Hey my Fans! I want to say thanks for all the people who have followed this story from the start, and who have left me constant reviews that make my day better and make me keep these stories going. For those of you who are new to the Trilogy, welcome! But if this is the first one you're reading, you've gone to far, this is the third and final part to what has been almost a four year journey of development, planning, characters and writing. The first one being The Past Comes Back to Bite, then second being Two Worlds Clash.
After this, there will just be side stories and such, but i really think this might be the end guys, unless i do generational stories, I'm not sure yet, i really don't want to Overkill.
But also, this is just a prologue/preview as to what is coming. I have my final exams all in the next few weeks and months, so I reeeeaaally won't have time, and besides, I have to finish Moon and the Sea as well, which is as equally followed as this one. I guess I'm just letting you guys know, that this story is in development, and IS coming. I'm so happy it's gotten this far after so long. As usual, let me know what you think guys, please leave reviews, writers like myself love them.
As a final note, I do not own Ice Age characters, but please to the gods don;t steal any of My Oc's, which are literally 99% of the characters in this, or so help me I'll send you to the land of the forgotten.
Have fun guys, love Ya'll.

The young rusty brown was gone.
The young blood red was gone.
The young black shadow was gone.
The last two were following the first.

Buck sat on a log near the stream. The log had tiny, delicate tendrils growing from it, reaching for the spring sunlight.
Buck was furiously carving at a piece of wood, his jaw set in concentration and his eyelid hadn't blinked for a long while.
As he twisted his knife again, a sudden, frightening chill ran through him, causing his right arm to spasm for a moment, cutting too deeply into one of the carvings'
sides.

The chill left him, and what replaced it was a sweeping anger. He tossed the piece aside and stabbed his knife into the log beside him.
Hanging his head in his paws, he tried to calm his breathing.

This couldn't be him.

The last War had taken then ultimate toll on Buck. He reached down and felt the patch of exposed skin carved in his front. Even now, months later, that area of him felt twisted and tense. He knew it was the internal scarring, that piece of his body would never be the same. He'd even spotted grey hairs on his muzzle and chin. He gripped his head roughly. The pain of his own claws digging into him being a momentary distraction.

"Sweetie?"
The soft voice made all of the pain go away, and he turned his head towards her, releasing it from his grip.

"Hey Love." He said quietly.
Lucy approached him, and he took in the sight of her as usual.
She had aged much better than he had. There was virtually no difference between now and eighteen years ago.
Lucy sat down next to him, leaned into his shoulder, and they sighed together.

"Today's a hard day." Lucy almost whispered.

He nodded slowly, swallowing. "I jus' wanna be out there! I wana go find 'em love, I wanna fight alongside 'em, and go find the other side of the world…"

"I know. I wanted to give them another ring today."

Buck smiled. "An onyx for Cal's spear and a tigereye for Jai's bow?"

"I was going to make them different this year." She said sadly, running a clawed finger along one of the tendrils softly.

"We'll give 'em to 'em when they get back."

"It still won't feel the same as if we'd given it to them today." She frowned slightly as she talked. "It's just, todays the day. They're so grown up."

"Not if they can help it." Buck said, and they laughed quietly together. They both took deep breaths of the morning air, feeling a little better than they had.

Deep in the jungle to the North East, Calamity sat by a small creek, her rough fingers gently rubbing the soft bandana around her neck. The wind was strong today, ripping at the trees around her and she had to consciously stop her ears from flapping into her face.

Today was her eighteenth birthday.

She bit her bottom lip lightly with her overbite canines, trying not to think too hard about it. Winter had come and gone without their notice; all the seasons down here were more or less the same. But with spring and summer came the heat, a sickening, sweaty heat that made the air thick and heavy. And the rains. Torrential rains, monsoons, storms of the mightiest power, whatever you wanted to call them. Cal only knew that the journey, the search, was going to get harder.

