Keeping track of time was getting harder and harder as the Space Pirates traveled from 73 B.C. to 1718 to 636, sending off one of the minions in hopes of their successes and replacing them with another once they fail. Currently succeeding in two eras, Sheer has brought two round jewels from the first two time periods. One yellow and one blue.

These two jewels—Cosmos Stones—were what the locator was supposed to find, and the Space Pirates were after more.

Once the first stone—known as a Raiden Ball, stolen from a gladiator from Ancient Rome—was analyzed by the Ancients to know what type of power to locate, they couldn't be more terrified. Whatever this thing was the amount of radiant energy it produced could power whole cities for years. The weirdest thing about it was the fact that it didn't seem to lose any of it; its energy regenerated.

And the Space Pirates were looking for more of them, seven in total. That was the most worrying bit.

During their escorts to build the locator, the Ancients tried to look for a way to leave the ship, a place where they could lead the others to once they'd all managed to leave the house. Gel Jarks led them on a set path that didn't allow them to explore more than a few corridors.

That's when the other came in. They were forbidden from leaving the house, but there was a way around it. Knowing that there is a whole room full of dinosaurs on the ship, the Drakes managed to convince the Space Pirates to be let in that room since as vets they could check on the animals and make sure that they're alright, giving them a chance to see a part of the ship the Ancients never could.

This left the Taylors as the ones to think of a way to get everyone out of the house without being spotted. There was only one way around this.

Once they all gathered, it was time to go over what the six of them got.

Spike was drawing the plan as the Drakes explained what they found.

"So, we have good and bad news," Amano informed the others, sitting on one of the couches beside her husband.

"It'd be nice to hear the good one first," Aki admitted, stumbling a bit closer.

The tall woman nodded. "The Pirates didn't bother to have any Gel Jarks watch over us."

"And the bad news?" Trias asked from the other couch, his arms rested on his legs, holding his hands together.

"We didn't manage to find an exit before we got escorted back," Ryunanaka replied, "and there are way too many dinosaurs they can use against us. ...or even the children."

"I wouldn't be worried about the kids with that," Spike chuckled, "they defeated tens of dinosaurs before. I doubt those three pointy ears can stop them that easily." He grinned reassuringly. "Found you anything about this room?"

Cretacia swiftly nodded. "The whole room is actually way bigger than what we see; there is a holographic platform which can be turned on and off. It is strangely made out of hard light."

"Hard light?" Ryu tilted his head confusedly.

In a quick motion, the blonde folded her arms on her chest, striking more of a serious pose. "A solidified state of light we have in the 2120s." She raised her hand slightly, holding her index finger up. "To put it simply, imagine glass that can be switched on and off like a flashlight or a laser, but unlike that, it doesn't have to cut through obstacles. The house is being held by a hard light floor which can be turned off at any point, literally floating in the middle of an approximately 50-meter-tall room."

Just the thought of the house hanging at such a height on something that can be turned off at any point was sickening.

Amano covered her mouth as her face turned pale. "That's... Oh my..." She shut her eyes, inhaling deeply.

Her husband reached to her back, rubbing it gently to soothe her, although, at the first touch, Amano's body shuddered and tensed up in surprise.

"Of course, that's all I got time for; accessing Spectre's database is way more complicated than we thought, especially in limited time spam," Cretacia explained, "the next time, I could try searching up the layout of the ship, but... I can't guarantee success."

"That might be the last remaining info we'd need to escape," Spike said.

"Does that mean you already have a plan, Dr. Taylor?" Trias asked him.

Spike let out a slight laugh as he drew a few last lines onto a big paper. "With some tiny tweaks, it'll be the greatest plan."

He laid the paper on the table in the middle of the group with a proud grin on his face. Everyone else's expressions were vastly different from his, spanning from confused to questioning. The plan that'd lead them to their freedom looked more like a child's drawing than anything else—a drawing of the most basic house took up nearly the whole paper.

The house had a hole in the floor with a ladder coming out of it—six stick figures right below the house. And then there was a Gel Jark just standing outside of the house with a few scribbles signifying their sounds.

As an artist, Aki had a hard time seeing the bad sketch. Of course, that was just the quick first impression. However, Cretacia interfering and adding a few details did not help.

Her image of perfect was drawing little details to the stick figures, like Amano's hair, Ryunanaka's needle, Spike's hat, or her own glasses—Aki and Trias didn't really have anything that special that could be drawn in.

"We're gonna dig through the floor?" Ryunanaka wondered.

"Exactly!"

"...and those 50 meters?" Amano murmured, looking up.

"That's the height of the room, right? We are somewhere in the middle of it. So, the important question is; can you guys knit?"

"You know that isn't a problem, but you don't mean..." Aki replied.

"I do," Spike exclaimed with a soft smile, "we'll need at least 25 meters of a ladder and also a hole in the floor to escape through. ...and of course, we'll need to be careful not to seem suspicious. So, what do you say? Are you with me?"

The others didn't take long to agree with determined smiles on their faces.

"We'll be out of here soon," Spike stated.

