#diggins

However much Richmond’s fervour helped fossil fighting to thrive, it was deleterious to other businesses on the island. (Were it not for Bullwort’s dogged determination, the police would have all but imploded in all but name; meanwhile, almost no non-fighting related trade brings in considerable revenue. It’s quite worrying to consider what would eventuate from a major dino medal provider’s collapse.) Worse than the price paid by the police and people, however, was that paid by Lyn and Russel. Four years after the 1998 birth of their daughter, Rosetta, they were assigned a new mission. Diggins and Richmond had just discovered the Secret Island via radar screening, and were salivating for information. The couple left on Tuesday the 9th of July, and after sending confirmation of their arrival on Wednesday night, sent back nothing. Richmond distracted himself from his accumulating consternation by organising a search party for Monday. Bullwort, insomniac and distracted with deep, deep dread, bullied Diggins into admitting the location of the Secret Island on Saturday night, and left the next morning.

Bullwort quickly found his way to the ruins of the Starship. The entrance had caved in, and beneath the rubble... Two long, limp, rotten objects…

Russel and Lyn dead too soon. He took them back to the mainland and sobbed all the long night and all morning. To honour them, he returned to the island two days later, and cleaned up the collapsed doorway with Amargo’s power scale. When he did, another chunk of land thundered down, striking him in the middle of the back. He returned bitter over both the deaths and the injury.

Richmond was horrified. If he’d been a little less callous, his daughter-in-law and son would still be alive. Now, here they lay, six feet beneath his heels. Grateful to Bullwort, he promoted him to police chief on the 20th. Then, as if the newly declared sergeant regent hadn’t cleaned up the Secret Island, he barred it to all visitors, insisting that the Starship was too sensitive a matter to be known to the public. Bullwort’s ephemeral pride vanished. In its place, loathing sprung up. His promotion, he decided, was for arriving too late to change what mattered most – in other words, for being weak. This wasn’t honour – this was humiliation, and all because of Richmond’s shallow love of dino medals. That man could not be fit to rule. Bullwort could. He maintained a veneer of cordiality with Richmond, but from July 20 onwards, to him, their relationship was well and truly in livor mortis.

Bullwort founded the BB Bandits as the anti-Richmond mafia – everything they did was to disrupt fighters wherever possible. They began as a lucrative fossil black market trader, dealing in rare vivosaurs and miraculous/wondrous fossils. By legal standards, the prices were ugly, but compared to other vendors, they were beyond lucrative. (Saurhead was infamously intercepted mid gold head fossil transaction – but while the press censured him, the public couldn’t help but empathise.) These operations briefly drove Vivosaur Island’s economic growth into the ground. Unfortunately for Bullwort, Diggins responded with two initiatives which have made the Island the richest Fossil Eden worldwide: Establishing fighter levels and level-up battles, and found the Donation Points scheme. The former fuelled tourism while allowing Diggins to bar dangerous and archaeologically vulnerable dig sites to the public. The latter meant that fighters could obtain vivosaurs such as Stego, Spino, and Compso for no price but an annual fee.

The majority of recruitments into the Bandits were black-market based: if one was caught trading one time too many, it’d be easier to join them than to face an absurd jail sentence. The fear of the authorities bred a culture of paranoia and despotism amongst the grunts, meaning that Bullwort could easily ask one of his flightier underlings to carry out some deranged measures. Medal-stealing wasn’t uncommon, but occasionally, grunts turned to attacking fighters with a mind to kill. Beth infamously had her shoulders and her clavicle broken by a BB Bandit intent on murder – ever since that incident, Diggins has pressured Richmond into increasing dig site security. All male BB grunts must shave their heads, and all grunts, regardless of sex, must don the oppressively drab uniforms. It’s meant to prevent police from recognising individuals at a distance, but it’s despised – Snivels was never actually promoted, but gained valence amongst his peers for refusing to obey the dress code.

Most non-black market Bandit operations involve defacing dig sites in degrees ranging from graffiti to arson. Bullwort drew the line at cave-ins – that would be too painful after Lyn and Russel’s deaths. The majority of his most dramatic stunts were executed in Knotwood Forest, where he terrorised the residents and chieftain into directing him to Frigi, vandalised the Digadigamid, and stole numerous artefacts. Whilst the BB Bandits never traded the latter, they did steal particularly beautiful relics from dig sites all around, with Bullwort typically hoarding them.

The Bandits’ market operations, led by Vivian, made Bullwort rich very, very quickly. As he’d never had an awful lot of money prior to this, he quickly became drunk on cash, exchanging his morals for avarice and deluskon. Bullwort had always planned to obtain Frigi to stage his coup in the Guild Area – but after twelve years of Cain-raising, he built up a capacity for spite and pettiness that hadn’t been present initially. Originally, he wanted to covertly control the islands. By 2014, he’d given up on them, and thought he’d be better off as a glorious dictator than a fool attempting to save a hopeless slab of land.  

Bullwort’s arrest didn’t collapse the Bandits, but currently, they’re nothing more than an economic nuisance dominating the black market. Sometimes, they engage with the other two B syndicates to spread chaos. But ever since the Caliosteo Cup, Joe’s made it nigh-impossible for the Bandits to access miraculous/wondrous fossils as before, which has driven away most of their clientele who weren’t lost to the DP scheme. Vivian’s considering moving the Bandits into more general illegal trade, such as drug trafficking – however, since Bullwort’s departure, her conscience has inflated, making that difficult to consider. It’s likely that after she leaves, the Bandits will simply pack up and go home to their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, sisters, and brothers.

However momentous Bullwort’s arrest was, Vivosaur Island’s citizens paid dearly for it. Thanks to his iron grip on his men, almost all crime on Vivosaur Island other than disruption to fossil was eradicated. Without him, the forces have slid back into incompetency. Bullwort could likely break out if he wanted to, but ever since his wife donated an easel to his cell, he’s been quite content to paint behind bars. As long as they don’t give him carrot sandwiches, there’s no point for him in escaping – for wherever he goes, he’ll face poverty, ignominy, and dissatisfaction.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you so much to @biblical-mythconceptions for requesting this topic! I’d never really considered the BB Bandits before, so this was huge, huge fun! I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it.