The energy dancing around Lume Miza’s right hand exploded with flair. It struck each of the four, but dealt no damage. There was, however, a side effect.

“Um, Buzz Buzz, Tori, Gran,” Leicra said, worry in their voice, “I can’t use my PSI anymore.”

“What?!” Tori exclaimed.

Gran held out a hand and tried to fire a PK Freeze at Lume Miza. “Me neither. He must have put some sort of block on our PSI.”

“Correct,” Lume Miza told her. “I have temporarily prevented use of your PSI. It will make it easier for me to apprehend you.”

Buzz Buzz looked over at Dolphin in the distance and called out to him, “Dolphin?”

Dolphin held out his hand and stared at it for a couple of seconds, then looked back at Buzz Buzz and replied, “Nope, sorry.”

“I have also prevented usage of his PSI as well,” Lume Miza explained. “He is also coming with me, after all.”

Leicra looked at the Meteoran Sword in their hands, then ran up to Lume Miza, jumped up as high as they could and slashed at him. Lume Miza dodged out of the way before the sword was even close to making contact.

“Your efforts are futile against me.”

Buzz Buzz darted towards Lume Miza in an attempt to ram into him, but Lume Miza dodged out of the way again. Buzz Buzz tried three more times, Lume Miza dodging each of them. Tori took a running start and attempted to grab one of his legs, but fell flat on her face. Lume Miza’s horn glowed lavender, and the same glow surrounded the quartet. They were lifted up into the air to be face to face with their otherworldly adversary. Crackles of white energy wrapped around them, pinning their arms, and wings in Buzz Buzz’s case, to their body and their legs together.

“Put us down, you creepy weirdo!” Tori yelled. “Just let us get to the Hero’s Launchpad!”

“Why do you insist on changing fate, anyhow? You are so small in the grand scheme of everything. There are so many timelines where the one you call Giygas fails his mission in plunging the galaxy in darkness. There have to be some where he succeeds to balance this out. You are just unfortunate enough to be in one of these timelines,” Lume Miza told the quartet.

“The Apple of Enlightenment told us we could save this timeline!” Leicra cried.

Lume Miza’s voice lowered to a growl. “The Apple of Enlightenment is faulty.”

The quartet struggled to break free from the PSI that bound them. Their efforts were fruitless.

“I told you all not to expect to get far. Why are you still trying? Can you not see that you have lost?” Lume Miza asked.

“We’ve come too far to give up now,” Gran told him.

Lume Miza was silent for a few moments. The quartet stared at him as he looked down at the ground.

“We’re only trying to set things right,” Buzz Buzz told him.

Lume Miza looked over at Buzz Buzz. “I should have figured that you would still try to go back. I somehow managed to forget that you’re so consistently determined to change fate.”

Gran raised an eyebrow as she asked, “What… do you mean by that?”

“Your friend Buzz Buzz is one of the most infamous Variables within the timelines us Zartz Timekeepers watch over. He’s an anomaly. Most timeline inhabitants that are labelled as Variables only show up in a handful of timelines, with very similar personalities and appearances throughout. Variables usually have little or no impact on the whims of fate. Buzz Buzz is much different. He appears in many timelines, but his personality and appearance changes between so many of them. Sometimes, he is not called Buzz Buzz at all,” Lume Miza explained. “He’s almost a Constant. He’s a vital part of fate. But we have already decided what this timeline’s fate will be.”

“Can’t we change your mind?” Tori asked.

Lume Miza hummed in thought, then replied, “It would be interesting to see you make an argument. You may try. Besides, I haven’t talked to any mortals this much in such a long time.”

“Well, for starters, the world is awesome, and it’d be really bad if it all got super destroyed by Giygas, because then there wouldn’t be any animals to pet or friends to make,” Tori began.

“There’s so much to see and do in the world! You can’t take that away from the people who need it the most!” Leicra added.

“If you let everything be covered in darkness, then there wouldn’t be any light to see all the beauty in the world,” Gran said.

Lume Miza hummed. “All very good points. But Buzz Buzz will need to make a truly excellent argument for my mind to be changed.”

Buzz Buzz was frozen for a second. He took a shaky breath in, then exhaled. “I couldn’t agree more with Tori, Leicra and Gran. There is so much that the world has to offer, and to let it all be destroyed by Giygas would be a waste. Everyone deserves a life full of light. If you’d allow me to go back in time, I would be able to ensure that light. My… My friends, my family… everyone… I want to save them all from the darkness, even if it comes at the cost of my own life.”

Tori, Leicra and Gran beamed at Buzz Buzz as Lume Miza mulled over his words.

“There’s always a way out of the darkness. Even if things are bleak, there always is. Please, let me prove that to you.”

