Chapter 6 – Side Quests

POV: Sarah

The Next Day

Time: 10:00

Location: Fossil Apartments

"So, where are we going?" my roommate, who I finally get to hang out with, asks.

"To the room of a person who can actually cook!" I kind of left our kitchen as a mess… Rex was right mom makes cooking look easy.

"And we couldn't have gone out for breakfast?" She continues to patronize me.

"Pauleen can you stop patronizing me. I haven't asked about the mask whatsoever this morning." I'm getting annoyed with that tone.

"I have a very good reason for wearing it all the time." She wears it everywhere.

I ignore it, if the reason was good, she could just tell me. But I should respect her privacy… Well in any event were at the place to be! I knock on the door. "Rex open up! I want breakfast!"

"… Are you sure this is a good idea?" Pauleen asks, as I continue bang on the door.

"What? Annoying Rex is the best way for me to get my way." I smile.

"… must be a great brother…" Pauleen mutters.

"I heard that! I am a great sister to him. In any event I can be-!" As I keep knocking on the door it finally opens, and I lose my balance.

"He's a better brother if he can put up with your shenanigans." Rupert is the one who opens it.

"Hello. Where's Rex?" I ask him straight away.

"When I got up, I found a note saying he already left with your friend Todd." Rupert seems to be in a grump mood. "Now what do you want?"

"Breakfast! Thought I could get Rex to cook for us." I say while smiling still.

"Shouldn't you do it yourself?" Rupert looks at me confused.

Pauleen answers him before I could. "She almost burnt down the kitchen."

"Really? You can't cook?" He looked surprised.

"Hey! You shouldn't think that all girls should know how to cook! Do you even know how to?" I fire questions at him.

"I'm not say girls all girls should know how to cook. I'm say everyone as whole should know how to cook." Rupert smirks, "Besides I was taught how to when I was young."

"Yet, you can't wake yourself up." I point to his mess of Bed head.

"Neither can you." Pauleen whispers to me.

"Shut up I can win this." I snap at her.

"Ugh." Rupert sound annoyed. "Fine come in, I was just about to make breakfast for myself anyway."

"yay!" yes, breakfast secured!

"But on two conditions." Rupert prevents us from entering, pointing at me. "First, you must watch and learn how to cook. Second, you have to wash the dishes."

I bite my lip; I really didn't come to this competition to learn… but for breakfast. "Deal."

It takes about an hour but Rupert teaches me on how to mix pancake batter, and cook it in a frying pan. Then also goes over the steps on how to make coffee from just a kettle. Then after everything is cooked, and placed at the table.

"Let's eat!" I exclaim.

"Manners first." Rupert tells me off.

"I helped you, didn't I?" He has no right to patronize me.

"Can you two stops be fighting." I look to see Pauleen has already eaten her pancakes

"how'd you do that?" I confront her on it.

"What do you mean?" She says through her mask.

"How did you eat with your mask on!" I slam my hand on the table. I surely would have thought she'd take it off. "Why the hell do you wear it all the time?! I mean I very curious!"

"I-I a very good reason. But I don't feel like sharing it." Now she's crossed her arms. "Your brother never asked me about it."

"He's weird! Of course, he'd overlook it!" I shout, I just want to know what she looks like!

"He did mention he is curious, but wants to respect your choice to wear it." Rupert said, "He also proposed a theory as to why you wear it."

"He did?" both me a Pauleen ask

"Rex said, due to her more… tribal attire. You are probably under some action where the first person to see your face, will be the one you marry." Rex suggested something like that? "It is no longer a common practice… but still a plausible."

"So, is what my brother said true?" If it is, I'll drop it entirely.

"… sure… something like that." That didn't sound too truthful… but I guess she really doesn't want to have it go on…

"That is a bit of an odd custom though… where are you from?" I should have asked it yesterday.

"I'm from… Digadig Village, on Vivosaur Island." I feel like I've heard about that place before.

