After getting back from beating the absolute snot out of that dragon, Tria grabbed herself an energy drink because why not and figured it was time to get on over to Europe. She probably could've not done that, after all she'd helped find some cosmonium already, but she really wanted to go see Dahlia so gosh darn it she was heading over. She scanned her license on the World Gate, took a sip of her spinax-themed energy drink, and then stepped into the swirling portal in front of her.

As everything turned black and felt sorta windy, she prayed on loop in her head that Violet wouldn't catch her heading over and immediately redirect her. She just wanted to hang out with Dahlia, was that too much to ask for? Tell her about nuking a dragon, that was fucking sick, she'd be crazy jealous.

And then her feet touched the ground and she was immediately greeted by Lucky.

"Goddammit," Tria said instinctively, and then she took another sip of her drink.

Lucky's eyes lit up. "Oh shoot, hi Tria! Did you go to see Dino Gigante today, too?"

She felt her entire face contort in disgust. "Fuck no, why would ask me that? I'm not a fuckin' baby."

When he looked super hurt and Morgan, his ajka, growled at her, it finally occurred to Tria that maybe she shouldn't've said that. She didn't care that she said it, but she did care that maybe she'd get her ass beat. "Ha ha, jk, don't listen to me," she said awkwardly, then pat Lucky on the head a couple times for good measure.

He'd shifted to more of a glare now so yeah this wasn't working. She was starting to worry Violet was gonna notice this and just kill her on the spot. So, in a moment of desperation, Tria said, "Well, uh, what're you guys, uhhhh, doin' to find cosmonium over here?"

She could feel a bit of her soul leave her body knowing that seeing Dahlia was now going to be a couple hours out.

Without any hesitation, Lucky immediately perked up and got all excited again. "Mum's doin' psychic stuff to try to find it! I wanted to help but she said she had to be alone for it to work, so now me'n Morgan are just kinda wandering around."

That just sounded like 'leave me alone' parent bs but Tria definitely wasn't going to say that to him. She took another drink and put a hand on her hip. "Neato, dude. But uh, if your ma's busy, I'll probs just go find Dahlia-"

"Oh, wait!" Lucky grabbed her wrist all of a sudden and she mentally whined, "Da said if one of you guys showed up to get you so he didn't have to go outside!"

Tria just glowered at the air for a second. "Fuck you, Drake," she thought to herself as Lucky dragged her towards the elevator.

The doors slid shut and she took yet another sip of energy drink. "Woooo, yayyy."

A few moments later, the doors opened again and a nice amount of cold wooshed into the elevator. Tria sighed as goosebumps prickled up her arms, making her shiver slightly while walking into Drake's office. He was sitting at his desk, as per usual, and barely looked up at her before going right back to his paperwork.

"I got Tria, Da!" Lucky beamed, gesturing at her wildly. Tria took another drink.

"Th-thanks," Drake said quietly. He didn't say anything after that, he just kept writing on the paper he had, which kinda cracked Tria up.

She swigged her spinax drink and said, "So, uh, we're waitin' for Violet, then?"

Drake didn't even look up. "Yep. She's, uh, sh-she's using her, u-um, her spooky powers for good."

"Cool, cool, cool."

They all sat there for a while in complete silence for multiple minutes with Tria just sipping her drink occasionally and Drake writing stuff. She was honestly surprised Lucky wasn't exploding from not talking for so long, but he seemed happy enough just standing there. After what was starting to feel like a long time because the energy drink was kicking in, the elevator doors hummed open and Violet said, very dramatically, "By the twitching of my eye, something wicked this way flies!"

Tria turned around to look at her, noticing the large segno trudging in behind her. As soon as Violet noticed Tria, she just sighed and said, "You know, sometimes I really hate being right."

The segno snort-laughed.

"Yeah, I'm not happy about being here either but whatevs," Tria said flatly. Her gaze followed the massive vivosaur as it lumbered past Violet and proceeded to flop down on the floor off to the side, a loud huff escaping its mouth as its eyes slid shut. "What's up with the segno?"

Violet just scoffed. "That's Annis, she's my familiar, she's awful, just ignore her."

Annis' tail thumped on the ground once but otherwise she didn't respond.

