Under the cover of night, Lura moved her ship into the backyard of Rosalie and Will's house. After parking her ship, Lura returned to the forest to see if she could find where Respyn was staying.

She was cautious as she searched, now knowing he was a significant threat. The humiliation she felt from how easily she was bested left her antsy. Even if she wanted to go back and rest a bit more, she couldn't bring herself to do that. Such a blunder would have surely led to discipline from her commanding officer if he had been here.

With thoughts like that clouding her mind, Lura continued her search until sunrise. At the sight of the sun peeking over the horizon, Lura decided to head back to the house. With morning here, she could begin working with Rosalie to try fixing her ship.

The walk back felt long as she kept replaying the fight in her head. She thought over every step she took, every attack she made, just to try and figure out what her mistake was.

As she reached the front door, Lura shook her head trying to get the thoughts out. Before she could enter, Lura could hear Will loudly watching TV. She opened the door and entered, but was shocked to find it wasn't only Will watching TV.

Beside Will was a red, bipedal monster. It stood around three feet tall, had crimson red scales that looked sharp to the eye, but were smooth to the touch. It had big ears that flopped down to the side of its head, and a long lizard-like tail with a tuft of black hair on the tip.

"What is this?" Lura asked, shocked at the sight before her.

"Ah, Lura!" Will said, surprised by hearing her suddenly. He approached the alien woman to explain, passing by his mother who had fallen asleep in her computer chair only a few hours ago.

"That's Cosmo. When I woke up this morning he had gotten really big."

Lura stared at the monster for a moment trying to comprehend what Will had just said. She could see the resemblance, but the rapid growth was hard for Lura to understand.

"This is the creature that hatched from the egg? How is this possible?" Lura asked, not pointing the question at anybody in particular. Her disbelief had made her involuntary utter the question to the universe itself.

"That's right, but watch this." Will said, as he turned his attention towards Cosmo. "Cosmo, come over here."

Hearing his name, Cosmo turned away from the TV, which currently had the show the red reptile was named after on it. He walked like a raptor, his back angled so he leaned forward and his arms lifted at the elbow to be parallel to his head.

Cosmo stood in front of Will, looking at him curiously wondering what he had been called over for.

Will pointed a finger at himself and asked, "What's my name?"

"W-Will," the monster answered in English, though with a bit of hesitation as it tried to say Will's name right.

"And what's your name?" Will asked as he pointed at Cosmo.

"Cosmo."

"And what about her? What's her name?" Pointing at Rosalie Will asked the same question.

"Mom." Cosmo answered.

"That's right, good job." Will praised Cosmo as he petted the creature's head.

Rosalie giggled at the conversation between the two.

Lura watched in stunned silence as this unfolded before her. It had been a long time since Cosmo had been sealed in the egg, most Kitanian's didn't even believe they could actually hatch. To see him not only alive and moving, but to be able to speak felt like a weird fantasy.

Not much was known about the creatures other than they had battled alongside Kitanian warriors Gil and Iora, and eventually went on a rampage after their masters' deaths. This led to the army at the time being forced to kill them. Not once had Lura heard any mention of them being intelligent enough to speak.

While Lura's mind was racing, Will moved directly beside her. Pointing his finger at Lura, Will spoke to Cosmo. "This is Lura. Can you say Lura?"

"L-L-Lura." Cosmo repeated Lura's name as best he could.

"Great job." Will said excitedly as he rushed back to Cosmo's side and began petting his head again.

After a moment of playing, Will and Cosmo made their way back to the television. Lura made her way to her couch, and sat silently.

"Why does everything keep getting more and more complicated?" Lura asked herself in her mind.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

It was midday before Rosalie had woken up. Lura had spent the time since she returned sitting silently on the couch lost in her thoughts. Will and Cosmo spent the entire morning watching Intergalactic Hero Cosmo, with Will teaching Cosmo the names of the special attacks.

Will was a well behaved boy, but even well behaved children can still get loud. That's why despite the constant screams of "Solar Punch" and "Graviton Kick" Rosalie managed to sleep like a baby. She was used to the noise.

When she finally did wake up she was quick to start looking at Lura's ship after everybody had a quick lunch. She had set aside a collection of materials the night before, and now she was comparing them to pieces of the ship to see if they matched up.

After a few hours of tinkering, Rosalie had rigged up the communications device to as close a match as possible with what materials she had. Lura climbed into the ship and gave it a try, but it still didn't work.

"No good, huh?" Rosalie asked.

