Hey, sorry it was a bit of a wait! But, I do bring good news! My chapters will be getting longer! Maybe not as long as this one, but definitely, noticably, longer! Now, since no one reviewed the last two chapters... we can get on to the story!

Chapter 8: Oh, the Troubles of Cleaning

I yawned as I woke up, vaguely remembering Thea challenging me to a game. I couldn't remember whether I won or lost though.

"Not that I'd tell her that." I chuckled to myself.

I walked outside after eating, quite ready to start my cleaning. I sighed as I pulled my orange jacket on, and headed down to the lobby. There I found an extremely tired looking Bob.

"Long night?"

"Yeah, I can't believe I spent almost half the night fighting around six different fighters for this." He pulled out a black colored fossil rock. I quickly figured out exactly what all that commotion was yesterday.

"Well, at least you can clean it when the cleaning room opens up. They said that the repairs should be done by nine o'clock."

"It's only eight thirty." I sighed at this, and pulled out my pickaxe, examining it in boredom. It was mostly orange, like my jacket, but had an aqua blue symbol in the center of the head, and a couple of lightning bolts going down to the points. I sighed, looking at the clock and seeing only a few minutes had passed. I got up and debated whether or not it would be worth it or not to go back to Treasure Lake and try to get more than the two fossils I had. I had just grabbed my pickaxe, when I ran into someone.

"Hey, watch it!"

Hoping I wouldn't have to battle them, I looked up and saw… Thea. I audibly sighed in relief, as I sat down.

"What're you doing down here?"

"Me?" I asked "I'm trying to clean my first Fossil. The better question is, what are you doing down here?"

"Oh yeah. Hey Bob, do you have one of my bags?"

"I don't know. What's it look like?"

"Eh, sorta round, like a cylinder. About this long." She motioned with her arms a length about a foot.

"Oh yeah… I might have that. What's in it?"

"Oh, just a couple dozen arrows. Not too much." Thea shrugged nonchalantly.

"Arrows? Why would you need those?" Bob's face had a look of confusion, and I was pretty sure I did too.

"Duh, for this." She pulled out a bow, and waved it in the air a bit.

"Why do you have that!?"Bob looked at it in shock.

"Oh don't worry, it's not like the arrows are sharpened or anything. Can't have some random person's blood on them, now can we?" Needless to say, we were both staring at her like she was crazy. "What?"

"Is it black with red stripes?"

"Yep!"

"Yeah, I'll go get that for you." Bob rushed for the stairs.

"Hey, wanna have a bet?"

"Oh, why not." I sighed. "What do you want?"

"If he doesn't make it here before nine, you are going to buy me all the ice cream I want." I stared at her for a second and thought.

"Fine. But if I win, you're gonna teach me how to use that."

"Alright, deal." She stuck out her hand, and we shook on it.

Nine minutes had passed, and I was anxiously staring at the stairs.

"Well, guess you owe me some ice cream huh?"

I sighed, and pulled out my wallet. I counted about 1000G, hoping that ice cream wasn't too expensive. Then, a loud thud made me jerk my head up to see Bob getting up from the base of the stairs. I looked at the clock to see the second hand click on the twelve.

"Yes! I won!"

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did. He landed before nine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure!"

She sighed, "Fine. We'll go to Treasure Lake after this."

I silently congratulated myself on not having to pay for loads of ice cream. Bob then tapped me.

"Whew… hey, so… are we going to… go in… or not?" He panted out, sitting against the side of the stairs.

"Oh yeah… Here, you can clean your fossils first." I helped him up, and we entered into the cleaning room. Bob immediately set to work, cleaning six fossils while Thea and I leaned against the wall in the back. When he pulled out his seventh one, I noticed the slash across it and watched as he struck the corner of it. He tapped the same corner again, and the rock immediately crumbled away, leaving only the skull and a small piece of dirt on the table.

"What was that?"

"Well, sir, that was a buster point. BEEP BOOP. They allow you to clean a large amount of the fossil quickly. WHIRRRR." A robot near the cleaning table informed me.

"Oh I see. Well, Bob, you got one left."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to it." He pulled out the dark rock he had shown me earlier and placed it on the table. He grabbed up a hammer, and was about to start, when he considered something, and hit a button on the Control Panel.

"Err, sir, I wouldn't do that if I were you. VIP-VIP." But Bob had already pressed it, and a flash of light shone so brightly, that I had to cover my eyes. When I removed my arm from in front of my eyes, I noticed that Thea had also blocked it out. I glanced towards Bob, only to see him lying on the floor, moaning a bit. I ran up to him, and checked him. "He'll be fine. WHIRRRR. He shouldn't have any problems; just keep him from looking into bright light for a couple of days. BLEEP."

"Okay, so do we just drag him up to his room?"

"Actually, the Fossil Lounge is closer." A voice told us, walking in the door. I turned to see Stella standing with a couple of staff members. "Don't worry, we'll take care of him. Kl-33N, make sure to send over all of his things later." She was about to leave, when she suddenly. "Oh yeah, Derrick. You're the only fighter who still hasn't gotten one of these. Here." She tossed a green object at me, and when I caught it, I found it was a Paleopager.

