Hat Kid wanted to stay, she really did.

But she had gotten readings of time rifts in an area far away, and she knew that she had to check it out, lest the time pieces fall into the wrong hands.

So she looked out the window of her ship sadly, watching as her friends begged her to stay. The directors in Dead Bird Studios asking her to shoot another movie. The Snatcher asking her to sign another contract.

Hat Kid wanted to stay, but she had to go.

She waved a final goodbye before launching off through space, tears in her eyes, and promised herself that she would return at some point.

Hat Kid piloted through space, navigating her ship towards the source of the time energy. After a couple days, the readings showed that she was close. Looking out her wide window, Hat Kid saw two planets: a large one being orbited by a small one, barely big enough to be called a planet. The smaller planetoid was the one giving off all of the energy readings. Taking a closer look at said planet, Hat Kid frowned.

Was the small planet… chained to the larger one?

She was immediately suspicious and wanted to get onto the planet to see what was going on. Maybe there were just some time rifts that needed closing, but that wouldn't explain the chains. Hat Kid wanted to leave her ship in orbit like how she had previously, but she was worried about it being hit by the planetoid. She decided to just land on the larger planet underneath the small planet.

Hat Kid performed a nearly flawless landing, only having there be a few bumps. Saying that she hadn't landed the ship on a planet's surface in a while, Hat Kid was impressed with herself. She went to her vault and checked the time pieces she had. All of them were there. She knew she had gotten back all of the ones she had lost, but she wanted to make sure. So what was causing the time energy spikes here? Hat Kid figured that maybe there were some time pieces out in the universe that she didn't have. In that case, she had to protect them from bad guys. Hat Kid opened the airlock and stepped out onto the surface, breathing in the fresh air. It was a nice change after having been in the sterile air of her ship, especially with the breeze off the large lake that she had landed next to. As she walked over to where the small planet's chain reached the ground of the larger planet, Hat Kid took a moment to stop and look up. While the small planet had seemed tiny from space, it now loomed huge above her. She then scouted around the base of the chain. It looked sturdy enough that she could climb up the chain to get to the planet. Hat Kid checked to make sure she had everything she needed; all of her hats, a small time rift radar, and of course, her trusty blue umbrella.

Hat Kid took a breath before scrambling onto the chain. Balancing precariously, she slowly made her way up to the small planet, until finally, the gravity of the planetoid took hold of her. She fell to the surface on her face, but only discovered a couple scratches when she took inventory of her injuries. Straightening her hat, Hat Kid finally got a good look of the planet's surface, having been too focused on not falling off the chain to have previously gotten a look. Tall, lush palm trees lined the hills, swaying in the breeze, but with pink coconuts. The ground seemed to be in checkered shades of browns, and formed hills at sharp, geometrical angles. The air was filled with insects buzzing about. Hat Kid could see waterfalls cascading in the distance.

She smiled, happy to see an expanse of untouched nature. The closest she had been to somewhere like this on her last adventure was Subcon Forest, which was a spooky, deathly place. Wherever she was, on the other hand, felt warm and welcoming. Then something caught Hat Kid's attention. What had seemed like dragonflies and butterflies, now had a metallic glint on closer inspection.

Hat Kid squinted. Were they robots?

Suddenly, a bunch of them swooped at Hat Kid. Taken by surprise, she barely had time to dodge their attack. Yes, they were definitely robots. Hat Kid grabbed her umbrella with both hands, and swung it down at the robots. They shattered and brought apart easily, and soon all of the robots were out of commission. Where Hat Kid had broken each robot, a large flower grew from its stead. At this point, Hat Kid was very confused by both the robots and the flowers, but decided to keep going on. Soon, she came to a massive hill, one that had a very sharp incline. Hat Kid couldn't walk up it for sure; it was too steep, but she didn't see any protrusions or handholds in order to climb up it either.

Hat Kid kid took off her usual hat, replacing it instead with a mask that looked like the face of a fox. It covered her upper face and gave off the haunting vibes of the Subcon Forest. Hat Kid closed her eyes and focused in on her dweller mask, willing it to activate its power, to reveal hidden paths and objects that were invisible and intangible without it. Hat Kid opened her eyes and gasped as the entire landscape changed around her. Something was wrong. Hat Kid knew that her hats relied on time energy to grant her special abilities, but the time energy of the small planet was so strong that time was warping just by using her dweller mask.

The palm trees, which had looked so beautiful, were now dead and fruitless, the hills and waterfalls looked charred and polluted. But the worst was the sight of metal structures throughout the area. Hat Kid also saw a great number of robots flying about.

Then it ended. The energy of the dweller mask had retracted back to the mask, and the vision was suddenly over. Breathless, Hat Kid, looked around at the pretty place, not wanting it to become what she had seen. She decided to return to her ship for now, gather intel about the planetoid, and scout what was going on, so that she could fix it. Hat Kid took off running and was soon back at the chain. Again, she put all of her attention into not falling off, and Hat Kid was soon back on the ground by the lake. She quickly got up and turned to walk back to her ship. Terror struck Hat Kid, inside and out.

In the time she had been gone, someone, or something, had pillaged her ship.

Hat Kid ran to it, and began inspecting the damage. Tears formed at her eyes as she realized how badly the engine had been damaged. Then something else hit her.

The time pieces.

To Hat Kid's utmost horror, all of her time pieces were gone. Not a single one was still in the vault. She sat down in the middle of the mess of what was once her ship and let the tears come. Overwhelmed and exhausted, Hat Kid decided to try and rest, and find a way to get her time pieces back and fix her ship tomorrow. Just as she sighed and wiped away the last of her tears, she suddenly heard a voice behind her.

"Hey kid, are you okay?"