Me: I've just realized that the end of this story is going to be gigantic, like really big. Many words.
Rosie: Which totally means I'm getting a reallyreallyreally big role in the last couple of chapters! :D
Me: uh-
Rosie: And... perhaps I'll... get to kiss Dino some more! Ooh, I like where this is going, Starry!
Me: ACTUA-
Rosie: AND THEN I'LL BECOME THE BEST FIGHTER OF ALL TIME AND DINO WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO MARRY ME AND WE WILL BE A HAPPY FAMILY
Me: ERR-
Rosie: ANDWEWILLALLBEVERYHAPPYWHENWEKILLDUNAANDJKONNA-
Me: SOMEONE STOP THE MADWOMAN! .O.
The Lost Fossil Fighter
Chapter 29: The Lamest Treasure Hunt Ever
We burst from the purple portal thing like a crazy dinoran and his disabled cousin would. My stupid hologram, busted and whatever, continues to make me look so stupid, and then Lone the nasaur looks just like she always does: the most natural, most freaky freak of nature to ever exist. Not that there's anything wrong with that; we all need our own freaks in our lives. Or to be the freak. Hence why I'm stuck with friends like Jkonna and Rosie. I mean one of them just ditched me in a life-or-death situation when Diggins went and disappeared in that beam, dropping only his glasses, scattered on the ground, left in my creepily black-scaled hand though it's olive skin underneath. Nah, Diggins-who-is-sadly-not-related-to-me-at-all is cool. He was just trying to keep whatever the heck Project whatever it was from happening and doing stuff that probably isn't good. I mean, Raptin wanted to do it.
Dang, I got a weird feeling when he and Duna turned out to be siblings.
Dang, if only I wasn't an orphan with absolutely no family left alive. I was an only child, darn it. Stupid parents didn't have another kid before they died. Wow, that is really disappointing. If they were gonna go and get killed by that knife, it wouldn't have hurt if they gave their son one last wish and let him have a little sibling. Ooh, like a sister. I'd love a little sister. We could like buy dresses and stuff, and there'd be a permanent girl at the orphanage because no matter who wanted to take her, we'd make sure they'd have to get me too, and that's something like no one has a big enough heart to do. Except Nosh. She put up with me for however long- well, unless she's the one that wrote the letter that got me here in the first place. Wouldn't put it against her. She's pretty awesome enough as it is. Well, if she wrote the letter. Still got no idea who did that.
Swerving through the purple liquid that pops me back onto rainbow-producing floor, I take this moment to slide awkwardly and skin my holographic knee. The cut burns just as bad as it would've on my olive-colored knee, of course, but no one can tell the difference since the stupid hologram has to make it look so real, meaning that there's a big, ugly scrape on the black knee, right in the middle of the orange ring. Someone hit the target. I grapple at my nasaur's tail and she lets me pull myself up. Lone is way stronger than she looks. People don't give her entire species enough credit. Now that I think about it, guess it does take some skill to be a support vivosaur, since you've gotta entrust yourself with keeping everyone else from turning into billions of flesh bits that the King Dynal guy would totally feed to his mechanical robot vivosaur toys that are really really scary.
"GRAAAAGH!" Oh gosh. I'm running hard enough, black-scaled feet awkwardly fluttering all over the place like I'm having a spasm attack, but those robot monsters have no need to worry about turd like that. They just move on and they will surely eat me whole if or when they get the chance. Droplet and Harei find this the perfect time to team up and pop out of their medals beside me, the watery form and golden sheen oddly displayed well together- in my head, at least. Huh, never knew the two of them would work together like this. It was only, what? A month? Two months? Either way, couldn't have been that long since Droplet really hated Harei's guts. Here they are now, each of their awkward limbs grappling onto my tiny arms in comparison to one of theirs, tugging me like crazy, trying to keep up with the speedy, purple nasaur over there. We're just running super hard and crossing our fingers in hope that we don't hit a dead end.
For now, I'd say we've got like two minutes before we reach that dead end. That's not the worst part, though- we passed by the entrance and exit place like two seconds ago. I got to turn my head a straight left and glare at that three-walled room real angrily. Stupid thing. We could've gotten in there now and been done with everything if Jkonna hadn't gone and ran to that stupid mural like that. If only the dinaurians didn't have a king and didn't make murals to show off their life. Not even ol' Jkkie would find interest in a completely blank wall.
It's been awhile since I've run with my legs. Droplet and Harei have their scaled, gigantic hands of sorts clutched over my super duper skinny arms, so I don't really have to do anything. They make their gigantic vivosaur bounds, being giant vivosaurs, and stay in beat well since Droplet's a literal fish outta water that floats through air like it's the real liquid stuff and Harei's kinda smaller and slower. They're practically the exact same, though it makes no sense whatsoever. That's okay though. Not like Cooper and I ever made sense. Geez, what is it with me thinking up all these orphanage memories suddenly? They completely do not match with Rosie and creepy Duna and Jkonna. Just... no.
Upon reaching the huge, huge, clay mural, I fall over and skin myself in more than two places. The burns etch all over my skin that looks like scales and singe the black marks, adding red to the mix though it's all just a hologram on top. This makes no sense. I don't like technology.
And upon hearing my totally terrible fall, Jkonna stops gawking at the drawings on the wall. "Diga-Dino, these guys aren't crazy!" she squeaks in a raw tone. "They've had so many diga-deaths in their group! It's so sad... digadig-"
"Jkonna," I mumble tiredly in my crumpled ball, "we are being chased by the king of the lizard humans. How about we discuss this more in the portal before we both become food for... uh, I don't know, whatever those scary, mechanical monster things a-"
"Stop talking then! WE'LL DIGA-DIE!" With that cheery note, Jkonna slaps both of my cheeks and yanks me from my stunned females. She pulls me even harder than the other two did, mustering hidden strength that probably comes from a healthy diet of molten bug shells. Knowing the digadigs, that sounds like something they'd eat all the time. Sounds even more of an addict than Rosie's old hat, probably stuffed with dust now, still claiming its throne for all the dust balls to see. I'm slapped out of my wondering state not by Jkonna's still dark-like-they-should-be hands, but that fat bundle of flaming hair. It looks like her head's been knitted together by fire or something, gosh. Guess her hair band's still loitering around on her wrist. She actually looks really cute with her hair down like that. Ew, no, I don't wanna mouth-thing anyone: is there a problem with finding my best friend to be cute when her hair isn't roped up like that? No? There'd better not be. That rule'd be real stupid.
We've both started silently screaming our heads off, obvious with how tense we are and how much of a screech is let out every time I accidentally step on Jkonna's hair and every time she accidentally slams into me by stopping suddenly. It's like we're standing on pins and needles, those sharp edges all over the place. It makes my skin crawl warily. Almost like someone's peeling it open or something. Ew, bad analogy. I should really come up with better ideas. I blame my dead parents. Uh... uh... My skin's crawling so bad, Droplet must've spread her water goo all over the place. Okay. Better. That sounds less disgusting and morbid, though a lot of times an orphan's thoughts are both those things. Once again, blame the dead relatives. I dunno, I remember these three kids at the orphanage... Their names were like Lester and Lola and Cole or something. They looked like a bunch of pale-faced goths. It was super awkward.
