Wild ARMs 4 © Media.vision/SONY/Xseed
Isle de Muertes – 120 miles south east of Illsviel Island.
A dark metal crate pushes through branches on a moon lit night, the sounds of machinery following it. The crate continues through the tree tops, carried by a fork lift until they both appear in a small clearing. The clearing is brightly lit, thanks to all of the flood lights set up. The area is also full of people dressed in Congressional Knight soldier uniforms, standing with electrodes ready. Cables and wires of every kind stretch and squirm across the grassy field, from the dark forest perimeter to the loading bay on the side of a tall electrical fence. The soldiers stand, anxious, as they await their commander's orders. The fork lift pulled into the loading bay, lowering its enormous cargo onto steel tracks.
A tall, built man wearing khaki shorts and button up shirt walked from the field to the crate, which was taller than even he. The man peered out from behind his sunglasses and adjusted the brim of his leather cowboy hat over his scarred face. After analyzing the crate for a moment, Balgaine turned to the line of soldiers. "All right ya useless lot, make yourselves handy and get to pushing this crate into the fence." The soldiers complied without hesitation, six of them marching to the rear end of the crate and bracing their bodies against it. Balgaine scowled as the soldiers put their weight into it, pushing the crate along the tracks into the electrical fence. A red light on the fence switched to green and a loud ring sounded into the midnight wood. The commanding giant cleared his throat. "Clear the area." The soldiers did as told, leaving the crate well enough alone. Balgaine turned to a soldier standing behind him. "You! Go lift the door."
The soldier swallowed. "Me? Why me! What did I ever do to deserve this?"
"Look you bloody rotter, why the hell not you!" Balgaine raised an eyebrow. "It's not like you're important to anyone or anything. You have no sense of individualism. You look like every other soldier, no name tag, no nothing. Hell, you have your helmet so low we can't even see your eyes, which makes you a soul less vessel for my doing. Now get on top of that crate and lift that door!"
Seeing the folly of his ways, the random soldier slumped forward, climbed on top of the metal box, and squatted over the front. When he opened this door, whatever was in this crate would go into its pen, beyond the electrical fence. The soldier swallowed and placed both hands tightly on the door handle, and with all his might, lifted. The door slid open, and whatever it was that was inside the crate did not do as predicted. It did not rush out of its crate and into its pen. No, instead, it leaped up, bashing into the side of the crate, knocking it askew. The soldier fell off the crate and onto the cement below. He gritted his teeth and rubbed his bleeding knee when a purple paw reached from the crate into the space between the crate and the fence, grabbing the soldiers boot.
"Shoot her!" Balgaine shouted. "SHOOT HER!"
"But sir! We have electrodes, not guns!" Another soldier replied.
"Oh gotta be a bloody smart-aleck, eh? Well then shock her! SHOCK HER!" Balgaine commanded.
And what Balgaine wants, Balgaine gets, or something in that line of thinking. The soldiers rushed forward, sticking their electrodes through the slits in the crate and delivering one hell of a jolt to the beast within. But the creature, despite all of its shouting and screaming, proved vigilant in its quest for a meal. The soldier screamed and shouted, and even with his compatriots pulling him, the creature's appetite would be fulfilled. In one last tug, the beast pulled the soldier completely into its lair before having the bajeesus zapped out of it.
Balgaine watched from his position, allowing the men to zap the caged creature. Balgaine had only one response to the scene before him, the loss of a soldier. "Pussy."
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Mano De Dios Dragon Fossil Mines
A slender dark skinned man in a business suit stood in a mine cat as it was slowly pulled through a dark cavern. The man sighed and brushed a hand through his white hair. "Is there no other way we can do this?" The crimson eyes man hissed.
"No senior, there's no walking on the tracks." A local sand blasted Baskar replied from down the tracks as he pulled in the cart from a rope.
"Hmmm. I thought all you Baskar were annihilated." Scythe pondered one hand on a heavy briefcase, the other to his chin.
"That's what the government would want you to believe. It's really a conspiracy." The miner replied.
"A conspiracy to get Filgaians to lose their jobs to illegal immigrants." Scythe sneered.
"Watch your head!" The worker shouted.
"Why would I –OW-!" Scythe was rather rudely interrupted by a stalactite hanging from the red rock roof. The Crimson noble frowned. It wasn't long before he was completely reeled in and allowed out of the cart. Scythe did just that, dusting off a shoulder and tossing a nickel to the Baskar. He walked not more than three paces before a man in uniform appeared. Unlike the workers surrounding him, this man was not Baskar but rather a light skinned fellow with light brown trim hair. Though he may have appeared to be cleaner cut and proper than his fellow unearthers, he was still covered with patches of soil and dirt. He grinned as Scythe arrived. "Archibald? I don't want you, I want Hauser, where is he!" Scythe narrowed his eyes.
