As the Janus crew drifted through space, still waiting for Chronos to finally make an appearance after not being around for two days, they were suddenly contacted again by the Athena crew. The unexpected call was brought with an even more unusual reasoning. It took only a few minutes before the two ships were connected and the Athena crew brought Ren and his friends aboard their ship.
"Why do you think we'll know who this person is?" Kennie asked as he followed behind Ren, glancing around the ship and taking in some of the repairs that were evident around the walls.
Each one of the Janus crew had their suspicions of who the mystery person on board of the Athena ship was, but none particularly wanted to admit it to them. The crew followed behind the Athena crew, who was leading them towards the cameras where they kept the captured video of the mystery man disappearing and reappearing throughout the ship.
Skylar turned back around to answer, "you guys were acting suspiciously when we met last time, and we think this is linked."
Despite hoping that their thoughts of who the person was are false, they were almost certain that it is who they think it is. It would've explained a lot if it was him, and then they would have to explain a lot, mainly why he was even in space when he's not been trained or taught.
"Here," Adrian said, pointing towards the security room, "this way."
As the group made their way into the thin room, they were suddenly stopped by Darius and Adrian abruptly pausing as their eyes laud upon the sleeping teen sat at the monitors. His curly blonde hair messily spread across the desk as his head softly rested in his crossed arm, like he had been staring at the screens for hours checking on whether people were coming closer to him so he could hide.
"Chronos?!" Kennie unconsciously exclaimed, instantly covering his mouth afterwards.
"So you do know him?" Darius said, a little smirk playing at his lips as he witnessed the rest of the Janus crew's guilty expressions formed, "thought so, care to explain yourselves?"
Hesitance ran through the crew's veins as they glanced between each other, waiting for someone else to take the lead on this explanation. It barely took a few minutes before Marcus spoke up, not to explain anything but to focus blame onto Ren.
"I told you we shoulda just dumped him on a random planet," he complained, "but, no, we had to keep him aboard and now look at the mess we're in."
"It's not my fault we're in this mess," Ren argued back, standing up to Marcus as the two got closer and prepared to brawl, "you coulda easily fessed up when we first met them, but you simply followed along and hid Chronos too."
"It wasn't even my idea to hide Chronos initially." Marcus retorted, "and if you had done better with his hiding situation, he would've never ended up on this ship!"
"I was leading the conversation with Adrian and his crew!" Ren yelled, ready to throw fists once Marcus hits first, "I couldn't just pause and turn to Chronos to ask him where he's gonna hide."
As the two continued yelling at each other, Kennie finding it quite amusing but refrained his laughter as the Athena crew just allowed the argument to proceed, hoping to learn a thing or two about the mystery man. Luciel, unfortunately, found himself between the two tall men whose faces looked as if a fight was ready to happen at any moment.
"I really think we should stop this," Aria said, quietly to Adrian, "it could end ugly."
Silently nodding, Adrian responded with, "a few more minutes, they're bound to yell out something important."
Unable to keep his laughter under control anymore, Kennie burst out into a fit of giggles as he latched his hand onto Adrian's shoulder, steadying himself as he said, "if you're waiting for information, you'll not get anything," his laughter barely let him say each word, "we hardly know anything about the kid."
As each eye was focused on the fight between the pilot and space physicist of the Janus crew, Chronos slowly began regaining consciousness as he glanced up and peered his jade eyes around the small room. Unexpectedly locking his eyes with the engineer of the Athena crew, Adrian, he abruptly turned back around and pretended he was asleep once again.
"I don't think it'll be necessary to find anything out from them two anymore," he said, making his way towards Chronos as Aria proceeded to stop the argument between Ren and Marcus, "it seems he as awoken."
Having moved over to the bridge of the ship, the Athena crew all sat at their stations as the Janus crew were pushed against the back metal wall with Chronos sat in the centre and all eyes laid upon him. No one spoke a word for quite a while. It seemed as if the Athena crew still wondered where to begin in their questioning.
It took no more than a couple of minutes before Adrian spoke up, directing his words to Chronos, "you are... Chronos, correct? At least, that's the name you're going by now."
Innocently, he nodded, "pretty much."
"Why's that?" Adrian continued, "why not be referred to by your real name?"
He crossed his legs as he thought about it for a moment, "well, why does it matter? Whether or not I go by my birth name shouldn't cause any problems, right?"
This time, Darius perked up, "but when we refer you back to the people on Earth, we'll need your name."
"Then I can tell you it when we reach Earth." It was evident that Chronos wasn't backing down, regardless of how long the Athena crew was going to question him about every little thing about the boy. From asking him about his name to his origins and then questioning his intentions of being on the ship. They didn't skip anything, it was almost like they had mental lists of what they had to ask.
"Hey." Suddenly, Chronos interrupted Aria as she asked him about his past, "shouldn't I at least gain a thank you before you continue treating me like I'm here to cause harm."
"A thank you?" Ren questioned, "from us or...?"
"From them." He pointed to the Athena crew, "they'd be dead without me."
"Wai- what?" Skylar said, puzzled, "you've not seen you until you appeared in security."
Out of nowhere, he hauled out a torch and started flicking it on and off, "don't tell me you already forgot?"
Suddenly, Darius leapt from his chair and exclaimed, "you were the person who did morse code?!"
"Wait! You know morse code?" Kennie abruptly exclaimed.
Ignoring the questions that he couldn't think of a good enough answer, he simply said, "so, my thank you?"
Rising from his seat, Adrian gratefully thanked Chronos, explaining how they were indebted to him for saving then from the blizzard. However, despite all the compliments and nice things the crew were saying, it didn't help move the initial topic of conversation away from Chronos' origins.
"Anyway," Adrian said, returning to his seat, "back to what we should do with him."
All eyes returned to Chronos, each one deeply thinking about whether they should directly head back to Earth or do something else. Many options rose, from dumping him on a random planet to just keeping an eye on him as he remained on the ships. However, in the end, nothing was ultimately decided.
"How about we try to find them?" Darius asked, leaning back in his seat, "they may know what to do."
Adrian, his hazelnut eyes filled with indecisiveness as he ruffled his chestnut hair, trying to make up his mind.
"As much as I would want to," he began, "we haven't had much luck contacting them."
"Wait- you don't mean..." Luciel stuttered as his words lingered without an end.
"You're right, Luciel," Ren exclaimed, his eyes glowing slightly as he realised who Adrian and Darius were talking about, "let's find the Polaris crew!"