We run and we run and my throat stops feeling much but the rawness it takes to run, and run, and run out of breath but move and move and move even more, even longer than it took to pant like a dehydrated futabi, longer than Thomas's neck, longer than... uh... Jkonna's hair, longer, longer, longer, farther. Run, run, run. Don't stop until you're safe. Until your head's beat more than Droplet after that very first time on Greenhorn Plains, until you're more beat than when Duna got hit by that rock, until your throat's drier than Jkonna's hair, once more. Wow, her hair is good at analogies. But ow ow ow throat dry, throat sore, throat raw, want to down some water, if only I... Turd.
Droplet. Harei. Wait. Wait a second.
Where
the heck
is Pippy.
Oh Ancients. No no no no no no no no no no... nononononononononono. Pippy disappeared. I don't see him here or there, don't see him anywhere, or over there, in my pocket, nowhere, no one but the frantic nasaur in front of me and the Iggy in my pocket that's still sullen and no brown seismo anywhere. I wanna question how he fits in here, being his height, but none now because Pippy is missing, my seismo is freaking missing, he is not here and that is not good and that is really, really, really not good. Droplet and Harei are stuck behind and Pippy where the heck is Pippy and I can't live like this when my Pippy has gone completely missing. I really don't want it to end, Pippy, and where is my dear Pipster, and why the heck did he poof. Dino is extremely sad now.
And then Jkonna trips. Her hair fans out and makes me go smack too. Suddenly, the air of a battle thickens the hallway and I understand why my bruises have begun to intensify and why Droplet and Harei didn't bother following us. I pretend to bite one of the scary monster vivosaurs in my head when a really bit scratch pops into a free-falling splatter of blood. It stings some, I sting some, the sores cut into my soul, but not really. I'm not too bad. Just Pippy. Why Pippy. "Ugh, come on, you fat diga-Dino." Jkonna shoves herself up, using my face as an accidental leverage, and winces when a little streak of blood leaves with her foot. That explains the dull ache in my head that neatly cut over the tip of my face. I was wondering what that was. "Ugh. We're right next to the stupid thing, digadig! Can't you pick your diga-dumb feet up? No? Didn't think so." I'm gonna keep being a dead weight for Pippy.
Jkonna makes slow work. Her dark fingers are strapped around my steadily-getting-more-bruised body that makes me look like a dinaurian nitwit. She pulls more specifically over my wrists. She's got her bare toes in and she's digging to the ground with all her might in that attempt to tug me out of the rainbow ground already. She's failing of course. No way am I going anywhere without Pippy. "Diga-drop it, stupid! Your bruises are just getting worse, and the blood's getting everywhere, digadig! Your elbow's bent outta place! Your eye's got swollen shut! Digadig! Get up already! You have no reason why to be such a big diga-dummy! So... move! Why are you so heavy like this? Ugh, diga! Digaaaa... grr..." Her mouth's clamped up, and she's chewing on her lip. I've reduced my best friend to a lip-chewing monster. And I feel no regrets at all. Not even when my elbow inhumanly bends a really really bad direction and Jkonna falls on top of me while screeching and the stars bounce into my vision before blurring away some. She screams some more.
H-hey guys! DINO! JKONNA! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU CHAPS?! YOU LOOK AWFUL! The reason dawns on the digadig for exactly why I was being a Bullwort.
She spits on me angrily. Really? Because Pipster poofed? Wow, diga-Dino. Either way... WHOA YOU HAVE A LOT OF DIGA-DOLLS. PUT THEM ON THAT PAD, MAN. The sound of a thick-maw sauropod spitting heavily at a cottony pad as he tries to get the dolls he rescued out of his mouth and onto the exit Diggins made us wracks my ears for a couple minutes before he squeaks.
Did it, old beans! Only problem is that they've already disappeared, Dino's beaten up, Droplet and Harei are missing, and we're getting chased by a rabid king! Jkonna takes this as a perfect moment to use my now-more-merciful body like a rag and toss me into the white, soft material roughly. She flops over and lands on my holographic black-and-orange tail, which oddly hurts allot. She doesn't move, even though I'm screeching really loudly. Those cuts aren't doing me any favors at all, ow. The blood's just flowing around like it's completely natural and oh my gosh Pippy thank you for turning into your medal and not squishing the rest of my blood out of these tiny little cuts that are all over the place. They sting, like, a ton. I don't like this at all. But it's worth seeing the Pipster I guess. Hey. Wait a second. Wait a bloody, literally bloody second with all my red liquid getting messily on Jkonna and on a certain brown medal and the pad and me and wait. Wait. Dear Thomas wait.
I think we forgot my other two-
POP! Oh my gosh wait no we just disappeared from the room with the white and the lights and wait. Wait a second, what about my vivosaurs? Jkonna just threw me on there while I had Droplet and Harei out there fighting for their lives with some stupid robot weirdos oh gosh gosh gosh gosh... and gosh. They're stuck there. She just. She just. Droplet. And Harei. Are stuck there. My gals besides whatever Lone is are stuck up there on the spaceship. We are going right back there the second I get off this stupid thing.
The stars buffet us, swirl all around us, enter and swoon our awkward group of two flailing fossil fighters and two vivosaurs trapped on the ground in goopy bits of blood- oops. I blame the girl on top of me. I can't even get off her myself. She's officially made everyone on my team trapped, darn it: Iggy's stuck in my pocket, stuffed to the padding on the transport; Pippy and Lone are sitting in their separate pools of my... er, leaks; Droplet and Harei are trapped in the middle of the dinaurian space ship. I swear, once Jkonna gets off me and her hair stops choking my mouth, I will personally slap her as many times as it takes for her to admit that she's sorry, that she'll never do it again, and that we're gonna go get my vivosaurs back. I can feel this strain wrapping around my heart like a kinda rope, stringing more taut, tighter the further we go from them. And it burns- burns like all those scrapes on me. They're healing up now, as the stars bumbling around us fade into the real world, into a creepily large basement, onto a pad that's got dried blood splotches sitting there like polka dots, almost. My scrapes are sewing back together somewhat. Guess my vivosaurs are recovering. Those lucky guys heal up so freaking fast. Ugh, they gotta be okay. And now that the pad's on solid ground, all I gotta do is be a complete sitting anato and go back to the spaceship our enemies live in, save my vivosaurs, and not get caught, which is probably impossible by now since stupid Jkonna went and stayed by the mural and caused this entirely stupid thing to happen and-
I'm yanked from the spot as someone else, fat and wearing a powdery blue suit, lightly spits on his hand and wipes at the stains of blood that my vivosaurs have been imprisoned in. What do you know, the Richmond family. Lovely. Those jerks just ruined everything.