"Hauser sends his apologies; he could not be here to meet you." Archibald smirked in a darker mood than what was normal for him. He turned and started walking down further into the mine, past Baskar with picks, chopping away at the walls.
"A soldier is killed and he can't even come out to meet me. His family wants reparations; we're talking thousands, if not millions, of Gella. This is serious." Scythe shook his head as he followed.
"A nameless soldier with no eyes has a family? Didn't see that one coming." Archibald kidded as he climbed down a short ladder.
"Well apparently the investors didn't either." Scythe was having a difficult time going down the ladder with the briefcase and dress shoes and all. "Now they want to double check everything. They want at least two experts there to check things out before it opens."
Archibald looked over his shoulder as he walked into a blue cave. "You mean like an inspection? Hauser hates inspections, they only reveal to the cops all the cooked books and corrupt officials you hire."
"Yea, well, if there's no inspection, the money pulls out." Scythe said as he ducked under a low rafter. "They already got Dr. Gawn, but they don't want him. They say he's too…"
"Too what?" Archibald replied as he stopped in his quest before a machine saw and its operator, busy hacking away at a chunk of rock.
"Too, well, stupid. They want Vasquez." Scythe was glad they stopped so he could catch his breath.
"Oh you'll never get Vasquez." Archibald laughed. He tapped the saw operator on one shoulder. The operator glanced that way as Archibald stole the rock he was working on. Archibald turned to Scythe and whistled between his fingers. "Oi! Muchachoes!" The Baskar all looked towards their boss. The rock which Archibald held in his grip was not really a rock at all, but the toothy lower jaw of a small dragon. "For you see, Arnaud is a digger, heh heh heh…"
Scythe raised an eyebrow. "Why all the dramatic laughing?"
FILGAIA PARK
An Adventure 4 Wild ARMs in the making
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Mim' Krilu Flats – Below Mim' Krilu Skyway
The sand was delicately being brushed away, fleck by fleck, pebble by pebble, by dozens of busy hands with an assortment of brushes and tools. The sun shone quite brilliantly over the dry arid landscape and over all of its crags, nooks, crannies, and bones. Or at least, the fossils that were being unearthed by the many men and women kneeling over a lean skeleton, resembling that of an ancient spike covered canine. The men and women themselves were dressed much differently than the soldiers of the mines. They themselves were a series of townsfolk clothes, seeing how as most of them had come all the way from Buck Eye Station for a little excavation. The canine's skull was almost completely free of dust and sand, seeing the blue sky for the first time in millions of years. Kneeling over the head was a thin young man with brown hair, dressed in a white and orange jacket and block trousers and boots. His face was dead serious as he set to brushing the very last fleck of sand off the nasal ridge of the skull.
"Doctor! Dr. Vasquez! Paging Doctor Vasquez! We're ready to try again!" a voice shouted from down the sandy hill. Visibly irritated, Aranaud stood up from his brushing and quickly pocketed the small brush. He sighed.
"Come on Arnaud, you have to join the 21st century some time." A feminine voice chided him. He glanced to his right as a young woman, slightly taller than he was, rose, brushing the dust off her long black dress and her leather coat. She ran a hand under her silver hair and wiper her brow. "How do you expect to answer e-mail if you never touch a computer?" Raquel laughed.
"I'll stick to traditional mail, thank you very much. I mean, you don't get spam in the regular mail." Arnaud huffed.
"Oh? Than what do you call Publisher's Weekly or Shop Smart coupons?" Raquel grinned.
"Hey! Any chance of striking it rich I take. Someday Publishers Weekly, someday…" Arnaud shook his fist to the sky. "Now let's get this over with."
The two joined up with the troop of people standing around a make shift base, the center of it being a computer. A group of tourists hovered by, watching and waiting for something to happen, like vultures over looking prey. Not that the tourists were going to eat the paleontologists, but it was just creepy. Do something, Do something… Anyhow, not far from this scene was a man attending to a rather strange device that resembled a red dolly with a tire attached to the bottom. The man pressed a button and the machine let out a thunderous shock to the ground. Clouds of dust flew off into the area just in time for Vasquez and Applegate's arrival. They coughed as they stepped under the tent and looked at the monitor. Scanning in was what appeared to be an ultrasound of the ground, and a large canine skeleton fading in.
"Heh. A few more years of this and we wont even have to dig anymore. We'll just invite the earth in for an ultrasound every few months and take pictures Gob." The Gob operating the computer snickered.
"Not if I have anything to say about it." Arnaud grimaced. "I like getting my pretty hair and perfect skin covered in dust and being dragged out to the middle of the God forsaken desert thank you very much."
"I think he was being sarcastic." Raquel sighed. She turned her attention to the monitor. "Looks like a Lucied. Just take a look at these hip abrasions."