"Sounds like an interesting place." I nod along. "I'm from Fraeca. But I was raised with the traditions of my mother's side. I am half Celibir, but I haven't visited the nazione."

After I mention where we are from, Pauleen and I look at Rupert. "You don't expect me to tell you. Do you?"

"Please!" I try to give him puppy dog eyes.

"…" he looks at me confused, but eventually gives in. "Fine, if it gets you off my case. I am also from Fraeca. My Father's company started there."

"I thought so, you two do have the same accent." Pauleen took note.

"Makes sense, if you have someone from the same country, you don't often hear any differences in speaking." I say, "now on to other topics what should we do to prepare for the Competition."

"Assuming you two have picked your teams for the next round. You, would work on leveling up, your fighter level." When Rupert says that I get confused.

"What do you mean? Don't we automatically level up as we progress through the competition?" How else would we get stronger?

"we will get some points for making out way through the competition, but we get more for helping others, in more of a quest system." That sound odd.

"Why do we have to do this?" This sounds annoying and tedious.

"Do you not know?" Rupert explained further. "This was a request of the sponsors of the competition. In order for us to increase our fighter level, it's beneficial to help others."

Sounds boring… but I want to get stronger, "Okay then let's get going!"

"After you wash the dishes." Rupert reminds me.

"Ugh…" I complain, I don't like doing chores.

Time: 12:00

Location: Fossil Stadium

"Ugh… how many more do we have to do before we level up…" I groan, we've been to Treasure lake for a dumb quiz show, forced to help someone with cleaning a bunch of fossil rocks, and bunch of other things this is getting bothersome! Besides! Rupert even left us!

"I'm sure we'll level up sooner or later." Pauleen tried to console my annoyance.

Beep! Beep! It was our Paleo Pagers. "Fighter has done enough fighting and digging to progress to Fighter Level Three. FP recharge is now at ninety and Max FP is at two-hundred-fifty. Posting information to battle technology."

"Well there you have it, wonder if we'll be able to get two levels in one day." as Pauleen tries to get me to do more quests, my annoyance reaches its peak.

"These are more or less just chores! They are getting more and more annoying as they progress!" I try my best to not raise my voice.

"Hey you!" oops, seems like I was too loud. I look over to see a gruffy looking traveler man. He holds a plate of things around him like he's trying to sell things.

"Me?" I point at myself. Once he nodded, I walk over. "If it's about my shouting, then I'm sorry for the noise."

"No, not that." The man says. "I saw all the round one matches, your Lucertola."

"Yes, that is correct… what do you want?" I'm completely confused. Do I have fans already?

"Though you and your brother seem to green as can be. But still I see potential in you." The man smiled.

"So, who are you and what do you want?" This is getting annoying…

"Oh, sorry, sorry. The name's Ned. Ned Tudor. I'm the youngest of the Tudor Brothers. Ever heard of us?" I shake my head no to the question. "... Sounds like I need to get out more. Enough about that. Would you like to learn some new skill about digging?"

This sounded interesting, so. "Sure. are you going to try it Pauleen?"

"Hm…" Pauleen thought about it for a second. "Is this just to see different color fossil rocks?"

"Ah. So, you've already been taught this technique then." Ned looked towards Pauleen.

"Yup!" Pauleen says with what I could only assume with a smile under that mask, as she also tries a cute pose that doesn't work with it at all.

"But, wait what do you mean the power to see different color fossil rocks?" Aren't they just different types of Brown?

"A skilled Fighter can spot the elemental type of a fossil rock the moment it leaves the ground." Ned explained. "The colors you would see correspond to the five elemental types, Red for fire, blue for water, green for air, yellow for earth, and white for neutral. So, what do you say kid?"

"Hm…" this sounds interesting… I wonder if Rex has tried it yet… "Hey mister, has a kid with blue hair, also looks like me. Tried this?"

"Yes, he has." Ned responds calmly… so Rex already beat me to it. "He said, that his twin sister might want to try it."

