"Nibbles, we are screwed."

Jura sat in his Bone Buggy in complete silence. He'd put his other vivosaurs away to eliminate stress, because driving was hard enough as it was. Jack screaming in his ears was just unnecessary.

Nibbles sat beside him in the passenger seat, where Tria should have been. Traitor. Why'd she have to be such a butthead about helping him with Dahlia? It was their assignment, after all, and she knew he was a huge wimp about driving.

With a sigh, the redhead flopped back in his seat, eyes locked on the door in front of him. A combination of frustration and stress was making it hard for him to do much of anything else. A small, clawed hand rested on his knee, and his green eyes darted to the small vivosaur beside him.

His equally green reptilian eyes stared up at Jura, an encouraging sparkle in them. A trilling purr rumbled from Nibbles' throat as he rested his maw atop the teen's leg. Smiling just a bit, Jura slowly pet his partner on the head. It was nice to know his vivosaur was still looking out for him.

They stayed like that for another ten minutes or so until Jura had winded down enough to where the tightness in his chest had loosened up and the cold fingers of dread had let go of his body. His thoughts were still panicked, but at least they were more rational. A sort of calm feeling permeated into him.

Picking up on this, Nibbles climbed up into his fighter's lap and laid down there. That was definitely helping lift his spirits. Taking a long, deep breath, Jura exhaled the majority of his remaining anxiety away.

"Alright, I think I'm ready now," the redhead grinned weakly, giving Nibbles one last stroke. The small vivosaur returned to his seat, letting out enthusiastic growls for encouragement. Jura shot him a grateful look. "Thanks, Nibbles. You've always got my back."

With shaky hands, Jura started up the Buggy.

Jura pulled up next to what could only be Dahlia's Bone Buggy. It looked just like a race car. A red and white race car with digging tools on the back. Who knew there was a model like that?

Almost instantly the darker redhead popped up on his screen, a cocky smirk on her face. "There you are! Thought you chickened out 'n weren't gonna show!" She started laughing and, of course, Jura was starting to get nervous again. Nibbles gave him a comforting trill to help combat it.

"W-whatever, Dahlia, let's just get this over with," he stammered back, trying to sound as indifferent as possible. He was getting the feeling that his efforts were in vain.

"Right, right." She shot him finger guns and leaned back in her seat. "Tria's timin' us. Ready to get your but kicked?" Flicking her sunglasses down over her eyes, Dahlia reached forward and hung up, her engine roaring to life seconds later. Which Jura jumped at. Wheels screeched against pavement, yet another thing he cringed at, and her Buggy shot off like a rocket.

A couple of minutes had barely passed when his radio flicked on again. "Alright, you're up, chump!" Dahlia's laughter filled the car briefly before she hung up.

Taking a deep breath, Jura grabbed the steering wheel with excessive force, body starting to shake. He looked over to Nibbles for support once more, who attempted to give him a thumbs up despite only having two claws and no thumb. The gesture was still appreciated. Then, gulping down a scream, he slammed his foot down on the gas for the first time in his life.

The Bone Buggy lurched forward, knocking both him and Nibbles against the backs of their seats. Jura could already feel the adrenaline setting in and holy smokes was it making it hard to focus. Every little twitch of the steering wheel made them move too much for his comfort, and he kept wondering what would happen if a rogue randomly jumped out.

The first stretch of road was sort of okay. It was straight, and Jura greatly appreciated it before everything changed to complete and utter hell. There were so many twists and turns and it was stressful as heck and he was making a shrieking sound that could probably be mistaken for a dying animal.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of damnation, Jura caught sight of Dahlia's Buggy. He fought the urge to close his eyes and just drive straight, since the road had finally done just that, but he cared more about his safety than his ability to be calm. It wasn't even a matter of beating Dahlia at that point; he just wanted to be on the unmoving ground.

Just a bit further… Almost there…

Breaks shrieked and dust went everywhere. Tria clicked down on her stopwatch, waiting for Jura's Buggy to come to a halt before checking it. She was shocked that he'd even made it there in one piece. Well, time to check that darn thing and see how bad he got whooped.

Holy crap.

Jura came stumbling out of his vehicle a couple seconds later, completely pale from head to toe and shaking like a chihuahua. His sister ran up to him, but not out of concern. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him a few times.