"Anyways, I have some great news!" she continued as she walked over to Drake's desk.

He blinked once and glanced up at her. "Oh, it, um, it actually worked?"

She seemed decently offended by that. "Yes, love, you don't have to sound so bloody surprised."

Drake just pat her on the shoulder a couple times and said in his usual flat tone, "Good job."

"Thank you," Violet said, and she tapped the top of his helmet with her wand. This was followed by her sitting on Drake's desk, specifically facing him, which Tria thought was passive aggressive as hell but also super funny. "So anyways, I was looking in my crystal ball, and all of a sudden there was this gigantic, crazy vivosaur in a huge cave with lots and lots of snow!" She paused, her face scrunched up, and she added, "Also it had some cosmonium wedged in its nose. It was all pus-y and bloody and snotty and ugh."

Lucky laughed. "We should call it boogersaurus, then!"

Violet gestured back at him with her wand. "That's a bloody-good name, Drake, we should use that."

There were a couple seconds of silence where Drake seemed to be thinking over what she'd said. He actually looked mildly concerned, which was definitely a change from his usual deadpan. Moments later, his eyes widened and he said way louder than Tria'd ever heard him speak, "Faen!"

Tria jumped slightly just because she was so surprised he'd sort-of-yelled, but Violet didn't react at all besides saying, "Uh oh, what's up?"

"Th-that's the Raja Devil!" Drake said, once again at a normal volume. This was such a shift from what she was used to, it was freaking Tria out a little.

A pause, then Violet just squinted at him. "What the bloody hell are you talking about right now?"

"I-it's from, uh, before you worked here," he continued, scratching the back of his neck. Before Violet could ask any other questions, Drake stood up and holy crap Tria couldn't handle much more of him acting wildly out of character. "I should probably take care of this."

"Wait, seriously?" Violet said. When he didn't answer immediately, she also got up looking way too happy considering how grim Drake was acting, "Well if you're going, I'm definitely going!"

He gave her a sort of frustrated sigh. "Vi, I'm, um, not sure that's a good idea. It's in the, uh, the Frozen Wastes."

"What's the Frozen Wastes?" Tria butted in. She was starting to feel a little left out at this point, which was totally not fair when this was sounding more and more dangerous.

Violet side-eyed her. "It's a banned dig site. I think it's been closed off for what? 5 years?"

"6," Drake said. He brought his attention back to Violet and rested a hand on her back. "It's, um, definitely not safe."

"Awww, that's sweet," she said, affectionately leaning up against him. "It'll be fine! I know you won't let me get hurt."

Drake blushed just a little bit at that comment and Tria just rolled her eyes. "Okay, this is getting gross," she said flatly, cracking up a little at Lucky nodding a whole bunch in agreement. "What's up, what am I doing? 'Cause if this is, like, solo mission crap, Imma head out."

"Oh no, you're coming, too," Violet said immediately. Drake just sighed. "Lucky's definitely not fighting whatever's in Frozen Wastes."

"Why would he even be-" Tria started, only for Lucky to cut her off with a whole bunch of cheering.

"Heck yeah! Family road trip!" he said, scooping up Morgan and doing an excited little spin. "Bet I can beat you guys to the buggies!"

Drake flinched. "N-no wait, um-" he didn't get a chance to finish before Lucky darted off into the elevator and headed off, leaving Drake to wilt slightly. Tria stared at the elevator for a few seconds, incredibly perplexed.

"He's really coming?" Tria said after a few seconds.

Violet pat her husband on the chest a couple times. "He'll be fine, Drake's coming. He won't even be fighting, anyways."

There was a pause as Drake shifted and stared down at his feet. "You're, um, a-a little overconfident, Vi."

She broke out in giggles. "You're just underconfident, babe. Now, why don't you go catch up with Lucky and I'll give Tria here a mission plan."

He nodded reluctantly and headed over to the elevator, hugging his arms as he waited for the door to slide shut. Drake definitely never left his office if he didn't need to, so seeing him in the wild, so to speak, was probably gonna be funny. Tria cracked a grin at the thought only for her joy to be cut off by Violet walking up next to her.

