Chapter Text
"Jura, if you puke I will disown you. Dead serious. No one'll know we're related in any way."
He was good at not looking at his sister while she egged him on in her stupid sort of way, they'd put up with each other for 16 years, after all. Obviously her antics still bothered him, but the least he could do was ignore her. That usually shut Tria down.
"I'm not seasick, shut up," Jura said, his hand sliding through his spiked up hair. The slight aching in his stomach disagreed.
He leaned back in his seat, vaguely wondering if anyone had noticed he'd had to come back inside. The view off the side of the boat was really pretty, they were just traveling super fast and all the seaspray had freaked him out a little bit. So he'd gone back inside and hoped no one thought he was a big baby since he was on his way to becoming a Warden. If he got in he would be working with some of these people and it would really suck if they thought he was a weenie right off the back.
Tria wasn't helping him feel better in the slightest. "You're literally the wimpiest person I know," she said, a cocky little grin on her face. He could at least appreciate the fact that she wasn't taller than him, he'd have been screwed early on if he hadn't ended up a foot taller than her. She just seemed sort of mosquito-like, very small and very annoying.
"Oh my gosh, screw off," Jura grumbled. Glaring at her, he decided to attempt standing up to really assert said height. His legs shook really bad and he felt super lightheaded, but he was staring down at her and that was all that really mattered. He'd barely managed a pathetic grin before she shoved him and he scrambled not to fall over while Tria laughed.
"See ya, dork," she said, shooting him a finger gun. Then she was walking out the door to everyone else outside and Jura was feeling very spiteful.
Sometimes he didn't mind Tria, but most of the time he did. He really did. They were twins, but they weren't those cool twins that got along and could read each other's thoughts and all that crap. For starters, they looked wildly different, heights and hair color and everything else, and Tria just sucked. He hated doing stuff with her, she managed to ruin everything. Just like she was doing at that exact moment.
After regaining his footing and muttering some cross words, Jura forced himself back outside. The sun was very bright, and he squinted as his eyes adjusted to its reflected light from the water. At least it was warm out, he could deal with the sun if it warmed him up just the right amount. Finally, when he could see properly, he started to glance around for Tria.
The sea was definitely gorgeous. He'd acknowledged it earlier but it was easier to enjoy when he wasn't in the midst of a panic attack. There wasn't a lot to it besides the pretty shimmering on the water, a handful of gulls, and some other weird white and brown birds flying overhead, but it was lovely in its own right. Eventually he managed to pry his eyes off the ocean and back to the actual people on the boat.
He could see Tria's stupid blue hair poking out from the bow, so he started inching his way along the deck and prayed the combination of the loud motor and water spraying up on his legs wouldn't psyche him out again. Hopefully it wouldn't be much longer to Fossil Park Asia.
After a few seconds Jura could vaguely hear Tria yell-talking and he stumbled forward to the railing. "I cannot believe you sometimes," he said, shooting a glare to his left. It was around then that he noticed his sister was not next time him, and it was in fact another girl he didn't know who didn't even have blue hair and was wearing white clothes, not black.
"Nice, dumbass," Tria said. She was on the other side of this girl he'd just mildly chastised, awesome.
"Damn dude, we don't even look alike," the girl said with a huge grin, and Tria broke out laughing.
"Right? God, he's stupid."
Jura felt a little offended by that. "I'm right here, Tria!" he said, standing up a little straighter, "And, um, whoever you are…"
"Dahlia!" the girl blurted out. She seemed very excited about that. "We're gonna be workin' together, dude! Ya gotta know who I am."
"Oh! Um, and I'm Jura, nice to meet you!" He was trying very hard not to sound scared half to death by this high energy interaction.
She laughed and looked over to Tria. "Damn, he is a dork, let's ditch 'im."
Jura watched in horror as the only person he knew on the boat walked off snickering with a stranger. Geez oh Pete his anxiety couldn't handle this. He gripped the railing and stood there, utterly petrified. It was around then he noticed the boat was slowing down.
