The Missing Medals III

"So…why did I collapse?" Creed queried around a large meat sandwich.

"Your vivosaurs used up to much of your vitality." Was the offhand response as the scientist jotted down observations in his notebook. The array of scanners that had been used to non-invasively scanned Creed's condition sat off to the side.

Dr. Diggins glanced up from his notes and noticed Creed's blank look. Sheepishly, he elaborated. "Sorry, it's when they siphon off the energy your body naturally produces as a source of nourishment in place of food and water you see."

A blink. Creed quietly filed away that bit of information for future thought. "Then why didn't Joe feel the same effects?"

"Because he's been here for just over a year, according to our database," a nonchalant shrug, "His body has had time to grow accustomed to the drain, so handling multiple low level vivosaurs isn't too difficult for him…and apparently more than enough time to flawlessly handle other's vivosaurs…though that still doesn't make sense…vivosaurs don't normally respond well if being commanded by someone who didn't revive them—"

"He's like me." Creed interrupted, finishing the last of her sandwich, as she remembered the strange sensation she had felt when she and Joe had fought.

A blink. "Pardon?"

"He can connect with vivosaurs, like I can."

"What makes you believe that?"

A pause. "I…felt him, I suppose would be the closest term, when we were fighting…a brief pulse of intense pressure within my chest, causing my whole body to tremble… It was…very strange…" a weak shrug. "It's hard to describe, sir."

"Another person on this island who can connect with vivosaurs on a similar level to you? Fascinating…" A contemplative glint entered his eyes.

We're getting off track… "Tell me more about how vivosaurs 'siphon' vitality from their fighters."

Dr. Diggins snapped back to the present. "Oh, right! It's really an interesting phenomenon, though I don't fully understand yet. You see, a vivosaur has only a limited amount of energy it can use to manifest outside their Dino Medals. When levels drop too low, like in a prolonged or strenuous battle, they start to access their fighter's vitality in a steady stream so as to remain outside their medals.

"This typically manifests as fatigue in the Fossil Fighter, though high level vivosaurs have been known to cause different symptoms, but I'll get to that later. Generally, the adrenaline rush most fighters feel in a Fossil Battle hides the siphoning symptoms.

"When a vivosaur returns to their medal and their fighter retrieves it then they get rushed with vitality, directly from their Fighter, to replace their spent reserves. Not unlike dropping a sponge into a pail of water. This is what you experienced back on the plains, the sudden backlash of energy loss. Joe didn't experience this because he didn't have the chance to retrieve the medals."

Creed cocked her head. "So the strain could have caused permanent damage?"

"If they had had any more fossils integrated in, or if you had been a little less strong willed and physically fit you likely would have been knocked into a coma. As it were, you would have simply slept for a few days if I hadn't supplied you with granola bars made specifically for giving emergency nutrients to fossil fighters in such situations." Was the matter-a-fact response.

A duel whirlwind of horrified blends of violet and green and regretful violet-blues. We are sorry, Creed. Aero and Chicane broadcasted.

There was an unexpected flash as Chicane appeared of his own accord. Distressed gold eyes stared at Creed as Chicane nudged her arm with his muzzle and whimpered. A little taken aback, Creed reached forward and put a comforting hand on the side of the swift thief's cheek, stroking soft fur. Creed looked back to Dr. Diggins, who was watching the interaction with surprised intrigue.

"Please continue."

"Alright. The more fossils a vivosaur has integrated, the greater reserves of vitality they gain. Unfortunately, it also means that the amount of vitality they need to siphon off their fighter also increases. This can be extremely hazardous to the fighter if they aren't strong enough to handle the drain…I know this for fact, as I witnessed it happen before. "

Here he paused for a breath as Creed leaned forward with keen interest. Chicane wrapped around behind her, draping his clawed arms over her shoulders in an almost possessive manner, and chirred somewhat eagerly.

"It happened before Vivosaur Island was opened to the public. One of the Fossil Fighters, he would eventually become known as Saurhead, that had hired to help handle the newly revived Vivosaurs, recovered a T-rex skull and the complete set of bones. It was the first T-rex fossil we had ever found on Vivosaur Island.

"He managed to clean it, though only barely because the fossil rock was extremely hard while the fossil itself was extremely fragile, which is odd because a T-rex skull can supposedly crack diamonds," a cough, "Anyway, he took it to one of the testing facilities in the Fossil Center basement after it was revived. We were going to do some tests to see how strong it was with since the low grade scanners we keep here in the cleaning room only do basic scans, but even those had malfunctioned from an overload when trying to get a reading on T-rex.