"Diga-Dino. You can stop biting my arm now." Jkonna angrily shakes out her dark limb like it's her destiny until I realize what I've been doing and latch off. "There. Much better, digadig. Now okay I get it your precious diga-Droplet's still over there and the gold butt and we gotta go back. Jeez, diga. Gimme like three seconds to catch my breath."
"Dinooooooooooooo!" Pinky's standing in front of me, her bright pink eyes wide and frightful. Then she throws her head at my chest like it's some kinda safe haven. Like I'm gonna save her from whatever ails her. For some reason my arms go all numb and I awkwardly splay them around her. Weirdo. Next to me, my best friend forms some mouth-thing faces with her cheeks scrunched up and lips puffy, waggling them out like they're shanshan tails or something. She is so weird and so amazing at the same time. I don't even know why I'm thinking that. Jkonna just is.
"Dino, my good boy, thank goodness you're alive!" The guy with the white hair, he's gotta be way older than Diggins then, awkwardly reaches out and pats my spiked hair with a wrinkly old man hand. "I'm sure Rosie's happy, too. We weren't quite sure what to think about those tacky idols suddenly dispersing from the middle of nowhere and smacking onto the ground like that, but the note Doug made that the three of you were most likely somewhere in space, retrieving your dolls..." He shudders like what we did would be even worse than that love triangle with Duna and Iggy and Thomas actually existing. "Well, we're happy you're alive, and have some news to share. Please try to stay as still as you can while I explain to your possibly already strained minds -from whatever happened earlier- what we've learned, Jkonna." She stops making the mouth-thing face. Rosie's not letting go of me anytime soon, though. I think her hands are getting tighter. Ow. Well, at least her grandpa's got pity on me or something because he manages to wrestle one of my arms out of his granddaughter's grip in order to place my clean-as-a-grandpa's-spit medals in the hand.
Turning away from the door to the garage, he gestures to the spinny chairs conveniently placed behind us. "Thought you might be tired. Sit down if you need it." I'd love to, but your granddaughter's got some mean grip. Ow. I think I won't be able to breathe by the end of this little speech. So of course good ol' Jkonna just uses both of the chairs to her own good, slouching over one and, once stabilizing herself, shoving her feet over the other. Gosh. Lucky. "Here's what we know so far.
"The dinaurians, as Doug put it, are using the -not tacky idols, but 'sub-idolcomps'- to be connected with a fifth one guessed to still be at their lair, which does happen to be in space." I know he's hardly into the lecture, but oh my gosh, his old man voice is so wrinkled and soothing. I must heed every single word he speaks. This accent isn't anywhere as awesome as Pippy's, but the poor guy's tired after his little adventure and probably had a heart attack or something close to that when he, and I too, learned that Droplet and Harei will be stuck in that stupid space ship for who knows how long. And they can't escape at all because the pad's with us. I don't think the dinaurians wouldn't notice two bulky bodies trying to escape through their own hatch, however it works. Maybe that's a portal too. I dunno. "...and so it's decided that these idols are connected by elements and will be used, when connected, to destroy our world." Dang it, missed some of Mr. Richmond's old man voice drone a bit. Oh well, I think I just zones out of a load of dropping fossils anyways. "We don't know as of yet how the idolcomps ended up on the planet beneath, but there's a guess this destruction, activated by the idolcomps that we also assume control all of the ship, and not just this project of destruction, was tried once before and failed, sending all of the four pieces here." He got that right. I'm the one that found them, for crying out loud. And now that they're back and laying around on the cement over there, my soul almost feels at peace. Actually, it feels super duper worse because of Droplet and Harei.
"Furthermore, it's a good thing the largest idolcomp combusted like that when Diggins and the lizard fellow both attempted two different actions on it at the same time. Oh, before I continue on, know that this data was either received by Diggins's sloppy note from before, or the special cameras and trackers adapted into the holograms and machine he created. Nice hologram, by the way, Dino. The orange actually suits you." Rosie mumbles something about how much she loves its looks. Double weirdo.
"So what we've learned is that the sub-idolcomps are bad, and should not be put together at the dinaurian spaceship, or brought anywhere near that highly-advanced craft, unless we all want to die. Basically never looks like a good option. Anyways, the fifth one, the large, neutral one in the middle? It split into..." Richmond closes his eyes, thinking for a moment. I'm kinda bummed that he shut up to start using that brain of his. His old man voice is amazing. But either way, he must've memorized all that information to be saying it on the spot. Wow. I'm proud of the guy. "...Into... Greenhorn... Rivet... Bottomsup... Knotwood... and Lavaflow... oh, ah. And Secret Island, of course. So that's six pieces. Don't worry, I'm sure the digadig tunnels lead into the Secret Island somewhere. You'll find it fine with Jkonna by your side. Oh, and I'm expecting you to collect all of them." Then you know what, smart guy? I'm expecting you to record your own voice, give me the recording, and then go get my lost vivosaurs. No deal? Then let me go get my beloved guys, butthead. He's gotten even worse than Bullwort. Gone mad, I say. "Geez, you kids and your explosive reactions! Dino, I believe you'd know how to track these idolcomps since you found the other four so easily. And Jkonna, as she's been reunited with her kind... I'm sure she'll know a few tricks to get the two of you in and out of some of those dig sites rather quickly." I'm suddenly reminded of that one time Rosie and I accepted each other while we were stuck in that one cave and I gave her a raptor-back ride. And I saw icy-blue eyes. And they were Jkonna's. And... I think I'm about to figure her out.
The old dude gives his granddaughter a stern look. "Rosie, please let go of Dino. He has to save the world now, I'm afraid. Oh, also, while you're at it, search for the Raptin bloke and Doug -er, Diggins- will you? Rosie and I learned that the two of them collided with the large sub-idolcomp in a bad way and..." His eyes stray to the girl who's begun clinging onto me like crazy again. "Rosie..!" He reaches out and snatches the pinky away from me. And like that, a weight has been lifted from my chest and I take the first deep breath in a good, few minutes. "And so, Doug and the Raptin bloke happened to accidentally create a hole in space time. I believe the main sub-idolcomp grew confused in action and with the power vested inside of it, imploded on impact... Unfortunately sending both our beloved Dr. Diggins and the other guy to prehistory. Thankfully, from my research, it's been alerted to our senses that he must have found a way to convert into a form called... stone sleep, fossilizing himself into safety. So take these."
Because it felt like all the air was sucked out of the room when he told me Diggins was possibly dead and forgot to mention that he's actually completely fine, I don't notice the batch of tools jingling right in front of my face until one of the sharp edges nearly pokes my freaking eye out. Okay, Mr. Richmond, I love your old man voice, and you somehow manage to make that powdery blue suit look good, and you're in a rush because the fate of whether or not the creepy dinorans are gonna take us over is hanging right above our heads, but man, you just suggested that the guy who I've been teasing as a father is dead. That's a bit cold. Give me a good however long it takes to calm my heart and don't stab me in the eye. Also, you're making me do this while my krona and my ourano are stuck up there in that spaceship. I deserve a couple minutes.
