#Blackraven Brigade

[captainmvf]

Expanded upon lil rex CB here with some AU talk as to a wider story featuring him and Mags. These were mostly thoughts I did just for fun and are no way canon as to the initial story of Mags:

CB here was a rejected vivosaur from the dark energy research and experiments. Unlike Nibbles who was able to take on a dark form, CB here formed to be no larger than an average house cat and was even deemed a failure like many of the other Nibbles and dark energy vivosaurs doomed to rot in preservative goops. During INTERF0L’s initial take down of the BR Brigade they not only take and rehabilitate Nibbles but the rest of the rejected dark vivosaurs.

Now this is where CB (still nameless) gets noticed for being different than his fellow rejects: Because CB is still alive and very noticeably kicking. Unlike the others that are just not-alive husks or even leftover scraps from previous experiments, CB here is not happy to be forced into confinement much less nicer than what Nibbles has going on despite being second fiddle to what Dr. Blackraven was trying to get done and thus acts out a lot ie. biting any scientist or tamer that tries to inspect him. Needless to say, he’s put on the back burner and just treated as a small feral vivosaur as Nibbles (also still nameless) gets all the attention.

It takes a LONG time for the events of Frontier to pass and much of the BR Brigade’s leftover junk gets tagged and bagged along with INTERF0L calling in a few favors for their bases and fossil parks to be spiffied up a bit. CB finally gets to be let out of the backroom labs and even treated slightly better. Though he still doesn’t enjoy the company of fellow vivosaurs and humans he does tone down a bit and gets his stats categorized. He’s even allowed some outdoor time under a watchful eye.

Back to INTERF0L calling favors- Word goes out to museums that they want to hire a few cleaners and curators as the Wardens are hard at work making the park run smooth so there’s not a lot of people managing archival storage or attending to the preservation of fossils within the parks for greedy vivosaurs to dine on. One archivist who gets offered a neat gig is Magnitude and he’s unsure if to take it for the next few months or not since he’s already spread thin with his own work at his museum and helping Scatterly out at Caliosteo. Joe (he and Mags are boyfriends at this point in time) manages to convince him to take it since the pay is good and INTERF0L own the most extensive private collection of fossils on Earth so it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not pass up. 

Upon arrival, Mags is taken for debriefing and given the information he’ll be using a Bone Buggy to get around, fossil battle, dig up fossils, and even protect himself from rogue vivosaurs... Despite him being very very afraid of driving. He doesn’t get a kick tutorial on driving one since he already has a license but he does get the rundown on how to use the digging equipment and battle system along with all the other knobs and buttons the buggies come with. It’s a bit of an adjustment as he tries to get comfortable with the Wardens and embarrasses himself greatly with his abhorrent driving capabilities during his missions to tare off rogue vivosaurs near rarer fossils. There are a lot of panicked calls made to Joe and Mag’s friends during the first two weeks and many frustrated moments.

During a rainy day when Mags was supposed to head out to excavate, he gets to view the collection instead. He gets to see the inside of the lab and finds not only tissue samples of extinct creatures but CB in his little cage. The little guy obviously doesn’t want to be disturbed especially by some stranger but Mags always keeps snacks on him (either for himself or one of the kids he has become a co-guardian/parent with Joe) and warms up to CB with ketchup-flavored chips. CB thinks he’s pretty alright and Mags goes on his way to look around some more. A few days later, with the rain not going away, Mags is eating pizza indoors and CB gets loose either from a lock malfunction or his handler not paying attention. CB is able to zero-in on his new friend and gets a bite of pizza from Mags he either may or may not have acted like a kicked puppy to get. Their bonding only lasts about five minutes and Mags is even to pet CB’s little head before his handler appears to take CB back to the labs.

The next day, Captain Stryker calls in Mags to his office since he’s heard of the incident from the previous day of CB getting loose. After being told that little CB is a rejected experiment from the BR Brigade and that he doesn’t get along with anyone, Magnitude is offered a special opportunity: Become CB’s handler and document his behavior for an increased pay. There doesn’t seem to be any downside to this so Mags accepts. Some forms are signed and Mags gets handed CB to look after alone with some neat adjustments to his rented Bone Buggy for CB to ride along in. Mags gives CB his name after his favorite Broadway musical character because “He’s red, small, and bites.”

