The following morning was calm, if not with lingering tension from the day before. Buzz Buzz was the first awake; he passed the time waiting for the others to wake up by stargazing. Tu had greeted him as he sat down outside, just before the former took off to tend to an important duty of his. No others were awake as early as he was - he suspected Dolphin may have been awake at the time as well, but couldn’t say for sure. He wasn’t around.

Gran was the next of the quartet to awaken. She quietly started boiling a jug of water before heading outside to look for Buzz Buzz. She soon found him sitting a short distance away from the tent they all slept in. The two of them held eye contact for a couple of seconds before Buzz Buzz quickly glanced to the side.

Gran sat down beside him. They shared a short silence before she told him, “I thought about everything yesterday. I’m not sure how much of what Porkey said is true, but I do know that you are a kind and just person. And if you were who he said you were… you made the right choice, rebelling. I’m proud of you.”

Buzz Buzz glanced back at Gran and gave her a small smile.

There was a whistle from inside the tent that alerted both Buzz Buzz and Gran.

“That must be the jug. I’ll be right back.” Gran stood up and hurried back inside the tent. Buzz Buzz started at the low-hanging flap of the tent as it fell back into place for a couple of moments, before getting up and flying back inside himself.

Leicra and Tori had both woken up now - Tori looked groggy and disheveled, and Buzz Buzz could only assume Leicra had woken her up. Gran was pouring the hot water from the jug into a tea cup, a tea bag already inside. There were more set up, but it was unknown if she would make tea for anyone else. She handed the tea cup to Tori, who took it by the handle. She blew on it a couple of times before hesitantly taking a sip. She let out a small yelp as she jerked the tea cup away from her mouth. Gran giggled. Leicra did too, though it was weaker, and sounded forced.

Leicra looked up to see Buzz Buzz perched on the top of the stack on plates on the table with the jug. Their expression drooped. Buzz Buzz glanced down at the floor. Gran and Tori both looked at Leicra. The Blue Starman stood still for a few moments, before turning around and heading over to the two sleeping bags laid out on the ground and sitting beside them.

Silence hung in the air after that. Tori waited a couple of minute for her tea to cool before sipping it again. She grimaced at the heat, but it wasn’t unbearable, and continued to sip at it. It remained this way for several long minutes.

The open flap of the their tent rustled as Dolphin entered in a hurry. Everyone looked over at him as he zippsed the open flap of the tent shut. Despite the sunglasses covering his eyes, it was still very easy to tell that he was distressed. He turned to face the quartet and only said one thing: “Hide.”

Buzz Buzz raised an eyebrow. “What? Why?”

Tori pointed at her cup and told him, “I haven’t finished my tea yet.”

Dolphin looked around the tent, scanning it for any possible hiding place. He then scurried to Leicra’s side and sat close to them, trying to hide as much of himself as possible behind them.

“What’s the matter?” Gran asked.

“Buzz Buzz, Tori, do you remember the secret I told you back in Stormin?” Dolphin asked.

“Of course,” Buzz Buzz replied.

“It haunts to this day,” Tori added.

“My visions of the future have been coming much more rapidly than usual. The encounter with those Starmen back when you first arrived, what happened yesterday on the stage, and now…”

“Now what?” Leicra asked.

“The authorities I told you about. They’ve found us.”

Everyone was shocked into silence.

Buzz Buzz quickly spoke up again, asking Dolphin, “Wait, do you mean, ‘us’? I thought they were only after you.”

Dolphin inhaled sharply. He was silent for a bit as he wracked his brain for an answer. The answer, though, was not given in another way.

A brilliant white light surrounded both the inside and the outside of the tent. It forced everyone to shut their eyes. The light grew stronger, and when it disappeared… the tent did, too. Hovering where the front of the tent once was were three light blue aliens, identical to the ones that had gathered at the stage for Porkey’s announcement. The aliens had no facial features, and had some kind of metallic protrusion coming from the upper half of their heads, almost like a helmet. There was a darker metallic portion, shaped like a v, that rested on their foreheads, and a a lighter metallic portion that rose upwards from their heads and had a pointed end. A light yellow growth, different from the metallic protrusions, rested behind the darker metallic portion but above the lighter metallic portion, grew just past the latter. They had squared heads, two noodle-like arms, and three legs - two at the front, one at the back.

“The answer that you seek, mere mortal, is simple,” one of the light blue aliens spoke. Their voice echoed in everyone’s minds. “You and your accomplices have been trying to alter the fate of this timeline. We cannot allow such a thing to happen. The fate of this timeline is set. Any further attempts to alter fate will result in a much harsher punishment than we have in mind.”

“Crap,” Dolphin muttered.

“Who… are you?” Leicra asked.

“We are but three officers of the Zartz Timekeepers,” the light blue alien who had first spoken told them.

“Thank you for leading us right to them, old friend,” another Zartz Officer said to Dolphin.

“We’re not friends,” Dolphin frowned.

“I know. That was a joke.”

It wasn’t a very funny joke.

The first Zartz Officer who spoke readied a strange, unidentifiable PSI attack. “Enough with the idle chit-chat. Time to take down two birds with one stone.”

The second Zartz Officer snickered as it and the third officer both followed the first officer’s lead. The first officer then unleashed a strange purple and white light. It engulfed the area and let out a horrendous sound akin to thunder. It lasted for about ten seconds, then the light faded. Now surrounding Dolphin and the quartet were PSI Shields.

“What…? Where did…?” Dolphin questioned.

“It worked,” Buzz Buzz muttered. He laughed with relief, then said, “Oh thank God, it worked.”

“I didn’t know your shields could do that, Buzz Buzz!” Tori told him.