It had been a few months since she and Toby left, and Cal missed her parents and friends. Hell, she even missed Oak-eye.

Toby was still asleep in the tree behind her, sleeping off last night's battle. This part of the jungle, closer to the mountains, was more treacherous than the familiar ones South West, and last night they'd had a wrangle with a pair of Pachycephalosaurus, and a pit of strangling vines. It had been late, very late, when they'd finally found a tree that they both deemed safe to sleep in.

I suppose I'll go get some food, she thought, but then she thought that it probably wasn't wise for her to go off on her own here.
And that scared her.

The thought, no, the fact, that she hadn't been as prepared for this as she thought she had, was terrifying. If she hadn't decided to take the little runt Toby, she would have been dead by now.

"Happy Birthday."
The wind blocked out most of his voice, but Cal heard them just enough to smile and turn her head.

"Thanks Toby. How did you know?"
He pointed to the creek as he came her way and sat down.

"Typheria Ossi, it flowers on the first day of spring, and everyone knows that's when you and Jai were born."

Cal looked at the plant he had pointed at, a tiny purple flower on a bed of healthy green moss that grew on a half-submerged stone.
"I know that flower. If you chew it, it makes your tongue feel funny. Dad fed it to me as a joke once."

Toby smiled and nodded, "It's good for headaches when it's crushed into some water."

"Huh, I didn't know that. I thought mum taught us everything."

Toby laughed. "Lucy doesn't believe headaches need to be 'cured', unless they're migraines."

"I guess she has a point." Cal said with her own laugh.

They fell into a comfortable silence, Toby swinging his legs in the water slowly, dragging them back and forth, both of them watching how the water bent around his black fur. He'd gotten leaner on this trip, as had Cal. She hadn't thought either of them could lose weight and gain muscle, but she'd been wrong. She knew that was going to be a problem once they hit the mountains, but it would be difficult to gain the weight back when they were fighting things and moving pretty much fourteen hours a day. And the further they went North, it seemed the scarcer food became. It was a harsher setting, a harder, more brutal surrounding, where the bark was harder and the plants more poisonous. Cal was seeing many plants she knew, but more and more that she didn't. Luckily Toby had spent a surprising amount of time around her mother and Sasha, who had both known more than Cal about such things.

"So, did you think about what I said yesterday? You're calling the shots as much as I am here." Cal asked.

Toby took a deep breath in and expelled it, watching the water, then sat forward with his elbows on his legs.
"I honestly think you're right. We've practically checked everywhere we can think of around here, the only place we haven't checked is the mountains…and beyond them." He looked up, between the trees around them, to the cold, dreary peaks that towered only a few kilometres away. They were close enough to the surface world that they were cold, bleak, and in the coming spring the weather would be horrible as cold and warm air clashed among the mountain like vicious giants.
Then Toby closed his eyes and bowed his head with a smile. "Besides, it's not like I could stop you or not, you would go anyway, me 'calling the shots' is you hearing whether I'll go or not."

Calamity, with an evil toss of her head, asked, "Then what'll it be?"

"Well Birthday Girl, it's looking like I really don't have a choice."

"You're stuck with me then?"

"More like you're stuck with me, but the main idea is yes."

"Good, because if I get hungry enough, you're better than nothing." Calamity said with a shrug.

"My family record might just challenge that statement, Cal."

"I'd like to see a runt like you try." She laughed back, pushing his shoulder so roughly he ended up on his side. He rolled onto his back, and leaning on his elbows so he had pushed himself up to face her, he cocked his head with a toothy, evil grin.

"I've been fighting alongside you long enough to know I'd give you a run for your money now." He kicked out with his legs, kicking Cal and splashing her with water at the same time.

Sputtering and rolling, Cal jumped up and pushed the rising Toby until he was on the ground again. She grabbed her spear from where it sat nearby and ran towards the mountains laughing loudly.
Toby kicked himself to his feet with a mischievous smile and followed, laughing with her.