Page 6

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End

Vancouver. One month after season finale of Primeval: New World.

Ange Finch knew what her formally best friend said after he came back through the anomaly. He said something had changed in the past that caused all the anomalies to close in the nexus point. The past, in this case, being six years ago, but s far as she could see everything was the same as before the anomaly closed. She was still the civilian lead for Project Magnet and Evan still refuses to listen to reason. Despite what Connor Temple seems to believe she still can't give up hope that there is even the slightest possibility of controlling or even losing the anomalies once and for all. She just wishes Evan and his team understood what she was trying to accomplish. She didn't want to see anyone else die. They already lost Mac Rendell. How many people would they have to lose before Evan came to see reason?

"Ms. Finch?"

Ange looks up to the open door of her office at Project Magnet's head quarters to see Lt. Leeds standing there in her doorway. "Evan and his team are on the move. Looks like they've located another anomaly.

"Okay, send a team out and go with them. Right now Evan still trusts you more than anyone else involved with this project."
"Yes, Ma'am."

Meanwhile Evan Cross heads to this newly opened anomaly with his friend and colleague, Dylan Weir by his side. "What have we got, Toby?" Evan asked his brilliant technical lead.

"The anomaly is just on the edge of Lynn Canon Park. I've already informed the authorities to evacuate that part of the park. Told them there was a sighting of a couple of wild bears."

"Good work, Toby. We'll be there in fifteen minutes. Try to keep an eyes and ears on that part of the park. Alert us if anything comes through," Dylan replied.
"That'll be hard to do. There aren't any cameras in that area but I'll do my best."

Fifteen minutes later Dylan and Evan got to the park. Once parked they got out and grabbed their tranquilizer guns. Evan also grabbed a hand gun. When Dylan saw she gave him a disapproving look.

"It's just as back up. I don't want to have to kill any animals just like you but if it's between us or them, I'll choose us every time." They both knew where this statement came from but neither of them would acknowledge the missing member of their team.

Dylan sighed in resignation. "I know. I just don't like it."

It took them another forty minutes for them to reach the anomaly. They told security they were with animal control to deal with the bear problems and thanks to Ange working for Project Magnet now, they have legitimate animal control IDs. It's the only positive they've gotten out of Project Magnet as far as Evan is concerned.

"Toby, we're here. You got anything on your end?" Evan inquired.

"I don't know. I can't tell. I'm completely blind here guys. You would think they'd have some kind of security cameras stationed throughout the park but no!"
"It's fine, Toby. We'll deal with anything that comes through." Dylan replied trying to placate her friend.

"Just be careful out there," Toby said. "I don't want to lose anyone else." She added that last bit more to herself but Evan and Dylan still heard her. They just chose to ignore it. They all felt the same grief over Mac's death but there was nothing they could do but move forward and continue their work with the anomalies. Just then they heard a twig snapped behind them. Both Dylan and and Evan whipped around, tranquilizers up and aimed just to see Lt. Leek and some of his men.
"Jesus, Leek! Don't steak up on us like that!" exclaimed an exasperated Dylan.
"Sorry."

"What are you even doing here? Better yet, how did you know we were here?" Evan asked suspiciously. "Don't tell me Ange is having us watched."

"No…" Leek replied unconvincingly. "Ok. yes. But only because you refuse to let us help you. You have cut us out from your operation all over again. We don't even know where your base of operations is anymore."

"Yes, because Colonel Hall and Angie don't know what they're messing with! They want to control an uncontrollable force!" Evan proclaimed loudly.

Just then they heard some rustling from above. All heads turned toward the tree tops, weapons aimed.

"Anyone see anything?" Evan yelled. Everyone shook their heads but no one lowered their weapons. Everyone was too tense. Suddenly, something large jumped from the trees and attacked one of Leeks men. They all caught a quick glimpse of the creature before it ran off.

"Was that… a Sabertooth?" One of Leeks men asked.

"No. But if I had to guess, I'd say it was a Xenosmilus from the Pleistocene period," Evan replied. "Though I hardly think it matters. We just need to find this cat fast before it harms anyone else.

"How's that soldier doing" Evan directed towards Dylan who was checking on the soldier that the Xenosmilus attacked.

"He's dead." Dylan stated.

"Guys? What's going on? I just saw something run by one of the few cameras the park has. I couldn't see what it was though," Toby asked from the other side of Dylan and Evan's radios.

"Toby! Did you see which way it went? We need to find it fast!" Dylan inquired.

"Ya. It was heading east last I saw."

"Ok. Keep an eye on whatever cameras there are. We need to try to keep track of it if we can." Evan stated.

Evan and Dylan started heading east to where Toby told them she saw the cat.

"You four stay here and keep an eye on that anomaly. Anything else comes through shoot it." Leek told a few of his man before following after Evan and Dylan with the rest of his men much to Evan's perpetual annoyance.