"Dino, we don't have a couple of minutes. Please, take these already, and-"
"YOU WANT ME TO DO ALL THIS WHEN I'M FREAKING OUT TOO? WHAT ABOUT DROPLET? HAREI? Oh yeah. Oh yeah! THEY'RE IN SPACE!" Sadly, my tone does not, in fact, get the guy out of my face. He's right there and he doesn't look so happy but dang it does it look like I care? His fault I lost my vivosaurs to that space. I blame Mr. Richmond, right here and right now. So of course he just places those tools in my hand, gives me one of those pats on my head, and sends me off into who-knows-what, expecting I'll be a good Dino because it's not like I have bigger things to worry about.
"Sonny, you have bigger things to worry about than whatever's going on in that head of yours." I hate you. "Just take the tools and save us before we all die."
The tightness on my chest suggests that Rosie popped back up. This time, not even caring really, I let the pink girl utterly crush me in the hug. Her stupid grandpa thinks I shouldn't listen to my heart? Well I don't feel like saving the world, then. Besides, it's nice I guess. It's not bad I guess. The tightness doesn't really hurt when I think about it I guess. Just a little pinch, like to show she's there.
"Grandpa, what you're saying is that you want Dino to possibly kill himself in there? Diga-die? GAH! DIGADIG... DIGA... GAHHH!" Let's just say she's not getting any less tight down there. I doubt she's letting go at all until her grandpa decides that I'm not going to run around all the dig sites, not gonna get in the middle of the dinaurian anger, not gonna go find Raptin and Diggins and actually save that first one too, making him in debt to me or something. Wow. That makes me feel kinda spoiled now, since I've got Rosie to keep me from doing all those things I don't wanna do. Oddly, Jkonna's been kinda silent back there on her spinny chairs. I'd say either she fell off and smacked herself good or is just waiting for a solution to our problem.
Then, like his blackened soul still has something good inside of it, Mr. Richmond moves to another tactic. One without getting all ugly in my face and going that I gotta be noble, gotta save the world, gotta ditch my females for even more time: comfort. "Boy, I'm going to take a gander and guess that you don't want to leave because you have a couple of vivosaurs trapped up there?" Oh my gosh yes. "So then this cancels out with wanting to be... pretty cool and save the world. Save Diggins, even. Well, and the other bloke, but Diggins!" Yeah, pretty much. "So then... you don't know?" What the heck don't I know, you fat old man. "You don't know, Dino, that with them up there at the dinaurian spaceship... they can keep their own form of, well, maintenance, while you can't go up there and retrieve them." I hate it when you're right. "So... per se, it's a good thing that they're watching over the ship. Now, come on, lad, before we all have to die." Okay, okay, I'll go. I manage to wrangle out a bit of my hand and hold it out for the tools. It dawns on me that the only way I'll ever get to actually do any of this if I can get Rosie off me. Forgot about her.
So I guess it's my turn to comfort her. "Er... Rosie." Shaking slightly, her cute li'l pink orbs, shrinking under my holographic stare -with black eyes, even- turn to face me slightly. Her fingers tighten around my creepily, as if to say I'm not going anywhere. I just have to think back to the one time we were in that cave, and I comforted her then somehow, and that got her happy... so there's gotta be a way to make her that happy and okay with me going on this insane mission. "Rosie, you're a really, really strong girl. And you're... uh, adorable, and you're stubborn, which is good when you've got buddies like me." Her cheeks flush. Good sign, I think. "And... that's really cool. It means you can get onto me, no matter what I'm doing. Help me out. Help all of us out. Keep me from, eh, drowning in a pool of fire?" She giggles kinda. Great. Doing good, doing good. "And I'll be fine. I mean, I gotta come back if Droplet and Harei are in the gigantic spaceship! So, Rosie... you help me out and keep watch over your stupid grandpa, okay?" More laughter; a little nod. Awesome.
"Okay... great. That's great." And with that, I finish my terrible speech by awkwardly, uh, uh, I... I like reach over and likekisshercheek and escape from the scene as fast as I can, the steady beat of a girl's long hair straddled along behind me. I hope Rosie didn't faint. Odd fact: she actually smells kinda sweet, like a rose. Wow. Can't believe I just did that thing where you do the thing with your mouth, and your mouth goes on their face, and it's nice, and I kinda wanna throw up or something? I don't know, it's like there's a teffla that just happened to flutter down in my stomach and its stupid wings tickle so bad. Ugh.
Jkonna won't stop giggling beside me. I'm tempted to accidentally step on a strand of that fiery hair and knock her down good. "Sorry, diga, just, whoa man. You actually kissed her, digadig. It's funny. Like, ha ha, you kissed the girl that you said you hated, digadig. Ha ha." I'm tempted to punch her in the face and knock her into the wall. "Okay, okay, if it makes you feel any freaking better, you did a 'mouth-thing' on her. Digadig." Better. "Great, now let's go save the world.
"Oh, let me make this more clear first, since, even though you're not a digadig, you should probably know about this anyways, diga-Dino. Feel pride, diga. Basically... we have all these tunnels and holes all over the island. No, islands. Many islands. We can easily get to all these diga-different places just by using our tunnels, digadig, and so, as I'm guessing you're getting to, we're gonna use those suckers to get everywhere. Diga-do your thing, digadig!" Oh yeah. I just gotta have my full doll senses up, because that totally exists, and scour all over the place for something I totally know about. "Uh, diga-Dino, what's with the face? You look like you just ate Rosie, diga. Hah! There's a funny, digadig!"
"Shut up."
"Hah, someone's ticked."
"I'm supposed to find a bunch of a doll's pieces with just my natural senses."
"Hey, you're the diga-Dino that got his hologram all busted. Makes sense you also have that creepy obsession with the diga-dolls. You'll be completely fine, diga. Besides, I'm here!"
"Is that supposed to, like, reassure me?"
"Shut up, diga." I win.
We continue on quietly, running up a kinda zigzag of the Fossil Center's hallways. The creepiest part is totally how everywhere we go, there's purple carpet. The wall color changes sometimes, like gray to light lavender to bright yellow to grassy green and so on, but that carpet stays this thick, royal purple. And it's always the same of this fluffy feel to it that looks like it wants to eat my feet or something, it's so fluffy. Jkonna's too, since her shoes are by now a cleaned up mess loitering in some trash can. Dang, if there is any time for me to miss my krona, it's thinking about how I didn't even realize she got sick all over some room until someone we should get Diggins to date ended up telling us, and Droplet just gave her cheeky smile of sorts. I know vivosaurs don't hold in food at all, but wow. Just... whoa. Never thought of it that way before. Dang it, I really really miss her- the gold-butted hip dancer too.