A soft sigh. "It was the strongest attack-class, fire-attribute vivosaur we had ever discovered… scratch that, the strongest attack-class vivosaur period. To this day we have yet to find a stronger one, but I digress. Everything went well until the Fighter released T-rex." A shudder of remembrance. "It went berserk, attacking anything and everything in sight, the Fighter couldn't control it. It took almost a score of our strongest water-attribute vivosaurs to finally force it back into its Dino Medal. But the damage to the building wasn't the worst of what its havoc had caused, despite the destruction of some very expensive equipment. No, it was what the backlash of that power had done to the Fossil Fighter.

"All his muscles had been badly strained and many of his tendons had almost been snapped by some unseen force, and that was only the lightest of the wounds." Another shudder. "The energy demand had been so extreme that he had lost almost 10% of his body mass. That may not seem like a lot, but loosing that much that fast nearly killed him. If he hadn't been taken to the ER in time we would have lost him. And T-rex had only been rampaging for…maybe ten minutes at the most. A percent of body mass lost per minute."

"What happened after that? Did the Fighter say what had happened?" Creed pressed, her eyes wide. Chicane echoed her question with a querying chirp.

A nod, "He said it was like being pressed in on all sides at first, and then it was like he had gotten caught up in a current. He blanked out only a couple minutes after the rampage started and his next memories were of waking up in a recovery room a couple weeks later." A wry chuckle. "He…took it as a personal challenge. After he had recovered enough to be released from the hospital he took off for 'private training'. I don't know what he did during that time, he's refused to say, but when he came back he had tamed T-rex and was calling himself 'Saurhead'. To date, he is the strongest Fossil Fighter on the island, the reigning master."

There was a long silence as Creed digested this new information. Before long, a question began nagging at her.

"How else do vivosaur's get nutrients? It can't just be from the fossil fighters, they wouldn't get enough and you'd have people passing out from hunger left and right."

"Very true." a nod, "I've found that they also get nutrients from sunlight, both when outside their medal and inside. It takes longer, however, for them to get a sufficient amount, but sunlight lasts longer once it has stored up. Sort of like the difference in nutrients taken from body fat, and nutrients taken from muscle."

Well, that answers several questions at once. Including the question from when she had been basking outside her hotel room with Aero's Dino Medal on the table beside her.

A warm breeze, a lazy current of contented yellows. Sun is nice. Aero sent almost dreamily.

"Oh my, where has the time gone?" the sudden declaration made Creed jump slightly. "You'll have to hurry if you want to enter today's Level-Up Battles."

A glance at the clock confirmed the scientist's statement. It was getting quite late.

She stood up, returning a somewhat resistant Chicane to his medal and turned towards the door.

"Hold on a second, Creed."

Pausing, she glanced back questioningly.

"Here. This is a little prototype I've been developing." The scientist gripped Creed's port side wrist and strapped on an odd apparatus, almost as long as her forearm. "This is to carry your Dino Medals, or, at least five of them. You put the three you use to fight on upper part, and the two you don't use on the under arm part." To demonstrate he slid Aero, Lethar, and Chicane's medals into an open slit just behind the back of her hand.

All three quickly vanished inside and reappeared under three glass displays that were spaced along the back of the strange gadget.

"When you are about to battle, just point it in front of you and release them like you normally would. The disks will fly out in a wing formation before the vivosaurs come out completely. If you want to just take one out, maybe to exchange it for another, you twist the glass display it's under and press down." He quickly did so as an example and Chicane's medal popped back out. "Now, vivosaurs you want to keep with you, but not as your main fighters, you put on the bottom side, they'll get stronger with your main trio, and will be close at hand," a snigger at the pun, "in case you want to switch them."

Creed studied it curiously. "Thank you, it'll certainly make things more convenient." Now, to the Level-up Battles.

/\/\

Onward and upward. Creed thought with some amusement, striding down the hallway to the arena.

She had been fortunate enough to make the last group of participants for the Level-up Battles. The fossil cleaning test had been simple, though she had taken her time until she was almost the last one in the cleaning room. Now she was ready to face the Level 1 Master assigned to test her.

A blink, and then a smile crossed her face as she saw her opponent. Déjà vu.

"Hello, Creed." Wendy, the Fossil Center receptionist greeted, "I'll be testing you to see if you're qualified to become a Level 2 Fighter."

"I look forward to it." A polite dip of her head.

"I won't be taking it easy on you, so give me everything you've got."

I doubt you can handle 'everything I've got'.

A confirmative nod and the two walked out into the arena.

Once in her place, Creed slipped into a kickboxing foot stance. Bringing up her portside arm, bracing it at the elbow with her starboard hand, and pointing it at Wendy, she called her vivosaurs.

The three glowing disk-like medals shot out in a loose arrow formation as the vivosaurs appeared. Aero at point, Chicane on the portside flank, with Lethar on the starboard side.

Wendy's vivosaurs appeared a moment later. A v-raptor, a shanshan, and a goyo.

Lightweights, but quick on their feet. Creed observed. All the same, this will be simple after fighting Joe.

"Goyo: Rock Head on Spinax!" Wendy ordered.