"Alright, obviously we're going out to Frozen Wastes," Violet said, crossing her arms. "I haven't been out there before, but I know it's bloody cold so don't wear whatever the hell you're wearing right now."

"Okay, Mom," Tria said, rolling her eyes. She was rewarded by a tap on the head from Violet's wand.

"I don't wanna get in trouble with Stryker because you were an idiot and got frostbite," she said matter-of-factly.

Tria scoffed in spite of that making perfect sense. "Yeah, okay, whatever."

"Also, um, just as a heads up-" Violet began sort of nervously, "-Lucky joked a while back about Drake getting crazy during battles, and I mean, that's not exactly wrong."

"What the fuck does that mean?" Tria said, squinting. She had so much trouble picturing anything close to that coming from Drake, who was somehow the most normal and chill person at that branch despite wearing a Viking get-up all the time. Violet wasn't really helping either because she just waved dismissively and walked over to the elevator.

"You'll be fine, it's fine," she said, and then she left, leaving Tria to just stare and wonder what the actual hell was going through everyone's heads.

That didn't last long, however, because Tria remembered they were going to some banned place that was apparently super dangerous and that got her excitement going again. She was gonna go tear it up in some top secret area with her buggy and not have to drive slow because her stupid brother was off doing some lame shit, hell yeah.

With a grin, she turned and headed off to the garage.

As soon as she drove out in Frozen Wastes, Tria could feel a glum aura settle in all over her. Everything seemed super empty and, despite her driving a fairly loud buggy, quiet. The radio wasn't getting any reception and she didn't have an aux cord on her so it was just complete silence other than the motor. It didn't help, either, that once she got out of that first tunnel it was just completely untouched, trackless snow as far as she could see. Absolutely no signs of life.

Honestly, this was probably the closest she would ever get to Silent Hill vibes in real life and she was living for it.

Well, it wasn't completely trackless, there were a few overlapping sets of buggy tracks straight ahead, but Tria knew those were just from Drake and co., so they didn't count. She followed after them for a minute or so until their buggies came into view all parked around a very worn-down supply tower.

As she approached, her monitor flickered on and Drake's usual nervous face popped up into view. "H-hey, um…" he started, messing with something off screen to calm himself, "w-we're, um, we're going up to this, uh, this ice cave o-on the ridge."

"I got no idea what you're talkin' 'bout, dude," Tria said flatly. She saw Drake sorta flinch but it didn't really bother her.

"J-just, uh, just follow me," he said, and then the monitor shut off.

She rolled her eyes. "Geez oh pete."

Drake took the lead up to the ridge he'd been talking about. It was barely wide enough for their buggies, so it was probably good there was absolutely no life in the general vicinity to get either run over or forced to jump off the side of a cliff. The ridge twisted around a few times, and occasionally some rocks fell off as they went, but honestly Tria was just frustrated she couldn't floor it around them to get a bit of a thrill. Creeping like they were was Jura's style, not hers.

It took at least 20 minutes at the rate they were moving, but they finally arrived at a massive opening in the side of the mountain they were on. Huge icicles hung down from the opening like teeth and an interesting glow went through the heavily iced-over cave that gave it a distinct blue sheen. Tria thought they were driving in, but then she saw Drake was walking up to the opening and got all giddy. Being out of the buggies meant it was gonna be extra dangerous, she was down for that.

She took a second to pop out a dino gear for the trip just in case and hopped out of her buggy, mildly surprised when she hit snow that went halfway up her shins. She'd refused to put on full-length pants so it was on her bare skin, but it didn't really bother her that much so she just kept moving up towards where Drake was at.

"I thought I told you to put on warm stuff?" Violet grumbled as she also walked up to the cave opening. She'd just added some gloves and a normal warm hat to her outfit, which to be fair already looked pretty warm.

Tria, who had only put on a light jacket, shrugged. "It's really not that cold."

"You're an idiot."

Lucky jogged up a few seconds later, mildly slowed down by the full snow pants, boots, and big puffy jacket he'd put on. He also had a backpack for some reason which made it look like he was going out on some winter expedition. Morgan was, unfortunately, out of her gear and picking her way through snow that was almost as deep as she was tall, which Lucky didn't seem to notice at all. His vivosaur caught up eventually but was shaking a little once she had.

