She finally got to hang out with Dahlia for a bit, which was just as awesome as Tria thought it was gonna be. She was happy to chat about her escapades taking out a dragon and a really freaking big raja, and Dahlia was happy to hear about them. They joked around and got some pizza and then Tria was forced to head off because Stryker messaged her to come for a meeting. She didn't want to go, but having Warden privileges was kinda nice and she didn't want to lose them.

So she headed off to Asia in a sucky mood, and, upon hopping out of the world gate, saw Jura walking over to the elevator to Stryker's office. "Eyy, what's up, bro?" she said, strolling over to him and kinda smirking as he flinched.

"Hey, Tria," he grumbled out, turning towards her with a mildly frustrated look. "How'd your, uh, cosmonium hunting go?"

She shrugged and stopped beside him to wait for the elevator. "Well, I beat the shit outta a dragon with Liu Ren 'n Mei Lian, watched Drake fuck up a giant raja, 'n then I found out Violet's a bottom."

Jura let out one of the most disappointed sighs she'd ever heard him make. "Why?" he said flatly, "You're ace, why?"

Tria punched his shoulder lightly. "I don't give a shit about sex, dude, this like negative bothers me. But I know it bugs you!" And she laughed.

Jura rolled his eyes and looked away from her again, prompting Tria to continue. "Anyways, what shitty things did you do in America?"

"Helped Sean and Becks beat Dino Gigante," Jura said. He glanced back at her and added, "Sean's a masked fossil fighter, by the way."

Now it was Tria's turn to be pissed. "What the hell, man!" she said, frustration rising, "I thought he was cool, goddamn."

Jura smirked just a little and then the elevator door slid open. They stepped inside, as per their usual routine, and stood in silence as they were carried up to the Captain's office.

When they emerged a few moments later, Stryker was sitting at his desk looking at his phone. It was probably something lame and work related but seeing him doing that made Tria crack up a little. He noticed them pretty quickly and immediately stashed his phone.

"Great work getting the cosmonium, you two!" he said with a nervous smile. "From what I've heard, you were integral in retrieving it."

Tria, based on both of her experiences, felt that she wasn't integral in the slightest, but she'd take a compliment regardless.

"Yeah, it's no biggie," she said, shrugging slightly.

Stryker nodded. "Well, Prof. Little's been working around the clock getting the time gate ready. I'm sure he'll have it ready any moment now."

Jura perked up in the corner of her vision. "Oh, that's great! I'll feel a lot better once Dr. Blackraven's back behind bars."

"Isn't that the truth?" Stryker murmured. He crossed his arms and then suddenly leaned to the side, looking past the twins. "Ah, the man of the hour!"

Tria turned her head slightly to see Prof. Little walking up to them. He seemed mildly embarrassed to be getting so much attention. "O-oh, um, hello!"

"Any luck getting the time gate functioning?" the Captain said with an encouraging grin.

Little glanced over at Jura and Tria, then back to Stryker. "Yes, actually! It should be running shortly, according to my calculations."

"Awesome!" Jura said, which made Tria roll her eyes. Yeah, no duh it was gonna work, it always works.

"-And we've managed to find a time warble within the park itself!"

Figures. Tria shrugged as Jura and Stryker had a mini celebration.

"Well, I suppose I should get ready to go," Stryker said plainly, getting up to his feet. Little jumped in real fast, a concerned look on his face.

"You can't!" he said, stepping in the Captain's path, "the Wardens need you to lead them! If you get stuck or hurt or worse, everything here would fall apart!"

Stryker seemed surprised at first but eventually he came around to Little's point. It made sense, sorta, in a really dumb way. Then, finally, he said, "Well, if I don't go, who will?"

"Dibs," Tria said, raising her hand. She smirked a little when she noticed Jura visibly wince beside her. When everyone turned to look at her, she added, "I'll time travel, sounds freakin' sick."

Jura looked horrified. Stryker just looked surprised.

"Are you… serious?" Stryker said very carefully.

Tria shrugged. "Yeah, sure, why the hell not? If I time travel I'll have bragging rights for literally the rest of my life."

"Yeah, but it's also probably super dangerous!" Jura said, gesturing wildly. He glared at her when she grinned.

"Damn bro, you tryin' to talk me into it?"

The thought of having something so specific and dope to drop into conversation was getting her all excited. Also having things to tell Dahlia about was great too, she needed to have cool stories to make sure she'd still hang out with her. So yeah, despite the incredulous looks, Tria was just hyped up.

Stryker seemed to think over the suggestion while Prof. Little hovered in the background and waited for an answer. An awkward silence which Tria didn't find awkward at all settled in the room for a few minutes. Then, finally, the Captain cleared his throat.

"You two have had an excellent record despite being employed here for such a short period of time," he said sternly. There wasn't an ounce of anything other than seriousness in his tone. "You've fought the BR Brigade and won multiple times, you work well with others-"

He took a slow, deep breath.