"Bro! You won! You're the fastest!"

Dahlia's shocked banshee scream filled the air. "WHAT THE HECK, MAN?! I LOST?!"

The dazed and terrified redhead stared at her blankly for a minute, then made a dash to the bushes and proceeded to throw up. Nibbles ran up next to him and sat there, patting him on the back with one of his tiny hands. Tria really didn't know what to do to help, but hey, a lot of great athletes puked after doing a bunch of cool stuff, so clearly he was doing something right.

"Tria, I'm kinda thinking you shouldn't just watch…" Maisy murmured, her soft voice strongly contrasting the vast array of sounds around them.

The blunette snorted. "C'mon, the heck can I do about this?"

"Not laugh at him. That's a good flipping start," Morton added in with a heavy sigh, his deep, lumbering voice complimenting Maisy's. They were like some kind of therapist tag-team; it was horrible.

"I wasn't laughing!"

"But you were thinking about it." Gosh, why did he insist on being the bigger person about everything? Sure, he was bigger than everyone, but that didn't mean he had to take on that role metaphorically or whatever.

The tongue lashing from her vivosaurs didn't last too long, though, because Jura stopped, which those athletes did as well at some point, and Tria half-dragged him back into the Buggy and drove him back. The only upside to the situation was that he was quiet the whole way back. And also really worn out. It was getting closer to when they should go to bed, so hey, that worked out well.

She ended up leaving him in their vehicle for the sake of not wanting to carry him. And Morton was chewing her up one side and down the other about being considerate.

"How would you like it if you felt like crap and someone started hauling you all over the place?" he'd said in that stupidly responsible voice of his. It was like having a tougher version of Jura trapped in her head, gall.

But hey, that meant unrestricted time to talk with Dahlia, so that was cool. Her friend was back with her lackies, and it was still really impressive that she had them. Like, she was a year-ish younger than her and Jura, but she still bossed around full-grown men. It was awesome.

"I think my gears got stripped!" Dahlia laughed, her frustration from not much earlier basically gone. "You're bro's better at drivin' than I thought."

Tria grinned the best she could. "He's better at it than I thought. I expected him to barf at the end, but gosh, he almost has a heart attack every time I drive fast. Not sure how the heck he managed to do it." She ended it off with a half-scowl.

"Well, I don't really care how he pulled it off, but he did. I said I'd stop burnin' rubber, and I will." The gearhead looked surprisingly calm about giving up something she was passionate about. Her lackies, on the other hand…

"No, Big Mama!" one of them whined, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her around. "What'll we do without you?!"

Dahlia groaned and spun around, a harsh look on her face. "Get jobs or somethin'. Just don't go spinnin' your wheels again, 'cause I'll run you off the road 'n then some!" The Speed Fiends looked concerned to say the least. They were super pathetic, it was official. Well, it might have been official before, but still.

They looked between each other, then darted off behind the Fossil Mart. Tria was just about to make a very witty remark about it, but then those losers had to come running back out whimpering and whining. Suddenly Jura wasn't seeming so bad.

"We're nothing without you, Big Mama! Please don't leave us!" the 'leader' of their trio blubbered, drawing a sour look from Dahlia.

"Gosh you're such huge wimps!" she remarked sharply, rolling her eyes. After a second of thought, she looked a bit more sympathetic. But mostly smug. "Alright, if you wanna keep me around that badly, you'll have to beat me first!"

The Speed Fiends suddenly looked hopeful. "How about a Fossil Battle, then?"

"Okay… Why?" Dahlia asked, raising a brow.

They all broke out laughing, which was a pretty good indicator that they were up to something bad. "Big Mama may be faster than lightning, but her battle skills are more like molasses!"

"We'll never beat her in a race, but we might stand a chance in a fight!"

"WHAT?!" Oh yeah, she was ticked. "How dare you?! I could kick your butts without even usin' a vivosaur, not that I'm gonna do that! Besides, Tria's got my back!"

"Darn right I do!" Tria added in confidently. Finally, an excuse to do something with Dahlia that Jura couldn't protest about.

The three purple clad men chuckled in that cocky manner they'd adopted for some reason. "I'd say that wasn't fair, but there are three of us, so you're on! Except, for this battle, we're gonna be the Killer Fiends!"

