we're all set!"

"Yes, but first, a nice lightning rod would suit this time machine well." Toffee admitted. "That way, we could channel the energy from the lightning into the batteries, so you could use the machine as long as some of the stored energy was present."

Luckily, Bearicorn took Toffee's recommendation as a request and promptly fixed a broken umbrella to the top of the time machine with adhesive tape, and attached the wires coming from the batteries to the metal shaft of the umbrella.

"The time machine is done!" Ludo screamed joyfully. "It's my dream come true! Now we can finally steal Star's wand!"

Toffee glared at Ludo. "I understand your excitement. I know you want to go and finish this, but there's a good reason why we shouldn't do that just yet."

"Why not?!" argued Ludo.

"We don't know if this time machine even works. Someone has to test it." Toffee pointed at Ludo. "Meaning you."

"Why do I have to test this thing? You and the others built it!" Ludo claimed. "Besides, it was your idea!"

"Well, yes, but you were the one who wanted it in the first place." Toffee corrected.

Ludo groaned. "Oh, fine."

"I suppose that we could have a toast," Toffee resumed. "For getting one step closer to eliminating Star Butterfly forever."

Toffee took his bottle of West Mewnian Swamp Water and generously poured himself a glass of it before handing the bottle to Ludo. Ludo tilted the bottle backwards and practically inhaled half of it out of exhilaration. A few gulps and several loud coughs later, he was finished.

"Wow. I can't believe how I'm feeling!" Ludo shouted.

Toffee glared across the room and saw Ludo's army pushing the time machine out of the castle inch by inch.

"Well that's new."

"Yeah, I've never seen them be that obedient before." admitted Ludo.

Toffee handed Ludo a piece of paper with some labelled drawings scribbled on it. "Before you leave, take this with you. It's the instructions for how the time machine works. Or more correctly, should work."

"I hope it does work." Ludo replied.

"Anyway, good luck on your trip." Toffee said while shaking Ludo's hand.

No sooner did the handshake end, Ludo bolted out of his castle as fast as he could. He quickly caught up with his minions, who were just outside the castle walls. They gathered around the time machine as he approached. The sky above them was darkening quickly, with clouds swirling around above the castle's tall spires.

"Get out of the way!" Ludo screamed as he sat down in the chair inside the machine.

"Uh, boss? Where ya going?" asked Three-Eyed Potato Baby.

Ludo laughed hysterically as he thought over what to say next. "Somewhere important. Before I go, take these dimensional scissors and cut open a portal to Earth."

"Why?"

"Just do it!" Ludo shouted.

Potato Baby didn't hesitate for a second. He ran behind the time machine and cut a dimensional portal behind the time machine before handing the scissors back to Ludo. The dark blackness of spacetime within the portal was visible to everyone who had a clear view of it.

"But you didn't answer his question!" Man Arm persisted. "Are we going to Earth so we can steal—"

"QUIT ASKING SO MANY QUESTIONS!" Ludo exploded. "I'm going to Earth to see if this time machine even works!"

"Wait, so we don't get to come along?" Spikeballs interjected.

"Of course you don't get to—er, you get to come along next time, Spikeballs. You and everybody else!" barked Ludo as he shut the door to the time machine.

"Hopefully this thing gets struck by lightning and I get propelled at 1.21 gigawatts," Ludo nervously thought as he turned the time dials in the manner shown on the instruction sheet.

Inside Ludo's castle, Toffee was looking outside at the approaching clouds as they got darker and thicker. The cloud cover was so thick, it was getting difficult to see anything. He could just barely make out the outline of Ludo's time machine, the dimensional portal behind it, and the minions gathered around it. All of a sudden, out of the great expanse of clouds came a bright flash. It was from a bolt of lightning. The light from the bolt illuminated the sky and the time machine with shades of incandescent yellow. The lightning rod on the time machine quickly channeled this raw energy of nature into the battery compartment within.

Then, as quickly as the flash had begun, it ended. The sky darkened once more and returned to its usual, dismal shade of purple with grey overtones. Then there was a sound of thunder. Toffee's eyes darted towards the group of minions that surrounded the time machine. They looked shocked beyond belief—all that remained after the lightning strike was a closing dimensional portal, and a black mark where the time machine once stood. Toffee couldn't believe his eyes. Their crude time machine had worked. Ludo had just become the first time traveler in the whole multiverse.

Toffee then turned his head to the right slightly and adjusted his gaze. Butterfly Castle came into view. The castle's towering height was noticeable, even though it was several miles away. Its multicolored domes and tall spires adorned with flags greatly contrasted the appearance of the monotonous, overcast sky. A sly grin washed over Toffee's normally emotionless face as he continued to gaze at the horizon. After a great pause, he mumbled to himself a simple phrase; a phrase that had been engrained in his mind on that same day fourteen long years ago.

"Alea iacta est."