The mission control of sorts couldn't find a way to keep calm. It was as though the moment the laughter died down, so did any hope of staying positive.

Where the two teams were living in separate timelines, Team Present was living in different worlds. It was as though a chasm had opened between them, forcing the group apart.

The group's youngest two were wailing as they crumpled like unwanted paper under the pressure. Perhaps it was the worry and panic that polluted the once clear and breathable air that was choking the girls. Though the reason was unimportant, seeing as their uncontrollable bawling refused to quiet itself, even the slightest.

Team Present's older members were not faring any better.

Naturally, the mood was — to graciously understate — dampened by Lazari and Sally's hysterics. In fact, the suspense was now nonexistent. The unseen, yet all-too real barrier had been broken, and the tension plummeted as the panic and stress burst through the dam's weak walls. The two creepypastas without full sets of eyes were ready to break each other's necks. Clockwork and Eyeless Jack's mindless bickering (about who knows what) was gradually becoming louder. Consequently, the rest of the newly-nicknamed Modern Macaroni were forced to raise their voices, as though they were trapped in a tank, with the water levels rising, forcing their feet off the tiled bottom of the metaphorical pool.

Slenderman's pep talk wasn't going too well either. However, seeing as his audience consisted solely of the black-and-red chaos demon — and his former arch nemesis — not one word was being acknowledged. In fact, Zalgo's once-casual toe-stepping had escalated to harsh, abusive insults in a shouting match against his faceless rival. And, in truth, his sharp-tongued slander was by no means bettering the mood of the room.

Of the three that were left, the blonde was, arguably, the most important in the moment. Ben's red eyes, which were normally calm like pools of still blood, were now being filled with the real blood that were his tears. Of course, it had been about ten minutes since there had been any contact with Team Prehistoria. Sure, the amount of time that had passed wasn't great. Especially since the other team was millions of years in the past, and, in the grand scheme of things, ten minutes made no difference. But it can only take a second for everything to go awry. Fearing for the safety of the team, as not one had even a second of training. Nor did they even know what was going on. Though nobody had directly said anything, Ben could still hear the echo of his brother's voice, admitting that not one of them knew what Zalgo wanted to do, or how to do it.

Caving in to the stress and the fear, the blonde let out a frustrated: "ARGH!" before pulling on his hair and slamming his head into the desk, letting a few tears leak out of his eyes in pure indignation.

Like a caged animal, Hoodie walked the length of the room. Over and over, he continued pacing. Though he was not well versed in his emotions, he was still worried. His white-masked opposite and he were like two peas in a pod. Hoodie feared for Masky's safety and, though he hated to admit it, Toby's too. After all, the trio of proxies were so close, they were their own kind of family. Even emotionally stunted, he was acutely aware of the devastation the death of either proxy would bring upon him. Masky was the closest friend Hoodie ever had. Joined at the hip, if something happened to the proxy in the white mask, the blow would strike the hoodied proxy like an out-of-control truck. Losing Masky was comparable to losing a sibling, or even a child. And, though he hated to admit it, Toby meant almost as much to Hoodie.

In other words: it was chaos. Curses, screams, wails, and threats bounced around the room like the small rubber balls found in vending machines and party loot bags. Had someone walked in, completely unbeknownst to the situation, it would be the real-world equivalent of a cliché movie scene in which some innocent civilian walks into a room where a troop of self-aware gorillas are quite literally bouncing off the walls. The children were screaming, drowning in hysterics. Slenderman and Zalgo — two unnervingly powerful demons — were at each other's throats, ready to rip each other apart like some kind of sick paper shredders. Ben was now shouting and pulling at his hair as though he were tied up in a straight jacket in a padded cell. And though Clockwork and Eyeless Jack were mostly arguing, every now and then someone would throw a punch or try to slap the other across the mouth. Thankfully, none of these were enough to escalate into a full-blown fight.

Scratch that, one strike too many from the one-eyed brunette was more than enough to escalate what was once an argument into a full-blown brawl as the blue-masked demon tackled the killer to the floor, clawing at her throat in a fit of fury.

Even Hoodie, the most composed of the group, was behaving peculiarly.

Team Prehistoria was not faring any better.

Worse, actually.

They couldn't even get themselves onto the high ground. For once, most of the trees in the area were far too tall. Even the lowest branches were far too high up for even the group's most skilled climber to reach. Though they couldn't be sure, each one of the pastas could've sworn most all of the trees were the height of redwoods.

Key words: most all.

There were a few smaller trees, presumably saplings (at least, compared to the other trees) that were far shorter. However, it mattered not. The fighting and bickering was nigh identical to their present-time counterparts.

Though there were no screaming children, Smile.Dog howled at his master. Jeff's yelling — almost shrieking — at the cone-nosed clown was attracting plenty of unwanted attention from smaller, almost familiar creatures dwelling on the forest floor. None of them had ever seen a human before, and were not sure of whether to be afraid of the furless giants hollering threats at one another, or if they would be brought no harm.

Masky taught them to be afraid quickly.

Him and Toby were not quite arguing, but the disagreement dripping with cruel and sadistic snarking came close. Each trying to out-snark the other, with glares being shot.

That is, until Masky had enough.

Throwing an off-center punch at his younger companion, Toby was able to slip out of the way, causing his white-masked aggressor to land face-first in the rich, moist soil and the leafy undergrowth. Now enraged like a wild animal, Masky wrapped his overeager fingers around the nearest thing to him — some sort of mouse-like rodent — and flung it at Toby, killing it as it connected with a tree at Mach speeds.

It seemed that Clockwork and Eyeless Jack wouldn't be the only ones wrestling and grabbing at each other's necks in anger.

As to be expected, Zalgo's Elite Three were fighting. Again. Or perhaps still, nobody really knew. All they knew was that shared body or not, there was yelling and screaming and cursing and nobody was going to stop them. Though, at least this time it wasn't a petty dispute on sloppy handwriting. Then again, even if they were fighting about the group's survival, they weren't exactly being the most productive.

Nobody was.

Spirits that were once kept high seemed to vanish into thin (and, in the case of Team Prehistoria, dizzyingly oxygen-rich) air. And neither group knew about the other's pandemonium. Each group assumed the other was taking care of whatever it was that needed to be taken care of.

It took several hours of fighting, post-hysterics dehydration, a few dead rodents, a broken nose, and a chair out the window for one of the sixteen pastas to so much as consider contacting the other group.

"Team Prehistoria to Team Present, come in, Team Present? Over."

"Team Present to Team Prehistoria. Sorry 'bout the noise, Dark, but someone just put a chair through the window, and now Slendypants is trying to rip Clocky's spine out for it. Over."

"So I take it you can't give us any clues on what to do now that Masky's stopped throwing rodents through the forest like... uhh... what's it called? The game where you hurl steel balls across a field. Over."

"One: shot put, and two: I thought Team Prehistoria was focusing on survival, not killing small animals! Over!"

"We thought Team Present was gathering intel! Over!"

"How long until sundown? Over."

"The sun's on the horizon as we speak. Over."

Both speakers paused, and the tops of the pair of elves' ears dropped from their heads to their shoulders.

"Crap."