The Phase Distorter reappeared on the hilltop with a flash. Ralivil and Buzzy Bol perked up upon seeing the strange machine again.

See, Larice had come back to the future only an hour ago with the news that Niiue wanted the entire Magicant gang to go to the past and find themselves a home there. He figured it was only fair. Larice had stepped up to the job of bringing back the Magicant gang to the past. He took Wil, Mav and Foppiue first; he only managed to take Foppiue along in that first trip because they were so small. Ralivil and Buzzy Bol had to wait, since the Phase Distorter wasn’t big enough to fit all the Magicant gang in at once. The wait for the Phase Distorter wasn’t all that bad, but Ralivil and Buzzy Bol did start to get antsy over who they’d meet in the past.

“You two ready to hop in? *click*” Larice asked.

“We sure are!” Buzzy Bol replied.

Ralivil and Buzzy Bol dashed over to the Phase Distorter, and as they climbed inside, Larice told them, “Watch your heads.”

The inside of the Phase Distorter was a lot smaller than either of them had expected. There were two long leather seats on each side of the tiny interior. Larice barely managed to fit inside. Ralivil lowered his eyestalks to his lower eye’s level just to have a bit of extra wiggle room. Buzzy Bol didn’t have any problems fitting inside, lucky him.

Larice’s hand hovered over a bright red button labelled “GO”. “Close your eyes. It’s for the best, *beep*” he told them.

Ralivil and Buzzy Bol closed their eyes, and Larice did the same as he hit the GO button.

The engine revved up and the black waves burst forth on the outside as the Phase Distorter prepared to take off. Once it did, the journey back in time could only be best described as spinning around really fast while also falling off a cliff as the wind whooshing past blasts your eardrums. This feeling lasted for what felt like a second but also thousands of years before everything just stopped. Ralivil didn’t even want to think about what it would be like if his eyes were open.

While Larice looked no worse for wear (whether it was because he was a Starman or he had experience was up for debate), Ralivil and Buzzy Bol had to take a few moments to regain their composure.

“I’ll tell the others you’ve arrived safely while you calm yourselves,” Larice told them, then stepped outside. He was kind enough to close the door behind him. The outside conversation was barely audible from inside the Phase Distorter.

A couple of minutes passed before Larice poked his head back in and asked, “Are *click* you two feeling better now?”

Ralivil nodded. He then looked down at Buzzy Bol and cocked his eyestalks at him. Buzzy Bol made his UFO rise into the air, then extended its metal arm to give a thumbs up. Larice gave a pleased whirr, then stepped out of the way so the two aliens could climb out.

Foppiue and Mav were sitting next to Dr. Saturn, and Alinivar was sitting against the left wall near the control panel. Niiue was up at the control panel, Colonel Saturn was standing not too far away from Dr. Saturn, and Wil was with Shopkeep Saturn. However, across from Shopkeep Saturn were three aliens Ralivil and Buzzy Bol thought they’d never see again. They knew that they weren’t the same as they were in their home timeline, but… the shock upon seeing them was enough to make them both tear up a little bit.

Both Malik and Elmadan leaned against the wall, while Boson hovered beside the latter.

“Boson?” Buzzy Bol murmured.

“How the hell do you know my name?!” Boson exclaimed.

Niiue looked over his shoulder at Boson and said with a raised eyebrow, “I thought I told you guys that these two are from another timeline.”

Boson stared at Niiue for a second before looking back at Elmadan and Malik. “Did he?” he quietly asked.

The two Mooks thought for a bit before Elmadan replied, “I think he mentioned something about that.”

After having a brief moment of realisation, Boson turned back to Ralivil and Buzzy Bol. “Well, come on over here, dudes! Have a seat! Tell us about yourselves!”

Ralivil and Buzzy Bol made their way over to the trio of aliens, Ralivil more hesitantly. Ralivil sat down beside Malik, while Buzzy Bol hovered nearby.

“So, uh. You two actually from another timeline?” Boson asked.

Ralivil nodded.

Malik scowled. “I still don’t believe it. If these two hooligans are from another timeline, then I want to see proof.”

Buzzy Bol raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t us sitting here right in front of you proof enough?”

“Of course it ain’t!” Malik snapped.

Niiue walked over to Malik, pulled a photo out of his pocket and handed it to the old Mook. “It’s from someone from their timeline. I found it when I first met them.”

Malik studied the photo with narrowed eyes. After a few seconds, he handed it back to Niiue with a sigh. “Can’t believe I lost that bet with Yooghurt, too. There go 100 Bowbucks.”

As Niiue headed back to the ship’s control panel, Boson said, “We never got your names. You wanna say?”

“Oh! I’m Ralivil, and that’s Buzzy Bol,” Ralivil told him.

Boson smiled with his eyes. “Nice to meet’cha!”

From the control panel, Niiue announced, “Our next stop is Saturn!”

The ship’s engine roared to life, and after a jolt of movement, it was on its way to Saturn. Once it had gotten moving, the engine’s noise was little more than a purr.

“Sooo…” Elmadan shuffled in place as he asked, “what was your timeline like?”