"You mean right here?" Arnaud touched the screen. That moment the monitor exploded into flames. "God damn computers." The Gob grabbed a fire extinguisher in time to save the picture. Raquel his a few giggles. Arnaud growled and attempted to get over his phobia of technology. "Well, if you look here at the spinal column its loose and unfused, and the ribs are compact. This thing was made for chasing down giant prey and tearing it to bits." There were some chuckles from the crowd. Arnaud turned to them, hands in the air. "What? I'm serious here. Just get a PHD in animal physiology and then laugh. This thing was built for destruction."
"I don't see what's so scary about it." A small boy dressed in a green and white shirt holding an ice cream cone challenged Vasquez. "It looks like a big dog."
Arnaud responded to Bryans challenge and stepped out from under the tent and under the desert sun, fingers twitching. "Oh really? Is that so? Well," Arnaud stepped to the small boy and bent over so that they were eye to eye. He then took out a large claw. "You see this? This is the claw of a Lucied." He then slashed at the kid's cone, knocking it onto the sand below. "First, they'd take away your ice cream." Arnaud then decked the annoying brat, sending him to the dirt. "Then they'd pounce on you!" He raised the claw and was about to attack when Raquel hurried over.
"Wow Arnaud, you make such a great argument. Yup, that Lucied is one dangerous creature, so let's get back to our dig." Raquel prodded Arnaud away from the scene.
"You remember that little man! Don't mess with the Lucied!" Arnaud shouted.
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"Pshhhaw, kids." Arnaud pouted as the two climbed the dune back to their dig. "I can't believe you wanna have one of those before you die a horrible diseased death."
"Well, not that kid, but some form of child. Yea and what's this about a diseased death?" Raquel raised an eyebrow.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." Arnaud whistled.
"What's so bad about kids anyway?" Raquel asked. "We were kids once."
"I wasn't a snotty nosed, loud, obnoxious, brat." Arnaud replied.
"Not all kids are like that! Just all the ones you run into." Raquel defended.
It was then when a loud roar came over the desert. A plane was landing, drawing up huge clouds of sand. Something that any bone digger was afraid of. Arnaud and Raquel immediately turned around, seeing the plane land near the operating tent. Arnaud gritted his teeth. "Oh what the hael? We just cleaned up! HEY! COVER THEM BONES! I bet you a kid is driving that plane." Thus the two rushed down the dune.
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After shouting at the pilot some, Arnaud rushed into his trailer. It wasn't a movie star trailer mind you, but a little trailer home, sitting out in the desert. Inside was a table with all sorts of bones thrown on it, a series of counters, a few chairs, and a refrigerator. And a large violet-red haired black garbed man digging through that fridge. What a minute! That's not supposed to be there! Upon seeing this, Arnaud was first outraged, and then skeptical. He was very big, but then outraged again, cus he was messing with his fridge. No one messes with Arnaud's fridge! That's where he keeps his food! "HEY!" Arnaud shouted, hoping his authority over the trailer would help him. The giant of a man stood up and turned to meet the owner of the trailer, in his hands was a box of Juicy Juice, of which he neatly inserted a bendy straw into. "HEY! We were saving that!" Arnaud was in shock. Here he was, in his trailer, with some man raiding his fridge and drinking the revered, almost holy, box of Juicy Juice that he was saving for a special occasion.
"For today." The man spoke with almost no emotion. Arnaud could tell he was trying to sound happy, but his physique and image just wouldn't let him.
"Who do you think you are, you… big…strong…nice man who isn't going to beat me up." Aranaud was angry, but in fear of the giant.
"I can see my 50,000 Gella a year is being spent quite well." The man replied.
"50,000 Gella a year? Huh, that's not even enough to synthesize anything in Halim, Oh wait, OH! You're our funder! Look about those things I was going to say to you…"
"Oh, don't worry about it." Hauser replied. "I break into a lot of trailers and steal their Juicy Juices."
"O.K, whose gonna have a Smash Hit on them!" Raquel barked as she entered the trailer.
"Raquel, listen, this is Hauser, our funder, wink wink nudge nudge ixnay on the mash hit say." Arnaud ushered Raquel into the trailer.
"I'm Hauser." Hauser re-introduced himself. "You two must be Dr. Vasquez and Dr. Applegate, I assume." He strained to crack a smile. "Look, I'll cut to the chase so we can enjoy this Juicy Juice. I'm not very fond of lawyers, are you?"
Arnaud and Raquel rubbed the back of their heads. "Well, um, we can't say we've ever had a run in with one. But from what I've heard, they're not very likable creatures." Arnaud shrugged.
"Well I know too many. Blood sucking vampires is what they are, trying to suck away at your wallet. There's a whole army of them on my back and that's where I need your help." Hauser replied.
