Disclaimer: This story is not owned, this game Fossil Fighters Champions was published by Nintendo, and developed by: Nintendo SPD, Red Entertainment, M2, and Artdink.

Chapter 20 – A Chillin' Tale Part 2

POV: Sarah

Time: 12:10

Location: Ilium Island (Café)

Ah… It's so nice to have a cup of hot chocolate when it's cold outside. I hold my hands around the paper cup. I may be able to take being outside in the cold… though it doesn't mean I like it when my hands get cold. It's so lovely that there's a café here, and with so many people searching for fossils it isn't really packed. Making it nice and easy for me and my shy friend to talk with me.

I say that… but she hasn't really spoken since I've dragged her away from Icegrip Plateau. She's barely even touched the Hot chocolate that I got for her? "Are you not, thirsty?"

"…" and she's not talking to me.

"C'mon… Talking out in that Icy area would be terrible!" I try to defend. "Especially with how your dressed! How haven't you caught a cold by now?!"

"Says the girl with just shorts and a short-sleeved shirt." Pauleen finally commented back.

"Hey, I'll have you know, I wear knee high boots, and an undershirt!" I fired back. "…But then again with a magic mask, who knows maybe you have resistance to Cold as well."

"…" And she goes silent again, before finally saying. "Are you mad at me?"

"No." I shrug simply, my blonde hair bobbing with it. "I mean I've seen first hand how hard it is to talk to others. Some people feel insecure about their weakness, and… avoid the subject."

"…" I can hear a small sigh come from Pauleen. "Do… Do you believe I'll ever be able to face the world without this mask?"

"Pauleen, I can say several million different things. But the only one who can make that decision is you." I say back to her, slightly sipping on the warm cocoa.

"…" I could tell from her silence there was a grimace. She knew that I was right.

"Alright… Let me rephrase." I place the cup down, doing my best to look at the eye holes of the mask. "Do you want to take the mask off?"

"I… I do." Pauleen nodded to my question, her voice shaking ever so slightly. "I want nothing more than to be free of this mask forever. I want to talk with my own voice, see the world with my own eyes… but… but… I'm too scared to do it."

At this rate this won't help her what so ever. "You know, it's called a weakness because your afraid to deal with it. Everyone has weaknesses, but everyone faces them differently. Rex, a lot of his weaknesses are the same as yours (Minus his sense of direction and in ability to handle vehicle travels). Todd… He talks a big game, but he really is afraid of things. But even still those two have save my butt in more ways than I can count. Most of them are because they moved through because they had to."

"…" Pauleen looked at me silently. "what about you? Have you dealt with your weaknesses?"

"Hm… let's see." I slowly list of my weakness. "I know I'm hot headed, insecure about my own intelligence. Those are some of the more recent issues I've been working on. But in the past, I had bigger weaknesses that I needed to work through. You know a long time ago… I was about as feeble as Rex was. But I got over it first becoming the Brave Twin."

"You? feeble?" Pauleen looked at me surprised. "I'm sorry but does that even go in your book? You're just so—"

"Brave? Happy-go-lucky? Pleasantly ignorant?" I could go on for hours. "I pay more attention than it seems… It's just I don't tend to retain it that well."

"Okay… assuming that you were as shy as me and Rex…" Pauleen seemed to still have trouble agreeing with what I said. "How'd you overcome it?"

How'd I overcome it? "Simple. I just realized I had worse things to fear."

"Worse things to fear?" Pauleen's voice seemed to stiffen as I said that.

Pipipipipipipi…

Before I could start to explain what, I meant, our Paleo Pagers started to ring. "Incoming FMS message." It then buzzed with the voice changing to Joe's voice. "Howdy there, pards. It's me, Joe, and I'm afraid we got a problem on our hands. I need the Patrol Team to mount up and gather in my suite immediately."

"That sounded urgent…" Pauleen muttered. I agree with that… He sounded pretty worried…

"Then let's make haste." I guess we'll be dropping that there.

Time: 12:40

Location: Cranial Island

Me and Pauleen had arrived at Joe's office first. And after a few minutes the Elevator dinged. As I expected to see Rex and Todd. Only Rex was there. Weird… Todd wouldn't miss an opportunity to see Joe like that? "Where's Todd?"

"Well… you see like most people who don't wear proper clothes for the cold. Todd caught a cold." Rex replies back. Yeesh, Todd caught a cold. But really… Why do people always fall sick at the worst of times.

"The poor feller went and caught himself a cold? Now don't that just beat all?!" Joe was surprised. Yeah, Todd is pretty energetic it is really rare for him to fall sick. Kinda like… "Well then I reckon this is all the Patrol Team we're gonna have today.

"…" I silently sigh, with glances at Pauleen and Rex. Rupert should have come here as well.

"Anyway," Pauleen tries to drag back to the subject at hand. "What's this about, Joe? You said it was serious."

He looked at the three of us, a grave look on his face. "Keep this under yer hat, but some varmint went and stole our Super Electrominites."

Super what now? I said inside my head.

"Super electrominites?" Oh… Rex doesn't even know it. That's surprising. I look to the side, even Pauleen looks confused.

"Super Electrominites are extremely rare fossils that put out a near preposterous amount of energy." Joe said bluntly. "In fact, this entire fossil park runs on just three Super Electrominites."

"Three?!" I heard Rex release a loud gasp. "With a park this big it would take a considerable amount of power for everything… With three islands just means one for—"

Joe cut off Rex to continue explaining. "Anyway, a little while ago, three intruders busted into all the park's Fighter Stations. They went straight to the generator rooms and made off with the Super Electrominites. We're runnin' on regular Electrominites right now, but I reckon them boys ain't gonna last much longer."