In almost perfect unison, they pulled their purple garment off, revealing black and red ones beneath them. Sure, they were a little better color-wise, but it was still really lame that they all had matching outfits. Seriously, who the heck did that?

"We'll bring our best vivosaurs!" one of the side guys cheered.

Dahlia still looked pretty disgusted. Her hands curled into fists as she sent a sharp, amber glare up at her lackies. "Okay, seriously? Killer Fiends? That's the dumbest name I've ever heard. But whatever, first thing tomorrow we're settling this in the Fossil Stadium!"

"Now you're talking!" the middle one grinned. Laughing like the complete morons they were, the Spee-, sorry, Killer Fiends ran off to who knows where. Maybe they had a super dorky clubhouse to go with their matching outfits. Tria liked how stupid that seemed.

A few moments passed before Dahlia whirled around to look at Tria. "Hey, thanks for helping me out, Tria," she beamed, giving the blunette a pat on the back. "We're gonna kick their butts tomorrow!"

"No prob, man," Tria replied, a big grin on her face. "I'll see you bright n' early so we can go throw down."

"Alright, team! Don't let me down, now!" There was a certain amount of harshness and desperation in Dahlia's last sentence that made Tria think she'd feel really crummy if she didn't show up to support her. Not that she'd bail on her redheaded pal. Never in a gazillion years could she even consider that an option.

They high-fived one last time and broke off for the night.

The apartments were pretty nice. There was a TV, couch, basic appliances, a couple bedrooms, bathrooms- actually they were really nice. Why the actual heck did Asia's branch have such lame rooms? Like, it was Warden HQ for pete's sake, you'd think they'd have the best of everything. Clearly Europe was winning by a landslide.

With some help from Jack, because no other vivosaurs were near the right size, Tria managed to get her incredibly woozy brother up into their room and into his bed. It was sort of hard because Jack was significantly harder to manage than she thought, but they did it. Jura was passed out from stress and exhaustion, and she had all night to do whatever she felt like. It was gonna be great.

As usual, her first instinct was to get on the Internet. Unfortunately, there were only two available connections, one of which was locked and the other cost money to use. Flipping hotel-type place trying to make money off of everything. But, Tria figured that if she went down to the lobby she could just ask for the password to the locked server, seeing as she was a Warden and all. So, phone in hand, the small blunette headed down to said lobby.

It wasn't a super elaborate lobby; kind of borderline fancy. Just the average chairs and tables and assorted plants that were probably fake. It was surprisingly empty; there wasn't even a receptionist. So much for free wi-fi.

Wait, no, there was someone way in the corner on a laptop. Maybe they knew the password. Seemed like it was worth a shot. Tria strode over to the individual, smiling.

"Hey."

The woman, probably in her mid twenties, vaguely glanced up at her through bespectacled blue eyes. Interestingly, her hair was blue, albeit a significantly lighter shade, like Tria's. Not that they looked alike in any way. She was definitely way taller than Tria and had on much more casual clothes than her. LIke, hoodie and sweatpants casual. Tria may or may not have been minorly jealous.

"What is it?" she murmured in reply, refusing to look up from her laptop. Gosh why did everyone in Europe have British accents. Tria leaned over slightly to see what the older female was doing. She had up one of those boring spreadsheet thingies, ugh. There were way too many numbers.

"You know the wi-fi password?" Tria asked bluntly, waving her phone around for emphasis.

The woman sighed, hand shuffling around in her hoodie's pocket and pulling out a piece of paper. "Give it right back when you're done. I had to encourage unethical behavior to get it, and I'd rather not do it again." She had a sharp look in her eyes that Tria couldn't help but find hilarious.

Taking the scrap of paper, which had scrawled on it in pink pen 'hotpsychic1' (golly gee I wonder who set up the server), Tria went to work typing it in, talking as she went. "So, uh, what kind of unethical behavior?" She looked up hopefully. "I'm Tria, by the way."

Blue eyes flicked back to the laptop. "Sapphire Bling." A pause. "Give me my paper back, love." She didn't even look up, she just held her hand out for it. Tria complied quite willingly, surprising herself slightly. Sapphire snatched it back and returned the slip to its pocket.