Tria blinked once and turned back to Drake, who she noticed was just staring up at something. He didn't say anything for a bit, he was just staring in silence, and then at one point he held his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun. Then, finally, he said, "Oh, wow."

"What's up?" Violet said, also staring upwards but with no direction.

Drake pointed at a small-looking bird flying overhead. "There's a, uh, a northern hawk-owl up there."

Violet beamed. "Oooo, good eyes, babe!" she said, taking a second to stroke Drake's arm a couple times. "I gotta record this."

She took her phone out while Tria watched the dot that was apparently a bird fly off out of sight. "How the hell did you see that and also how the hell can you tell what it is?"

"When did Sean text me?" Violet muttered out of nowhere and then immediately walked off to the side.

Drake shrugged. "I mean, I-I like birds so I was, uh, looking for one."

"I guess," Tria said. That didn't make much more sense but whatever. "We goin' in or what?"

"Y-yeah," Drake said reluctantly. He turned over to Violet who was gaping at her phone. "Y-you, um, you coming, Vi?

She didn't answer. Lucky walked over and lightly smacked her arm. "Mum, you coming?"

Violet blinked a few times. "Y-yeah, yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming." She put her phone back in her pocket and trudged back to Drake. "Sooo, what's going on?"

He sighed really loudly. "We, um, we have to walk down i-into there. I-it's, uh, too icy for Bone Buggies, they'd get stuck."

"It's not too icy for us?" Tria said, cocking her head a little bit to the side. Drake vaguely lifted one of his boots up which had a lot of really big spikes on it.

"It's, um, not too icy for me, and, uh, I-I can help everyone," he said, which made Violet snuggle up against him.

"Yeah, he could probably carry us all out," she said in a way that made Tria want to throw up.

"Alright, that's gross, I'm going in," she grumbled and stepped out of the snow and into the ice of the cave. A few more steps later and Tria noticed that there was a smooth decline in the floor, which activated the fun part of her brain again. "Oh hell yeah, slide!"

She took a few steps back and, with reckless abandon, ran forward and jumped headfirst down the incline.

There was some vague yelling behind her as Tria smacked against the ground, which admittedly sort of knocked the wind out of her, and proceeded to slide down the cave on her stomach. She got her breath back a few seconds later and started whooping all the way down, enjoying the cold wind on her face that just kept getting colder the further down she got and the ice almost burning her bare thighs. It was ridiculously exhilarating.

A few moments later the end of her ride came into view in the form of a very spiky wall. She put her hands on the ice, which admittedly hurt quite a bit, and dug her sneakers into the ground and slowly slid to a stop. Tria laughed and hopped up to her feet, dusting her hands off just for the sake of doing it. Jura would've never let her do that.

She waited a bit longer for her companions to catch up if only because she had no idea where she was going. Lucky's dumb little kid giggles echoed through the tunnel and he arrived sitting down, which was probably smarter than her method. He just dug in his heels and stopped almost immediately. Yeah, sure it was smarter and let him stop faster, but did he get the wind knocked out of him?

"That was sick!" Lucky yelled as he jumped up next to her, throwing his arms in the air. "I don't get to do this cool stuff that often, doing Warden stuff rocks!"

"Sure dude," Tria laughed. She stared up the incline they'd just come down, waiting for any sign of Drake and Violet. "Where're your folks at?"

Lucky scoffed. "Mum didn't wanna slide down so she's having Da help her."

"Loser."

"Right?"

Sure enough, around five minutes later there was Drake coming down the ice like it was nothing in his spiky boots. And there was Violet, who looked way too happy that Drake was carrying her. She had her arms around his neck and was all cuddled up against his chest.

"Vi, come on, dude," Tria said flatly, crossing her arms, "we're working right now, be horny later."

Lucky tilted his head and stared at Tria. "What's that mean?"

Violet got out of Drake's arms pretty fast. "Heyyy, Luckster, why don't you, uh, scout ahead for us?" she said, gesturing at the tunnel before them while laughing awkwardly.