It’s a rocky start with CB not fully trusting Mags right out of the gate and the archivist now dealing with a small vivosaur with attitude along with this new job and driving- More pizza and ketchup chips are given to CB with each good behavior the little guy does and he gets cozy enough towards Mags that he’s now openly sleeping in his lap and refuses to sleep in medallion form at night to instead opt to sleep on Mags’s chest. Mags just finds CB cute and by the time a few more days have passed the two have become best buds.

Despite being forever loyal to his handler, CB still has problems allowing anyone close to him. This now extends to Mags as he gets super jealous whenever someone tries to get within a three-foot radius of him or even talks for a longer period of time that CB is okay with. CB demands much attention and much more than what other Wardens might think. He isn’t rude to others in Mags’s sight, however. As soon as his back is turned, CB will give the nearest person the evil eye to challenge them to come closer. He doesn’t seem to do the same thing to Mags’s own vivosaurs as he acts like the top of the so-called pack with them. They humor him since he’s so small. Gwen the Aopteryx treats him like a playmate and he enjoys the attention. Typical cat behavior.

Even though CB’s jealous streak causes some red flags from his behavioral examination, he and Mags are able to go throughout their duties with only the occasional leftover BR Brigade grunt trying to vie for some attention to rebuild the Brigade by facing off against the ‘poor defenseless scientist out all alone at the dig site’. Mags either throws a medal at them or CB before going back to digging. CB doesn’t have a heavier battle form as of yet to be discovered but he makes up for it with his crazy rage.

Mags still isn’t 100% comfortable behind a wheel, especially when he has to drive in front of someone else. In a tight spot where there’s a large theropod chasing him and he’s miles away from a safe distance? Piece of cake. Has to tail another scientist to a dig site for backup? Oh dear where are the brakes again- Anyway, he’s still making frustrated calls to his supporting friends since he’s so far away and misses his friends and boyfriend. CB and his vivosaurs can do so much and he’s still feels too unfamiliar with the Wardens and his current coworkers to vent to them about this.

Joe eventually makes a trip to help calm his boyfriend down and he’s cleared as a full-access Warden due to his notoriety and rogue vivosaur wrangling for his visit. Despite the shock that INTERF0L staff gets of THE Joe Wildwest visiting and the news of own of their loaned archivists is dating him, both cowboys get to have a peaceful time for a few days in-between doing casual digging and touring at the three bases. Mags finally relaxes and Joe has no qualms about driving him around for a change. CB is distrustful of his handler’s partner at first but after a day of watching him and Mags he gives Joe a sniff and bumps his snout in recognition. Part of the pack.

When asked about what he thinks of little CB, Mags tends to smile and go “He’s a funny guy!” The Wardens say he’s a rabid disaster waiting to happen.

(Names Nibbles after my favorite Starlight Express character during my Frontier replay) Oh boy I have accidentally made up some lore-

[incorrectfossilfightersquotes]

I used to have goals. They were evil goals, but they were goals.

Every Fossil Fighters Villain Ever

[kurow]

It took me 5 years to realize that BR Brigade... stands for Blackraven Brigade.........

[suddenfossilfightersheadcanons]

Stryker joined the Wardens at 18, in 1999, at the end of a tumultuous season of college, and worked his way up through the ranks with nothing but drive and caffeine addiction on his side. By 21, he'd earned a reputation as one of the most impressive fossil fighters in the ranks; Liu Ren continually pestered management with requests to see this young upstart promoted up to higher ranks in Fossil Park Asia. It took several more years for these requests to pass through, however, as Stryker was also a notorious vigilante. As far as criminals were concerned, this man was the law, and the law had a temper. While Stryker's always been exceedingly polite to his superiors, he's been notorious for ignoring or defying orders in order to pursue his ambitions. Sometimes, he would be completely uncontactable for days, or would request leave for inexplicable commitments for weeks at a time. He behaved best when under the least supervision, but when unsupervised, he was known for vanishing at inconvenient moments.