Suddenly he wasn't anxious anymore, they were docking now. Feeling all giddy, Jura spun around to see the harbor for Fossil Park Asia only a few hundred feet out. There were gulls perched all over the docks with black heads; he hadn't seen gulls like that before.
"Tria!" he yelled reflexively. After pausing a couple seconds, he realized she wasn't there and just huffed. Whatever, he didn't need her to enjoy this moment.
He could hear people running up next to him, clanging loudly in the metal floor, and he hoped and prayed they were nice. Trying to make himself look friendly, Jura leaned on the railing and forced a smile.
"Ooo, we're almost there!" he heard a girl say from sort of behind him on his right. He glanced that way, exhaling softly when he noticed how nice she looked.
"Yeah! I can't wait to get off of here," Jura laughed, "I signed up for vivosaurs, not sea sickness."
She giggled and walked up next to him. "I don't really get sea sick, but I do get nervous sick! Thinking about meeting Stryker's got my stomach all in knots…"
Jura suddenly felt a whole lot better. "Right?! He's crazy famous! I don't even feel worthy to meet him, ugh."
"Me neither! I hope I don't embarrass myself," she said, and Jura nodded right along with her.
"Same."
A couple crew members came out of the main cabin just as the boat was getting within range of the dock, probably to do that lasso-y thing and pull them in. Jura felt all his excitement bubble back up.
"I-I'm Jura, by the way!" he said, though it was more of a general statement since his brain was quickly forgetting about the conversation.
"Nice to meet you! I'm Penny!" she chirped back.
"Oh shit, you didn't tell me we were here!"
And there was Tria.
Jura sighed. "Well, I tried to."
Everyone else started to crowd around the front of the boat as the crew tied it down and got the ramp set up. Despite having Tria back with him, he had a dumb grin on his face and was totally ready for whatever the day brought with it. His heart almost burst out of his chest when one of the workers finally said, "Alright, one at a time down the ramp."
Tria shoved past him and went down after Dahlia, and the two of them ran off to wherever. Not a big deal. Jura slipped into the line after a couple more people went down and took a long, deep breath as soon as his feet touched the dock. He was officially in Fossil Park Asia now.
Following the wooden path to shore, Jura reveled in how pristine everything looked. There was a nice concrete path leading to an open area surrounded by ornamental bushes and trees. A giant, red and white dinosaur statue made of metal sat in the center. And, as expected for the site of Warden HQ, all the buildings looked new and sharp.
Awed, Jura walked past the dinosaur statue, head swiveling every which-way. It was hard to focus on anything when everything was so cool. After at least ten minutes of staring and stumbling, he finally managed to walk up to the actual building he needed to enter. There was a large sign set up next to the automatic doors which read "Warden candidates, please enter here", so that seemed promising.
Walking into the building didn't help him calm down at all, seeing as it was just as cool, if not cooler, than the outside. Everything was metal and lots of stuff was lighting up and flashing and it was just a ton to take in. Jura closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Gotta focus.
When he opened his eyes, he noticed Tria was leaning up against a counter with a lady sitting behind it. She seemed kinda crabby, so that was probably where he needed to go. Sighing, he walked up to his sister.
"Hey, Tria," he said flatly. She glanced over at him.
"Took you long enough!" Tria said, crossing her arms. "I've been standing here like 15 minutes, I'm not allowed to check in without you or some shit."
He couldn't help but grin at that a little bit. "How's it feel to be told you legally can't ditch me?"
"God, you suck."
Jura laughed. "Alright, whatever, let's get checked in!" Smiling, he turned towards the receptionist. She looked down at a clipboard.
"Okay, so she's Tria, and then you're Jura?" the lady said, looking up at Jura briefly. He nodded and she checked a spot off. "Alright, head on up to the Captain's office!"
Jura's whole chest twisted up into a painful knot. He hadn't expected this to be so soon. "C-Captain's office?"
She seemed to misunderstand his sort of question. "Oh! Yeah, through that elevator-" she motioned behind herself "-and up to the top floor."