"Thanks!"

"Not a problem, you're going to need it so you can get your battle assignments. Now, I need to take care of some other things. Good bye."

"Bye! Oh yeah…" I muttered to myself after she left. "I still need to clean my fossils. Do you mind?"

"Not at all, sir or madam. WIRRR." Kl-33N replied to me. I set the first of my fossils on the table and pulled out the hammer. When I hit the outside of the fossil, a giant chunk came crumbling off. I stepped back in shock.

"What was that? Was that one of those… Buster Points, was it?" Kl-33N examined the rock for a couple seconds before answering me.

"No sir, this fossil rock is just rather fragile and soft. You were lucky this time, as you hit it in a spot that didn't damage the fossil, but next time, you may accidentally hit it. Try using the drill for these. WHOOP."

Nodding, I grabbed the other tool and drilled around it precisely, barely grazing over any spot of bone. When I pulled it up, a skull lay before me, but it was rather strange. Instead of the usual pale color of bones, this fossil was red.

"Ah, a rare fossil! How exciting! BIP. Your Vivosaur will be stronger with a red-boned fossil in it. BOP. Here, we shall revive it. BLEEP." Kl-33N led me over to a machine, where I laid down my skull. The fossil began to glow, and soon, there was an orange-pinkish Vivosaur staring at me. It popped back into a medal, and it was slid towards me. I looked at the medal, wondering what it was. Kl-33N spoke up again, "Your sonar has a Fossilary with information on Vivosaurs in it. BOOP." I pulled the sonar out and pointed it at the medal. A file popped up on the screen. It had "#72 Proto" and a picture of it on the screen. After flipping through a couple pages of information, I smiled when I saw it was a water-type.

"Alright, just gotta take care of this one." Armed with my new knowledge, I sped through the soft rock with the drill, pulling out another red fossil, but it wasn't a head. Thea just stared at me.

"How'd you manage to get two rare fossils?"

"Well, some fighters will be able to almost sense a fossil buried in a ground, and will challenge someone who gets there first or interferes. WHOOP."

"Oh, so that's why those guys kept popping up. So, what do I do with this?"

"You integrate it into your Vivosaur. VIP." He brought me over to the machine again, but this time, I put both the medal and the fossil inside. When it came out, my Proto hadn't seem to have changed. "oh yes, that's right. Do you mind taking this to your friend? VEP. He left his Raja medal here, and this… dropping fossil. WHIRRR." I nodded, and grabbed the medal, along with the strangely pink colored fossil. Thea had walked up to the table as I was leaving and pulled out some rocks.

I walked over to the Fossil Lounge, where I saw Bob resting in a bed. Although I was almost directly in his line of sight, he wasn't responding to my presence, so I called his name. He moaned slightly, and tried to open his eyes, then let out a scream.

"ARRRRGH!"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, but my eyes hurt. A lot." I saw a note from Stella on the post next to him, and read it.

Here are some sunglasses for your friend. Try to keep him from staring into the light.

~Stella

I grabbed the pair and handed it to Bob, who put them on and gingerly opened his eyes. He Then took a look at the other things in my hands. "So, I guess those are mine?"

"Yeah they are."

"Cool. I like the Vivosaur… but what's with the rock?"

"It's a… a…" I muttered, trying to remember what Kl-33N had called it. "A dropping fossil?" Bob just groaned some more.

"Well, I'll just stay here for a bit longer. You can go ahead and get ready for Round One some more." I nodded, and left the lounge.

"Hey, want a scoop?" Thea poked an ice-cream cone in my face. I stumbled back a bit.

"Where exactly did you…"

"What?" She waved a couple of pearls in my face. "You thought I didn't do any digging at all? Even though I lost, I still wanted my ice-cream." She laughed as I hung my head and sighed. "So, are we off to the lake or what?"

"Oh yeah, almost forgot! Let's go!" We dashed off to the lake, and when we got there, Thea lead me into a clearing, where, she pulled out her bow. She grabbed an arrow and hung a target on a tree branch.

"Now, all you have to do is aim for the target a bit above…" I nodded, pulled back the arrow, and let it go. It flew faster than I had thought it would… past the target. I heard someone scream, and we rushed over.

"Are you okay?" I knelt by the boy on the ground.

He just grabbed his blue fedora off the ground and muttered out a "Yeah." His eyes grew wider, and I saw his eyes were two different colors. One was silver, and one was blue. I didn't have time to ponder this however, because I turned to see Thea glaring at me.

"YOU COULD'VE LOST MY ARROW!"

A bit of sweat rolled down the side of my head. "And we don't care that this guy almost got hit by it?"

She calmed down a bit when she saw there was someone else. "Sorry about that, my friend here is new at this. What were you doing here, anyway?"

"Oh, nothing. I was on my way back to go to my Round One match."

"They're starting already?"

"Yep. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to hurry." With that, he got up, and walked off towards the lake.

Thea sighed. "Well, let's try that again, and this time, don't lose my arrow."

Well, review so I can tell how I'm doing! And don't be afraid to tell me if I messed up on something!