Lume Miza was silent for two seconds. He then looked over at Buzz Buzz and said, “Very well.”

The quartet were lowered to the ground, right in front of the Hero’s Launchpad. The lavender glow surrounding them and filling Lume Miza’s horn disappeared, and everyone felt the energy of their PSI flow through their bodies again. Lume Miza lowered himself closer to the ground, hovering just above the blue Saturnian metal that everyone else present stood on. Xa flew over to the four, cheering.

“I suppose that one less timeline where Giygas succeeds in taking over the galaxy would not hurt time’s stability,” Lume Miza said. He then turned to face the binded Porkey and growled, “As for you…”

Porkey let out a nervous chuckle.

“We have had quite enough of you and yourselves misdoings. We will be making sure you all do not cause anymore troubles for the timelines. We will be confining every last one of you to a single time, and you will not be getting out of it,” Lume Miza told him.

“You… You can’t get us all,” Porkey replied.

“We can. We will. It will take time, though.”

Xa’s smile was the largest the quartet had ever seen it. “You did it! For a moment, I was scared that Lume Miza wouldn’t let you change fate, but you pulled through! You changed his mind! I couldn’t be more proud of you four.”

The best response the quartet could make was some light giggling and bashfully averting their gazes from the golden bird.

Lume Miza looked past the quartet and Xa, and the time-space machine parked nearby the Hero’s Launchpad. Dolphin was peeping out, watching the scene from a distance with a fond smile.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” Lume Miza asked him.

The smile instantly vanished from Dolphin’s face. “I was just, uh… just… about to leave!”

Lume Miza dipped his head slightly. “Very well.”

“Wait - you’re not going to arrest me?” Dolphin asked. “I’m… right here…”

“You were not doing any harm, I have realised. We will not be trying to arrest you any longer, as long as you continue to do what you have done in the past,” Lume Miza told him.

“Only took you forty odd years, darling,” Dolphin teased with a smirk.

“Forty-three, to be precise,” Lume Miza corrected him.

By now, Xa and the quartet’s attention had been drawn to Dolphin and his banter with Lume Miza.

“You’re leaving so soon?” Xa asked him.

“I figured I would take my leave while no one was looking,” Dolphin replied with a shrug. “I’m a wanted man, after all.”

“You were,” Lume Miza corrected him again.

Tori outstretched her arms with a lopsided smile. “Can we get a goodbye hug first?”

Dolphin laughed. “Why not.”

He trotted out of his time-space machine and over to Tori. Tori immediately gave him a tight hug, which lasted for quite a few seconds. Gran was the next to give him a goodbye hug. Hers was much gentler than Tori’s, and didn’t last quite as long, but the love emanating from it was intense. Buzz Buzz simply buzzed onto his shoulder and gave him a smile, while Leicra awkwardly positioned themself for a hug, then simply wrapped their arms around him as lightly as they could for a couple of seconds. Buzz Buzz flew off Dolphin’s should and onto Tori’s once Leicra let go.

“Very touching. Though it may pain you to say goodbye so soon, it is most wise for your friend to leave now,” Lume Miza said.

“Huh? Why’s that?” Tori asked.

Lume Miza looked at Buzz Buzz once again. “Buzz Buzz… once you go back and deliver the message to the chosen one, this timeline will be overwritten from that point. As soon as you arrive, nothing that brought you here will have ever happened. Only you and anyone else able to leave this timeline will remember, and if you successfully deliver the Sound Stone to him, nothing like this will ever happen again.”

Tori pulled the Sound Stone of her pocket. Both she and Buzz Buzz looked at it and its soft blue glow gently pulsating.

“Um, if that’s the case, then, actually, I have a request for you Dolphin, if you don’t mind.” Leicra untied the green bandana that had been sitting around their end of their shell’s head for so long and held it out towards Dolphin. “Can you take my bandana and give it to the next me when you see them?”

Dolphin took the bandana from Leicra’s hands. “Of course. And you don’t have to call me that anymore, darling.”

“Then, what should we call you?” Leicra asked.

Dolphin smiled. “Charles.”

With that, Charles took his leave. He walked back over to his time-space machine, hopped inside, then waved goodbye before shutting the door. The machine then blipped away, to some other time in the past.

“Well, I suppose that’s it for goodbyes,” Xa said.

“It was lovely to meet you all and go on this journey with you,” Gran told the rest of the quartet.

“Likewise,” Buzz Buzz replied.

Lume Miza turned to the seven Zartz Officers holding Porkey still. “Officers, you may release him. Instead, make sure his mech can no longer be used.”

The Zartz Officers instantly released Porkey, the purple-pink energy surrounding him disappearing in a flash. Porkey scrambled for the remains of his mech, but they were swallowed in a flash of white light before he even got close.