"Um, uh, o-okay."
He was frozen in place. Tria grabbed his wrist and started dragging him towards the elevator. "Come on, you big baby."
The doors slid open and Tria half threw him in. Jura stumbled forward, eyes wide as he barely managed to stop himself from falling over. It made him forget for a couple seconds that he was absolutely terrified of meeting Stryker.
"Geez, dude, you could've killed me!" Jura said, spinning around to glare at his sister as the elevator started moving upwards.
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I wish."
He blinked a couple of times, incredulous. "You need to chill, man! This is a really frickin’ cool thing we get to do today and you're wrecking it!"
"Maybe you're wrecking it for me, jackass, ever think about that?"
They glared at each other for a couple seconds and then turned to face the doors. The fact that there wasn't elevator music made the situation significantly worse since it was just dead silence and annoyance between them. Another 30ish seconds of pure torture passed and then the doors finally opened.
Jura fought off the panicked squeak in his throat when he realized there were a bunch of people already in the room staring at them. He forced a smile and hoped no one noticed the scowl he'd had before.
"Eyy, there ya' are!" that girl from before said. Dahlia, right. Tria laughed and jogged over to her.
"He took forever, ugh," she said, grinning, "I didn't think I'd make it up!"
Both of them broke out in snickers and high-fived. Jura rolled his eyes before glancing around for someone he might know besides Tria. He spotted Penny after a couple seconds and shuffled over to her, hoping he didn't stick out enough that she'd avoid him. His outfit was kinda stupid, admittedly.
"Glad you made it," she said, vaguely smiling, "it's nice to have someone you sorta know around for something this scary."
Jura fought back a sigh of relief. "Ha ha, yeah, honestly."
Now feeling a bit less vulnerable, Jura started to glance around at everyone else present. It seemed pretty safe for him to assume that they were all people he could end up working with, so it was worthwhile to get slightly acquainted to their faces. He knew who Dahlia was already, of course, so that knocked one person out.
For the most part, everyone looked around his age. The only person that seemed older was the tall guy with the purple hair standing off away from everyone else. He had a constant glare on his face, which was kind of funny considering everyone else seemed pretty excited. Jura winced when he noticed the guy was making eye contact with him and immediately looked at the wall.
Thankfully he heard the elevator ping and got an excuse to turn around. Jura realized halfway there that it could very well be Stryker coming in and froze up partially looking at the door. Instead of Stryker, though, it was just another Warden candidate who had very pink hair.
He stumbled into the room, face flushed as he gasped for air. "Am… am I late?" he barely managed to force out through breaths.
"Nope!" Penny said, smiling, "the Captain's not here yet!"
"Oh, thank god," he sighed, head leaning way back, "I thought I was screwed for sure, my dog took out my alarm clock this morning."
"Boo-fucking-hoo."
Everyone looked over in the direction of whoever said that, and not surprisingly, at least for Jura, it was that guy with the purple hair. He wanted to say something about it, but anxiety was a very real thing and was currently squeezing his throat.
"What the hell, man?" pink haired guy said, resting his hands on his hips. The dude off to the side scoffed.
"You're all just a buncha kids, it's pretty obvious you're just gonna be stupid."
Okay that was a little fair, just extremely rude. Jura was getting pretty uncomfortable, his chest was getting all tensed up. Things were getting way too confrontational for him.
"You know what-" the late kid said, and then almost as if on cue the elevator dinged behind him. He didn't waste any time clearing out of the way of it, making sure to tuck himself in between Dahlia and Penny so it wasn't obvious he'd been the last to show. It was a good thing he'd done that, too, because sure enough that was Captain Stryker coming out of there.
Jura went rigid with panic almost instantly, his body standing up straighter than he thought possible as Stryker walked by.
"Sorry to keep everyone waiting," the Captain said as he strode to the front of the room and up to his desk. "I'm sure you all already know who I am, but for the sake of properly introducing myself, I'm Captain Stryker."