On the other side of the ship, the people they feared the most were just casually hanging out.

Sheer was reading a book while sitting on Gavro's back, who was doing push-ups on his right hand only. As she was sitting down, one of her feet was stepping on Gavro while the other one was hanging down. Sheer rested her arm on her knee.

"How many?" he asked.

"183, 184, 185..." Sheer counted with each push-up Gavro did, not even looking away from her book.

"How long do you think until Foolscap comes back?"

"Any minute now for sure; he tends to lose fairly quickly," the black-haired said, flipping through the pages, "you know that he's just a klutz when it comes to dino battles."

"True. But don't forget that boss decided that you're the next one up if Foolscap fails," Gavro reminded her.

A smirk just crossed Sheer's face. "When he fails."

And soon after she said, the door from the room opened and a slim man flew in, his head hanging low.

"Faster each time; that's a new record," Sheer mocked him.

Foolscap shot his head up. "Shut up. It wasn't my fault!"

"Whose fault was it then?" Gavro wondered and stopped his push-ups.

"That stupid monk chanted my dino and it attacked me," the blue Kai explained.

"Couldn't come up with a better excuse?" Sheer raised her eyebrow.

"I'm not making it up!" he snapped out.

"Whatever." Sheer flew up from Gavro and landed beside Foolscap. "Just give me the info.

"The cave where the Cosmos Stone is...it's blocked by a rock, only a crazy monk guy called Genzo Sanzo Hoshi can move it." Foolscap rubbed the back of his head, glancing at the woman. "And those kids were with him the last time I saw him. The coordinates of my latest location are set in your pod. Now I'm off to bed." He made his way to the other door.

"Just watch how it's done—I'll be back in no time," Sheer told her colleagues.

"No way I'm gonna watch, I need a nap," Foolscap groaned.

"Lazy pig," Sheer mumbled and left the room.

Gavro turned to his crewmate. "So, Foolscap, will you count my push-ups? "

Foolscap clicked his tongue and continued heading to the other door. "I'm not your workout buddy like her. Those kids really tired me. Peace out."

"Why do they both have to be so grumpy?" the buff man murmured before getting up.

Once the Ancients were called back to continue on the locator, it was time to make another move. As they were unwatched, Cretacia went to a lab right next door, a place with no cameras.

The room was dark with only weak light coming out of the monitor. Cretacia made her way to it and searching for the layout of the ship. A lot of things were quite hard to get to as everything worked differently than humans were used to. Especially the written language—so it was pure trial and error for Cretacia.

Soon a window popped up on the screen, showing the map. She took a quick glance at the room the house was in, seeing a vent at the bottom of the room, but then...the monitor turned into static.

An old voice then spoke up from the dark: "You shouldn't be snooping around, Christina."

Cretacia froze in place when she heard that voice, yet hearing that name made her blood boil. Only a few people knew that name... "You shouldn't call people by their dead names!" she snapped out.

A low chuckle sounded from the darkness and steps moved closer to her, a figure was slowly revealed by the light... A blue-haired man with red triangles on his cheeks.

He was really there...

"Seth... What are you doing here? H-how did you get here?!"

A smirk crossed Seth's face. "You're shaking. Do I look that terrifying?" He tilted his head. "The person who was willing to challenge Sheer is now trembling in fear. Pathetic, isn't it? Is it because of what I've done or is the hatred for that name really that strong?"

"Heh! You think I'm scared?" Cretacia grinned, pulling out her scissors. "Oh, ho, ho! Do you even realize who you're speaking to?"

"The person that nearly shaved my head when we were younger?" Seth commented sarcastically.

"Exactly!" Cretacia placed their hand on their hip. "So, if you don't want me to snip off your locks, I'd recommend keeping your mouth shut, Seefster!"

"That's not even my name," he objected.

"Ha! Christina isn't mine either! Not anymore!"

Seth seemed to ignore the rest. "Anyway, what have you found?"

"Oh, just a way to escape-" Cretacia immediately covered her mouth once she realized what she said.

The man just let out a snarky chuckle.

"I hate you," Cretacia growled, putting her hands down.

"I know. Anything new under the sun, doctor? I'd recommend at least not getting caught unless you want one of your friends to get dropped off the ship."

He knew exactly what buttons to push and he enjoyed that. Cretacia was aware of what he was trying to do, but couldn't do anything to prevent that—the body was trembling from that thought.

Seth turned around, walking back into the shadows. "You can be very pathetic when you're by yourself."

Cretacia wanted to snap out at him, but something was holding her back... Weirdly... it was impulse control... She instead headed out of the room—she saw what she needed. ...And she wouldn't be able to find more now...

Meanwhile, in the living room of the ship, Gavro was sitting down, lifting a weight, when the door opened and Sheer walked in.

The short woman's black hair was messy and even burned a bit and she had dark circles under her eyes.

Gavro looked at her. "Oh-"

"Don't. Say. A single. Word," she gritted through her teeth and made her way across the room, lying down on the couch. She grabbed one of the pillows, shouted into it.

"Those kids again?" he asked her.

