When a ship goes into space, it maintains the previous sense of time as the planet it left. It can be five galaxies away from the planet, and it's clocks and time-based devices stay tuned in the previous planet it launched on. So when Marvelous exploded on his father's ship, it was about 7:30PM. He and Ahim fell asleep around 10:00PM.

Marvelous opened his eyes. The room was dark, probably due to the ship's power down at night to save energy. The only light in the room was the light from the windows above his bed. He looked around, remembering where he was, and the events preceding his slumber. His face fell, but it smiled when he looked down and saw his angel snuggled into his jacket and chest. He started to play with the bow in her hair. She was so soft, gentle, feminine...heavenly. She was from a completely different universe to him.

As he played with her bow, the movement caused Ahim to open her eyes. There was an innocence that glowed in her eyes. Though tired, she couldn't help but smile. "Marvelous..." "Ahim-san..." He moved in a kissed her cheek, and moved to kiss her neck. The sensation was undeniably to both. "Ahim," Marvelous said. "I'm sorry for what occurred tonight. I know I'm a pirate, but I will never let my impulses act to hurt you." He stroked her bangs out of her face. "I need you too much." Him snuggled closer. "I need you too much, too."

It was silent for a moment. "Ahim. I don't know what to do. I...I..." He was genuinely speechless. Ahim couldn't help but feel sympathy. She decided to finally tell him what she thought from the moment he attacked Drake. "My parents are no longer here." Marvelous was surprised by the statement, but knew where she was going with it. "The sight of their deaths before my eyes..." Her eyes started to tear. "I...don't know if I will ever erase the image from my mind. Their bodies...burned and bloody, as I was being pulled away, as if to say, 'You can't mourn them'. But I also know that I will never forget the other memories. My mother showing me how to make tea...my father taking time out of his day to play with me in the gardens..." Ahim got Marvelous and herself to sit up. "Marvelous...Alexander." That name threw him off guard. "You have a chance to regain something you lost as a child...and I lost a short time ago. You need answers. Closure. Something I never had the opportunity for. You may not like him...you may never want to never see him again...and I can't change that..." Her voice finally cracked. "But I have to help change things for the better when the opportunity presents itself! Alexander! He is your father!...Please talk to him..."

Marvelous sat motionless. Finally, in a flat yet sincere tone, he answered. "Alright." He took off his jacket, and wrapped it around Ahim. He set her back down on her back, facing him. He stood and tucked Ahim underneath the blankets. He knelt to take a good look at her. The stared at each other, motionless, and silent. Taking her chin in his hand, he kissed her softly, as if to silently say good night. He turned around and walked out the room, staring deeply into her drooping eyes as he silently closed the door. Under his breath, he whispered, "Sleep well, my princess..."

He looked to his left. It was dark, save for the light from the windows in the main room. But the most visible object in the darkness was the open door to the cockpit. And sitting in front of the controls and windscreen was undoubtedly his father. Marvelous walked slowly towards the room, his eyes fixated on the figure sitting in the chair. When he finally entered the door way, Drake was in the chair, holding a bottle of water in his left hand. "Please," said Drake, surprising his biological son, "take a seat." Marvelous nervously took the seat to his biological father's right. Drake held a calm composure. He knew what questions were about to come his way. And he knew he had nothing to hide.

Marvelous started the conversation. "How did you know? How did you know I'm your son?" He was growing unsettled by Drake's emotionless expression. "Where did you get those weapons and that Key? Why are you trying to stop the Zangyack?" Still no answer. Unknown to Marvelous, Luka, Don, Joe, Gai, and Navi sat on the chairs in the main room, eavesdropping. Don and Luka nearly gave it away, when Don tripped and fell, and Luka when she had to cover his mouth. "Damn it!" Marvelous was getting frustrated. "How did you know it was me on that ship? Huh!? WHY WEREN'T YOU THERE WHEN WE NEEDED YOU!