He cheered pretty loud. "Whooo! I get to slide on ice and explore?" He followed it up with a thumbs up. "I'll do a proper good job, Mum!" Lucky added, and he took off running.

"Make sure you stay in eyesight!" Violet yelled after him. He just shouted something unintelligible back, which indicated he was out of earshot. Violet immediately glared at Tria. "Really excited about Lucky asking about this again later, cheers for that."

Tria shot her a finger gun. "No prob, Vi."

And she took off after Lucky.

The two of them walked together ahead of Drake and Violet, with Lucky not paying any attention to Tria at all as he intently watched all sides of them for whatever he was looking for. Danger, probably, but who could tell for sure? She was, as per usual when she hung out with Lucky alone for an elongated period of time, getting extremely bored, so she decided to just eavesdrop on Drake and Violet. They weren't actually quiet, she could hear them pretty well with the massive echo in this cave. Also Violet was lowkey yelling.

"-He's like my bloody stupid younger brother, I'm kind of required to stop him from killing himself doing dumb shite!"

"He's an adult, Vi, he gets to make his own decisions."

Violet huffed. "You're an only child, you wouldn't get it."

"You're also an only child, what are you talking about?"

Tria was a little surprised at how calm and normal Drake sounded back there, and she almost looked to double check it was him when she heard him laughing a little at Violet. He was just a person, what the hell, he could be a person?

There was some assorted affectionate bickering that just annoyed Tria after whatever drama Violet was mad about, so she zoned out for a bit and waited for Violet to get mad again. This, unfortunately, didn't happen, and instead just ended with Drake saying, "Sean'll be fine, he's dumb, but he's not that dumb."

"I know, I know."

Oh, lame, they were talking about Sean. And then Drake said something in Norwegian and Violet got all stupid and giggly again and Tria made a gagging noise out loud.

"Your parents are fucking disgusting, dude," she said flatly, leaning her head back.

Lucky nodded as he continued his surveillance. "Yeah, there's a reason I'm not paying any attention to 'em right now. They're gross."

"Imagine having the capability to be attracted to someone, couldn't be me," Tria said under her breath. She hoped Lucky couldn't hear her solely because she was pretty sure he wouldn't get the joke and she didn't want to explain it.

Thankfully, around that exact moment he shouted, "Oh shoot, there's something up ahead!" and completely redirected everyone's attention.

Tria looked up from her moping and saw the big cavern he was probably referring to. It was way brighter in there than it was around them, and there seemed to be some movement in there, but it was hard to tell from where they were standing. Drake and Violet caught up to them and Drake was immediately back to being all nervous and serious again.

"O-oh yeah, um, that's gonna be where the, uh, where the Raja Devil is," he said, tapping his fingers together.

"So what's that thing's deal?" Tria said as she dug around in her pocket for the gear she'd brought with her.

Drake took a deep, shaky breath. "W-well, um, we had to, uh, close this dig site down, um, a while back because of it. I-it's way too big for some reason, a-and it's super aggressive. No one could really, uh, deal with it back in the day, but, uh, we were also super understaffed, so that could've been why. But, u-um, there's a reason we didn't see much of anything alive o-on the way here."

"Have we ever been properly staffed?" Violet said.

"Probably not," Drake said, falling back into his usual deadpan.

Tria turned back towards the massive cave-room they were approaching. "So there's like some Godzilla-tier raja up ahead?"

"I-it's not that big, um, raja isn't a very b-big vivosaur to, uh, to begin with," Drake murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. "I-it's a little, um, a little smaller th-then a t-rex."

Well that was just confusing, it didn't seem like a vivosaur smaller than a t-rex would be any trouble to deal with. But, like Drake said, they were understaffed, maybe it was just easier to shut down a dig site than it was to hunt down a big, aggressive vivosaur. Tria didn't care when she really thought about it, though, because they were about to go beat the crap out of said aggressive vivosaur and that was gonna be hella fun.

Finally, Violet just grinned and smacked her hands together. "Alright, let's go deal with this dodgy bugger so we can stop world-ending stuff!"

"Yeah! I wanna see Da beat the snot outta it!" Lucky chimed in, which just seemed to embarrass Drake a whole bunch.