Still, Liu Ren's pestering worked in the end. At 23, Stryker was Vice-Captain of the Australian branch of Fossil Park Asia, and at 24, he got promoted to head of INTERFOL Asia, leading him to take up an office in Seoul. While Stryker did get more humble once given greater responsibility, he did retain his habits of overworking himself and then disappearing for weeks on end. Usually, these disappearances were very quietly planned trips to the hospital. His description of these trips tended to be 'work-related'. Few people doubted he was stressed enough to develop medical complications from pushing himself (which he did, but tended to ignore). Thus, Stryker seldom had to explain that by 'work', he didn't mean 'my tachycardia is back and my migraine's been going for 96 hours', but 'I got my nose fixed again'. Around the time Stryker thwarted the Blackraven Brigade's initial efforts to raise cain, people started making comments about the young vigilante who'd saved the world being drop-dead gorgeous. A few people then looked back through his old photos and found that while he had, indeed, always been good-looking, nobody naturally gets that much tighter a jaw over time.

Frontier began when Stryker was 35; by the time the possibility of infiltrating the Neo Black Whale loomed over INTERFOL, no amount of botox, blepharoplasty, and judicious filler could conceal the fact that Stryker looked completely exhausted. While he knew how to attend to his appearance, he tended to bury his troublesome health and generally burnt-out immune system beneath paperwork and scheming. Not long after the secret of Nibbles' creation came up, however, Stryker checked himself into hospital with heart palpitations, severe insomnia, and a vague sense of being run down. Doctors then ran a litany of blood tests, and found that in the midst of his stress, he'd neglected a raging case of Graves' Disease. He came out of that hospital stay with yet another surgery under his belt: a thyroidectomy.

Stryker jokes that as far as management are concerned, surgery is a more compelling reason to miss work than chronic illness. As much as he's joking, it's true that many of his supposed stints of disappearing aren't down to his purported caprice: instead, there are days when he can hardly move for migraine agony. Starting botox at 22 wasn't a matter of vanity, but of trying to manage symptoms; but since being chronically ill could invite judgement, he chose to curate an image that could be called vain, rather than weak (so to speak), at worst. While most people knew tangentially that Stryker would somehow be run-down under the pressure of his job, he tends to keep the worst details of his health incredibly close to his chest. Thus, not even Liu Ren knows that Stryker's work-life balance imploded not only due to work, but also due to the combination bomb of hyperthyroidism, Sjorgren's, migraines, chronic pain, and depression.

[suddenfossilfightersheadcanons]

Note that in this blog’s canon, Dina was the protagonist of Champions, and Tria the protagonist of Frontier. That said, Dino and Jura still exist. The former is Joe Wildwest’s son. The latter is Stryker’s second-in-command, and the person responsible for tracking down and getting intel on the Neo Black Whale. Both are perpetually exhausted. 

[suddenfossilfightersheadcanons]

Fossil Fighters Timeline (1931-2017)

(Some of the dates listed for the games are later than the release dates. The series has always had a futuristic feel, so logic’s been prioritised over canon/the real-world timeline.)

(Spoilers for everything. This timeline is a constant WIP, developing as this blog’s world gain depth — hence, expect it to get reblogged sporadically with things that have been missed.)

March 8, 1931 – Mr. Richmond born in Chicago.

August 1, 1949 - Dr. Blackraven born in Charleston, West Virginia.

May 5, 1957 –  Slate Johnson born in Pretoria, South Africa.

June 19, 1958 – Dr. Diggins born in Manchester.

May 27, 1960 – Mr. Richmond has his first child, Russel. 

November 2, 1960 – Joseph Lully Varèse (known to all as ‘Joe’) born in Parsippany, New Jersey.

October 13, 1961 – Nevada Montecarlo born in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Her parents move to Portland, Oregon, after realising that their considerations for baby names could’ve been... well, more considered.)

1967 – Bartholomew Bullwort born in Lincoln, Nebraska.