Dolphin looked at the quartet and told them, “We don’t have time to sit around talking. Come on, let’s go!”

He got to his feet and ran past the three Zartz Officers. The quartet followed suit, with Leicra quickly grabbing the Meteoran Sword and turning to run backwards and unleash a wave of PK Water Gamma at the officers. They didn’t look like they were very bothered by the damage it dealt to them.

Up in the sky, Xa and Tu saw them running away, and swooped down to talk to them.

“We felt a wave of powerful PSI from over here, what’s going on?” Xa asked, wide-eyed.

“The blue aliens I said would come here - they’ve found us.”

Xa’s pupils halved in size. “Oh dear. The Hero needs to be taken to the Hero’s Launchpad immediately. I’ll lead you all there.” She looked over at her brother and told him, “Tu, gather as many Saturnians as you can and take them to the Cave of Enlightenment. Make sure they’re safe.”

Tu nodded, then turned around and darted in the opposite direction. Xa made a slow turn to her right.

“Come on, this way!”

Dolphin and the quartet followed Xa, running - or flying, in Buzz Buzz’s case - as fast as they could. The three Zartz Officers that had attacked them before, joined by at least four more, began to tail them. They started to spread around them, preparing more PSI attacks. Some were the purple and white ones they had previously been attacked with, while others were yellow and blue.

“I don’t think my PSI Shields will be able to block out all of their attacks…” Buzz Buzz warned.

Tori let loose a PK Fire Gamma on the Zartz Officers. They took a little damage, but it would take a lot more to get rid of them. Figuring this, Tori let loose another one. Leicra added in a PK Water Gamma to help her. Xa, noticing their struggle, turned around briefly to unleash a PK Starstorm Omega on the Zartz Officers before turning around and leading everyone to the Hero’s Launchpad again.

The Zartz Officers unleashed all their indescribable PSI attacks at once. Buzz Buzz’s PSI Shields absorbed half of the attacks, but broke down, letting the other ones in to attack them. It was a good thing Tori’s pocket seemed to be blessed, since Buzz Buzz didn’t die when he darted in there, despite the barrage of inexplicable attacks. Once the bright lights from the Officers’ attacks had faded, Gran used Lifeup Gamma on everyone as fast as she could.

Once Leicra was healed, they gasped. “Giygas!”

Everyone else looked at them.

“Is something the matter?” Gran asked.

Leicra worriedly looked at the rest of the quartet and Dolphin. “The Apple, it-! Giygas is just about to launch another attack on Earth! He’s going to succeed, and it’ll wipe out everything on the planet!”

Everyone went wide eyed.

“…We have to move faster. Thank you, Leicra,” Xa said. With a flap of her wings, she began flying even faster.

It was hard for the others to keep up now. More Zartz Officers slowly began chasing them as they ran past Mr. Saturns running as fast as they could to the Cave of Enlightenment and through other small caves. The Zartz Officers just kept coming, and there was only so much Buzz Buzz’s upgraded PSI Shields and Gran’s Lifeup Gammas could do to counter the damage they outputted every so often. Tori’s constant usage of PK Fire Gamma had only put a couple dents in them, and Leicra was more hesitant to use PK Water Gamma, so that didn’t help much either. Xa was too focused on leading Dolphin and the quartet to the Hero’s Launchpad to chip in.

It was in the smallest cave they had been in yet that two dozen Zartz Officers had caught up to them, circled around the cave and began charging an array of strange PSI attacks. Xa was anxiously waiting outside the cave.

“How are we gonna fend all of these guys off?” Tori questioned.

“I mean, I could try using PSI Shield Sigma after these ones break down, but I’m not sure I have enough PP to cast another…” Buzz Buzz said.

Dolphin sighed. “There’s only one way. I didn’t want to have to do this, but…”

He extended both of his gloved hands and took a deep breath in. A strange, purple… mass formed in his hands, then exploded. The cave was obliterated in an instant. Streaks of purple energy stronger than anyone could imagine whirled around like a tornado, striking the Zartz Officers down and absorbing them into its mass. Once they were all gone, the tornado of energy dissipated. The attack left Dolphin panting and the quartet with headaches and many questions.

“How do you-” Leicra started.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Tori yelled. That certainly didn’t help anyone’s headaches.

Dolphin cast a weary glance over to Tori and explained, “That was something I’ve been calling PK Horror. Back in my home time, I was abducted by some aliens - Zanue, I think they called themselves - and found what I believe was the mothership’s generator. Just a single touch gave me incredibly strong PSI. PK Horror… is a last resort, though. As you can see.”

“And you got away with taking some of that power?” Leicra asked.

“Heavens no! The mothership’s commander is still sending her troops to look for me. I’ve been able to outrun them with the time-space machine I stole from her, though.”

“…You STOLE from THE COMMANDER GENERAL?!”

Xa called out, “As much as I want to know the details of whatever that was, we really must be moving.”

“Right, of course,” Dolphin said.

The rest of the journey to the was fairly quiet. No other Zartz Officers attacked them. When everyone had figured that it was going to be smooth sailing from then on out, they sat down to take a quick break and recharge. Then it was back to running towards the Hero’s Launchpad.

“It’s just up ahead, I can see it from up here!” Xa finally announced.

The news put a smile on everyone’s faces, but those smiles quickly disappeared when they heard a clank. And then another. And another.

A familiar legged box climbed over a nearby mountain and leapt over to Dolphin and the quartet. The landing rattled the mech for a second. From the safety of his mech, Porkey smirked at them.

“You didn’t think my announcement from yesterday would be the last you saw of me, did you?”