Without a word Lura just shook her. She crawled out of the ship to look at the work Rosalie had done and didn't see anything wrong with how the wires and mechanism had been put together.

Looking toward Rosalie, Lura said, "All the parts look to be in the right place. It must be the materials that aren't compatible."

"That's a problem." Rosalie said. "Who knows what pieces aren't working. It could be just one throwing the whole thing off, or it could be all of them.

"I'd say our best bet would be to head out to the hardware store and buy as many possible pieces as I can find and just do trial and error. I have a couple of old computers that don't get used anymore, so I'll strip the parts out of those and see if they can be useful.

"I'll start with the computers for now and head to the hardware store tomorrow." Rosalie said, packing up her tools and heading back inside the house.

Lura watched Rosalie walk away before turning her attention back to her ship. She decided, for now, she would fiddle with it herself to pass the time.

The rest of the day passed rather peacefully. Rosalie scavenged the house for parts she could try using to fix Lura's ship, Lura used the parts Rosalie had already provided her and kept at trying to fix the ship, and Will and Cosmo spent the day in front of the TV practicing special moves they saw on the show.

Not long after a dinner of frozen meals, everybody began turning in for the night.

The next morning, Rosalie left to go buy materials to use in Lura's ship repair. When she left Will and Cosmo were again lost in their television show, and Lura simply sat on the couch watching them.

Not long after Rosalie left, Lura got up and made her way to the door. She had hit a dead end currently with her ship, but there were still other things she needed to get done.

Noticing Lura getting ready to leave, Will called out to her. "Lura, where are you going?"

"I'm heading into the forest to see if I can find where that thief is hiding out. Even if I'm not sure how to go about capturing him yet, it will be useful to know where he is holed up when I figure out a plan." Lura responded, opening the front door.

"We'll come help you look." Will said, turning off the TV.

Cosmo was slightly disappointed when Will turned off the TV, but began following Will when he saw him heading for the door. Watching Intergalactic Hero Cosmo had become something the Lizard-like creature had come to really enjoy. Though his relationship that had been forming with Will was more important.

Over these couple of days Will and Cosmo had become inseparable. They had practically become siblings in this short amount of time.

"Fine, you and the monster can come along, but don't wander off." Lura said, figuring the extra pairs of eyes would be helpful.

Lura, Will, and Cosmo made their way to the forest. Lura had been watching over the other two with great interest since the egg hatched. The creature wasn't what she had expected from the stories told about them, but it was still young and had the potential to become as dangerous as the legends said.

Especially with how quickly it grew, Lura was unsure what to expect from it. It once again growing rapidly and attacking in the night was a thought that had crossed her mind. She had considered putting the creature down now, while it was still young, but knew doing so would be difficult with Will and Rosalie watching over it. So she had decided to keep observing for now, and only act if it became necessary. She had lucked out in meeting people so willing to help her, and she couldn't afford to chase them off before her ship's communications were repaired.

The alien, the human, and the monster arrived at the forest and began their search. Lura had warned Will and Cosmo that making unnecessary noise could spell trouble for them.

Will, being a well managed boy, took Lura's words to heart. He made sure not to speak unnecessarily, and was watching his steps to try and avoid making noise as he moved as much as possible.

Cosmo, who was still young and unsure what was happening, was guided by Will. Will made sure Cosmo spoke as little as possible, and taught Cosmo how to quietly move in the forest. Mimicking Will's movements, Cosmo also kept his steps as quiet as he could.

Lura was leading the way, but all three were doing their best to look for any signs of Respyn. Having received training on how to track people, Lura tried her best to put those skills to use. She struggled though since this was her first time actually putting them to use in the field. On top of her inexperience, this forest had been disturbed many times over these last few days. Respyn, Lura, and the Grays had all walked through this forest many times now. A broken branch, or snapped twig could have come from any of them.

The search was slow and meticulous. Lura was dead set on finding Respyn's whereabouts, so she was making sure no stone was left unturned. Little progress was made over the next hour, as the group inched their way through the forest.

Finally, Lura found something. An animal's footprint was left in a soft spot in the dirt. Seeing as how Lura was not knowledgeable with this planet's wildlife, she beckoned Will over to take a look at the print. It only took a glance for Will to know the print was not made by something from this planet. The toes were long and skinny, with webs between them. There were three toes on the front of the foot, as well as three toes facing behind.

Lura only had a couple of footprints to work with, but it was enough to give them a direction to search in. The group continued to cautiously search as they made their way in the direction the footsteps were heading. As they proceeded Lura was unable to find many more signs of them, so they quickly went back to just checking every nook and cranny as they progressed.