My feet point in the direction of climbing up this other hallway, but Jkonna's hand that now bites into mine with those nails is pulling a complete other direction. We don't go down the hallway that's supposed to take us up more and get ourselves out of the freaking Fossil Center, let alone the huge mess of corridors to the basement, but swerve another way and duck through a velvet, velvet because the fabric burns when I'm pulled through it like that- a curtain, and we disappear through the first hallway in this entire center I've seen that doesn't have a single patch of purple carpeting. Not just that, but the lighting's starting to die out. Ugh, wish I had Harei- the slight area around her shimmers gold. And Harei's butt light is better than no light. The ground is falling away to freaking dirt, the walls are caving in, I can barely see much besides those bells tied to Jkonna's brown toga's straps and her fiery hair, and I think we're in one of those tunnels. Well, when they're as dank as they are, guess it only makes sense that togas got the shimmery bells tied to those bottom bits of the fabric. My stupid hologram doesn't have much but a tiny, tiny sheen across it that doesn't help me see anything at all. It's times like these when I wish I had Watcher make me a digadig, too, like Jkonna.
"Diga-Dino?" Yes, Jkonna, I'm lagging behind and out of breath... ugh... A cough of mine wracks the tunnel. "Ooh, that diga-didn't sound good... diga. Ooh. You're making me twitch under my skin, diga-Dino." Her steps fall back. They still slap the ground loudly, but she's turning to go and get me. "Guess we wouldn't be able to save the world if you got stuck in here. Knew I was needed, digadig." She leans over, snatches my arm, and hoists me back up. "Guess we're stopping." Yeah. I like the idea of not running. My heart really likes that idea too. Maybe it'll be able to breathe after we stop and rest and give it a chance to do something other than get flung all over my internal organs and be a complete spasm like that. I think that would be a nice thing to do.
"Ready?" I shake my head some, tiredly. "How about now, digadig?" You gave me five more seconds. How noble. How kind. How humble. Let me rest already. "Uh... now?" What do you think? Huh? You think my mind changes that fast? I'm tired, Jkonna. My legs are all wobbly, my- "Now, then?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
"No." People say that attitude's annoying and gets you nowhere, but I sincerely feel that without attitude, I would've been brutally assaulted by energy. Jkonna's energy, more specifically. I don't really care that I've gotten her to start grumbling about how we're gonna all die because the hero has no energy at all. Droplet and Harei were beat up, I thought for a whole five seconds that Dr. Diggins was dead, I met a crazy king that would've killed me if it hadn't been for the aforementioned people, and almost got a heart attack because the girl next to me was stupid and decided to go gawk at a mural.
Jkonna taps my shoulder. "If we start moving at a fast walk, I'll tell you what I saw in the mural. Dinaurian text is surprisingly similar to ours." And before I know it, my feet are going. My dark-skinned diga has to speed up in order to not be left behind, but I'm pretty sure that if this hologram made more light up, I'd see a smirk dangling over those lips of hers. Better than the kiss face, I guess. The fact alone that she's able to get me to do these kinds of things, convincing me to move with stories, like I'm a pushover, is kinda annoying though. Whatever. I wanna know what was gained when Droplet and Harei got stuck on the spaceship. "Okay, so you're not gonna believe this, but that mural, diga... Well, yeah. You'd expect this, digadig. In the middle, in one big line, are the heirs to the throne, diga. Well, digadig, all the guys coming from the left weren't really interesting, but further on, the one right before the blank space in that diga-dang mural where newer people would go, digadig... we had diga-Dynal. At least, the guy who wanted to kill you, diga. That him?" I nod slightly. "Awesome. He's probably gonna come after us, digadig. And the guy had wings and stuff. Those myths about dragons in Vivaldi-Isles, y'know, how vivosaurs aren't the only diga-dudes out there, maybe they're true or something because those wings... they freak me out, diga."
For some reason, I just have to agree with her. Those wings are awkward. "So anyway, digadig, it turns out that the king had a queen one time -more on her later, diga-Dino- and they happened to have two kids... no wait, twins. There's two kids, and they're twins, diga. Two in total. Born at the same time. End of the diga-discussion." Jeez, Jkonna, I got it the first time. "Anyways, I couldn't read their names easily since not all the stupid mural had easy-to-figure-out-text, diga... Oh well. But all around them were all these pictures and names of not-royalty. And after some pretty hardcore reading, if I diga-do say so myself, digadig, I figured out that all those others weren't like royal extended family or something, diga... But all the diga-dead from a really, really bad diga-disaster. The queen... I read diga-Dynal right, and I think hers was..."
"I dunno, I'm feeling Amethyst."
"Wow, you big, diga-dumb idiot, you're right." Nice. "Anyways, king diga-Dynal and queen Amethyst lived in peace with their children whose names I couldn't read. One big, happy family until the diga-disaster happened... and all those people diga-died, and the queen had some sorta mysterious diga-death, and then... there was a few million years of pause which I think match up with whatever the heck happened to diga-Diggins, and then... uh... not all that long ago, like a diga-decade... no, longer than that, but still, round that time frame, the kids diga-died."
"Ow, royal butt burn."
Jkonna snorts. "Exactly, diga-Dino, exactly. So that's why diga-Dynal wanted to kill you. Because he had no idea what he was diga-doing. Suffering heartbreak, yeah, but..." She grows silent beside me, like she knows the feel. "Stuff. Okay, I think the fast walking worked! Diga-Dino, use your girly diga-doll powers!" I hate how you say that. I'm not girly, darn it! And you like the dolls too, Jkonna. But I guess that doesn't matter since you're a girl. Oh, whatever. I'm the one that made friends with a ton of girls anyways. Either way, I have noticed a bit of a... tingly feeling... Okay, that's just creepy. Who gets a tingly feeling for almost no reason at all?
My friend smirks. "Your face. Must feel th-"
"I don't like the tingly feeling. It's really creepy. Oh, and if you want to know, go straight, plain straight, as soon as possible, and we'll get to the tingly feeling. Ugh, this is so weird. I'm guessing you figured this out from either that mural of yours or the fact that you're a digadig, but I really don't care. Just find the stupid piece before-"
"Diga-Din-"
SMACK. I then bump into a quite huge hunk of brown material. From the dimness of my hologram light, I can faintly see these little, white lines scrawled all over the thing. They look like those squiggles I saw on the others, but they're white, of course, and way bigger. Course they're bigger- that last sub-idolcomp whatever thing, the one in the middle, was huge. This piece... is huge. Like no joke, it's bigger than I am. How the heck am I supposed to carry it back. "Er... lesse... mm..." Jkonna shoves past me, poking a hand at my face to show she hopes the injury's not all that bad which of course makes it wham my head some more, and examines the big thing. "When we're diga-done with this, I totally call that diga-doll."
I hate you so much right now, Jkonna, it's not even funny. Well, maybe a little funny. But she can't have that doll since I want that doll and there is no way I'm letting her just take the stupid doll without me. So on pure instinct I tug with a chunk of the chunk and manage to pour the entire piece into my freaking case. Like that. "Wow." She smirks. "Fine, diga. But anyway, guess this means that the chunks all got lodged in our digadig tunnels, we'll just travel underground... but not when we actually get to the Secret Island, diga. Watcher always called that place hunk-of-technology-crash-garbage-digadig, but who am I to judge? We'll go overground there since diga-Diggins has to be around that place and he'd be above, diga-duh." I have no idea what you're talking about, but okay. I trust you more than myself in these crazy tunnels. I'm too far underground or something. The lack of sunshine is turning me into a digadig. Making me crazy. Before we know it, I'll eat a vivosaur.
