Journey of the soul chapter 53
Is that how you do it?
Hunter: no, go down to create, then type in a name.
Oh, what does this do?
Hunter: don't touch that
*click*
Hunter: …congratulations cross, you just shared your search history to the internet.
Eh, you act like the government isn't already watching everything I do.
Spinax: what are you to doing? And what was that about the government watching?
Hunter: Cross is trying to make a forum for the story. Ironically, he's bad with computers.
Hey! I'm great with (typing on) computers!
Spinax: but what about the government? Have you found them? Have they found us? I KNOW YOU'RE LISTENING YOU PALE SKINNED BAS-
Hunter: (shouting over spinax) CROSS DOESN'T OWN FOSSIL FIGHTERS
…okay then, enjoy the chapter.
The ground cracked underfoot as Hunter hoisted himself higher up the cliff face. Sweat decorated his forehead and a vein pulsed as he hugged the rock wall. The root he gripped as leverage was slowly slipping out of the stone.
"I hate architects." He muttered under his breath. The bridge Hunter had crossed in order to chase after Rupert's malfunctioning robot had decided that it would be a fabulous Idea to have one of its wooden boards snap. Of course, this board was the one Hunter had stepped on. Fortunately, he was close enough to edge to grab onto the cliff face. UNfortunately, he was on a cliff face.
"Why don't you just call out a flying vivosaur?" Spinax suggested.
"To do that, I have to let go of the root, and I don't trust my holder to stay on while I fall to my death." Hunter grunted as he tried to reach for a rock above the root that was jutting out. The rock snapped off easily and Hunter's hand hung in free fall for a terrifying moment before gripping onto the root once more.
"Okay! New plan," Hunter removed his feet from their holds and braced them against the rock wall, "I'm gonna kick off the wall." He bent this knees and looked up at the edge of the cliff.
"Three…two…one!" Hunter pushed off and left the rock. When the time was right, he let go of the root and was further launched to the edge. His finger grazed the tip of the solid rock floor before he stopped moving up, suspended in air for a moment.
"Soooooo, should I intervene now or about 50ft down?"
"NOW!" Hunter seized the moment to throw spinax's Dino medal downwards. Spinax appeared in a flash of light. Instead of falling, tornadoes whirled from spinax's feet and propelled Both him and Hunter upwards. Hunter quickly retrieved spinax before they could draw a crowd.
"Thank you! Thank you! Truly, you're too kind." Spinax bowed within Hunter's mind, "I'll be here for the rest of your life!"
"We gotta be more careful, what if someone saw you?"
"What if they did. In case you haven't noticed, EVERYONE HERE has a vivosaur."
"Does everyone have a mega spinax that flies around by shooting cyclones out of their feet?" Spinax grumbled when he said that.
"Kids these days," he muttered.
"I'm 15, can I at least get upgraded to young hooligan or something?" Spinax stayed silent while Hunter continued up the rock path, following the sounds of robotic whirring and buzzing. At first, he thought spinax just didn't have a good comeback, but it was something else entirely.
"How are you 15?"
"my birthday was three months ago before we left for here. Weren't you there?"
"…yeah, that makes sense…huh."
"You alright? You sound like you're losing it."
"Bold of you to assume I had it in the first place." Just like that, spinax was acting normal again. Well, normal for spinax at least. Hunter eventually approached DI66-R from behind on a natural land bridge. The robot was leaking smoke and was sputtering out random words. Suddenly, it jolted upright and turned to face him.
"FIGHTER DETECTED," an electronic voice wheezed, "COMBAT SYSTEM ENGAGED." The robot brandished a Dino medal from…somewhere.
"Woah, hang on a second!" Hunter backed up nervously, "we can't fight here! The bridge'll collapse!" Unfortunately, every robot in the world lacks the common sense to see that. The Dino medal was thrown into the air between the two. What appeared after the bright flash was the stuff of nightmares. A 50 foot snake with red eyes hissed at Hunter.
"Well then, how are yo-" He didn't finish the line as the snake had wrapped it self around the entire land bridge and roared at him with a surprisingly deep roar.
"Alright, fine! Delta!" Hunter called out the smallest vivosaur in his holder (except for maybe the strange one he got from Ryne). Delta launched itself at the snake, which Hunter's vivowatch had called a tophis. Tophis coiled further around the ground and dodge by slithering under the bridge. Delta skidded as it hit the ground. Tophis reared up behind delta and struck it with its flat head.
"Blitz attack!" Delta cloaked itself in water and rushed at tophis once more. This time, when tophis escaped to the underside of the bridge, delta kicked off the ground when it landed and stomped down on part of tophis coiling around the bridge. The ground shook as tophis hiss-roared in pain and anger. It turned itself to face delta and stretched out its neck in an attempt to attack with its fangs. Delta streaked away from tophis, but tripped over part of tophis's body and was knocked prone. TophIs reared up over its prey, no longer wrapped around the land bridge and displaying its full length.
