Thanks for reading, everyone. Again, I'm still alive! School has been out for a moment, and I've finally overcome my writer's block! I expect to have chapters 32 and 33 out sometime in the next two or three weeks. After that: Grad school continues to keep me busy, so expect updates to continue to be slow.

Special thanks go to my beta reader, Shadow. He's great and really helps me stay hyped with my writing whenever I show it to him. :)

Hey, leave me a review once you're done reading this chapter! I'm curious to know what you guys think of Roman! ;)

A few weeks later, it was finally time. Amaya and Romeo had perfected their control of the Anomaly. They looked up from consoles around the center of the science lab on the Jenolan. The Anomaly glowed brightly, and Romeo said, "Modulate the positron beam, Amaya."

Amaya clicked a few buttons, and the bright pinprick of light grew into an open portal, whose edges were brightly glowing. Romeo walked over to the side of it and said, "Roman! I'm going to toss you over a piece of fruit as our final test."

A distorted voice called back from the portal, "Alright. We're ready if you are."

"Incoming!" Romeo took an apple from his coat pocket and threw it at the portal. It disappeared inside the pitch-black rip in the fabric of reality.

After a moment, Roman called back, "I got it. It appears intact."

Romeo looked back at Amaya; they were both grinning wide. Romeo gestured at her, and Amaya clicked a few buttons. "Lowering the portal to ground level…"

The Anomaly slowly moved down to nearly level with the floor. Once it was still, Romeo said, "Roman, would you like the honors?"

Roman called back, "Sure! I'm going to walk through the portal… now."

A couple of seconds passed, and a boy exited the portal. He was similar in appearance, build, and size to Romeo, but his hair was white with a black stripe, his eyes were topaz green, and his lab coat was a smooth burgundy color. He looked around the inside of the Jenolan, then to Romeo and Amaya. He held his hand out and said, "Romeo, I presume? Nice ship."

Romeo took his hand and shook it happily. "Correct, and thanks. I'm Romeo Mécano, and this is my friend and fellow scientist, Amaya Shelton. You're Roman, I presume?" Amaya trotted over to them, and Roman shook her hand courteously.

Roman replied, "And I am Roman Milhaud. I am pleased to have met the two of you. This is a very nice setup you have here."

Amaya greeted, "This is fascinating, Roman. We've just made history. Is there anyone else with you?"

Roman shook his head. With a smile, he explained, "I'm afraid not. It's just my helper android, Loki, back on my ship. Romeo told me the other week that you're part of the trio behind his PJ Masks and that he befriended you three. Unlike Romeo, I never befriended my version of the PJ Masks. Though I did straighten up from evil and they left me to my devices."

Amaya nodded. "He told me about it. We're both impressed with you. I know that was not easy, eh?"

Roman laughed, "That's one way to put it. They were skeptical of me for quite some time, but eventually, we came to an understanding." He smiled.

Amaya said, "Well, cool. Oh, this is so exciting! This discovery puts us on par with Einstein, or the great explorers like Roosevelt or Marco Polo or Vespucci!"

Roman nodded. "Or Cortes."

Romeo blinked at that addition, but quickly nodded his agreement and said, "Well, let's sit down for a moment, shall we? We can have a cup of coffee on the bridge."

Roman chuckled. "A smart place to keep your coffeemaker."

Romeo began leading the trio toward the ladder, explaining, "Well, it seemed rather logical, to me. It gives me a reason to go up there and check our orbit every hour or two."

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Greg and Connor watched the scene from PJ Masks HQ, monitoring Roman for anything suspicious. Greg swapped the camera feed to the one on the bridge as Amaya, Roman, and Romeo all finished climbing the ladder and went to get coffee. Connor yawned from the couch as Greg walked back over toward him. Connor said, "Y'know, I get why we're doing this, but jeez, this is so boring."

Greg shrugged. "I say we play the video game. The footage is recording, so we can have Jarvis go over it later anyways. If anything too wild happens, we'll hear it."

Connor tapped his chin and watched the picture player as Romeo started the coffee maker and the three of them babbled about some incomprehensible particle physics crap. He nodded. "Yeah, agreed, fire up the game."

Greg said, "Alright. I call player one." He turned on the TV in front of the couch and powered up the game console.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

A couple of hours later, Romeo and Amaya waved goodbye to Roman as he walked back through his side of the portal. "We'll see you again in a few days, Roman," called Amaya.

Roman called, "Goodbye! It was a pleasure meeting you!"

Romeo entered several commands on a console, and the portal closed slowly. When the Anomaly was once again a pinprick of bright light, Romeo said, "Alright, it's closed." He took a deep breath, and let his cheery demeanor drop. He was tired. "What'd you think?"

Amaya rubbed her temples gently. "Well, he was certainly friendly… I don't know, Romeo. He was alright, he never did anything that could come off as suspicious. Just seemed like a curious scientist, like us."

Romeo nodded. "We'll see. For now, let's get home. We can do prep work for his next visit tomorrow. Maybe we can visit him the next time, eh?"

Amaya nodded as they walked toward the transporter pad. "Maybe so. For now, it's sleep time."