"…" Rex had a worried look on his face. That didn't sound too good.

"…Wh-what happens then?" Pauleen asked timidly.

"Like anything else when the battery dies." Rex mumbled.

"Right, lights'll go out… Auto-doors won't open… KL-33N and all them VMMs will fail…" Joe shook his head. I'm starting to get an understanding of how important this is. "We'll pretty much be sittin' in the dark, I reckon. And forget about cleanin' or revivin' yer fossil rocks!"

"That's terrible!" The three of us yell. It would be the end of the Fossil Park.

"I know." Joe nodded in response to us. "That's why we gotta recover them Super Electrominites as soon as possible. I've heard rumors that the culprits are hidin' out at one'a the dig sites. I sent Stella, Terry, and Kent out to try and track 'em down, and I'm hoping y'all can join the search."

"You can count on us!" I proclaim, Rex nods his head in confirmation.

"Of course!" Pauleen also bolstered. "I won't stand by while a bunch of jerks shut down this Park!"

"It does my heart good to heat that, y'all." Joe smirked as he heard that, placing a hand on his chest. "Anyway, Terry and Stella seem to have a good grip on Ribular and Cranial. I'd like to ask y'all to go search out at Icegrip Plateau."

"Yes sir." We all agreed.

"All right, Good luck out there." Joe responded with a nod. And the three of us headed down the elevator.

As the elevator ride down, I looked at rex. Checking to see how he was doing; he usually doesn't do well with any type of vehicle. But right now, he looked strange… and not in a motion sickness way. something worrying him. "Rex, everything alright?"

"Hm…?" He perked up and looked back at me in a second. "I'm fine, it just seems strange."

"what's strange?" Pauleen looked intrigued like me.

"How did the thieves steal the Super Electrominites?" Rex said… Now that I thought about it, it does sound weird.

"What do you mean, weren't you paying attention?!" Pauleen shouted at Rex. Who slightly flinched. "Joe said that the thieves walked into the Fighter Stations of each Ilse and stole them."

"Yeah… but how?" Rex repeated. "Joe said that they are super important for the Park's functioning. But did either of you notice anything? It's not like they broke through a wall with hundreds of people around each island."

"Well… you don't see too many security guards all around." Pauleen fired back at Rex… She wasn't seeing what he was.

"That's cause almost everything is done with codes. Not a single person uses a physical key anymore." What Rex said was true… Unless you're the type of person to forget codes.

"That's… uh…" Pauleen didn't know how to respond.

"Well, we can figure that out later." I stop the conversation as the elevator reaches the main floor. "from what it sounds like we don't even know who stole them. It could have just been some Park Employees that were bribed to steal them."

"…" Rex nodded, understanding he didn't have enough evidence to try and understand it for now. Pauleen seemed to also agree with me. We start our way to the exit so that we can get to Ilium Island.

As we head over, I notice Rupert. I try to call out to him. It would be safer with a larger number. "Rupert!"

He stops… More like hesitates. Then turns and looks at the three of us, his eyes don't seem happy. "…What? I told you I wanted nothing to do with you people. Now if you'll excuse me—"

"Please, we'd like you to help us." I say to him without a second of hesitation.

"…Help you?" He seems surprised that I said that. He quickly shakes his head, with an air of displeasure on his face. "I'm sorry, what part of 'Leave me alone' was confusing you?"

"Listen, Rupert!" Pauleen tries to help me convince him as well. "Someone stole the Super Electrominites that power this park. If we don't get them back, no one will be able to clean or revive their fossil rocks. Joe asked us to search Icegrip Plateau, so that's where we're headed."

"Even still, it's a large Dig site." Rex adds in. "It'd be a lot faster if you'd help us. We really need it."

"…" He's silent… for a second I thought he'd accept. "…This is none of my concern. Excuse me."

And… he started to walk away. Why? Was he really just that cold? Was all that time, we all hung out that little… I… I just didn't know what to say… "…"

"You say that, but I know it's a lie!" Pauleen ended up shouting at him. "Deep down, you love battling, Rupert. We all know you do!"

"Right," Rex even found strength to talk while I couldn't… "You'd be heartbroken if they canceled the Cup!"

Pauleen step forward trying to convince him to not turn away. "Be honest about your feelings! It's time to show some backbone and stop being your father's puppet!"

Rupert tightened his fists… I thought he'd be flaring up with anger or something. But instead, he doesn't look at us. He…he runs…

As he runs away, me and rex look to see Pauleen shaking ever so slightly. "H-hey, are you alright?"

"Heh…" She laughed inwardly. "I can't believe I told him to show some backbone… I don't even have the courage to take off this stupid mask. I don't have the right to yell at anyone…"

"Pauleen…" Rex tried to console her.

"Pauleen, you did well." I give her a smile. What she said… I don't know if Rupert needed to hear that. But… It was exactly what I needed to hear. "even with that mask, what you said took courage. I'm sure you'll be able to take it off soon."

"…Thanks…" she shyly said. "uh… we should set off for Icegrip Plateau."

While we should get there as soon as possible… I still want to try and convince him. I glance to Rex. He must have heard my thoughts, as he sighed. "Catch up when you can. And don't break any of Rupert's bones. I'd rather not have you get kicked out for assaulting someone."

"Thanks. I won't!" I send Rex and Pauleen off. It's about time I had a bit of a heart to heart with Rupert. I know I'm weak… yet I act strong…