As the Zartz Officers hovered over to Lume Miza’s side, the latter said, “Before we go, I have a request. I would like to hear a song.”

“You’ve never heard one before?” Gran asked, concern visible on her face.

“No. Not in all the millenia I have existed,” Lume Miza replied with a shake of his head.

Buzz Buzz thought for a moment, then told Lume Miza, “I have one very close to my heart that I would be willing to share with you.”

“Oh! Excellent. Please, come closer so I can hear it better.”

Buzz Buzz buzzed off Tori’s shoulder and landed on a hand Lume Miza had held up.

Buzz Buzz explained, “My mother used to sing this to me when I was a child. It’s not very long, but…”

Though Lume Miza said nothing, Buzz Buzz could feel his curiosity. Buzz Buzz took a breath in, then softly sang.

“Though our world is small,
“There’s a lot you haven’t seen
“If you look up to the stars,
“They’ll teach you what you seek
“If you wish to fly,
“Spread your wings, be free
“There’s a lot for you to learn
“Before your time comes to its brink.”

A soft glow, almost unnoticeable, came from Lume Miza’s horn. “Thank you, Buzz Buzz. It was wonderful.

Buzz Buzz smiled, then returned to Tori’s shoulder.

“We shouldn’t keep you any longer. I wish you the best of luck, Buzz Buzz.” With that, a dazzling light filled the area, blinding everyone. When it faded, Lume Miza and the Zartz Officers were gone.

Xa sighed. “Lume Miza’s right. We shouldn’t keep you waiting any longer, Buzz Buzz. The Hero’s Launchpad is right behind us.”

Buzz Buzz led the way onto the Hero’s Launchpad. Unlike the rest of the metal surfaces on Saturn, the launchpad was made of a grey metal, with stairs on each of its four sides leading up to it. In the middle of the launchpad was a meteorite sitting inside a raised portion in the center. Behind it was a slot for a lever of some kind.

“The meteorite is what you’ll be traveling in to get to the past, Buzz Buzz. There’s an button which will open up the opening at the top,” Xa told him.

True to her word, there was a small button at the top of the meteorite. Buzz Buzz pressed it, and a hole no more than thirty centimeters in diameter opened up.

“Only now does it make so much sense that it’s so small,” Xa muttered to herself. She then turned her attention to the slot behind the meteorite. “The Meteoran Sword is used to activate the time portal and send the meteorite through it. Leicra, if you would.”

Leicra padded up to the slot, and looked between the Meteoran Sword and the slot. After a bit of thinking, they put the sword’s blade into the slot. A ka-chink-chunk sounded from under the launchpad.

Xa was silent for a moment as she gazed at the Meteoran Sword in the slot. Not looking away, she asked, “That’s everything, right?”

Tori opened up her hand and stared at the Sound Stone for a moment, then handed it to Buzz Buzz.

“That’s everything,” Buzz Buzz confirmed.

Xa softly sighed. “Right. It feels so surreal that this is actually happening…”

“Believe me, I feel the same way,” Buzz Buzz reassured her. “Never in my life did I think I’d have to save the world, but…”

“I’m sure you’ll do great in this final stretch,” Gran told him.

Buzz Buzz smiled for a second. The smile faded as he said, “Not only do I want to deliver the Sound Stone to the chosen one… I want to guide him to the Sanctuaries, too. No doubt will he be feeling a little lost and confused, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. And there’s a lot I haven’t seen of the world, especially not before Giygas covered it in darkness, so I want to see that, too.”

“I wish you luck,” Leicra told him.

Buzz Buzz buzzed inside the meteorite and set the Sound Stone down. Tori took a step forward and peered inside.

“…I’m going to miss you,” she said.

“I’m going to miss you too. All of you,” Buzz Buzz replied.

“…Are we all ready?” Xa asked.

Tori took a step back as Buzz Buzz replied, “Yes.”

Xa pulled the Meteoran Sword-turned-lever down the slot. A rumbling filled the air around them. The opening of the meteorite closed itself while up in the starry sky, a golden rift opened up. The meteorite slowly sank a bit deeper into the launchpad, then was flung into the sky. Buzz Buzz grabbed the Sound Stone as the meteorite went hurling up and up. It flew right into the fully-opened portal, then sealed itself shut.

As Buzz Buzz’s meteorite hurled through the inky black depths of space, he couldn’t help but wonder to himself, ‘It’s been a long road getting here… What will happen to me, I wonder? What will happen to my friends? What will happen to all the people we met along the way? There’s so much for me to learn again…’

And so, history rewrote itself. Things in the past, and the future, were never the same again. As for how those things panned out… you already know that, don’t you?