"Sooo…" the younger blunette began, rocking back on her heels. She was stopped by a rather loud exhale from her companion of sorts.

"Look, I don't mean to be crass, but I'd appreciate it if you'd leave. I came down here for some peace and quiet away from my blooming sister." The sour look accompanied with the statement was enough to convince Tria to just head back up to her room. Sure she liked to annoy people, but frankly this lady did not seem worth messing with too much. Besides, she had better things to do, like look up vivosaur names so her brother would stop sounding so smart just because he could list off names.

With a rather reluctant, "Yeah, alright," Tria was on her way.

Morning came faster than expected. Tria had fallen asleep reading through vivosaurs, of course, and had barely made it through half of them. Hopefully that would be enough for a while, though.

Jura was still groggy as heck from the day before, which was fine. She could just come around after the thing with Dahlia and pick him up, that way he wouldn't be tired when they checked in with Drake and Violet about the Speed Fiends. That'd be kinda suspicious. Maybe.

With only a quick utterance of "be back in an hour", Tria shot out the door and hastily made her way to the Fossil Stadium. It was a replica of the Roman Colosseum, which was pretty cool. And sort of morbid, if you thought about it. But Tria wasn't thinking deeply, so it was just really cool.

The lobby in this Stadium was tiled in grey, red, and white, with a staircase in the back covered in luxurious red carpeting. The whole place had sort of a regal air to it, which was awesome. Tria felt like she could kick some serious butt there. Which was exactly what she was planning on doing.

She spotted Dahlia almost immediately, who waved her over. "Hey, Tria! You made it!" She slammed her fist into the palm of her hand. "Those schlubs are all ready to go. Time to go remind who's in charge around here!"

"Gonna have to whip their memory into shape!" Tria replied, to which they high-fived.

Her friend smirked. "You're darn tootin'! Now let's go!"

The Sp- Killer Fiends were already waiting in the stadium, along with Penny, who Dahlia had called up for their third person. Tria didn't really mind, since she figured her equally hotheaded friend probably wanted to catch up with Penny since they'd been Warden Test partners, but she would have appreciated a heads-up. But that was pretty unimportant. What was important was beating these wimps into submission.

There was no preemptive smack talk, which Tria was mildly disappointed about, but she supposed the Fossil Battle would be fun enough to make up for it. The trio's 'best' vivosaurs consisted of a Lophus, Lexo, and Cerato, which were all earth vivosaurs. Wow, she actually recognized them. Heck yes.

The Lophus was surprisingly large in comparison to its teammates. At about 30 feet long and 10 feet tall, it was easily larger than both of them. However, its oddly duck-like appearance and bulky body made it much less intimidating. It was a dusty brown with a gold crest and gold patterns going down its back.

Quadrupedal and covered in blue, crystalline protrusions, the Lexo sat next to it speedwise. Grey and covered with complex white scribblings, the 15-foot creature was about half the size of the Lophus. However, it was nowhere near as derpy looking, and had a certain amount of fierceness Tria had to respect.

Lastly was the middle-sized Cerato, an orange biped with a large head armored in gold. Gold armor lay over its thighs, chest, and back as well. It stood just a bit taller than the Lexo, probably a foot higher than Jura's head, and around five feet longer as well.

Their opponents had clearly outdone them size-wise. Dahlia's Pachy, Camber, was about five feet long and half Jura's height. The green biped, while heavily armored in brown and obviously ready to fight, was pathetically small in comparison to its opponents.

Penny's Hypsi, Alto, wasn't much better off. While she was like a foot longer than Camber, she was definitely shorter. And it didn't help that the little orange biped was just as docile as her fighter.

Suddenly using Maisy was seeming like a worse and worse idea.

The tiny Proto shivered nervously between Alto and Camber, green eyes taking in her significantly larger opponents. Tria was fairly certain they would do alright, but it still seemed like they had a disadvantage of some sort. Maybe she would be proved wrong.

The battle started off with Alto swaying back and forth in song, colorful waves radiating off of her. But they swaying must have screwed her up, because her attack failed to hit any of their giant enemies. Fantastic start.

Next up was a weird attack from the Lophus. It jogged up to Maisy, spinning around and literally sitting on her, squashing the significantly smaller vivosaur to the ground. She squeaked beneath the weight, barely managing to climb up to her feet as her attacker walked away.