"-so I suppose that yes, you'd be excellent candidates for this mission."

"Fuck yes!" Tria yelled and threw her arms up in the air. Jura looked like he was gonna piss his pants and that just added to her enjoyment of this whole situation. Stryker was clearly focusing on her reactions because Jura's gloom was completely ignored by him.

The captain chuckled softly. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but please keep in mind this will be a dangerous mission," he continued, crossing his arms. "You should definitely bring some friends with you that you trust."

Tria felt like her eyes were gonna bust out of her skull. "I get to bring a friend?! Holy shit!"

"Oh god," Jura murmured off to the side.

Prof. Little cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention back to him. "Well, if that's the plan, go get ready and meet me by the garage as soon as possible."

"Dope, I can do that," Tria said, and then she cracked a grin and started walking towards the elevator.

"Good luck!" she heard Stryker say, but at that point Tria was getting hype tunnel vision and didn't care at all.

Tria was so excited it was insane. Who knew her lame ass meeting would end up with a sick trip for her and her bro? Her bro, of course, being Dahlia and not at all Jura.

She jogged over to Europe at a breakneck speed, slapping her license against the reader so hard it was a wonder either didn't shatter. Then it was through the cold, disorienting portal, out of Europe's HQ, and over to the apartments. She was barely tired by the time she finished climbing the stairs up to Dahlia's floor, which didn't really mean anything to Tria but would be ridiculously impressive to anyone else.

The funny thing was, Tria didn't actually know what number Dahlia's room was. What she did know was approximately how far to walk and what felt right from visiting there so many times. Bursting with excitement, Tria went up to the door she assumed was her friend's and knocked.

Sure enough, Dahlia opened the door. She cracked a grin and leaned against her door frame. "Damn, that was fast. Wish my meetings were that short!" She laughed a bit at the end of that, pausing when she realized Tria looked like she was about to explode from excitement. "'Sup, dude?"

"You wanna time travel?!" Tria yelled, throwing her arms in the air. The amount of relief she felt just from screaming that was euphoric.

Dahlia, immediately catching on to her energy, perked up and pushed herself out of her leaning position. "I mean, hell yeah I do! But, uhhhh, what're you talkin' about?"

"We're going after Blackraven, dude! He time-traveled and we're following him," Tria said, ending that with a bit of a smug look. Dahlia's eyes lit up.

"Oh shit, you got put in charge of that?" she yelled, and then immediately turned back into her apartment. "Lemme grab my coat and I'll be ready to roll!"

There was some vague thumping in the background as Dahlia ran around grabbing stuff. At first it was just the coat, and then she was jogging into another room while she was putting that on, and then she came out of that room with her shoes and turned back towards Tria. She paused, dropped her shoes, and turned back towards the general inside of her apartment and yelled, "Yo guys, lock up whenever you're done starin' at each other!"

Finally, Dahlia slammed her door shut and grinned at Tria.

Tria laughed. "Didn't know Frett'n Presco were over. Guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"Freakin' swear they live with me sometimes," Dahlia added, then playfully elbowed Tria. "Guess I'd just need you to move in 'n we'd have the whole crew here!"

For some reason, that took Tria really off guard. She wasn't used to being surprised by stuff like that, and she definitely wasn't used to the brief moment of panic that made her heart jump in her chest. What the fuck. It was a joke, why was her brain freaking out?

So, she just laughed it off. "Hell yeah, dude," Tria said reflexively, unsure of whatever that was. Dahlia responded with laughter as well, which she probably would've noticed was a little nervous had Tria not been having a crisis of her own.

Eventually Tria just reverted to her immature, primal instincts to get her head space back to normal. She shoved Dahlia really hard, making her stagger away, and then yelled, "Race ya' to Asia!"

The resulting adrenaline rush from taking off running wiped her brain clean of unpleasant thoughts.

Jura felt like he was dying. Logically, he knew he wasn't, but the rest of his body thought it was and was currently winning that argument. He was sweaty, shaky, and had an overwhelming sense of dread hanging over him. It was awful. He really didn't want to time travel. Something always went wrong with time travel, hadn't anyone seen a movie before?

At some point he realized he'd blindly walked over to the cafeteria. Normally he wouldn't want to be somewhere decently loud while he was in the middle of an anxiety attack, but he was hungry and most of the dinner rush was over with anyways. So, silently, he walked up to the counter and started getting some pizza. To a certain extent, Jura felt like he was in a trance as he got his food and added a lemon to his plate.

He briefly scanned the cafeteria and found the empty table the furthest from any people. Jura took a wide loop around the room to avoid human contact and sat down at the table. His shaky hand picked up the lemon, which he stared at for a few moments, and then finally bit into it, skin and all.

Almost instantly his brain started screaming and shifted from panic to screaming at him for biting something with a bad texture AND a bad taste. Jura spit it out on his plate and squeezed his eyes shut, the sourness forcing his face to scrunch all up. After a bit the taste dulled down and he took a deep breath, finally relaxing enough to think kinda clearly. It was at that point he noticed Nibbles sitting beside him with a horrified look on his face.