No one answered immediately, which immediately led to awkward silence descending for about 10 seconds. Jura let out a sigh of relief when the kid with blue hair closest to Stryker said something.
"It's an honor to meet you sir!" he chirped, hand extending to be shaken. Stryker, clearly surprised, took it and smiled.
"Err, thank you!"
Jura could have sworn he heard the purple haired guy mutter "kiss up" at that exact moment, which was kind of hilarious, in a way. He really hoped he hadn't imagined that.
As the kid who'd shook his hand walked back over by everyone else, Stryker turned and picked up a clipboard off his desk. That probably signaled things were in motion to start the fun stuff, which was a relaxing thought.
Stryker tapped the board with a pen a couple times."Well, I know you all signed in downstairs, but we're gonna do a quick roll call to make sure everyone made it up." He cleared his throat, clicked the tip out of the pen, and said, "Penny?"
Jura glanced to his side and watched her flinch in response. "Here sir!" she barely managed to get out. The Captain checked her off the list.
"Roland?"
"H-here!" said the guy in the tricera hoodie.
"Dahlia?"
Immediately Jura looked over at his sister and her new friend who were both still whispering to each other. Somehow, that didn't at all stop Dahlia from saying, "Rockin' and rollin', sir!" before immediately going back to talking.
"Leon?"
"Yep," that grouchy dude said.
"Nate?"
"Right here! Ready to learn and do whatever!" the late kid blurted out, very obviously regretting it as soon as the words left his mouth.
"Yamamoto?"
"Present and accounted for!" said the kid who'd shook Stryker's hand.
"Sydney?"
The last person Jura didn't know, who was dressed all in fieldwork clothes, said, "Here, mate!"
And now that they were through all the other kids, that meant his turn was coming up. Jura braced himself for the coming question.
"Jura?"
There it was.
"H-here!" he said, and then mentally smacked himself for stammering. Stryker checked his name off as usual and moved right along.
"And last on the list, Tria?"
"Right here, dude," Tria remarked casually, barely paying enough attention to hear him say that. And despite everything she was doing, Stryker checked off her name and moved right along. It wasn't fair, darn it.
Satisfied now, Stryker set the clipboard back down and then crossed his arms behind his back. "You're all here today because of your exceptional performance on the third exam. Even though you've demonstrated a lot of skill, you still have a lot to learn if you hope to join the Wardens."
"First off, we're going to show you the basic skills needed for this job. This includes Bone Buggy operation, as well as fossil excavation and vivosaur revival. In fact, you'll be required to use the vivosaurs you revive to pass your Warden Test."
Jura felt a pang of anxiety hit his chest at the thought of driving. He didn't trust himself in a fast moving machine, everything about it felt way too dangerous. It was a crucial part of getting around safely thanks to all the rogue vivosaurs in parks these days, but it still sucked. He didn't even have a driver's license back home.
"I know this is a lot to take in, but I trust you all can handle it." Stryker stopped for a moment, trying his best to appear as encouraging as possible. "After all, if I didn't believe in each and every one of you, you wouldn't be standing here right now."
That helped him feel a little better. He was a Warden candidate, darn it, he could drive a car a little bit if he had to. Maybe for like half an hour or something.
"Right, well, the first order of business is to become familiar with your Bone Buggies. Leave this building, and head just past the large mechanical dinosaur in the open square outside. There, you'll find the Garage. An instructor will be waiting for you. Speak to him to proceed."
"Good luck to everyone, and let's be cautious out there. Dismissed!"
Tria shot out almost immediately, Dahlia close behind. They crammed into the elevator as soon as it opened and just had to sort of vibrate with excitement in place while everyone else filed in. Eventually they all made it to the ground floor and Jura found himself completely abandoned other than Penny. Tria really needed to chill out.
"God, I was a wreck in there," Penny laughed, stretching her arms out in front of her. "My hands are still shaking! My knees, too!"
"Yeah, holy crap," Jura said, also taking a moment to start moving his limbs around. He could still feel the stiffness in his muscles from being on edge the whole time. "I'm a little worried about how the buggy lessons are gonna go if I'm this freaked out already."