That got Tria's brain going enough to ask. "Why is everyone so excited to watch you fight something, dude? You're, like, even more wimpy than my bro."

Drake gave one long, defeated sigh. "W-well, um, I-I'm a… a descendent o-of Vikings, right? M-marauders of the sea?"

"Yeah? I know what Vikings are, dude."

"R-right, um…" He rubbed one of his arms slowly. "I-I know, um, I-I seem really quiet and, uh, and reserved most of the time, b-but, um, I'm not really like that." He paused and cleared his throat. "Th-the blood of warriors flows, um, through my veins, so when I, um, when I-I fight, my real, berserking self c-comes out."

He fell silent immediately after that, which just left Tria to gape for a few seconds. Then, she shrugged and started walking towards the cave. She still couldn't picture Drake like that, which was making it absolutely impossible to take him seriously. "Alright, whatever, let's just go kill this thing. Gotta stop the world from ending, right?"

"Yep! Let's go!" Lucky cheered. He took off running past Tria straight to the danger, which just made her start running too because gosh darn it some 9-year-old wasn't gonna beat her to a big battle.

The huge cavern their tunnel opened up into had a shattered-looking hole in the roof through which light and a whole bunch of snow were coming in. Icicles had collected around the hole as well, so plenty of shattered ice and little puddles were scattered across the ground. And then, on the other side of the cavern was the Raja Devil.

It did in fact look like a raja, it was just roughly twice the size of a normal one, maybe a little bigger. Scars were scattered across its scaly hide, many of which were focused around its massive jaws. A green-blue shard of what was probably the cosmonium was lodged into its nostril, but not in a funny way. It was like a piece of glass had been shoved into the nostril and was now sticking out the bridge of its maw, so it was pretty weird that that had naturally gotten there. A ton of blood and pus ran down its face from this shard, probably from an abscess that had formed and burst in response to the wound, and there were fresh cuts and blood on its foot and leg that seemed to be from attempting to dislodge the shard from its nose.

Something about that made it look extra scary.

The massive vivosaur noticed them entering its den of sorts a few moments later and began to emit a rumbling noise that resembled a growl. It didn't wait for them to heed the warning, though, its feet scrabbled on the icy floor and once its nails got a grip, it was barrelling towards them at top speed.

"Oh shit," Tria said as she shoved her hand in her pocket and whipped out her dino gear. She chucked it as hard as she could when a nice surge of adrenaline hit her veins in response to the, you know, life threatening vivosaur. The gear flashed to life into Long, her sinocera, whose sudden appearance made the Raja Devil slide to a stop. This allowed enough time for two other dino gears to get thrown into the mix, which turned into Meg, Violet's paraloph, and an ankylo BO that Tria assumed was Drake's.

This ankylo specifically was a bit different than other ones she'd seen. It had a very mean look to it which was emphasized by the enlarged horns coming off its face, much larger than any Tria'd seen on an ankylo before. The armor around its neck was in sharp, swept-back spikes that added to its seemingly random ferocity. Even Drake's vivosaur was scarier than he was.

Tria almost immediately regretted that thought when one of Drake's stupid spiky boots stomped into the ground next to her so hard that the ice audibly snapped. She jumped, mostly shocked that something that loud had happened right next to her and not over by the four vivosaurs about to fight, and stared up at Drake. He wasn't slouching, he wasn't all huddled up, and, most noticeably, he had an absolutely insane grin on his face. Tria suddenly felt like she was disociating because nothing she was looking at felt real.

That was even the cap on everything ridiculous Drake was doing because this crazy look was followed up by him yelling, as in actually yelling super loud, "Hey! Drittsekk!"

The Raja Devil, who'd seemed completely feral, turned its head to stare at Drake with way more recognition than Tria'd been expecting.

"For holding this dig site hostage, I'll cleave you in twain with my bare hands!" Drake shouted, his eyes wild. "Your steaming corpse will provide me a fine meal!"

"What the actual fuck," Tria said out loud. She noted that she actually said that because no one acknowledged that she did, not even Violet. This couldn't be real, there was no way this was real. Then, squinting, she leaned around Drake to actually look at Violet in a desperate attempt to see someone acting like how she was used to. She was, instead, greeted by the sight of Violet near-swooning over Drake, and immediately leaned back and redirected her gaze to the vivosaurs. Everyone here sucked.

