//------------------------------// // The Lumberjack Games // Story: Dressed to Steal // by Tatsurou //------------------------------// While I didn't like the idea of games that glorified the destruction of nature, I did understand the necessity of going through with the mission. I also knew I needed to get through to Jean Bison, which meant finding a way to appeal to him on his own ground. As such, I made sure to dress the part... Coco had chosen her outfit carefully. A red flannel shirt and blue coveralls gave the basis to the appearance, but a jaunty cap was an absolute necessity. She'd also placed a fake ax head over the top of her cane to finish off the look. With a smile, she marched straight down to where Jean Bison was holding the Lumberjack Games. She knew exactly how she wanted to approach this. "Excuse me, mister Bison!" she called out happily as she approached him, immediately catching his attention. "I heard there were games here! Can I play, too?" As she expected, Jean Bison took one look at her and burst into laughter. "These are no games fer little kids, squirt! Go home before ya get yerself hurt, or catch a chill! These are man's games, only for real lumberjacks!" Coco gave her most adorable pout. "Aww...come on! I'm as tough as any boy, and I can jack lumber with the best of them!" As he laughed, she decided to throw in another tease. "Besides, the cold never bothered me anyway." "Huh?" Jean Bison asked as several of the birds acting as judges chuckled. "Well, normally I wouldn't let a girl young as you even try these games...but I like yer spunk. Tell ya what, show me what you can do with that ax in the Power Log Chop, and if it's any good ya can play in the other games. How's that sound?" Coco grinned widely. "Thank you, Mr. Bison!" It didn't take long to get set up for the Power Log Chop. Coco was presented with a massive log segment that was even bigger than she was. "Whenever you're ready!" Jean chuckled as he stepped back to watch. Closing her eyes, Coco placed her hoof against the segment of log. As Bentley had predicted, she could feel the magic left in the wood that gave it its strength. With careful focus, she was able to draw that magic out of the log right along the center ring, weakening the log right in the middle. Feeling all that magic in her, she pushed it into her cane. With a loud cry, she brought the cane down, hitting just the right spot. Jean's lower jaw dropped as the log was split in a single swing. "...how?" he gasped out in shock as the duck judges showed perfect 10 scores. Coco grinned widely. "Told you I was good!" she offered cheekily. Jean managed a chuckle as he stepped up to his own log. "Well, we'll see how I stack up against you." Lifting his ax, he focused his energy and sent several powerful blows to the log, splitting it perfectly without damaging it at all. "I may not be as fast as you, but speed isn't part of this game," he explained as the ducks held up perfect 10s. "But you've shown talent and spunk, so let's see how you do on the ice wall." The ice wall had hooks scattered along it to climb up by, though a few had metal panels under them that were occasionally electrified. Splitting her cane into the four hooks, Coco leapt onto the wall as soon as the timer was started, running straight up to the top in a surprisingly short amount of time. "Up here, Mr. Bison!" she called out eagerly. "Betcha can't beat my time!" Grinning from ear to ear, Jean Bison leapt onto the wall, dragging himself up it by sheer brute force until he pulled himself over the top after Coco. "Kid, you've got spunk. I like it! Reminds me of me when I was your age! In fact, I wasn't much older than you when I cut down my first tree. Pa was so proud o' me..." He sighed nostalgically. "...course, he was less proud when he saw what the attempt had done to his best ax. I couldn't sit down for a week." Coco immediately covered her rump with a whimper. Jean burst into laughter. "No fear of that here, kid! Now let's see how you do on the log roll. Now, normally we'd be rather far apart to avoid interfering with each other...but I'm gonna put 'em closer together, so I can pull you out of the water when you fall off. Wouldn't want you catching a chill, no matter how tough you are." Coco grinned cheekily. "I'll be sure to pull you out when you fall in!" Coco challenged. "That's the spirit!" Jean burst out eagerly. "But just so ya know...I ain't never lost this event either before or after my time in the deep freeze!" As Bentley had stated, the logs being rolled in the water were large enough that Coco could stand on one completely, so as long as she kept running in the right direction it was next to impossible for her to fall off. The only real obstacle was the logs occasionally dropping into the water from under her. As the pair maintained balance on the logs, Coco decided it was time to try and get through to Bison, hoping she'd earned enough good will to get answers without sparking his temper. "You know...I didn't originally come down here for the games," she spoke up. "Oh?" Jean asked curiously. "For an afterthought, ya done real good in 'em." "Mommy and Daddy were worried about the Lights," Coco explained. "They were going bright, then vanishing, then bright...they aren't supposed to do that." "Yeah, that's the Northern Light collector," Jean explained. "When I have it set to normal draw, the Lights only dim slightly without detracting from their show. But Arpeggio wanted that extra battery now, so I had to turn it up to max. That's why the Lights went wonky from drawing too much energy all at once from them. Ya gotta be careful usin' that Injun magic these days." "So...it doesn't hurt the Lights to draw power from them?" Coco clarified. "Nope!" Jean proclaimed proudly. "I always loved those Lights in the sky, and it was a real treat for me to build a way to use those old Injun tricks I picked up, good ol' Settler know-how, and these newfangled machines to find a way to turn 'em into power. At the low setting it gets...the bird said something like 13 billion megawatt/hours a day, whatever that means." Coco nearly fell off her log in shock. "That...that's more electricity than the entire continent uses in a day!" "Yeah, that's what Arpeggio said," Jean confirmed. "No idea what that means, though. Is this eckltricity really all that important?" "Jean...the biggest crisis facing the world right now is the energy crisis," she explained. "The world is running out of natural resources that can be used to power everything the world needs to make it all function. Billions of dollars are funneled into a desperate search for new - for renewable sources of energy. If you made your Northern Lights collector public and patented it, you'd have more money than you could dream of!" Jean stared in amazement. "Really that important?" he asked in surprise. "But...but all I really care about is keeping my trains running-" "Switch them to electric!" Coco called out. "You could run the power from the collector straight along the rails, and the trains wouldn't even need an engine to run endlessly, never needing to stop except to load and unload!" Jean promptly fell off his log and into the water. Coco quickly leapt to shore and pulled him out of the water. He hardly seemed to notice. "Run my trains...off the Lights? Eternally?" He stared up at the lighthouse where the power was collected in wonder. "But...but why wouldn't Arpeggio tell me I could do that?" "You mean, why wouldn't he tell you how you could achieve your dreams without being dependent on him?" Coco asked carefully. "Why wouldn't he give you the only information that would let you break free of him instead of doing all his spice shipments for free?" Jean's eyes widened in realization, then narrowed in fury. "Why that low down, no good, dirty rotten crook!" he roared out, slamming his staff - Talons and all - into the ice and snow. "What I wouldn't give right now for a way to really stick it to him!" Coco grinned softly. "I might just be able to help you with that..." she offered carefully.