Penny laughed. "Oh, I'm sure you'll be fine! Driving's not that hard."
He didn't really want to explain that it would be hard for him specifically, but that was a whole thing and it was a little embarrassing. He just smiled and nodded. "Alright, thanks! Guess I'll, uh, see you whenever."
"Yep! See you around!" Penny chirped, and she walked off in some random direction. A minute or so later, Jura sighed and headed off to wherever the buggy lessons were.
He walked outside and up to the metal dinosaur. Around then he noticed Tria and Dahlia hanging off to the side next to an actual adult and decided that was probably where he was supposed to go. It might suck a whole bunch that he had to go there, but he did. Taking a deep to steel himself, he walked up to the two girls.
"Hey, dude," Tria said casually, making Jura flinch. He wasn't sure why that startled him so much.
"You pumped about the driving lesson?" Dahlia asked, a huge grin on her face, "because I've never been more ready for something in my entire life!"
Jura wasn't really sure what to say. On one hand, he didn't want to admit he was terrified, and on the other hand, he didn't wanna lie. So, instead, he said, "y-yeah?" and dodged the question entirely.
"Hell yeah! I love bone buggies, they're like the only reason I became a Warden!" she continued, and then proceeded to look over to Tria. "Dude, we're gonna rip this place to shreds when we're Wardens!"
"The ground won't know what hit it!" Tria said, and then laughed. The two of them high-fived and Jura just felt very, very confused.
The next five minutes were spent listening to Dahlia squeal about different parts of Bone Buggies, what they did, what parts were available, stuff like that. Jura was fairly certain he couldn't care less about those topics, but Tria seemed interested and he didn't wanna start his lesson with her still nearby. She'd definitely make fun of him for being nervous
"-Anyways," he heard Dahlia say in a tone that suggested she was wrapping up, "I wanna go do my lesson so they give me a buggy, you can hear me being a nutcase later!"
"Alright, see ya dude!" Tria said. And with that, her apparent new best friend was off. He was kind of glad she was gone, but that just meant it was gonna be undistracted Tria for a hot minute and he was gonna get the brunt of her annoying-ness.
Tria was the first to say something again. "Well, she seems sick! Guess I've made my first friend. How about you, Jura?"
"Yeah, I made a friend. You remember that blonde girl, right?" He managed to force out. She paused to think for a moment.
"Er, Penny, right?"
"Yeah. We're friends now."
"Cool."
They stood in silence for a minute, seeing as they'd only been away from each other for about an hour and had literally nothing to talk about. Jura thought about the driving stuff they'd be doing in a bit, his chest all tight from anxiety, and felt like this was probably the worst thing he'd have to do in a while. Finally, Tria cleared her throat.
"Alright!" she said, walking up to the guy who was presumably the instructor. His outfit resembled the type of Chinese garb you'd expect from one of those old Kung-fu action movies. "We're ready to learn bone buggy stuff!"
"Is that right?" the instructor replied, smiling. He had the sort of expression that said 'ah, youth', but he didn't look much older than 30. "Well what're your names, then?"
Tria clapped her hands together. "Jura and Tria!"
"Ah, you're those two, then," he said, nodding slightly. "I'm Liu Ren, by the way."
"Yeah, okay, let's get on with the buggy training," Tria said. She could at least try to hide how little she cared about meeting him.
Liu Ren only laughed slightly in response. "Alright, alright," he said, "but you should know, the two of you will be sharing a vehicle."
A frustrated groan came in response. "Laaaaaame," Tria said, her head leaning back, "it's 'cause we're filling the one recruit slot, isn't it?"
"It totally is," Jura said.
"Yes," Liu Ren said.
Another groan, and the Tria put her hands on her hips. "Alright, whatever, it's fine. Let's get his stupid screaming over with."
Jura felt the slightest bit embarrassed over that. It was pretty accurate to how this would go.
"Yeah," he said, rubbing his arm, "let's, uh, get this over with."