Meg was the fastest vivosaur there by quite a bit, so she glanced back at her fighter when she didn't get any commands and rolled her eyes. At least someone else found Violet being horny annoying. The paraloph seemed to recognize she wasn't going to get told what to do so she made a decision herself, running on all fours at the larger raja and rearing up on her hind legs to strike it across the head. Her front leg made sure to smack the more cranial part of its skull to disorient it, and then she was trotting back out of reach.

This clearly worked, as the Raja Devil staggered around for a moment while shaking its head. It appeared to regain its bearings and charged towards Meg, its eyes burning with frustration. However, it started to trip up while running, and when it caught itself it actually lunged at Drake's ankylo, who rather easily slid to the side to avoid the attack.

Drake responded by yelling something to his ankylo that was entirely in Norwegian, prompting it to trot at the confused raja and slam into its leg back-first. The Raja Devil roared in pain as multiple tons of force crashed into its limb and pricked it with sharp, bony armor. It collapsed to the ground and struggled back up as Drake's ankylo easily caught itself and landed on its feet. Drake, meanwhile, started laughing at the injured raja.

Tria glanced over at Lucky, who was just cheering and mildly trash-talking the raja, and felt a little grounded again. She'd forgotten there was a 9-year-old here who was totally normal and just found dinosaurs fighting to be super sick. Thank god. With a grin, she ruffled his hair and turned to her sinocera.

"Alright, Long, let's get in on this!" she said, clutching her hands into fists. "Hit it with a jaw slicer!"

The sinocera snorted and dramatically scraped his foot on the ground. Then, as the Raja Devil finally picked itself up, Long charged it and swung his blade-horn and its chest. The blade sliced through its scaly skin and caught its chin, throwing it into an upward stance that left it extremely unbalanced.

Before it could reorient, Meg jumped into action again and punched the raja across the jaw. It roared as it recoiled, finally righting itself. The Raja Devil snarled and planted a foot forward, its jaws parting as energy started to twist and flicker through its teeth. Then, it whipped its head up and sent a blast of energy towards Drake's ankylo.

This attack did hit, but all it really did was push the ankylo back. It shook the attack off with ease and was ready to roll by the time Drake was yelling another one of his crazy commands Tria didn't understand. Once again, the ankylo crashed into the Raja Devil, this time going for its other leg. The raja crashed into the icy ground, its two injured legs making it difficult to get up and stay up. And, Drake was still laughing at its injuries like a crazy person.

Tria was impressed at how much of a beat down this was on something Drake had hyped up so much. Maybe its wound from the cosmonium had weakened it or something, made it a little easier to handle. Whatever the case, they still had to actually finish it off, so she looked over to Long and said, "Another jaw slicer on that stupid thing!"

Long didn't give the Raja Devil a second to recover. He sliced along its maw and flicked a gash over one of its eyes, which made it more desperate to get back up. The raja finally got some traction after that hit and rose up to its full height quickly, only for Meg to smack it again, just on its shoulder this time. It snarled in response, its eyes flashing with a reddish glow for a second, and then it threw its head back and roared at the top of its lungs.

That was a fearsome roar, alright, which meant that its soundwaves were powerful enough to knock their vivosaurs back. Meg and Drake's ankylo were knocked back, while Long crouched down and tensed up to avoid getting too messed up. All three vivosaurs were stumbling around once the booming shout subsided, with Meg pawing at her head as if her ears hurt.

A wicked grin seemed to materialize on the Raja Devil's face as it noticed Meg's distraction. It lunged at her and grabbed the back of her neck, twisting its body to throw her off to the side. She let out a pained cry as the raja's teeth ripped lines into her scales and sent her tumbling across the ice. Blood dribbled down from the gashes and splattered around as he shook her neck like a wet dog.

The Raja Devil took a little too much pleasure in watching the pain it inflicted, because as it stared at Meg, Drake's ankylo BO crashed into its side and bowled it over. The massive vivosaur fell down bodily, and this time it didn't immediately get back up. When this happened, Drake laughed and began a cocky stride over to the downed beast.