1968 - Mr. Richmond has a daughter, Kimberley, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

March 3, 1971 – Marcus Harrison born in Liverpool.

March 1977 – Dr. Diggins, midway through his first year of university in Cambridge, strikes the business deal with Mr. Richmond that leads to the creation of the first fossil revival machine. 

June 1977 – First dig site opened. Three more follow in England.

July 1977-December 1978 – Dig sites aplenty open worldwide. 

July 23, 1977 – P. A. Leon born in Jacksonville, Florida.

April 1979 – Richmond’s Inc. begins mass-producing dino medals. Fossil fighting takes the world by storm.

Late August 1979 – Joe ‘Wild West’ Varèse and Nevada Montecarlo meet at university in Portland, hitting it off immediately over a love of vivosaurs and adventure. She’s the one who gives him the nickname (honouring his outlandishness and overly idealistic, zany stance on life) that he’ll come to adopt less than a year later as his legal name.

April 29, 1980 – Karl Kowloon born in Melbourne, Australia.

June 21, 1980 – Joseph Lully Varèse legally changes his name to Joe Wildwest in revolt against his parochial upbringing. It sticks.

September 8, 1980 – Lewis Stryker born in Melbourne, Australia. 

September 1982-March 1983 – Off-map: Six Months in a Leaky Boat filmed. Released on 5 November, 1983. Joe and Nevada get rich and famous by the end of the year, but aren’t aware, as they’re off adventuring/filming the next season.

July 1982 – The Fossil Parks are founded to establish an international accord on fossil fighting before things get hairy. 

January 23, 1983 – Mr. Richmond purchases Vivosaur Island. 

May 1986-October 1986 – Joe Wildwest tours Australia and New Zealand for tournaments and festivals. Whilst in Christchurch, he meets Leanna Campbell, a down-to-business reporter, at a records store as the two reach for Crowded House at the exact same time. They cannot stop talking - later, she ends up interviewing him several times on and off-camera before he returns to America. Over the next couple of years, he returns to New Zealand whenever he has a holiday - initially because of liking the nation, but later after ending up in a relationship with her. 

April 7, 1989 – Cole Franklin born in Cranial City, Caliosteo.

July 2, 1989 – Terry Eno born in Hilo, Hawaii. His family migrates to Cranial City three years after his birth.

September 3, 1989 – Richmond Inc. creates the first KL robot, KL-10N. It’s surprisingly successful, prompting a new line of KL-2 robots running from KL-20N to KL-2XN. KL-26N, one of the most widely used models, becomes a 90s icon of fossil digging.

May 12, 1990 – Lester Hamilton born in Ribular Town, Caliosteo.

August 1990 – Kimmy Richmond moves to Cambridge for postgraduate research. There, she meets Marcus Harrison. The two start dating six months after they first crash into one another on campus.

February 29, 1993 – Marcus Harrison founds FossilDig (read as: Marcus Harrison has his first and favourite child with Kimmy Richmond). Three days later, he moves into Kimmy Richmond’s Cambridge home. Though it’s his company, she’s the creative brain behind it all. He simply does the negotiating.

March 1994 – Having been dating Joe for a bit over 7 years, Leanna Campbell moves to America to live with him. (After Joe’s brother moves to Portland for work, the not-entirely-young couple immediately flee to New York City. Joe doesn’t like his family. Leanna downright hates them.)

January 2, 1996 – Lola Jay born in Ribular Town, Caliosteo.

June 8, 1996 – Tria Zhěng born in Chóngqìng, Sìchuān.

May 17, 1997 – Leanna and Joe marry in a quiet ceremony in Christchurch (read as: the media speculate as to where the hell he’s gone for four weeks, only to see him return with a wedding ring. Nobody, of course, cares about his wife.)

Late February 1998 – Following a tumultuous relationship with Stryker in grade 11, Karl Kowloon disappears. His parents have no clue where he’s gone, but rumours abound stating that he snuck onto a plane to America. (Stryker doesn’t put it past him.) At the beginning of March, the Blackraven Brigade begins operations.

May 30, 1998 – Rosie Richmond born on Vivosaur Island.