Pippy squeaks. Dear boy, please don't eat one of us! I'd rather not see myself be made a morsel for you. Or Lone to be in such position, or even Iggy, and he's still moping like a dried Droplet, dear me! It's quite worrying to see such. If only Thomas could be revived a second time in these millions of years... Oh well. Oh well indeed, person with the best accent of all time. And man, I'm not gonna eat any of you. I was kidding and stuff. Poor seismo always assumes I've gone rabid or something.
Well, he's got a point.
Get out of my head, Jkonna. And then we continue on, our crazy group of my three vivosaurs and Jkonna and however many medals she's got hiding in that brown, baggy toga of hers. They tend to be shier. Probably because the only time they weren't shy was when I had Pippy and Droplet and me and that was about it. Eh, don't blame them: the great Ancient igno looks like a molten puddle, considering the state he's in. I understand if they're absolutely terrified of the sadistic lava puddle of sadness. Either way, I'm sure Harei will know what to do whenever we get her back. I just can't express how upset I am with Jkonna for saving my life and ditching my vivosaurs at the same time. That tight knot wrapped a ton around my poor heart isn't doing any favors, either.
It's all we can do to go on in the tunnels. I have to trust these guys to help me, to help ourselves, to save the doll. We can't just run around like complete idiots and assume something good will happen. Heh, it'd be a lot funnier if that's how life worked instead of how it does. Oh well, maybe I'll do more running around like crazy after I get out of this accursed tunnel. I really don't like this, if I haven't let my buddies know that enough. Then again, I guess being the reason everyone on this planet dies is worse than having to run around in the tunnels like a blind shanshan and stub my face on the doll's big pieces.
We have to make this awkward swerve after leaving what Jkonna thinks was Greenhorn Plains, though I'm really not sure. The curve, though, does send another jolt of that tingly feeling down my spine and bites me back hard, almost harder than when we got cut off from Droplet and Harei. For a second I swear I don't even remember that I'm in an ugly passage underground or anything because that tingling, that bite of a remark, saying hey Dino, a piece of the big doll is over here keeps coming back around and tugging me farther and farther through the vile tunnels. It's hard to keep track of my place since Jkonna's already running to catch up with me and can't grab my arm or something to get me off the trail, and then I just... it's like a really, really insane treasure hunt that I can't escape from. It's plain creepy, that's what. And I'm only playing because the treasure at the end is Diggins, and I kinda sorta need to get the guy back. He's too cool to not be rescued, dang it.
So we travel through some thick walls of tree roots, making it pretty obvious which forest we're in, especially since there's only one forest in Vivosaur Island. Those tree roots, and the randomly rainbow flowers growing out of the oddest places, means we just gotta be at the Knotwood Forest. I remember when we first came here and I got so freaking lost, and Jkonna was there, and Rosie was at some point, and Tiff was dressed up like a guy, as an agent to keep us out since the Digadigamid was broken through, and no wait Jkonna wasn't there until I got to the Digadigamid and Snivels laughed and Rex ate Droplet's medal and I fell in a pit. Either way, good times. Good times.
This time around, I manage to not bump my head on the broken piece of doll before it connects with its brother in my case. Then we have to continue on, down a curve, ditch a fork in the road... The trail's getting pretty high, actually. The dirt's kinda crumbling, and we're running like crazy up and up and up and... We pass a little exit from the hole, one that leads to Greenhorn Plains. And I remember this tunnel. This tunnel, this was the one Rosie and I got stuck in because I was hiding from her and she somehow found me because she's magic or something and for a split second I'd seen Jkonna here... "Jkonna, ever been in this tunnel?"
"Huh-oh, oh yeah! Digadig, isn't this where you and Rosie got stuck? I had to take a stupid emergency exit because of you diga-dummies. Almost got wrecked by that crumble of stupid rock."
"Wait. You weren't a digadig back then, so why-"
"Tell Watcher and I'll eat diga-Droplet when we find her."
"Say that again and I'll eat your acro first."
"We have a truce." And yes, we do. Dang, I love how our relationship works. By that, I don't mean how-about-Duna-and-Rosie-start-mouth-thinging-me; I mean awesome-fun-times-with-spinny-chairs-and-stupidity-with-Jkonna. Those there are two totally different things. Obviously. So then it turns out the third doll piece is lodged in that tunnel, and I take this barely-shorter-than-me piece, shoving it with the others, where they seam together quickly. The brown doll now has its butt, feet, stomach, and like half its head, with one eye creepily poking out. Ugh. Half way there. The squiggles have begun to connect. And with that, Jkonna abruptly pulls me up and around in a loop, through what she calls the Rivet Ravine Emergency Slide. I'm skinned up, hologram getting all bruised in the weirdest places, which somehow includes that fake tail of mine, and sent tumbling down, down, down till my face smashes against a ridge in the slide, where it's supposed to stop. I am never riding a dirt mound like that, ever again.
Jkonna blinks, hitting her rump hard as she falls. "Well that could've been smoother, digadig." I don't respond, just moan. But the tingling, beckoning pinch, suddenly much closer, promising sooner... oddly, but closer and nearby, almost in my reach... It's here somewhere. Another piece of the doll. "Oh, that reminds me, digadig- ever noticed how close Mt. Lavaflow and Rivet Ravine are? Well, hello, new diga-doll piece." She yanks my limp figure and gets the two of us moving faster. Now we gotta shuffle down onto our hands and knees, crawling up a steep hill of freaking dirt like we're a stubby, grouchy tricera or something -those blue-scaled dudes have stout bodies and hollow tempers, man. I've seen that one person from that Caliosteo Island, after hearing about whatever she's doing and how she's in the same up as the famous Rupert guy, that she has a really cool tricera, so no offense to that one or anything. But I feel so stout and it's like my joints forgot how to work... ugh. Stupid digadig tunnels, I don't care how helpful they are.
We reach the top of the mound and drag our sore selves onto an actually kinda wide area of tunnel, though it's no doubt we're not close to the surface just yet. And even then, this wafting, disgusting, heat-filled steam is swamping the entire place. The brown almost looks like sludge. I'm gonna look like a... uh... black and orange sludge if this keeps up, saying that I'll be stuck as a dead hologram. Wait, will I? I dunno. Technology makes my head hurt. And this heat bubble, it's even worse. Jkonna's hair's gonna resemble the emotional deflate of Iggy if we don't hurry up and-
DONG.
I limply fall back. The thudding, hammering sensation in my head doesn't feel good. Ow... that doll p-piece... so big... headache... let me lie down like this for a moment. I think I'd like to catch my breath for a second... phew... Rather not... like, die... ow. Ow ow.
Ooh. Hah. Looks like Din-Din's got a big uh oh on his head! HAHAHAHAHAHA-
LONE PLEASE-
Guys, come on, let's get along-
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA IT'S PURPLE AND EVERYTHING I'VE BECOME A PARASITE HOORAY~!