"What?" Jura managed after a few seconds.

"Gross," Nibbles said flatly. Jura smiled just a little bit and turned back to his actual food.

He took a few bites of pizza and sighed. "God, this is nerve-wracking. I don't wanna do normal missions with Tria, let alone time travel."

Nibbles rubbed against Jura's face, shooting him an encouraging smile. Jura returned the gesture weakly, then took another bite of his food. His eyes unfocused after a while and he forced his brain to go completely blank.

This was a bad move, apparently, because all of a sudden he heard a tray clack against the table next to him which made him jump. Eyes wide, his head whipped around to look at the source of the noise. It was Mei Lian.

She noticed his panicked look and laughed nervously. "Oh shoot, sorry! I didn't mean to scare you."

"I-it's alright," Jura said quickly, trying his best to suppress the shakiness in his voice, "I'm kinda on edge right now, not your fault."

Upon realizing he wasn't mad, Mei Lian grinned and sat down beside him. However, she quickly forced it away and tried to make herself look concerned. Lucky for her, Jura was busy staring at his plate and missed that entirely.

After a few minutes of silence between them, she cleared her throat. "Well, um, I heard from Tria you got to meet someone famous, that's, uh, neat."

Jura snapped out of his silent trance. "Oh, um, yeah, I got to meet a couple masked fighters today."

"That's cool!" Mei Lian said maybe a little too desperately. Jura shrugged.

"I mean, it was, I'm just too stressed right now to still think so," he said, letting out a loud sigh at the end. "This job is such a rollercoaster, god."

Mei Lian seemed genuinely confused by that. "You guys got all the cosmonium, right?"

He briefly glanced in her direction. "I mean, yeah, but that's the problem. Stryker wants me'n Tria to, uh-" he paused to swallow "-to do the time traveling ourselves."

Her eyes lit up. "Woah, that's awesome!"

"Why does everyone think that?" Jura shot back a bit angrier than even he expected. He mentally shrunk back inside himself upon hearing his tone. "I-I mean, uh, have you seen movies? Time travel's dangerous! I don't wanna get trapped or make myself not exist or change the course of history!"

Mei Lian gently whacked him on the shoulder. "You think wayyyy too much," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "I mean, would Stryker send a couple kids somewhere super dangerous?"

He hunched his shoulders up. "I mean I'd hope he wouldn't, I really do."

"Exactly!" She beamed at him and Jura couldn't help but smile back just a little bit.

"I, uh, I guess you might be right," he murmured. He hadn't hung out with Mei Lian in a while, he'd forgotten she could be nice company when she wasn't having daddy issues.

"There ya go!" she said. She shook him a little bit playfully and turned back to her dinner.

Somehow, Jura felt himself relax. He took a deep breath to help his chest loosen up and returned to his food. Pizza was nice. He took pizza for granted too much.

They sat there in silence, just eating for a few minutes and enjoying the moment of serenity. Jura looked to his right, taking in the peaceful sight of Nibbles crunching down some fried chicken. Then, he glanced over at Mei Lian. It was kinda impressive how nice this exact moment was in comparison to the rest of his day.

He cleared his throat. "Hey, uh, Mei Lian."

"Yeah?" She said, surprisingly calm for once.

"Would you maybe, uh-" He looked away from her "-want to, uh, want to do the time travel mission with me?"

Mei Lian's eyes lit up. "Wait, really?

Jura scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, I mean, it'd be nice to uh, to have someone around that actually likes me."

She didn't seem to hear that part, though, because Mei Lian immediately pulled him into one of her way-too-tight hugs. "Ohmygosh you're awesome, Jura! I love you so much! I'm gonna go get ready gimme like 10 minutes okay byeee!"

And then Mei Lian was tearing off to god knows where at top speed. Jura blinked once and then looked back to his food.

"I gotta make chiller friends," Jura murmured. Nibbles nodded in agreement.

Hey guys I'm not dead but my phone might be! Life's been hectic for me but hey I got a new job and I'm living in Texas rn for the next 6 months! Sorry for the shorter chapter, just wanted to get this out so my brain can stop being anxious about not posting anything for ages. Next chapter will DEFINITELY come out faster ha ha, I'm settling into my work routine and Texas in general so i'm getting my creativity back.

Main issue is, as stated, my phone MIGHT be dead. It got a tiny bit wet while i was listening to music in the shower, this has happened tons of time before this, but now it's not charging at all and I'm freaking out a little bit. Hopefully it starts charging bc I REALLY cannot afford a new phone and also replacing it would suck real freaking hard.

Anyways, thanks for hanging in there with me! Love your reviews cottonmouth, they fill me with so much joy ha ha, please keep writing them even if they're short! And that goes for everyone else, reviews keep me going! Thanks for all your support over the years guys, again new chapter will def be sooner than this one took ha ha :)