Luckily, that duck-faced loser was in a pretty bad stance thanks to that. Tria rolled down her window and shouted, "Spin Drop on that stupid Lophus!" She barely had time to duck back inside and use a couple accuracy ups.

Maisy leaped surprisingly well despite being crushed minutes earlier. She spun around rapidly, slamming into the Lophus' back and forcing it down on all fours. Claws digging into its back, the Proto bounced off and back to her place between her bipedal teammates.

Almost as soon as Maisy's feet had touched the ground, the Lexo was charging Alto. Front feet digging down hard, it flipped onto its back and spun forward like some horrifyingly sharp wheel. Its spines kicked up a large amount of dust, making it hard to see and thus very hard to avoid. Which a sharp cry, spines hit scales and the Hypsi was forced to crouch in order to endure the sharp puncture wounds down its back. Gosh those looked painful.

Circling back around, the Lexo slammed back into the sandy earth, its body pinned to the ground from the force of it. The spiny vivosaur struggled to push itself back up, which was definitely good for them. That meant it was vulnerable for some sort of attack.

Camber rocketed by all of a sudden, making a beeline for the Lophus. The her head was lowered made Tria wonder if she was going for a headbutt, but it quickly turned into a leap. With a powerful swing of her leg, the Pachy bashed the much larger herbivore's head and knocked the vivosaur on its side, reverting it to a yellow gear. One down already. This was gonna be easy.

The Cerato was up next. With a grunt, it ran and leaped at Alto, large feet coming down on her back. Due to the size difference, only one of its feet hit the Hypsi, but it was still a powerful enough kick to slam her to the ground. Head feathers twitching and beak snapping, the tiny vivosaur pushed herself back onto her feet. Then, throwing her head forward, she shrieked.

Chaotic bursts of color shot out from her and, with a tremendous amount of force, spun around the Lexo and Cerato. Unfortunately, in the process, a spiny tail courtesy of the Lexo came around and smacked Alto off her feet, leaving her in a shocked daze. At least Tria had noticed it in time to shoot her some Defense ups.

Luckily, while it was not able to do a ton of damage, the Hypsi's scream had put the Cerato in a bad position. Tria was really happy about that. Hitting a couple of Accuracy ups before she leaned outside in order to prevent missed opportunities, she shouted out to Maisy, "Spin Drop that Cerato! And try to knock it out!"

Nodding nervously, Maisy crouched and jumped, spinning around once more. She slammed crest first into the Cerato, its body popping back into a gear beneath her. With a surprised squeak, she flopped to the ground, unable to recover in time to land on her feet. Tria found herself laughing.

Then Camber was whizzing by again. She was just about as speed crazed as Dahlia, it seemed. The Pachy jumped into the air, dive bombing the Lexo headfirst directly on its back. Her momentum caused her to bounced off afterwards, feet skidding against the ground as she landed.

Once again struggling to get itself off the ground, the Lexo stood little chance against the greatly aggravated Alto. Bounding forwards, the tiny Hypsi gave one great chomp of her beak and latched onto the quadruped's neck, head bobbing up and down as she slammed its head to the ground a few times for extra measure. The third time the Lexo flashed down to its gear, which Alto stomped on once with a snort. Okay, maybe she wasn't as docile as Penny...

"I can't believe you thought you could beat me!"

Dahlia was borderline laughing hysterically, pointing at the Speed Fiends, who were definitely the Speed Fiends again since they were in their stupid purple clothes, and almost doubled over while doing so. Tria was laughing too, but gosh, Dahlia was kind of going overboard.

It took her a solid five minutes to calm down enough to finish talking. "I don't wanna hear any more lip from you guys ever! Go get jobs or something! You got it?!" the redhead exclaimed, looking stern for a brief moment. One of her lackies muttered a quick "Y-yes ma'am" under his breath, then the three of them were bolting off to who knows where.

Beaming, Dahlia turned back to Tria. "Alright-y, now that that's taken care of, let's go check in with the boss." She paused momentarily, suddenly looking nervous. "We should get our story straight first. Leave out the part about me bein' a gang leader. Seriously."

