Outside of the boundaries of space and time, on the border of a white void between worlds and existence itself, a lone tower taller than anything anyone could build stood vigilant nearby the worlds with PSI. Within that tower, known as the Zartz Watchtower to its inhabitants, were a dozen cracked Blue Starmen held in within a storage room. Every single Starman had the exact same cracks, and every single one was nothing but a shell of a Starman who was once called Arix.

Lume Miza, guardian of time for the worlds with PSI and leader of the Zartz Timekeepers, hovered just inches above the floor of this storage room with two Zartz Officers on either side of him. They had been watching the shells in silence for quite some time now, and they were completely baffled. One reason was that they had no idea what to do with them: they had simply been thrown out of their respective timelines by Inpue, with no regard for any consequences it may have for the void between worlds. The second reason was that the shells themselves were the least socially capable things they had ever seen in all of their long lives.

The Zartz Officer to the left of Lume Miza looked up at him and asked, “Lume Miza, sir, have you come up with any ideas for what to do with these shells yet?”

“I’m afraid not,” Lume Miza replied.

The Zartz Officer to the right of Lume Miza sighed, despite lacking the mouth to do so. “It was a good thing you destroyed those timelines, sir. These shells are really annoying, I’d hate to have to put up with any more of them.”

Lume Miza’s three legs twitched. He looked at the officer on the right of him and told them, “Now, do not forget why I destroyed them. That RPG-maker was a hazard to this dimension’s very existence.”

The Zartz Officer on his left sunk slightly as they fiddled with their noodle hands. Lume Miza noticed, and looked over toward them as he asked, “Do you have something to say?”

Though there was no hostility in his voice, the question was enough to make the officer shiver. “No, sir.”

All three Zartz Timekeepers returned to watching the Arix shells bumble about their storage room and have some very short, disjointed conversations with one another. The minutes dragged on before Lume Miza straightened his back – a telltale sign he had come up with an idea.

“Have you come up with an idea, sir?” the Zartz Officer on his right asked.

“Yes. Have them all fixed up, then send them into other timelines. Their new souls will find their way into them. They’ll live on, in a way, through other Starmen.”

The Zartz Officer to his right saluted, “Yes, sir! We’ll have them delivered to the workshop right away!”

Lume Miza slowly nodded, then teleported away in a flash of white light. That left the two Zartz Officers to deliver dozens of cracked Blue Starman shells to the workshop several stories below them.

The more enthusiastic of the two officers motioned for the other to follow. “Come on! These shells aren’t going to move themselves!”

The other Zartz Officer nodded. As they immobilized a shell with their PSI, their mind drifted back to what Lume Miza had said earlier. That the RPG-maker was hazard, and that was why its timelines.

If it was just the RPG-maker, then would it not have been easier to only destroy the machines? Yes, the machine was dangerous, but was it worth ending countless lives to stop it? Knowing the nature of timelines, there had to be at least one where everything turned out alright. Knowing that, could something have been done differently?

“Hey!” the officer’s cohort snapped. “Get back to reality, you’re slowing this process down!”

“Oh! My apologies.”

For now, they would just have to get the Arix shells to the workshop and hope that once they were fixed up and sent away, it would be enough to compensate.