"Unfortunately," she growled.

Gavro got up. "So, my turn."

Sheer raised her hand up, giving him thumbs up. "Go fuck them up."

Back at the house, the Ancients returned. They sat down on one of the couches; Cretacia was weirdly quiet and didn't even react to Trias taking her hand. She almost resembled Rex when he closes up from the world.

Despite being worried, Trias respected if his spouse didn't feel comfortable talking about it.

The thing that finally snapped Cretacia out was Aki bringing some tea. The brunette carried a tray, leaning over the couch, smiling as she placed a cup in Cretacia's hand. The blond smiled back. She really has her way with blonds, didn't she?

"Are you feeling a little better?" Aki wondered.

"B-better?" Cretacia froze for a moment.

Suddenly, she jumped up from the couch, nearly knocking the tray from Aki's hands while not spilling a single drop from her own tea. "I-I don't know what you're talking about! I always feel the best, so technically, I cannot feel be-better...!" A forced smile took over her face, her glance focused on the ceiling. "Oh, look, w-what happened that you got those two holes up there?" she quickly questioned, trying to change the subject.

"Well, certain someone was playing golf inside and doesn't know how to swing," Aki responded, glaring at Spike, who just grinned back apologetically.

It seemed like the change of the subject worked, until...

"Honey, you're a great actor; not many things can break you out of the role," Trias said, standing up, "you don't have to talk about what happened back then, but it might help." He places his hand on her shoulder. "Did you not manage to find an exit?"

"No! Well, kinda." Cretacia took a deep breath and immediately got back to her usual character. "I hacked into the ship's security and found a map." She was switching from position to position as she spoke. "And then the monitor went all like 'shhhhh', going totally static. And then from the shadows..."

"From the shadows?" the others wondered.

Cretacia nodded. "An edgy guy." She glared annoyedly. "With a rushed, hedgehog-like haircut." She ran her hand through her hair, making it slick back for a second to have similar to Seth's, the best she could at least. "And questionable make-up on his cheeks emerged." She put her index and middle fingers in the shade of a V to each of her cheeks.

Trias' eyes widened. "Make-up on cheeks? Rushed and hedgehog haircut...? You can't mean..."

"Yeah... Seth is on the ship," she replied disgustedly.

"He's still alive?" Spike gasped.

"Unfortunately," Cretacia groaned angrily.

"That wormhole thing must've led to the time warp..." he thought.

"So, the guy Zoe called 'the worst villain' is here, huh?" Ryu mumbled.

"That does complicate things," Spike realized.

"Yeah," Ryu agreed, "and it explains the dinosaurs. Though...I wouldn't want to know what he does to them..."

Their wives were looking from one to the other.

"Who is this Seth person?" Amano asked.

The two men glanced at one another, not sure if they should explain...

"A bastard," Cretacia answered with the most bitter tone they ever heard from her, "he's a selfish asshole! A complete piece of garbage of a human being! Kind of always has been. And...we shouldn't have trusted him."

"I hope you gave him what he deserves," Trias commented.

"I wish I did, too," Cretacia admitted, "bastard caught me off guard... And did what he does best."

Trias cupped her cheek, brushing his thumb against it reassuringly while giving her that adoring look. "What did he say?"

Leaning into his touch, she dropped the act a bit. "He called me 'Christina'..."

She felt her husband tense up at that name—he lost his cool so quickly. "That-"

"Hey, it's okay! It's not a big deal, honey! It did hurt hearing that from an old friend; that's how he got me not to beat him into a tiny ball. But... I accidentally slipped up about looking for a way to escape and he mentioned that if we get caught, he'll make sure to throw the others off the ship. Just like he did to us..."

"That...that explains a lot..." Trias whispered.

"I should have done something, instead of letting him mess with me like that."

Trias' smiled brightly at her. "Everything's going to be fine. We can't just lose hope like that!"

Wow, was Cretacia's typical optimism that contagious?

Maybe...

At least he hoped it would be like that now.

His wife beamed back happily. "You're right! Even if that asshole's in our way and tries everything he can to prevent us from escaping, the kids are still out there looking for us!"

It really was that contagious even now...

It made it so easy to bring her hope again.

Cretacia felt Trias' hand that was still on her cheek shake...

Despite all his attempts, he wasn't that good of an actor as Cretacia or Seth.

She knew well how much Trias doubted his own words...

Oh my, this took so long for me to finish. I'm so sorry for the wait. I decided to focus on Shadow World more as that was the main story when chapter 3 was released. And after that was done, I just didn't get myself to write anything really. This isn't my main project, it's really just for fun, so I doubt this will get updated that frequently.

Anyways, yes, Cretacia has a dead name in this story; basically, Cretacia isn't the name given to them at birth, but instead one it was changed to later in life. It has purposeful implications. If you're unhappy with that, you don't need to read the story. I'm not gonna go into details about this in the story as 1) this is stuff that can be easily written wrong and 2) it's not what the story is about, it's just a headcanon featured in this random story.

I hope you liked the chapter and that you won't have to wait that long again for a new chapter.