An explosion of sand and the goyo shot towards Aero.

Vivosaur and Fighter both snorted. You know what to do. Creed sent.

Almost lazily, Aero leaned forward until his head touched the ground, and then swung up sharply as the goyo overshot him. The thick-skulled lizard flew high, and then fell towards the dirt. It was welcomed with a sharp Body Axe from Lethar and dispersed back into its Dino Medal.

"Chicane: Deal with your counterpart." Creed intoned.

The swift thief leapt at his marginally smaller double.

"V-raptor: Toxic Combo, quick!" Wendy countered.

The v-raptor leapt up to intercept Chicane, intending to strike with its lethal killing claws. It missed, however, as Chicane tucked into a roll mid-air and slammed his tail down hard on the other's head, sending it crashing into the ground.

Or it would have crashed into the ground, had Aero not intercepted with a Spinax Fang, incapacitating that vivosaur as well.

"Sh-shanshan: Shan Fang on Goyle!" Wendy ordered, astonished at how easily Creed's vivosaurs were brushing hers off.

"Lethar." Creed called almost pleasantly. The tank-like vivosaur snorted before collapsing its front legs and tucking its head in.

The small theropod probably broke several teeth as it clamped down on armor-like hide. If the bite hadn't done it, then Lethar's spade-like tail swinging around and nailing it in the side of the muzzle certainly did.

"End this, Aero." Creed called as the shanshan hit the sand.

Aero loomed over the smaller theropod before ramming his shoulder into it, driving it deep into the sand.

A weak gurgling cry, before the shanshan joined its comrades back in its Dino Medal state.

Creed brushed a loose strand of hair from her eye with a bored snort, echoed by lazy swirls of bored browns from Chicane and Aero. Lethar just went back to sleep.

/\/\

"You leveled-up in one try? Wow, Creed!"

Creed looked up from her new Level 2 Fighter's License as Rosie pranced over to her. An older man followed from behind.

"I failed pretty bad on my cleaning test. When I finally passed, I got crushed in my Fossil Battle; for some reason, my vivosaurs wouldn't respond to me." She frowned at the floor. "I'm sure it was something that Medal-Stealer Joe did to them." Pink eyes looked up again. "I'm going to try again now. But first, let me introduce you to my grandfather." She motioned to the older man behind her. "He's a really important man."

"How do you do, Creed?" The man greeted, white mustache and bearded curving up into a smile. "I'm Mr. Richmond."

Did he say 'Richmond'? Creed straightened up.

"I heard about the incident with the medal dealer." Mr. Richmond continued. "I appreciate you looking after my granddaughter. Thank you." He stared fondly down at Rosie. "I hope you and Rosetta will be good friends. You two seem to work well together.

Creed barely restrained a snort. Work well together? Please, I did all the work.

"Come by and visit me whenever you'd like, by the way. I'm in the Richmond Building over in the Guild Area.

With a polite dip of his head, the older man walked away.

Rosie skipped passed Creed, throwing one more wave over her shoulder before running towards the arena for her re-do Fossil Battle.

Creed shook her head in exasperation, but could not restrain a somewhat fond smile that worked its way across her lips. Then, without another thought, she returned to her hotel room where she fell asleep as soon as she dropped on top of her covers, exhausted.

Because of this, she was unaware when Chicane let himself out of his medal again, and curled up partially on top of her like a big furry blanket.

/\/\/\

A/N: On Vivosaur Island people ranging anywhere from elementary school children to the elderly are capable of becoming Fossil Fighters and acquiring vivosaurs. Vivosaurs are like giant attack dogs you can carry around in your pocket and never have to worry about feeding or having to care for like any other pet. Sounds too good to be true, things like that don't exist. It simply Is. Not. Possible, you cannot get something from nothing. Take Full Metal Alchemist for a random example, the alchemists have incredible potential, but with everything they do is a cost and follows the rules of 'The Equivalent of the Exchange'.

So, logically, there must be some type of safe guard, a limit involved when using vivosaurs. So, let's start with the obvious. Their source of nourishment. All the feats they pull off have to cost massive amounts of energy. So the question is, 'where do they get it?' My solution: From their Fighter. While the vivosaur takes any damage inflicted upon it, the energy consumption used to manifest outside its medal and fight come directly from their Fighter's hide. Almost literally in this case.

The longer a vivosaur is out on the field, the greater the drain. The same can be said for the attacks they use. That would also explain why there were never any vivosaurs simply wandering about. Not all of them are big after all, some are not even three feet long.

Also, on a side-not involving the pulsing sensation Creed felt when fighting Medal-Dealer Joe. Think of it like what happens when two different sonar get close enough to have their pulses cross as they scanned the same area. It was pretty much like that, only since it is more of a feeling sensation than a visual representation, Creed felt Joe's signal bounce of hers rather than saw it.