Marvelous started to sweat and pant. Finally, Drake took a deep breath, and answered, his face still looking out the windshield. "When I was about twelve years old, I ran away from home. Heh, it wasn't a home; I was born in a brothel when a pimp and one of his whores had too much fun one night. For the next five years, I roamed the planets, drinking, fighting, stealing...fucking...there was nothing I wouldn't do for a thrill. In a sense, I was trying to validate my parents' behavior, as if to say I wasn't an unwanted accident.

"But...I always loved the stars. I'd look up on clear nights and when I would fly ships in the solar systems... And one night, when I was sitting up in a tree, I was just gazing...and then...

The young man propped his feet up and looked into the sky. He may have had scores of mob bosses, bar owners, pimps, prostitutes, angry fathers, angry boyfriends, and more after him with pitchforks and torches, but up here, at the top of a tree four stories tall, he was in his own world.And tonight, the meteor shower was starting. His eyes glimmered. At least twelve stars were falling from the sky. It was beautiful, wonderful...exquisite... Then a devilish grin appeared on his face. He stood up and walked to the edge of the branch. Taking out his gun, he pointed to the sky. With all the rapidly falling stars, he fired, and managed to knock a star off its' expected path.

But he had no time to cherish his small victory. A gun shot was heard...Far too close to Drake's location. He quickly turned around and pointed his gun. At the end of the opposite branch, on the other side of the tree...was a woman in a red jacket, pointing her gun at him...

"We started working together. We were partners in crime. We'd loot banking ships, intimidate mob bosses...harass corrupt planet officials..."He was smiling. Marvelous - as well as the rest of the crew - were completely entranced. "Every time we hit it big...we'd rush into hotel rooms and...well, your mother counted the money and what she would buy. I would...well..." Marvelous and the crew were completely entranced by Drake's story.

"Then something happened ... and ever since ... nothing's ever been the same."

Drake walked down the hallway. The king he left in his room was in tears, knowing that someone had finally found his secret. Drake grinned devilishly. He put his gun on his shoulder, and in his left hand was a bag of diamonds. He and Eleanor could make a FORTUNE out of these jewels...if he could somehow convince her to sell them instead of keep them.

Anyway, it was new experience for Drake. Castles were symbols of abuse of power, of excess, of pure political corruption. Here he was, having avoided the castle guards and security, made his way through some safes, and in a desk, he found some financial files, and connected the dots from the information. The king of this planet had been to about three halfway houses over a period of five months. And Drake decided to use that as leverage against a king foolish enough to go again that particular night.

However, he was not the only one who walking down those halls. "Return those diamonds!" commanded a voice from behind. Drake turned around. Before his eyes, illuminated in the hallway windows, was a woman his age, dressed in a pink and white nightgown. She was an Aphrodite to his eyes; yet she was firm in conviction. "You are very lucky I am the one who found you before the royal guards. Now return that which has belonged to my family for generations before, so they may be inherited by the generations that follow me." Drake wasn't going to fight an unarmed, sheltered princess. He simply grinned, rolled his eyes, and turned to walk away.

However, just as his back turned, a sharp pain hit his back. It was a large ball, shot to his spine, and knocking him down. He looked back to the princess, who was now wielding a shotgun. "If you will not respond with an answer, I will not ask questions." She walked to Drake. He tried to grab his gun, but she shot his right hand and his left shoulder, causing immense pain. As he laid back and groaned in pain, he looked up to the barrel of her shotgun. "Draco William Rex." said the princess, holding her recovered diamonds under her arm. "No surprise here. The son of a criminal will become also become a criminal, without proper care and guidance." "Heh," muttered Drake. "I can't here you condescend about power, choice or hope with your head so far up your royal crown ass." The princess was unmoved. "Who's condescending: The one whose willing to face her father and his atrocious actions out of love and hope, or the one who is so fearful and damaged, that he runs away from what he hates about his own father, only to become what damaged him enough to commit such awful atrocities that damaged him?"