Lone, dear, calm d-
SHE WON'T YOU IDIOT-
Oh, Din-
NO. I DON'T CARE. OUCH.
LOVE YOU TOO, DIN-DI-
Enough. The sudden tone shuts every last one of us up. Enough. Good-for-nothing mortals. Oh hey, look who's waking from his princess-y slumber. Dino, your dry ranting is threatening to split me in half. Honestly, I'm just happy he's talking. Then hush. Find peace with each other. You all are... friends, no? Then stop the arguing and live in harmony. Peace. Unity. I dunno, man. Iggy, you're not looking so hot yourself. Well I have a reason to feel under the weather. No. No, not really. With Thomas gone, how am I supposed to enjoy myself? What do you expect one divine like me to do? Participate in your mindless addling? Laugh, and scream, and shout, shout, shout? No, thank you. I will use my time in the silence I prefer. Thine need not the selfish screams of man. Thine hast enough. Now hush up, children.
Wow, the poor guy's turned into a wet blanket. I feel so much shame for the lava king. Like, really, buckets and buckets of steaming, lava-like shame. Iggy. Dude. The whole purpose of life is to have fun with it, isn't it? And sure, you're the great Iggy igno and you're so cool, and you're like immortal so life's not just a short time when you do what you want and junk, but come on. Now it's like you're one of those people... it's like you're Woolbeard! That's it. You're Captain Woolbeard and you're being super annoying and it's not funny anymore, man! Just... try to live with us. We wanna welcome you, but no way are you going easy on us, getting all uptight and stuff around our childish natures. So just... I don't know. Live with it. We wanna be your friends, man. I'm not sure why, but Iggy kinda goes silent after that. Maybe my speech was too amazing for him- hah, I wish. Hey, where the heck did Jkonna g-
A loud and proud screech gives me an idea. "Digadig! Back! Assuming you didn't-diga miss me. Ah, well, I got you the Bottomsup Bay diga-doll piece. It was nearby, and you looked tired. It's called I'm the nicest person in the world, digadig." I decide not to tell her to shut up, but gratefully peel myself from the ground and stand, shoving the two pieces into my case and turning around to face what we've got in here. There is a single tunnel to my left, besides the one to the far front that smells like seawater and Droplet on a bad day. So that's gotta mean the one on the left with the steep drop I'm now noticing, the steep drop that goes far, far, far down from Mt. Lavaflow and must scope all across Vivosaur Island and farther, even farther, to wherever the heck Secret Island is. "Here, lemme help you." Like that, I start skidding and falling and wham on my back, going down the tunnel, no no no not before I kick out her legs and she's gone skidding behind me and oh no, we're in for a ride.
Because it's universally decided that this is the best idea of what to do when going backwards on a very, very steep slope, and though Jkonna's forwards though that just means she sees what's coming up, which can be worse, we stretch out our jaws, morph the sizes and shapes of our mouths, jut out our pearly whites, spread our arms and legs around in a flail, widen our eyes so bad it hurts, and with the whoosh of a brush of a voice of the air...
we scream.
And it's not the oh well scream, or the whee this is fun scream, or the we're all gonna die scream, even. I think it's our own mix, done together by us, of course. It means that though we're either gonna die or wet our pants bad, though we got no idea what's happening and this is scary and we can't feel much but the wind in our eyes and the cuts in our throats and the bruises and the swooping of the slope, we're in this together. And that almost makes me feel a little good about this insane stunt I'm absolutely terrified of. Sometimes, I really do question our sanity. And this time around, I don't feel like slapping the word normal on anything. It's... it's a good feeling, I think.
And we scream, and we scream and we scream and we scream, until our mouths are too sore to move, and our teeth shrink back, and our limbs grow tired of the swooping and crumble beside us, and our eyes shrink from the wind, and our screams, they die out too. I really wanna burst into laughter, but now? Now I just really... really... really ache. Like, bad. Like I'd rather sleep in the same room as all my vivosaurs, Duna, and Rosie, and even Jkonna bad. My head threatens to clunk onto the dirt, and I'm too tired to do much, but I like looking up and glancing at Jkonna slightly, her icy eyes guffawing back at me from my silent sniggers.
I'm not really sure what time it is when we thump gently into a pile of thick, soft dirt, freshly cleansed, but Jkonna and I know enough to start moving some before we get too tired to do anything. We use the awkward clumps of soft dirt to plow our way up, and up and up, actually not taking that much of a time than I thought at first, until we pop our dirty faces and knotted-haired heads out into the shine of a... whoa. A striking, alluring, bright, pretty sunrise that perfectly reflects the sweet dinaurian in front of us. She stares at us for a moment before rushing up and helping me out -sorry Jkonna- and hugging me so tight that a ton of dust particles sprinkle from my face. When her grip, so much more forgiving than Rosie's, loosens some, I drop over and tug my best friend to safety. Her dull, flame-like hair is seriously messed up, and she still hasn't put the band in, so all of it's spiraled around the place weirdly. Looks cool, but also really really messed up. "Thanks, diga," she giggles, staring at the dinaurian behind her.
"Oh. Oh right. I guess you two haven't met." I'm introducing some of my best-known people together, and they're both girls. Something is wrong here. "So... crazy hair digadig that almost got us both killed how many times is Jkonna."
Jkonna gives a sly wave, smirking her dark-skinned face. "Sup, diga. And hey, diga-Dino nearly got us killed too!"
My eyes cut through her until she gets the idea to please not tell Duna about all this. "And dinaurian that I think is on our side and is pretty awesome being Duna." She nods slightly at her name with a quiet "hi." Of course, the redhead doesn't take this fine. She demands more details.
With a slight stutter, the magenta-haired girl murmurs lightly, "Um, yes... I am a dinaurian... And Dino, and... you too Jkonna, I am sorry for how I acted earlier. I have decided that... it would be wrong to destroy your entire planet simply because, when we planted the dinaurian seeds millions of years ago, they morphed into the humans and... fluffy ones... we see today, and not the people we were trying to recreate."
"Nomadistinians," Jkonna and I announce together. Slightly blushing now, Duna's purple face bobbles a little bow of a nod. My redheaded bro smirks, bobble-nodding back. "Yeah, yeah, we forgive ya, diga-Duna. Now come on, let's go save diga-Diggins already! I gotta... here, let me-" She yanks the blue-and-magenta-scaled girl, giggling madly as usual, and I run off after my buddies. Better watch over them and make sure no one kills each other. I like the idea of no one killing each other.
And that there, that's when we come across the second biggest spaceship I've ever seen, right smack dab in the middle of Secret Island. No wonder it's a secret, duh. There's a gigantic spaceship -old dinaurian ship or something?- sitting there. Diggins and Richmond are smarter than letting everyone know where it is. They gotta conserve the secret and only tell special people like me. And apparently Jkonna and Duna. Okay, I'll live with it. But either way... this mechanism, this very gray-scale thing, overgrown and rotting, utterly rotting with weeds and fallen trees and random flecks of sand sticking in all over the place... it looks like the best place ever to play a game of hide-and-seek. If I called the orphanage over, oh, would the kids be happy. We'd go insane at a place like this. I would love it so much.