"Eh… I was planning on doing it whether Rex already did or not. I just wanted to see if I could boast about it to him." I just realized I said all of that out loud. "So, what are you waiting for."

"Okay then." Ned then continues to chant some weird words. Then all of a sudden white flash across my vision. "Viola! Pretty Swanky, no?"

I take out my fossil rock storage device, and look inside. "Wow, I have a good amount of air types from Jungle Labyrinth. But yeah awesome. This'll make it a lot easier to dig."

"Don't mention it, and if you on either Cranial or Ilium Island try to visit my brothers, they'll be happy to teach either of you thing or two more about Fossil Fighting." Ned said.

"Thanks, I might just." With that me and Pauleen leave

"So, why did you describe your brother to the guy? Not just ask 'Has my brother Rex been here?'" Pauleen asks me.

"I don't know? Because it's easier to remember someone's face then name? I Think?" I'm not completely sure about that.

"But you two don't look that alike." Pauleen said something strange.

"You're the first person to say something like that." were twins we definitely look alike.

Pauleen looks at me with what I can only assume to be confusion. "But you two have different color hair."

"Is that your only reason?" as Pauleen nods I start to laugh. "Are you kidding me! Me and Rex are both natural blondes."

"Then why did he dye his hair?" we continue on this tangent.

"He was sick of being confused with me. I mean this is what we looked like as kids." I take out my phone and search for a photo. It's of me and Rex, both of us blonde, hair was also the same length, and wearing the exact same clothes. "Can you tell who's who?"

As Pauleen glances between the photo and me, "The one on the right is you, they look more feminine, and their eyes are a lighter color like yours."

"Oh my! You just guessed Rex!" As I say that, Pauleen jumps in surprise. "You should have guessed the Tom boy looking one."

"Okay, well that makes sense…" She shakes her head. "But why did he pick blue as his new hair color?"

Why blue?... "I think he said he wanted to be stronger, like our cousin… our cousin has naturally blue hair."

"That's good, I guess. It's always important to have someone to look up to." Pauleen nodded along to my answer.

"Yeah, but we both look up to him. He's an awesome person. Besides he's also the reason as to why we started Fossil Fighting." I explain. "If it wasn't for him, I doubt we'd even be here."

"Oh, so is your cousin part of the Cup?" Pauleen was curious.

"Nah, as much as he likes fossil fighting, he has other things that he has to do as well." Hunter right now is focus on finding things on the past… and helping some alien species. "When we talked to him about it, he sounded sad that he wouldn't be able to participate. But, if he was in this, then no one would have a hope of winning."

"Wow with your usual confidence, if you say that, then he must be strong." oddly that wasn't sarcastic.

"Yeah, I mean-" as I was about to brag about Hunter, I'm interrupted by my paleo pager.

Beep! Beep! "Incoming FMS Message. Round two of the Caliosteo Cup will now begin. Sarah's opponent will be Fighter Frances Cleveland."

I look to Pauleen who also got her opponent for round two. "Well then, let's continue this conversation later."

"Right, this teen Idol has to show her shine!" Pauleen then ran off to prepare on her own.

Time: 14:30

Location: Fossil Stadium

I passed my battle very easily, my opponent only had two air types. A Radox, and an Igua. Raja was the star of this battle again; it really took two turns in this fight to win. This most definitely mean I'm getting stronger.

After my battle ended, I met up with Todd to watch Rex's battle. He of course won, but for some reason he seemed different than usual. Angry, almost… I hope he's okay.

"Wow! That was amazing! Rex didn't even lose a single Vivosaur in his fight!" Todd exclaimed. "I guess that's the power of someone who score a one hundred on the tests."

"Yeah…" It was amazing but… something doesn't feel right. As we enter the lobby, we see Rex talking to his opponent. "Maybe I'm worrying for nothing."

"Nobody messes with Rockin' Billy! You hear me?" All of a sudden, his opponent lift's Rex by the scruff of his shirt collar.

I immediately start running towards them "Hey! What are you doing to my brother!"