Here ya go, this one's a bit longer than usual.
Chapter Fourteen: Literally Storming the Breakaway Brigade's Hideout
Well, considering how well Carno had managed to roll down that mountain, it probably should be no surprise it could scale Mt. Krakanak. Not to mention much faster than I could. By the time I got to the top, Carno was nowhere in sight. A staff member standing next to a gondola just looked at me and pointed past the crater to the other side. I nodded towards him, brought out Thalasso, and asked him if it was possible to carry me over the crater. He thought it was worth a shot, so I grabbed on to his legs and he flapped over the hole. In short time we were at the other side.
"Hey boss, might want to consider just riding on my back next time. Might be less stress for me," he groaned.
I laughed. "Alright, you got it." I looked down, shocked to see a mostly grey Vivosaur battling with Carno. The red markings on its side seemed to disappear as the red light of fire glowed around the sauropod. The flames engulfed Carno, easily returning it to medal form, and a figure stepped out to reclaim it. When the person looked up, I was shocked to see the figure had silver eyes. I ducked back behind the edge, hoping the sun had obscured me. I obviously could take the Fighter's Vivosaur, with the rest of my team being Water, but who knows what could be waiting just inside as backup. I called Thalasso over and gave him my Fighter's License.
"Since you seem to be able to use my laptop, I'm sure you can use the VMM," I pointed at the orange machine and gave more instructions. "Just stick in my license, withdraw the Dino Medal, take out the license, and come back. Giant lever starts the thing up."
"Got it." He flew over and landed on the lever, pulling it down. Soon enough, he was flying back and dropped the card and the medal into my hand. I called the Vivosaur as well as the rest of my team, and pointed at the area where the entrance was.
"Alright, look down there." Everyone followed my finger down towards the mountain face. "We will have to get in as fast as possible. Hopefully, we can get in before they notice us. They obviously tracked Carno somehow, who is now inside."
"Wouldn't they notice us if all six of us just popped down there?" Toba piped up.
"Well, yeah, but we'll get a faster reaction time if we all go down at once. It takes time to get all five of you out of my belt."
"Or you could just hold us in your hand." We all looked at the newcomer. His familiar design was one we were all used to, having seen Proto transform multiple times. I had been cleaning it a few hours before the trip to Cranial Isle, b Tricera spoke again. "Well, that way, they won't rush us as an army because there are five Vivosaurs, and instead send one or two people to check on one human."
"Good point. Everyone okay with this?" They all nodded, and dropped back to the floor as Dino Medals. I grabbed them and slowly mad my way down the mountain. As I turned around, I saw the door slide upwards, and two BB Brigade members in their usual garb stepped out.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" He didn't get to answer as a deluge of water rushed in, swamping him and his buddy. I followed Elasmo in while the rest of my team came after. We ran down a hallway, stopping to check every door, surprising quite a few goons who were easily knocked down by whirlwinds and waves. I had no intention of hurting them, but I needed to keep them out of my way long enough to find Carno. I heard a notice come in over the loudspeakers around the base, notifying a person named Ray that the Breakaway Brigade's hideout was being assaulted. Turning a corner, I ran into a room in which I found the person I was looking for.
"You!" He turned and looked at me, his silver eyes reminding me of when I had first saw them, back in the hotel. However, their effect was lost this time around, and I remained fully concentrated on the case behind him. "Look," I continued. "I don't care what's going on here, with this Breakaway Brigade stuff, but all I need is that Carno back." I pointed at the case for emphasis.
"You… you're Derrick, aren't you." He glanced at Carno's Medal to double check, and then turned back to me, nodding his head as if confirming a connection. "Well, I'd really like to do that for you. However…" He trailed off as another person appeared behind me. My Vivosaurs turned towards him, but he ignored them.
"Alistair!" he shouted, fist shaking. "What are you doing? First we have a rampaging Vivosaur on our doorstep, and then some random fighter breaks in!"