“It was nice,” Buzzy Bol said.

“Until… things… started happening,” Ralivil added.

Elmadan frowned. “What kind of things?”

“…Bad… things…”

“I mean, well I figured that, if you’re here.”

“It was… a lot,” Buzzy Bol said. “Already I can tell a few differences. For one, I barely remember the last time I saw you wearing sunglasses, Elmadan.”

Elmadan went stiff. “What? Why wasn’t I wearing them?!”

Ralivil and Buzzy Bol exchanged glances, made some noises of uncertainty and shrugged.

“We’re not really sure. Something to do with Anue’s PSI, we think,” Ralivil replied.

“Wait, hold up, A-who?” Boson asked.

“Anue. They were the same species as Niiue and Googie,” Ralivil told him.

“They wore this hood and didn’t really like talking all that much. That, and they made our you really mad,” Buzzy Bol added.

“Mad enough that you ended up getting, like… possessed.”

A look of shock and horror adorned Boson’s face. “Like, by a GHOST?!”

“A machine, actually,” Buzzy Bol told him.

“If it was by a machine then it’d be mind control,” Malik growled. “Darn kids…”

Ralivil waved his tentacles as if to clear the air. “Whatever it was, it happened, and it was sad.”

A few moments of silence between the group passed by before Boson asked, “…What were we like? You’ve made it clear that me ‘n Dan were in your timeline, what were we like? Were we cool?”

“I’d say so, yeah,” Ralivil replied. “About the same as you are here, but then things…”

Ralivil rotated his hand, and Buzzy Bol finished, “Happened.”

“Like me getting mad at that Anue dog and gettin’ machine-possessed?” Boson asked.

“Yeah,” Buzzy Bol replied.

“What about me? What happened to me?” Elmadan asked, his voice rising.

“Uh…” Ralivil thought for a moment. There was a fair bit to go over, and he didn’t want to scare him too much. Preferably not at all. “Anue did something, then you slept all the time and glowed a bunch, and it turned out you were a reincarnation of this thing called the Apple of Enlightenment.”

“I was the WHAT OF THE WHAT?!”

Alinivar leaned over and looked at the group. “You two had an Apple of Enlightenment?”

“Yeah. It ended up becoming Elmadan,” Ralivil replied.

“Huh.”

Elmadan began to panic. “How did that apple get in there? Did it get out?! Ralivil please tell me it got out.”

Ralivil was a bit unsettled by how close Elmadan was to him right now. “Yeah, it got out… You- well, our you asked me to get it out, actually. It turned into a glowy orb and then it died.”

Elmadan let out a sigh of relief, then leaned back up against the wall again.

“And what about Malik?” Boson asked, extending his UFO’s metal arm to point at the old Mook.

Ralivil inhaled, then held his breath for a couple of moments. Buzzy Bol watched him with concern as his face spelt out the trouble he was having putting everything into words.

“…He built the machine that possessed our Boson,” Ralivil finally exhaled.

Malik squinted at him. “Mind controlled.”

“Mind controlled our Boson, sorry.” Ralivil wrung his tentacles as he explained, “Well, our Malik was… a lot. He built that machine, then destroyed it because it made him depressed, then shot it out into space, then Anue found it but that’s for another time, then he lost it a bit, or maybe he lost it a bit and got depressed at the same time? Then he climbed onto our ship and hitched a ride to Jupiter, stole a Starman Deluxe’s ship, beat us to Earth, then Mercury, then he told me all of this, and…” Ralivil shrugged, “gave up, basically.”

Malik stared at Ralivil for seven whole seconds before he muttered, “What.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot,” Buzzy Bol told Ralivil. “Not the best story around either. Way too sad. Why didn’t you tell any of us that before, Ralivil?!”

“I…” Ralivil paused for a moment before replying, “I don’t know? Anue made us move pretty fast, so I guess I never got the chance to anyway…”

Boson raised an eyebrow. “Dude, you could have told ‘em on the way to that thing.”

Buzzy Bol interjected, “Okay okay, I think that’s enough! This line of questioning is depressing enough as it is… So uh, what about you guys? What things have you gotten up to?”

“We went to Jupiter not that long ago to help out the folks in Anolin,” Boson replied. “Before that… there’s this blur where Niiue and the others said some wild adventure happened, then before that is normal life stuff.”

“There was this stupid human kid that,” Elmadan cleared his throat and made air quotes with his hands as he said, “‘helped’ me run Satralia as mayor. That was when I got brainwashed. None of that was fun.”

“I met up with Yooghurt again for the first time in 30 odd years, I guess,” Malik mumbled, crossing his arms.

Ralivil cocked his head. “Who?”

Malik raised an eyebrow at him. “You didn’t have him in your timeline?”

Ralivil shook his head no.

“We did some science stuff together,” Malik said.

“Like…?” Buzzy Bol asked.

Malik scowled at him. “I don’t have to tell ya any more than that.”

The conversation went on as the ship sailed through the stars, headed to Saturn. The blue planet grew ever closer with every passing second...