They ended up getting Jura together for the sake of sorting out what to say. For once he was willing to go along with covering for someone. Hopefully he wouldn't wimp out on them, for his own safety. Dahlia would probably be alright, sure, but Tria would kick his butt if he snitched. Maybe that was why he was cooperating.

Well, whatever reason, they were up in Drake's stupidly cold office, so Jura had better not blow their cover. He was weirdly intimidated by Violet for some reason, and he was taller than her. Height was wasted on him.

"I'm impressed you three took care of the Speed Fiends all by yourselves," Violet beamed, wand tapping against her hand. She was seated on the edge of Drake's desk, legs swinging. "I never saw it coming!"

"Um, yeah…" Drake added in, taking a breath to steady his voice before he continued. "Y-you did… r-really good. I'm happy." He paused, eyes moving to some random corner. "Even if I-I look scared…"

Tria assumed that meant they would get some Warden Points for their troubles. But then again, she wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they didn't get them until later. Drake probably didn't want to do much more than huddle up into as small of a shape as possible behind his desk while other people were present.

That was supported shortly afterwards when the blond hugged himself a bit harder and attempted to look at the trio of teens. "I-I guess that means I c-can… l-let you into the Challenge Routes in… Y-Yodel Hills…" His gaze dropped to his desk. "I-I hear they're fun from Sean, but… I've never b-been. Don't r-really leave this room m-much…" The whole stammered spiel ended with one exasperated breath, followed by Violet leaning over and giving him a peck on the cheek.

With Drake completely and totally flustered at that point, the small witch seemed to deem it time for just chatting. "Hey, so this is probably just one of those silly rumors that start from time to time, but is it true you kicked Big Mama's sorry arse in a Time Attack, Jura?"

"Uh, actually…" Jura began, pausing upon seeing the threatening look from Dahlia. He swallowed deliberately, looking back to Violet. "Yeah, I did. It was close, though. I bet Dahlia could have done a better job than me."

The gearhead looked satisfied with his answer. Violet was still stuck on rumors, though.

"I hear she has crazy eyes, and a foot made of solid gold!" Oh gosh, was Dahlia's eye twitching? "Oh, and her hands have permanently fused with her bloody steering wheel!" Violet broke out in a fit of giggles, but Dahlia was too concerned with her reputation to notice that she was joking.

With a sharp voice, the redhead turned to Jura. "She's not like that at all! Right, Jura?" His slight chuckling only ticked her off more. "C'mon, tell 'em it wasn't like that! Do it!"

Jura was basically petrified at that point, his fear of physical confrontation taking over. Violet was too busy laughing to really notice, and Tria was trying to decide if she needed to, for once in her life, get Dahlia to calm down. It was sort of chaotic. And yet Drake got himself involved willingly.

"Um, is s-something… wrong?"

Dahlia whipped around towards her boss, to which he cringed, with a panicked grin on her face. "N-no! Nothin's wrong!" She ended in excessively loud tittering that got more awkward the longer she did them. Luckily she picked up on that and just went silent after a moment.

"Um… O-okay. I-I'm just glad that… You know. Y-you guys helped us out…" Drake went back to tapping his fingers together, eyes glued to the movements. That seemed to help him stay calm. "I-if trouble comes here again, maybe, uh, you two, th-that is, J-Jura and Tria could… help us some more?" He vaguely glanced up at the twins. "'Cause otherwise I-I'd have to do it and…" A rather embarrassed look was shared with Violet, who 'replied' with a mildly concerned one. "...Yeah. Th-that probably wouldn't end well…"

"I'm sure you could take 'em, boss!" Dahlia grinned, trying her best to look encouraging. All it really did was embarrass Drake more.

"Th-that's… not what I'm w-worried about…"

Just for the sake of getting this up sooner than later, I'm just cutting it here because why not.
Also all the cameos. Sorry not sorry, I love Saph too much.

Anyways, hopefully this is okay. My computer was lagging really bad during the battle scene, so any typos can be blamed on that. For some reason, my computer will put the letters down in the wrong order or other weird stuff when it lags. So yeah. Hopefully this is an acceptable chapter that you all enjoy.
Oh, and quick note, Camber is a racing term. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Also, yay! Going back to Asia soon! I love all of these guys but like, Mei Lian. That is all.