As soon as the raja noticed him coming over, it started attempting to pull itself up. However, before it could get too far, Drake stomped one of his stupid spiky boots into the raja's face and, somehow, pinned it to the ground. Tria didn't know how the hell he was possibly keeping it down, it was a massive vivosaur, it was writhing around, but Drake was just grinning and keeping its head on the ground.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the injuries the Raja Devil had obtained got to it and it stopped struggling. When it did, Drake leaned over and grabbed that nasty piece of cosmonium and ripped it out way too easily. More pained writhing and roaring ensued, which was answered by Drake yelling, "Køss meg i ræva!" and waving the bloody shard at it.

Violet scampered up next to him still looking as ridiculously lovestruck as she had been at the start of the fight. She blinked a couple times, glanced over at Lucky, and said, "Hey, love, mind coming over here for a sec?"

"Sure, Mum!" he said, running over from next to Tria and purposefully sliding to a stop on the icy floor. He broke out in giggles over it as Violet unzipped his backpack and pulled out a blanket.

"Alright, Drakey, can I, uh, have that?" Violet said nervously, but in a gross, blushy way.

He looked back at her with a smirk and held out the cosmonium, which was wrapped up in the blanket and stuffed back in Lucky's backpack. Once it was zipped back up, Lucky spun around with his eyes all sparkly. "Suck it, Raja Devil!" he said in typical nine-year-old fashion, which was hilarious because Tria was also very likely to say the same thing.

However, despite being pinned, the raja still wasn't in its gear. Obviously, they couldn't just leave it out there, that would be stupid. Tria was faintly aware that the longer a vivosaur is out of its gear, the harder it is for it to return to it, but it was nowhere near the front of her thoughts. What she was thinking about was how Drake was usually not at all scary because he was the most timid person she knew, but now that he was loud and confident and obviously pretty strong, it was suddenly very apparent that he could kill someone really easily. This was one of those precise moments where Tria was super happy to be overconfident as hell, because Jura would probably be freaking out in this same scenario.

To finish off this bizarre encounter, Drake removed his boot from the raja and gave it a kick on the snout. "That's it? That's all you can do?" he spat at it. This prompted the Raja Devil to give one last shove off the ground to lunge at Drake, who broke out laughing. He grabbed its bottom jaw and yanked down hard enough to make the huge vivosaur come tumbling down all over again. This time it flashed down to its gear, leaving Drake standing over it with a crazy, victorious grin.

Yeah, wow, that was impressive.

"Min elskede!" Drake said, which made Violet jump slightly and get all flustered. She didn't get a chance to react otherwise because Drake scooped her up pretty easily and chuckled. "I'll prepare us a grand feast of this mighty beast!"

Violet, who'd been reduced to a puddle watching his go nuts, just about died having it directed at her. She had this stupid grin and her face was all red and she was just giggling and kicking her legs a little bit.

Tria, an asexual and unwilling onlooker, was suddenly overcome with a wave of nausea at the looks Drake and Violet were exchanging. "Nope, nah, I'm outta here, let's go Long!" she said, spinning around and waving for her sinocera to follow. She'd seen enough tv, she knew what bedroom eyes were.

"Wait up!"

Lucky fell in beside her a few moments later. He seemed equally disgusted, but probably not for the same reason. "Even when Da's being all cool and killer, he's gotta be all gross and lovey-dovey," he grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, uh, sure," Tria said. She didn't know what else to say. "'Least we got the cosmonium."

"Yep!" Lucky chirped.

Neither of them looked back once.

Ayyyy, fast update! This chapter ended up being crazy long bc I didn't wanna split it up like I had to with the last one, so think of it like compensation for waiting so long for the last update ha ha

I had a lot of fun writing this so it went pretty fast, next chapter will probably be a little ways out bc I totally procrastinated on a super big project this last weekend and you all know how that goes lol. Thanks for all the support, feel free to drop a review! They really motivate me ha ha

(Also that was a, how you say, joque! No cave banging occurred gcfjrdvfgsrhcrd)

(Adding the phrase fossil fighters frontier so this actually comes up when searched)