Drake growled. He was about to stand up and push her off, but she fired another ball at his right shoulder. He jolted in pain. " According to the intergalactic criminal databases, you have an IQ of 178. You have awesome physical reflexes, with complete mental and physical control over the smallest twitch of your body. You have the technological grasp of the finest engineers, you are a polyglot of sixteen languages, you can run around this planet five times before you need to rest. Yet with all your talent, you don't have enough insight to solve the dilemmas of your heart. I won't turn you in. Until you discover what it is that you TRULY want, you be in your own hell forever. Heaven is open to all who work to enter its' gates." She walked off in the opposite direction of the hallway.

"She was right. Absolutely right. I ... was a scared little boy underneath. It was easy to simply run around without any responsibility to anything but my own impulses. That's... the mental anatomy of a three-year old. That was my father..." he looked at Marvelous with a watery eye. "... and now that was me. I went back to the cheap motel that your mother and I were hiding in. I was drunk, she was drunk... the next morning, I completely broke down. She cradled me in her arms, and as I held her back, I realized that she was what I wanted. We embraced. We stole an abandoned ship and sailed off into space. Nine months later..." he smiled at his son. "You were born."

Drake looked back out the window. "When you were about a year old...The Planet Zangyack had declared war on all the planets in its solar system. We happened to be passing through..."

The hits becoming too much to bear. Drake strapped Eleanor and Alexander into her seat. "YOU CAN'T! WE HAVE TO..." "ELEANOR!" Drake had never raised his voice at Eleanor before this attack. "I can keep them distracted while you two get away in the escape pod. The ship doesn't have auto-pilot, and I don't have time to re-adjust anything to hold the Zangyack off." They stared into each other's eyes. The ship was starting to shake violently. Baby Alexander started to cry. "Shhhh! It's alright, Alexander," said Eleanor as she cradled him in her arms.

Drake set the final coördinates and grabbed the top hatch of the pod. "I know which planet you'll go to, and I'll get there once I take out Ackdos Gill. He's only the president of one planet anyway." He stared into Eleanor's eyes. "I will return, I promise." The proud parents kissed for what would be their last time. Drake looked down at his son, staring into his beautiful black baby eyes. "Stay marvelous, Alexander!" He closed the hatch, and tears formed as he turned to run back to the controls. As the ship turned right to divert the Zangyack warships, the escape pod flew to the left. Drake watched as the pod vanished into space unscathed. The same, however, could not be said for Drake...

"I ran the ship until I was shot down into a jungle planet. I was left for dead, but I was alive. I was just missing my eye, my front of my stomach wall, some parts of my left knee joint, the top skin on my right arm, and some of my chest plate that protected my heart. I spent a long time crawling around the ground, gathering pieces of the ship, and made pieces of my body. It took some doing. By the time I managed to get out, that planet - her home planet - had been taken over. I searched for her there, but couldn't find you two." Tears streamed from the eyes of everyone in earshot. "I wandered as a hermit for years - until one day, I saw a 'WANTED: CAPTAIN MARVELOUS' poster inside a bar. The name, the jacket, the hair ... I knew.. I just...knew."

Finally, Drake slowly stood up, and looked out the window. "It's about 3:00 AM now. The best time to attack the base of operations at the Zangyack Home-World would be at the planet's morning. So let's get some sleep, about seven hours, and then head to the base. I know I didn't answer all of your questions...but I tried to give you the answers you needed for so long." He turned around and walked to his quarters. He didn't change his stride when he walked past the emotionally shell-shocked crew. Marvelous simply looked out the window. He wasn't at a lost for words, or searching for answers. He was simply wondering. Wondering what his father and his mother saw in the stars that brought them together.

(I will get back to Marvelous and Ahim. I promise. Their relationship will be EXTREMELY integral to the rest of the story.)