December 19, 1998 – Dino (real name Daniel, but nobody except Rupert calls him that) born to Leanna and Joe Wildwest in New York City.

January 9, 1999 – Hunter born in Sydney, Australia.

February 3, 1999 – Rupert born to Kimberley Richmond and Marcus Harrison in Cambridge. 

April 9, 2000 – Dina born in Canberra, Australia.

January 2001 – Todd born in Sydney, Australia.

July 11, 2002 – Rosie Richmond’s parents, Russel and Lynette Richmond, killed in cave-in near the Starship’s ruins. Mr. Richmond takes Rosie in as his own child.

July 15, 2002 – Bartholomew Bullwort retrieves the Richmonds’ bodies, risking life and limb in the process. He is commended for his valour and promoted to head of the Vivosaur Island police, but his already-tenuous relationship with Richmond sours beyond repair.

September 7, 2002 – Bartholomew Bullwort establishes the BB Bandits.

August 2003 – FossilDig produces the first Dino Gears and Support Shots. Though mocked by the public, they garner mass attention and love from the wardens, who endorse them wholeheartedly.

September 3, 2004 – on the 15th anniversary of KL-10N’s release, Richmond Inc. put the KL-3 line onto the market. KL-33N hits stores two years later. It’s even more beloved than KL-26N, as its quirky personality endears it to many a fighter. (KL-34N was made for Vivosaur Island exclusively.)

October 2005 – First wave of dinaurians begin to emerge from stone sleep, shocked to see the earth’s supposed degeneration.

January 2008 – FossilDig Inc. purchases the KL robots’ trademark. Mass outrage results - for whilst the new models are better, they lack the quirky personality that the originals were so beloved for. Richmond Inc. and FossilDig become increasingly competitive with one another; the former suffers immensely, having fared worse during the GFC. FossilDig is immortalised as the dominant company in fossil fighting production - this burgeoning monopoly is both criticised and accepted.

January 15, 2008 – Dina moves to Sydney with her father for the sake of attending a music-focused school, ending up next-door neighbours with Todd. The two grow immensely close over the next two years.

July 2, 2010 – Dina withdraws from her music school after a year of bullying from another student. Her uncle – Stryker – knowing she’s feeling miserable, permits her and Todd to use to World Gate to travel to America for the holidays. There, they meet Joe Wildwest in the fateful encounter that would give Dina the drive to pick herself up and become a fossil fighter.

November 2010 – Stryker thwarts Blackraven Brigade’s initial attempt at world domination.

December 18, 2010 – Having been ostracised and isolated for his poor behaviour, Dina’s bully is asked to leave the music school. Over the summer break, he begins to feel some remorse that imbues him with a need to help and save the women he meets later (rather than hurt them), and resolves to become a fossil fighter, abandoning music for something completely different. The bully? Hunter. The women he grows fond of after his treatment of Dina? Rosie and Duna.

October 2011-December 2012 – Hunter travels to Vivosaur Island. Fossil Fighters takes place.

November 20, 2012 – Joe Wildwest purchases the Caliosteo islands.

December 3, 2012 – Stryker promoted to Captain of the wardens. 

February 12, 2013 – Joe possessed by ZongaZonga.

March 8, 2015 – Caliosteo Cup begins.

August 24, 2015 – Dina Stryker defeats Rupert Harrison in the finale of the Caliosteo Cup. Hell ensues over the following five months as ZongaZonga attempts to possess Dina, the Cup is revealed as a body-stealing scheme, and the BB Brigade are pardoned.

March 2015- August 2017 – Frontier takes place.

June 30, 2016 – FossilDig signs a deal with Volkswagen and Hyundai, the two largest Bone Buggy manufacturers, allowing for even more mass production of support-shot equipped vehicles. The Fossil Parks’ profit increases substantially (read as: the Wardens go mad with the power).

October 14, 2017 – Mr. Richmond, at the age of 86, falls at home and breaks his hip. Though hospitalised at once, after ten days of care, he passes away. He is mourned widely, remembered for his magnanimity with great love.