[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Who knows, Jail's probably just full of himself, or the Relics are too valuable/rare or something that wouldn't warrant doing that outside of 'emergencies'.



Anywho, I just figured out a rather funny way to have Crash gain a healthy respect (fear) he needs of Vita so that he can get all jittery in later scenes.

Spoiler for Don't be fooled by outward appearances:

"I survive one more day! Phew, I thought he was going to blow a fuse when he came in, I've always managed not to bust something after he's lost it once."

"Don't be dumb," Fox rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows Marilyn has him on a tight leash anywhere NEAR the DIFAC. If he blew a fuse in here, she'd starve the temper right out of him."

"Good way to do it too," Vita suppressed a chuckle. "I remember once about seven years ago, I made the mistake of pissing Hayate off, and she sent me to bed without dinner, never made the same mistake again."

For a few seconds Crash nodded with a sly smile, then suddenly he paused and his face went blank. Seven years didn't compute right.

"How old are you again?" he asked.

"I'm," Vita began, then she furrowed her brow, pausing for several seconds. "I can't remember, older than you at least."

Crash scratched his head as he gave her a solid onceover.
"You say that, but my brain can't seem to add it up at all."

"I get that a lot," Vita shrugged. "Hey, who's the Twerp? Where's your momma kid? Hey shrimp!"
Vita smirked.
"But then I simply tell them who I am, and if they don't want to believe that well..."
She leaned forward, reaching up and grabbing the collar of her shirt as she did so. Crash instantly put both hands on the table and was about to catapult himself backwards when Vita pulled a necklace up into view. I tiny hammer shaped object glinted back at him.

"...I let them argue with Graf Eisen instead."
With a deft flick, she brought Graf Eisen out of storage mode, and displayed the magical warhammer proudly to the test pilot. Deep in the back of his mind, Crash noted the piston styled cartridge loader the hammer had, and recalled just how much punishment in the tests it took to cause it to fail so many months before. The answer was 'A-FUCKING-LOT' , at which he involuntarily gulped at the prospects of what that meant in the hands of the deceptively young body before him.

"There was this one time some moron tried to kidnap me," she continued, lowering Graf Eisen. "Probably some pedophile or other sick maniac thinking I was just 'some kid'. We'll probably never know, he ended up in the psychiatric ward of a hospital after I taught him a lesson."
True to the word of course, the man had been admitted with two broken ribs, a concussion, all his limbs shattered, and was screaming non-stop about killer bunny rabbits in red dresses with sledgehammers coming to finish him off, and had been that way for at least four years. Crash's mental image of the situation wasn't too different, though he was having trouble identifying with just how much brutality could reduce someone to a gibbering paranoid shell that once claimed to be human. Either way, the prospects of the answer only reinforced his previous conclusion.

Fox noted the smug look on Vita's face as Crash's own face went through a series of easily visable emotional responses as he mulled over what he'd seen and heard. Deciding he wasn't paying attention for once, she nudged Vita slightly and spoke quickly under her breath.
"Don't overdo the big stick routine, he's an idiot and he'll stick to it."
Vita nodded, but continued to bask in the aura of someone who'd just been humbled. It seemed the two girls had quickly started to get along after Fox's little display on Cooper earlier that day. Probably because they connected better than their abraisive personalities would seem. In the middle of this, Vita managed a double take.
"What routine?"

Fox nearly spat out her drink as she downed it.