"But your Hauser, you can handle anything!" Raquel responded.
"You'd think, but, erm, I own an island, off the coast of Illsviel. Oh don't worry, it's a great deal away from there, you don't need to worry about prisoners or cannons or wild arms and what not. It's sort of like an ecological preserve that I've got there, with attractions that makes the park in the Sea of Trees look like a low level killing field."
"What sort of attractions?" Arnaud raised an eyebrow. "I'm not seeing how we connect here."
"Well, there was an accident at the park and my investors are really cracking down, so they want an outside opinion, a guinea pig, to make sure the place is fit for adults and Gobs and such." Hauser poured the contents of the Juicy Juice into three small cups.
"What kind of opinion do they want?" Raquel asked.
"Well, your kind to be exact." Hauser strained to give her a smile. This part is so not working with his bad ass-ness. "Actually, his to be precise, but I guess I could use yours too. Just come down to my island for the weekend and tell me what you think!"
"Look, uh, we'd love to go take a look at some Barghests and a Jumbo Bear Cat or two, but we're kinda busy." Arnaud rubbed the back of his head.
"Oh that's too bad," A wild look appeared in Hauser's eyes. "Because I'd be prepared to fully fund your excavation for a further three years."
"We'd love to take a look at your Barghests and Jumbo Bear-Cats!" Raquel eagerly shook Hauser's hand.
"Good! Then let's drink on it!" Hauser lifted his cup of juice. And then they downed the sacred Juicy Juice.
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Frontier Town Halim
"No one knew why it was called Frontier Town Halim. I mean, its right dab in the center of the map, right between Guara Bobelo and Port Rosalia, the two biggest cities there are. But you can argue, New York and San Francisco are two huge cities and the frontier was between them, much like Halim is between Guara Bobelo and Port Rosalia, but I'd counter with, what the hell is New York and San Francisco? San Francisco sounds like a gay sandwich. A tasty sandwich, but still homo. Ungh, what was I thinking about?" These were the thoughts of Acting Commander Tony, a fat man dressed in a soldier's uniform, as he sat at a café in Halim, surrounded by slices of pie and melon. He was feeling in the mood for pie and melon today, one would suppose. The café was outside, surrounded by Chicken peddlers and melon mongers. Some big band music was coming from a shop near by, presumably the Teddy bear shop. Tony winced. What was that kid thinking, naming the store the Teddy Bear store? Doesn't she know that bears are horrendous creatures that would sooner render you asunder than look at you? Tony's thoughts were interrupted as a familiar face walked into the area. Well, maybe not face, as it was hid under a pair of sunglasses and a bowlers cap. The man walking into the scene was dressed in a Trench coat, Hawaiian shirt and loose shorts, had long blond hair tied in a pony tail, and just gave off an aura of assholeness. Tony waved and shouted. "JEREMY! Hey JEREMY!"
The man, Jeremy, quickly trotted over to the table and sat down amongst the plates of melon and pie. He leaned towards Tony and whispered. "Don't use my real name, it's suspicious."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "You wanna talk about suspicious? You're the one wearing a trench coat and sunglasses!" Tony then turned and shouted. "JEREMY! WE GOT JEREMY HERE!" A nerve appeared on Jeremy's forehead and he immediately socked Tony on the side of the head. "Ow! What was that for!"
"It's for being an idiot." Jeremy growled. "Look, here's the suitcase, I've got 15000 Gella for each Rune you bring back."
Tony squealed with delight. "Ooh! That much money could buy a lot of pie indeed! Heh heh! Look, consider it a done deal, now how do I get those runes out?"
"Here, take this." Jeremy handed Tony a toy hammer. "Just squeeze the top and it pops off," Jeremy demonstrated, "Just put the runes inside. Look, don't give me that look, cus I could mutherfuggin kill you right here, bitch!"
Tony let it slide because it was Jeremy and Jeremy always threatened people like that. "What happens if someone wants to use it?"
"C'mon, people never get Amnesia out in the South Seas. Be realistic here, ya dumb shit." Jeremy sighed. "Now I want to know how you're getting out of there."
"I've got a fifteen minute coffee break during the day. Have your man on the docks and I'll give it to him there." Tony munched some pie.
"Your job has coffee breaks? Wow, must be nice. See, at my jobs, we're not bitches and can go without them, ya bitch!" Jeremy scowled.
"Look, after tomorrow, the Congressional Knights Inc. will have the runes and be caught up on fifteen years of research. All thanks to me, I'll be sure to have a promotion!" Tony laughed.
"Except your getting paid to do this." Jeremy pointed out.
"Speaking of getting paid, you can handle this bill, right?" Tony eyed Jeremy.
"What the hell is this! I'm mutherfuggin Jeremy you bitch!" Jeremy then clocked Tony again and left, griping about something…
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