A/N: So I'm going to post all my oneshots as one big Story. Yeah. The first four chapters are my four Buck stories ATM, so I don't expect you to review them or anything, but I AM going to be deleting the other stories as I put their chapters on here. This is just as I said in the summary, So I'm not totally SPAMMING the Ice Age section with oneshots, since I do plan on doing quite a few more.
Also the chapter names are the Themes I decided worked best for each of the oneshots. So you'll be seeing things like "Fear", "Vulnerability", "Doubt", and "Indecision" (the four themes of the stories I have right now ^^;) as the chapter names. The unique story names will still be here, at the top of the story right after any notes I have on it.
So notes about An Eye For A Tooth. Really didn't expect the warm welcome to the Ice Age section, since I didn't really see my first attempt of a Buck story as an actual STORY... since I was just retelling the story he told in the movie with a darker, more sane aspect to it. I was very surprised, therefore, that a few people liked it so much to review positively. I hope that like is still there along with some patience with me (more originals will be coming, I just want to post my four in one big story to, as I said, prevent myself from liberally spamming). So without further ado about nothing much...
An Eye For A Tooth
By Have Faith In Yourself
Buck looked around at what he considered his own tropical paradise, both blue eyes gleaming despondently as he looked out into the rain. The lava pits were cooled over, and the trees were swaying in the wind. He glanced down at his midsection, which let out a pitiful growl.
He'd been there in paradise for nearly a week, and he still had issues getting food.
And as much as he didn't want to… he needed to go out there and find some. He pushed himself up and poked his head from the cave, wondering if he'd have any luck… or if dinosaurs would eat him. He'd probably seen every meat and plant eater down in this godforsaken place at least once. And if he didn't, well, it was probably just a tiny thing that he missed. He couldn't help a small smile as he automatically thought "Insect", and his sharpened lower teeth curled around his upper lip in an almost menacing way.
That was a lie. The bugs were bigger than him here. He knew five or six of the giant butterflies and a whole score of the baby caterpillars; they were the only things that didn't actively try to kill him these last few days. If he wanted to do anything down here, anything like surviving, he'd need a new plan.
The greenery had swayed him that day that seemed so long ago (what a stupid thought, it wasn't long ago. It was just last week, for Pete's sake!), when he first stumbled across the hole in the ice. Some part of his mind had registered "Warm Draft" when he stepped into the hole, and being as stupid as he was, he didn't consider that warmth meant life.
He considered himself smarter now than he was then, and had thought of going back, but when he thought of it his heart would twist painfully and he knew he couldn't leave. As forbidding as this place was, he wanted to stay.
His first thought when he actually entered the jungle was "Food!" when he saw the giant fruits. His second thought had been "AAAAAGHHHHH!" when a plant had tried to eat him. His third thought was "But, but, but!" when he finally saw the dinosaurs.
He knew he should have left then.
He should have gone back to the surface and made his life up there, instead of risking it down here.
He should have played it safe.
His stomach growled again, and he sighed, talking down at it, "Yeah, yeah, I know you want food. Cut me a lit'l slack, will ya?"
He ventured into the rain, his fur soaking through faster than he thought possible. As he stared around, an uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. His ears folded down immediately as the lightning flashed across the sky.
Sometimes it was too easy to think this was the surface world. It had all the weather conditions.
He saw a lizard scuttle past, about half the size that he was, and his mouth widened into a grin. If he could just catch that lizard…
He darted toward the thing and pounced on it, letting out a triumphant yelp as his body hit the ground, the lizard struggling in his grasp. He felt ready to eat the thing right then. But a low growl almost like thunder made him pause, letting the lizard scurry away in fear.
His blood ran cold as a great glowing orange eye opened and burned before him, locked on his form, hungry. He knew his chances had just run out, somehow. This was no way one of the dinosaurs he'd been running from before. It was bigger. Faster. Meaner. His previous thought returned to him. He'd probably seen every meat and plant eater down in this godforsaken place at least once. And if he didn't, well, it was probably just a tiny thing that he missed.
This thing was not tiny. It was huge. How the bloody hell had he missed it?!
He cringed as it stared at him, as if waiting to see if he'd run. Lightning, showing pearly white scales and deadly black claws, illuminated a claw-like hand that rose in the darkness, three claws rising deliberately. He turned his gaze on it, and it slashed down.
He barely had time to register he had moved before blinding pain erupted on the right side of his face, as he was sent flying by the glancing blow. He crashed to the ground as the right side of his head exploded with pain, and he lifted a paw there in surprise. Feeling blood running from his eye, he… his right eye was gone.
The blasted monster had half blinded him.