"Counter now!" Delta threw up a shield just before tophis could sink its fangs into It. The shield exploded immediately and tophis was sent reeling backwards. Hunter moved to avoid being flattened by the snake as it collapsed on the ground. As tophis went back to its Dino medal, DI66-R began making noises that sounded like a computer being turned on. Hunter recalled delta and watched.
"SYSTEM RESTORED," the robot spoke flatly, "greetings sir or madam. I am-"
"I've heard," Hunter cut him off.
"I like the blue one better," spinax commented.
"That makes two of us."
"Hey!" Hunter turned to see Todd walking up to him. Rupert was tailing behind him and looking a lot better.
"Nice work man," the two exchanged high fives while Rupert inspected DI66-R.
"You…defeated the robot?" He asked. Hunter clasped his hands behind his head and grinned, "well then, I suppose thanks are in order. When DI66-R is released to the public, you will be the first to receive one."
"Thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather do all the digging myself."
"You…enjoy the work of a fossil fighter?"
"Of course I do! It's fun."
"And I get to kick giant monsters in places that'd rather not be named," spinax chimed in, "it's a win-win for everyone."
"Hmm," Rupert mused to himself while Todd and Hunter decided to head back to Cranial city, "those two are quite the amusing pair."
Back at Cranial city, Hunter and Todd has just arrived back.
"I'm going to go get some lunch," Todd stated, "you wanna come with me? We can get the competitors discount."
"Actually, there's something I need to do first," Hunter replied, "You go on ahead and get food, I'll meet up with you later." With that, the two went in separate directions. Todd went to the fossil guild while Hunter made his way back to the fighters lodge. When they made the trip to cranial island, their belongings had been teleported to the fighters lodge so they wouldn't have to make trips between islands. Of course, this just made spinax wonder why they even need a helicopter to get around.
"It's probably just really expensive to make ones that transport people across islands instantly," Hunter tried to explain to him again.
"I agree to disagree," Spinax more than likely just ends the conversation because they had reached Hunter's room. Hunter immediately reached under the bottom of the bunk bed he and Todd share and pulled out a brown duffel bag. In it were most of his belongings from vivosaur island, ones that no one else could see. His fighters license protruded out of one of the pockets, proudly displaying the letter M to represent Hunter's master status. A small photo album of picture Hunter had taken with the camera Rosie had given him lay at the bottom. Hunter pushed it aside, along with the blue hologram pendant Hunter could use to make himself look like a dinaurian. His reached towards the middle of his original visor and pulled out what he had been looking for. Hunter removed a small black box from the bag.
"When did we get that?" Spinax asked.
"Alvis gave it to me while I was hiding, he said it would answer a few questions when he couldn't." Hunter opened the box for the first time and pulled out a neatly folded slip of paper.
"How life changing," spinax snorted. Hunter ignored him and unfolded the paper. The first half was a letter.
Hunter. If you are reading this, then you must be at the caliosteo islands. As you already know, I came to these islands to prepare for a grave threat to not only this place, but to possibly this entire planet.
"Oh joy, we get to do THIS again," Hunter didn't bother hiding his irritation. Last time he was dragged into a world threatening adventure, almost everyone was killed.
Worry not for now. I have a plan. You see, while you have been traveling under the eyes of the law, I have begun to set my plan in motion to prevent this threat. You have been a part of this plan, along with specimen Z.
The letter stopped to show an information sheet comparable to the ones at the dinaurian spaceship about specimens.
Specimen Z: 14%D/86%H
SUCCESS: Daughter of Zenith
Whereabouts: known
Soul: returned
Attributes:
Enhanced physical/mental capabilities
Heightened Perception
?
WARNING: Due to a gene splicing incident, specimen Z has become a threat to the Dinaurian race. Ejection to earth is recommended.
Hunter shivered. What power could make the dinaurians, the would-be destroyers of the human race, fear for the lives of their entire species? He continued reading the letter.
Quite the little firecracker, isn't she? She will be of great use to the plan and I believe you two will get along wonderfully. Unfortunately, she also needs your help. I've been her instructor for quite a while now, but her progress, while admirable, is not where it needs to be. Hunter Cloud, I ask that you take up mentoring Lila Frost in order to teach her how to master the technique you call Soulflame.
Best of luck
Alvis.
"…frost is a cool last name." Hunter commented.
"We totally just got suckered into doing Alvis's work for him," Spinax replied with the same lack of emotion as Hunter.