"Sorry about that Ray, but perhaps if the defense system was a bit more adequate, maybe he wouldn't have gotten so far." Obviously there was some resentment between the two, simply based on Alistair's comment toward who seemed to be a superior.
"Well, you can talk to Rubicon about that! Speaking of which, where is he? I'll have to talk to him about this later. As for you…" Ray ominously looked at me. "You're not leaving here." A sudden flash startled me, and a gust of wind smacked me in the face. I flew back, hitting the case containing Carno's Medal hard, breaking it in the process, and fell face down to the floor. The last thing I heard before I blacked out was Ray telling Alistair to mop things up, laughing afterwards.
"Ugh. I hate bad puns," I groaned as I sat up. I was confined inside a different room than I had previously been in. It was particularly empty, sans the note on the floor and Carno's Medal atop it. I sat up, shaking my head to rid myself of the slight headache I had, and read the note.
Look, I know this is weird to ask you this, but I need you to do me a favor. I've left your Carno here, and all the security in the base is currently offline for maintenance. Your other Vivosaurs are back in my room. I've mapped out directions to it for you to follow. The rest of the directions lead you back out to the entrance. The only request I have is that you cause as much chaos as you possibly can when you leave. Meet me by the Fossil Guild tonight, around 9:00 PM. I'll explain everything there.
Alistair Silber
I considered the possibility of it being a trap. That seemed pretty slim considering I was already trapped in the room. The security systems, on the other hand, might not be down, so I could be easily caught. I decided that I was just looking a gift horse in the mouth, took Carno, and released it.
"Look, Carno, I know this has been a weird day, but we need to get out of here. All we need to do is bust down this door and follow these directions. Alright, can you do that?" Carno seemed to be thinking about it, so I sped up its thought process. "Unless you'd prefer to stay in this room until they decide to let us out."
Seconds later, the door flew off its hinges. Carno walked almost calmly beside me, and we made our way through the deserted base. If what Alistair had said was to be trusted, all the goons must've been repairing the damage I had caused earlier. Well, while certainly a convenience, I was still wary and made my way back to Alistair's room with caution. When I got there, I tested the lock and found it open. Inside, my five Dino Medals were spread out upon a table. At that moment, an announcement came out saying that a prisoner, who I assumed was myself, and that all available personel should stop there current duties and look for the prisoner. I sighed, letting my Vivosaurs out.
"Well, looks like you got what you wanted, Alistair."
The floors and goons were thoroughly soaked again, items were strewn everywhere, and a few doors were left hanging by a screw. Thalasso managed to fly me back up to the crater, but he was so tired that he couldn't do much else. I was exhausted myself, but I continued down the mountain to avoid anything happening.
And to end off this perfectly normal day, I tripped over a package in front of my room and hit my face on the door. I grabbed the box, which was addressed to me, and brought it inside. I laid back on the couch and sat for a moment in silence. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that Thea was probably still out with Nathan, and that I hadn't seen Primacon or Candyce a lot in the past few days.
As I opened the package, an excited voice shouted in my mind.
"All right!"
I stopped, grabbed Proto's Medal, and put it on the floor, where he rapidly appeared and dashed towards the box.
I pulled it up onto the couch. "First of all, what is in the box?"
Barely containing his excitement, he hopped up and down. "Just open it and find out."
I shrugged and ripped off the rest of the tape. Inside was a helmet of sorts, something that looked like a laser gun, a scarf, what seemed to be a surfboard, a long-sleeved shirt, a pair of pants, and some weirdly shaped boots.
"Awesome!" Proto shouted and jumped up at the contents.
"And what exactly is that stuff?" I still held them away, and he whined a bit.
"It's a costume. So I can be Proto Man!"
"I know you're Proto. So what's with the costume?"
"So I can be Blues!"
"But this isn't blue, it's red. Not to mention you're not blue either. You're some reddish orange pink peach color."