"This... my friends, is the old dinaurian space ship," Duna remarks softly. She curls back toward me, escaping from my buddy Jkonna's grasp, and lightly takes my holographic, black-scaled hand. Odd. "Millions of years ago... the dinaurians wanted to... we wished to recreate our old world. It was much colder than here. So... we had first scouted the planet with this mechanism, and... it never came back. So we sent down a few hundred seeds that would start the creation of more dinaurians, after we lost the majority of our people and came here for hope of a new start... This here is what your Diggins found. He and my brother must have remembered the old ship, and found it in their prehistoric time, morphing into stone sleep until we could reactivate their lives without a mishap and without their death." She blinks. "Stone sleep is what we dinaurians hibernated in for the millions of years it would take for life to start in these Vivaldi-Isles. When we had awoken... we were quite surprised to find that you were all here... And then the prince and princess disappeared and... oh my, excuse me."
"Blah blah blah, let's go make Raptin in our diga-debt!" offers Jkonna, so I pull Duna behind us. She seems happy enough to have gotten what she had to say out. Now let's go and save our buddies.
The door's unhinged and blown away, but its gigantic surface is easy to spy nearby. There's a gigantic hole in it where a palm tree randomly decided to grow through. Guess we don't need to knock . So our little trio manages to get into the gray, gray chamber of an entrance okay. Plus the door opening is huge, like those mechanical vivosaurs Dynal had that wanted to eat me whole lived here or something. Since the room itself is really gray, really dark, really leafy, really scary, and really cold, I fish out the three medals on me and let Pippy, Lone, and even emotional dramasaur Iggy out to play, too. Their gigantic presences makes me much less uneasy. I can see my redheaded friend doing this too in front of me. Out goes her feathery green m-raptor Morie, her tribal, feathery red u-raptor Bomba, and then fat old Bliss the big, yellow acro with a bite. Pippy giggles when it turns out the large vivosaur hardly reaches up to the bottom of his crumbly brown neck. I smirk at this. Good ol' Pipster. Love him. Love them all, really.
They're mobbing us now, but I still feel the liking to stay closer to the purple-faced, blushing Duna because for some reason I want her to keep holding my hand or something? I don't know. It feels nice. Like, warm in the middle of a scary, dark chamber nice. Which is not a bad nice at all. Our hollow footsteps trample the ground of the large, open, graying space, trickles of morning light trying to burn past the millions of years of filth, of ashes... It doesn't really work though.
This room is different than the other dinaurian ship, besides the fact that's it's graying and the perfect place to play hide-and-seek. In the middle of the whole area, though Jkonna has gone exploring with her vivosaurs and mine, there, wedged awkwardly between a random clump of tree roots dangling around all over the place without a single stump to be found, is a... an altar, kinda. But it's dark and damp and somehow fits the two spike-haired guys, a little slice of doll stuffed between them. And of course that is where the other eyeball is on the doll: there, on that piece. Finally I can make the freaking gigantic doll stop looking demented. I'll be able to rest in peace.
"Jkonna! Get your butt over here!" She scuttles up, already with her hammer and drill in hand. I pass the thick mallet to Duna, saving a teensy little drill to myself. They're both powdery blue. "I hope you guys can help me. The last fossil I excavated... uh, I broke." Jkonna smirks, tossing herself into the scene quick as she can. Pink-haired Duna follows up next. She makes quick work tampering with the stone sleep status. And then me, wielding a practically useless piece -that'll keep me from destroying something- comes in too. I raise up my mighty drill and bust the stupid thing into Raptin's twisted mug, breaking a piece of his deep-blue and purple-marked face free from the cold prison called... what was it... stone sleep? Right, right, stone sleep. So apparently I'm breaking meanie Raptin out of his stone sleep now. I don't know why I'm doing this, since he's so stupid, but apparently I'm being nice. Yeah, sure, now Raptin has to owe me back. Ooh, I like that idea.
Thankfully, this whole cleaning session is, for once, not a complete nightmare. We quickly finish up excavating the two guys and their doll piece, and I take that piece like it's my crown, popping it on my head for a moment to enjoy this feeling of utter awesomeness before shoving it back into my case. I wait a couple seconds, imagining how that gigantic doll must be growing in my case, how it'll be gigantic and awesome and Jkonna and I won't have to take turns. He'll be so big that we both can use a different arm.
"Aye... aye! Dino, why are you holding my glasses? They're... they're covered in filth!" The rims I suddenly remember to be clamped in my other hand are actually very dirty. Not as bad as my brown-stained self, but bad enough to make Diggins upset. Sorry, bro, you're cool and all, I just admit that I kinda sorta might've messed up a little. I pass him the glasses, which his turquoise eyes are soon covered with. "Ah well, they still work fine," he mumbles.
Jkonna smirks once more. "Diga-Diggins, what's with the funky cloth?" I glance back at the dark-skinned, turquoise-haired guy and realize that she's right: the guy's wearing a fuzzy, draping cloth like it's some sort of dress... or something? I don't even know. Looks funny, thought. Hilarious.
"When you're up against a world full of live vivosaurs... you do what you have to." He yawns loudly, stretching himself out in the huge, gray room like it's not that big at all. "Well, I'm tired. Hungry, too. I need some vivo-cakes. Come on, guys, let's go find some vivo-cakes." And with the man completely forgetting about everything important, though I don't mind, it's his job- Diggins starts up. Jkonna, giggling, runs off after him. Duna quietly waits for her brother to get up.
After Raptin does shake how tired he is from his blue scales, he stares at me through old-yellow eyes. "Oh, it is him... I suppose... you did save me..." He scowls at his younger sister. "And so... as I believe my sister would like... I will not try to rob you of your sub-idolcomps..." The now-cheerful girl and her big, annoying brother set off, leaving me behind quietly. Pippy's footsteps alert of his coming, and when his tired, crumbly-brown body smacks into the ground, I giggle stupidly and reach over to pet his big toe, which feels super creepy. Lone, chattering to herself quietly, tosses her purple self at his stomach, and Iggy, wincing at the pile, scoots further away. His fiery self then proceeds to flop over and rest. Sweet, we're sleeping together in the creepy room. I don't think Droplet and Harei would mind a nap of a wait.
"Dino... my boy..." An old voice gets me to look up before I can finally just pass out all over the ground. "The professor and I were talking... can I take your sub-idolcomp, the large one, and examine him?" Shrugging, not caring anymore, I flop onto the ground and toss the thing at him from my case. He manages to catch and hoist the thing. Didn't think he was that strong. "Thank you." And he's gone like that.
Then, of course, before I even get a moment to curl up on Pippy's gigantic flank of a bed, someone screams.
Me: WHOA BIG CHAPTER. BIG. WHOA. I can safely confirm that this 11k is as big as the story will ever get, since I already have those last couple chapters planned. ^^ EXCITEMENT.