"Yeah, that explains why I wanted to come here in the first place, Alvis probably used that weird Clairvoyance thing he can do."
"So…that's why we're here?"
"That and the caliosteo cup I guess. I don't….really….remember….dammit! Not again!" Hunter ruffles his hair while he cursed himself. How could he get amnesia AGAIN? Nothing horrible could've happened in the past seven months to trigger it while he was in hiding. The worst time he could think of was the one month period he felt soulless again, but that was just because of fatigue and frustration from hiding. Hunter shook his head furiously, as if that would help. He decided not to think about it too much. If anything was like it was, he'll get those memories back eventually.
"Hunter! Come and see this!" Hunter heard Todd call from down the hall. Hunter immediately shoved his stuff back in the bag and kicked it under his bed. He got up and saw Todd practically jumping at the end of the hall.
"The mammoth vision is out there!" Todd pointed towards the window. Sure enough, the flying Jumbotron was floating in the distance.
"What's the big deal? It's probably just some kind of public service announcement."
"I would agree with you except for one thing. The mammoth vision was reported stolen yesterday." Hunter and Todd exchanged looks.
"We should go." The two raced down the hall and out of the fighters lodge. They joined a now large crowd gathered around the blank screen. When it turned on, the face greeting them was not Joe Wildwest by a long shot.
"Fools! Bow before my greatness!" The voice laughed. The person the voice belonged to revealed themselves to be wearing a regal black and white robe with a crown adorning their skull….SKULL?! THAT's A TALKING SKULL!
"These islands will belong to me! Don Boneyard! Leader of the barebones brigade!" Hunter froze in place. Don boneyard went on to explain how the path to mt. Krakanak had been blocked and they were going to ruin the cup. Hunter wasn't paying much attention to what he was saying, he was focused on the ink black darkness that separated boneyard's skull from his clothes.
There's nothing there.
"…Todd, we need to go."
"Go? Go where?"
"It's pretty obvious." With that, Hunter started running.
"Hey! Wait up!" Struggled to catch up as Hunter sprinted down to the teleporter to Mt. Krakanak. With a few button presses, both of them were on the path to the volcano.
"What's with you man?" Todd didn't sound angry when he spoke, more like confusion, "the staff at the station can take care of this."
"I….don't know." Hunter didn't know what was going on. How can that man be just a skull? Barebones brigade? Why did they sound so much like the BB bandits? Why does he even care? Hunter skidded to a halt in front of a large builder, completely taking up the narrow path.
"Let me kill it," spinax growled.
"You need to let go of your grudge with large rocks."
"NEVER!" Hunter sighed. The path was too narrow for spinax anyway. Hunter struck the rock with his foldax. It knocked off a small chunk of the stone, but was barely noticeable.
"This thing's on a whole other level than us." Todd commented.
"Not if you drop that defeatist attitude!" Hunter struck the rock again. When he reeled back for another strike, Todd slammed his own pickax into the boulder. The two attacked the stone, but barely left a dent.
"At this rate, we'll all be old and wrinkled before the boulder is gone," Rupert walked up between the two.
"You gonna stand there or are you gonna help?" Hunter shot back as he struck the rock again.
"As much as I'd like to continue this pointless banter, I believe that DI66-R can perform this task." On cue, the robot pulled itself up to the boulder. Hunter and Todd stepped to the side as the robot attacked the rock, removing chunks simply by punching.
"Digging digging digging digging." DI66-R continued digging for an extended period of time. Within minutes, the boulder was gone. (Cross: skipped the scene with robot bonding.)
"Now then, time to find the culprits," Rupert walked through the reshaped path.
"Well, looks like Rupert can handle this," Todd stuttered, "we should go back now…Hunter?" Hunter was staring up at the volcano.
"Time to kick tail?" Spinax asked.
"Why not?"
"I like the way you think." Hunter turned towards Todd.
"I'm gonna go with Rupert," He stated, "you comin' with?"
"W-what? Well, I would b-but…ooooooh! My stomach! I knew I shouldn't have eaten so much for lunch. Sorry Hunter. I don't think I can go."
Hunter nodded, "take it easy then, I'll go on ahead." Hunter trudged down the rock path, all the while looking up at the mountain trail.
"Y'know, I feel like we do this whole world's savior schtick a little too many times," spinax shrugged.
"Honestly? Yeah, the world hasn't exactly been too kind to us either." Hunter more or less resented the current state of his world, even if the reason the world had been so crappy to him was his own fault. Sure, he could've ratted our the dinaurians and gotten off Scott free for killing one. Albeit, that was a choice that Hunter made. It was either his life going down the gutter or every single dinaurian being left either hunted down or homeless. He couldn't do that to them.