"Oh, just look at the computer." I opened the laptop to find a window with three tabs on it. One was on Caliosteo Island legends, which I quickly closed. The next was a tab for a "Proto Man" costume. I searched the name and found a page that explained the character.
"So you decided it would be great to not only get a costume made for a human, but to do it without asking me? If you really wanted it I would have gotten it for you." Proto looked a bit saddened by my slight annoyance, and I sighed. "Look, just ask next time. I'm sure we can find something that'll work for you, but now I'm stuck with a costume I may never use."
"Maybe you can get it modified to work like it does in the game?" Proto looked at me, and I laughed.
"I don't need a lemon shooter, thank you."
"How about a Dino Medal shooter?"
"That might actually work." I laid back and pondered who had the ability to do such a thing. "Maybe Rubicon could. Oh shoot!" I stuffed everything back in the box, ad walked towards the door. Proto trailed behind me, still looking at the package. "We'll get back to that later. Right now, we need to go to the Fossil Guild."
Proto looked at me in shock. "You're actually going to go meet with Alistair?"
"Well, I need to ask him a few questions."
"It's an hour before the scheduled time, though."
"That's so I can grab some stuff from the Guild." Proto bounded out the door as I locked it.
"What kind of stuff?"
"Upgrades and the like." Proto nodded and we came down the stairs. Near the Fossil Guild stood a pair of boys. One was doing quite a bit of talking, his beanie almost covering his red hair his black shirt had a noticeable skull on it, which almost foreshadowed my meeting with Alistair. In contrast, the other boy had black hair, but everything else he had was red. Red pendant, Fire Vivosaur medal on his shirt, and his shorts had flames on them. I said a quick hello to them as I entered the Guild, and could hear a faint reply through the closing doors. The lady at the shop counter was working on my Sonar and Case when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
"Hey, glad you could make it." I turned my head towards the silver eyes of Alistair. The shopkeeper handed me back my belongings and I thanked her, handing her the money.
We headed to a bench, where I finally asked what was on my mind. "So, Rubicon's involved with all this BB Brigade stuff?"
Alistair seemed at least a bit surprised that that was the first question I had for him, but nodded. "Yes. We both are part of the BB Brigade, under Ray's section. He calls it The Breakaway Brigade."
"I see. And you wanted me to cause chaos in your own base because…"
"Because of Ray. Both Rubicon and I are strained thin on our tolerance of Ray. He has bad leadership, and not to mention, as you clearly felt today, has no problem crossing boundaries many would not. I'm tired of it, and you happened to be in the right place at the right time to help cause Ray problems."
"And that's all there is to it?"
"Well, one more thing…" I looked at him.
"I could use a Fighter like you to help me out. I'm trusting you with this info, and I hope you can trust me too."
"Sorry, but… no." I simply stated after a minute of silence. "Don't get me wrong or anything, I am grateful for your help. But I was there to save my Carno, which, if you remember, you took in the first place. I'm still not sure whether you're someone I can trust."
"He attacked another boy just like he did to you! You can't possibly tell me that you don't think that's wrong?"
"No, that is wrong. But that just talks about Ray. That says nothing about me, or why you need me. I have no doubt that Ray is a bad person. And I believe what you say about the whole situation. But there are plenty of other fighters who are far beyond my current abilities. Rubicon, for one. I've seen his other Vivosaurs, and if he had used them in the cup, I probably wouldn't have won. So why me? Why do you ask me to help you, of everyone you could?"
"W-well, you see-" Alistair stammered, perplexed by my questioning.
I shook my head. "I understand that this is not information for just anyone, and I will keep it in confidence. But you must understand that I cannot trust you on a whim. You have to prove, to earn your trust. You are betraying an organization you are supposedly loyal to. You are planning to get rid of your leader. What part of that shows you can be trusted?"
Alistair hesitated to answer, and I sighed. "Once you can prove to me that I am not going to simply be a pawn in your quest to overthrow Ray, that you will have my back, and once you can tell me why I am a person needed to help you fight, then, you will have my support."
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