His remaining blue eye widened in shock as a roar erupted into the night, and he turned and bolted as fast as he could. Dodging trees he could barely make out, he picked one at random and started climbing up it, his paw still clenched over his eye socket. He could hear the crashing steps of the monster behind him, and his heart raced so fast he couldn't hear the individual beats over his panicked mantra of "Run away, run away, run away and DARN IT, DON'T GET EATEN!"
His free hand clenched upon a leaf as he broke through the clouds at the top of the tree. He clung to the wood as trees around him smashed to the ground, hastily tying the leaf around his head to have his hand free again and leave his still bleeding eye socket protected. He broke a branch off of the top of the tree and climbed to the thin tip, clutching the branch as he breathed deeply. He felt adrenaline rushing through him.
And it felt great.
He suddenly wanted to stand and fight the damned monstrosity that had cost him his eye. He stared around at the clouds, his heart pounding in his ears. A prickling feeling at the back of his neck made him turn just in time to see the thing behind him, see the jaws lurching forward, opening, surrounding.
SNAP.
He heard the teeth clash, and for a moment, his heart stopped. This was it. He'd be chewed up like a mammoth carcass. He'd be pushed half dead to the back of the throat. He'd be swallowed, watching with fading life as that gross, fleshy pink thing disappeared above him.
The pink thing.
It wasn't a thought, exactly. He felt the muscle around him contracting, and he saw the fleshy thing hanging there, waiting. He barely noted that the monster was trying to swallow him alive.
He pressed against the muscle; freeing his arms enough to launch free of the throat and grapple onto the hanging flesh, curling around it by complete instinct before hanging down and beginning to swing.
Back and forth. And back and forth. Again and again and again he swung, until finally he was moving too fast to continue holding on. He let his fingers slip from the flesh and rocketed forward, toward a wall of teeth, hoping to all the food in the world that it would turn out right.
He felt the tooth he slammed into. He heard the sickening crack that he feared was his spine. His eye shut, as he prepared for the pain he didn't doubt would come.
Then he felt the air whizzing past him and the cold, cracked object he was curled around. He heard the pained roar from somewhere behind him as the rain suddenly stopped attacking his fur. He slammed into the rock, wincing his only eye left as he skid a few feet into darkness.
He opened the blue eye hazily, pain rocketing through his figure and clouding his thoughts, and his right hand clenched around the object he had held close while he was flying away from the thing.
He blinked wearily, looking at the tooth for a second before looking toward the opening of the cave, where the monster was roaring in anger.
"That was quite rude." He said suddenly, not completely in his right mind. "I think I'll call you 'Rudy'."
He pushed himself into a sitting position, his left hand latching onto a firm piece of wood and a fine, thin, but strong vine. He looked at the tooth once more before looking at all three items and giving a wicked grin, his eyes narrowing in perverse pleasure as he understood exactly how to go about from there.
"I thank you, Rudy." He muttered toward the cave entrance, "You gave me the boost I needed. If I could survive you, I can survive anything. With just… a little ingenuity." He quickly and adeptly tied the wood and tooth together with the vine, leaving most of the tooth free of vine and most of the wood covered. He checked to make sure the tooth wouldn't budge.
Grabbing a sharp rock, he started chipping away at the tooth until one edge was sharper than the rock was. The rock chipped when he slashed it with the tooth. "Perfect." He smirked as he touched the edge of the dagger he'd made gently with his finger. A single drop of blood glistened at the prick point, and he licked it off, used to the taste of blood but enjoying it so much more when he knew he could fight off something bigger than him.
With these thoughts, he fell asleep, his new dagger held loosely in his hands as he slept there, no longer hungry but rather drained.
--
It was many weeks later when he realized he hadn't thought of returning to the surface world once. Encounters with Rudy were sudden and unpredictable, but Buck found some way to escape him each time as he trained and battled the local flora and fauna.
The caterpillars became butterflies.
He slowly lost what was left of his mind from that night, and gained more instinct than he would have once thought he would need. But it kept him alive, so he couldn't complain.
One morning he woke up snuggling against a pineapple… a very ugly pineapple. What was left of his mind told him he was married to it. That was when he truly knew he was crazy.
But again, it kept him alive. He battled the elements and got stronger and faster, quicker to think up ideas that would get him out of a jam. His dagger served him well, especially against Rudy, who had tried to eat his pineapple wife once soon after he found he was married to it. The pineapple was ugly, but he loved her. The grudge match between he and Rudy reached its final point.
Rudy wanted his tooth back; Buck wasn't planning on giving it up.
The surface world dawned as a hazy memory of months past as Buck fought, learning as he went. Food came to him easier now. He no longer felt hunger pains. Occasionally he could feel the phantom pain of his missing right eye, but whenever he looked down at his dagger, he knew the phantom pain Rudy felt must have been about the same.
Perhaps it really was a fair trade.
An Eye for a Tooth, after all, was a very old and very long saying.