"Maybe you should try meditation," spinax suggested.
"How would that help?"
"I've heard it calms the mind. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the smoo-ghack, hurgh!...smooth sound of my voice." Hunter simply stopped clenching his fists.
"Now, picture a world in your ideal image. What kind of world is it?"
"A world…where anyone can be anything they want to be without having to worry about the things that could stop them. A world where people don't have to live being told they aren't good enough, or won't amount to anything. A world where people can be-"
"Great, now shove that image into a dark corner, beat it up, slap it, put a hole in it, shove a cigar down its throat, rip its ear off and set it on fire because it's GO TIME COACH!" Hunter's vision was shattered in an instant. He crouched down before being spotted by what he was certain are two members of the barebones brigade. They wore sleek black full-body suits with skeletal patterns.
"Hunter." Hunter jumped at the voice whispering to him. Rupert was further ahead, also hidden from view. Hunter slowly walked over.
"Are these the guys?"
"Undoubtedly. Are you prepared for battle."
"Heh, I should be asking you that." Hunter and Rupert scales the rest of the path to be within earshot of the grunts.
"You think we should go check on our boulder?" One asked the other.
"Nah, there's no way anyone could get past it."
"Actually we reduced your boulder into pebbles." Rupert announced their presents.
"Props for the comeback," spinax tipped a nonexistent hat.
"W-what?! How could anyone get past our impenetrable roadblock?"
"Your plan to stop fighters with giant dinosaurs at their command…was a rock?" Hunter's eye twitched of shear stupidity, "…Rupert, you take the one on the left. S-Raptor!" Hunter called out his vivosaur as the grunts were brandishing Dino medals.
"Lambeo!" Two dead lambeo appeared.
"What the-!" Hunter barely had time to register that the lambeo where skeletal versions of the original vivosaurs before one of them charged into S-raptor and started grappling.
"How'd you like our boneysaurs, pipsqueak! Special gift straight from don boneyard!"
"Oh come now, that's just absurd. Mapo!" Rupert called his own vivosaur into battle. With a small area to move in, Hunter attempted to choose a smaller vivosaur. S-raptor kicked lambeo away a spewed flames on it while it was stunned. Mapo angled its head and rushed the other lambeo. It's horns locked under the skeleton and mapo roared as it flung lambeo into the air. The other lambeo attempted to do the same to s-raptor.
"S-fury!" The lambeo was met with a flurry of fiery blows that knocked it backwards into wall of the volcano.
"Rupert!" Hunter called, "let S-raptor jump on mapo!" Rupert gave Hunter a strange look, but he didn't hear a no.
"Go!" S-raptor bounded onto Mapo. The larger theropod growled, but didn't attack the hitchhiker.
"Now, jump!" S-raptor launches itself further into the air to meet the now descending lambeo. The lambeo was sent crashing back down with a kick and landed on top of its boney compatriot. Hunter retrieved S-raptor to keep it from getting hurt from the fall.
"Put me in coach!" Spinax shouted, seeing the lambeos reorganizing themselves, "it's only the 2nd quarter!"
"Will do," he had enough room now. But just as Hunter reached for another Dino medal, Rupert called out an attack.
"Aqua cannon." Mapo unleashed a jet of water that slammed into the spot where the lambeos were. They certainly weren't there anymore. The water cascaded into the air as it deflected off the wall. Rain from the blast slowly began to fall.
"I believe that settles that," Rupert prevented to dust off his hands, "unless you two have anymore grievances?" Mapo growled.
"J-just you wait kid, don boneyard and his commanders are gonna grind your bones to dust!" They didn't sound very convincing as they ran away.
"Man, I need to work on fight banter." Hunter told himself, "I'm here standing silent like an idiot while Rupert's here like the next godfather."
"What's a mefather?" Spinax asked.
"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that." Hunter was thankfully saved from a comeback by his paleopager going off.
"The 12th match of round three of the caliosteo cup will now commence. Hunter Elwood and Lila Frost, please make your way to the stadium. Hunter gave the Paleopager a look.
"You planned this all along Huh?"
"This guy definently isn't a mefather."
Done! I like how this one turned out. I've wanted to give some attention to Hunter's other vivosaurs without them being "spinax support" for a while.
Hunter: so your plan is to make arena's constantly too small for spinax?
Spinax:…never in my life have I experienced such disrespect for being too big.
Get over it Ridley, things need to be more organized.
Spinax: Ha! That joke doesn't work anymore!
Speaking of organized, the official journey of the soul forum is now up! Go there for all questions about this story, or fossil fighters in general. I do my best to check it and answer any questions you guys/ girls might have.
Hunter: you act like people will actually check it out.
Ha! Probably not. Thanks for reading!