"We should split up. Better chance of finding this cat before someone else gets hurt." Dylan remarked toward Lt. Leeds and his men.

"It probably is a good idea. I just don't like it." Lt. Leeds replied. " We split into groups of three. Be careful." Lt. Leeds aimed towards his men while going to join Dylan and Evan to keep an eye on him.

"You know, you could have gone with your men instead of annoying us." Evan commented as they moved as fast as they could while still keeping their guard up. With any luck, Toby had evacuated enough of the surrounding area that they were the only possible source of food for the creature. They stalked slowly through the woods for a good twenty minutes with no incident making them all even more nervous. Suddenly they heard a scream from the distance to their right.

"Come on!" Evan said unnecessarily as they all started running in the direction of the scream. They got there quickly to see one of Leeks men on the ground with the cat above him tearing into him. Dylan took a shot at it with her tranquilizer but all that seemed to do was aggravated him. He turned his head and snarled at them before leaping away. Thy tried hitting it but their tranquilizer darts missed ad just ended up either bouncing off rocks and trees or embedding in them.

"Damn it!" Evan cried while Lt. Leeds got on his radio and told the rest of his men their location so that they could try to surround this prehistoric cat. Dylan and Evan took off after the animal leaving Lt. Leeds behind to inform his men. He didn't notice at first being too busy talking into his radio before seeing them sprint off. He quickly followed suit. They got to a clearing a few minutes later and stopped to catch their breath and see if they could find any indicator as to which direction it may have gone in.

"Toby, we lost it! Do you have anything?" Evan asked.

"No! Nothing. Only good news is I'm sure it hasn't left you're area of the park."

"Um, guys?" Dylan interrupted. Lt. Leeds and Dylan turned and saw her looking up to the trees. When they followed her eye sight they saw the Xenosmilus perched up high. He roared an pounced right at Evan. Dylan took a shoot at it that hit seconds before it landed on Evan. It was unconscious before it landed. Evan breathed a sigh of relief when he realized he wasn't going to be cat chow.

"You guys want to help get this thing off of me?" he directed to Dylan and Lt. Leeds who were staring at him. It took them a minute to process everything.

"Ya, of course. Sorry." Dylan apologized as she and Lt. Leeds started moving toward Dylan to get the cat off of him. Once they were able to roll the cat off of Dylan Lt. Leeds got on his radio and inquired after the anomaly, asking if it had closed yet or if anything else had come through.

"Nothing, sir. Everything has been quiet on our end," one of his men responded.

"Okay, I'm going to need a team here to get this cat back through the anomaly before it wakes up or the anomaly closes."

"You mean you aren't going to capture it and experiment on it?" Dylan asked suspiciously.

"No," Lt. Leeds replied. "Don't get me wrong. Colonel Hall still wants to. He doesn't believe that stealing some animals from the past could vastly effect the timeline, but Ms. Finch was able to persuade him into doing more research into what could happen if he steals too many or even the wrong one before proceeding."

"There may be hope for you guys yet." Evan looked warily impressed. "Here's hoping he sees reason and leaves well enough alone."

With the help of Lt. Leeds men, they were able to make quick work of getting the Xenosmilus back through the anomaly to it's home time. They kept guard on the anomaly until it closed an hour later to make sure nothing else came through. Evan and Dylan not trusting Project Magnet to do the job well enough and still not completely believing that they wouldn't go through to bring something back and Lt. Leeds feeling it's is job to oversee his men.

After the anomaly closed as they were making their way back to their cars and individual head quarters Lt. Leeds turned and asked Evan, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell us now where your new base is stationed?"

"I would, but as you recall, I destroyed everything when Colonel Hall came to confiscate everything over a month ago."

"You're still sticking with that story?"

"Yup. And you can't prove otherwise."

"Until next time then," Lt. Leeds responded as they got to the parking lot and finished up for the day.

A/N I don't pretend to be a writer but I love Primeval so much and New World was actually really good after the first half and I would like to try to tie up all the lose ends from both shows in a satisfying way which, from what I've seen, hasn't been done yet. I'm still working on a plot and a time line. The time line is coming together nicely. Plot is still up in the air. It will get there though. If you have any suggestions or ideas you think would work in this story message me or comment and if I believe it works with the story I am setting up I will incorporate it and give you credit.

Also, these first two chapters are just to set up the story. The second chapter is almost done and will be up soon but I don't think I'll be posting much more until I figure out what the hell I'm doing with it and where the hell it's going. I.e. I need to figure out the plot before I continue the story. So, back-stepping to my first A/N, if you have any ideas, share. The faster I come up with something the faster this story gets written.

One more side note for people who are Primeval fans but not New World fans. There will (hopefully) be an equal amount of Primeval characters in this. And, hopeful, I'll clear up the whole season 5 finale of Matt telling himself he needs to return cliffhanger thing.