THE LAND BEFORE TIME & THE BATTLE OF ALL TIME
Life always has its roots at the base of nothing. From simple creatures restricted to the water came amphibious creatures until finally, terrestrial creatures who were the pioneers to the fauna we see today. Those organisms who survived extinction events and other natural conflicts would evolve over time into plethora of species. One group of these creatures became the most successful group at the time: the dinosaurs!
However, for one certain group of dinosaurs, they would soon realize that there is other life out there. Bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, and, even more deadly than what they had known in their lives.
Flashforward
EARTH: 66 million years ago. Cretaceous period.
The end of the dinosaurs was slowly appearing on the horizon. However, just like human existence, other animals' existence stood no comparison to the massive amount of time of the geologic time scale. Dinosaurs, especially those in the Great Valley, lived in peace and harmony.
It was like any other day in the Great Valley.
A young Apatosaurus tore through the foliage. With a rock in his mouth, he was followed by his friends. Some who were running with him while others were chasing him.
"Littlefoot!" the young dinosaur's teammate yelled. She was a short, olive green Saurolophus named Ducky. "I'm open! I am I am!" The Saurolophus, or duckbill as those around the Great Valley call them, picked up speed.
"All right!" Littlefoot mumbled between pants with the rock in his mouth. "Here it comes!" He let the rock fall and Ducky caught it. However, Ducky paused for too oing recovering from catching the rock to see her pursuers catching up.
"We got you now!" called out an orange Triceratops, a threehorn named Cera.
"Oh no no no!"
"Ducky!" another voice called out. That voice belonged to a dark purple dinosaur, a young Tyrannosaurus, named Chomper. Wasting no time, Ducky threw the rock as hard as she could. Chomper caught the rock in his jaws and took off.
"Uh oh. Sharptooth assistance" Cera called out to her teammates. Her teammates consisted of Spike, the spiketail (a Stegosaurus) and Petrie the flyer (a Pteranodon).
Chomper picked up speed but Cera, Spike, and Petrie were catching up. Cera had Chomper in her grasp. Right as she attempted to head butt him while running to knock him off balance, Chomper slyly slid on the ground, and slid through the mud to the spot where the gang's friend, Ruby the fast-runner (an Oviraptor) was standing and referring. Little did they realize that they were playing the equivalent of modern-day capture the flag except with a rock.
"And that's in!" Ruby called out. As she said this, Cera stopped dead in her tracks in defeat. "Team Littlefoot beats Team Cera twice in a row. They were playing best two rounds out of three.
"Oh c'mon!" yelled Cera. I'm stuck with the worst team!"
"Cera, we lost fair and square!" piped Petrie. "Me try. Spike try. You try. It okay though!" He looked to see if Spike could back him up but Spike was already munching on some tree stars.
"I don't care! I'm team captain and I still think these teams are rigged!" complained Cera. "Especially considering that Littlefoot got first pick!"
"Oh c'mon Cera! We drew sticks!" objected Littlefoot. "You know the rules. Whoever got shortest stick chooses first."
"Yeah well, you got Ducky and Chomper who are fast and I got Spike and Petrie who are slow." Despite gorging on leaves, Spike appeared to take offense to being called 'slow' by Cera.
Littlefoot knew his threehorn friend was always quick to make excuses or blame others. Especially when she was mad. Typical threehorn behavior.
"Cera, it's just friendly competition" said Littlefoot.
"It's not like we're at war" stated Ruby.
"What's a war?" asked Ducky.
"War means lots of conflict between groups" answered Ruby.
"Sounds like big fight" said Petrie.
"Exactly."
Littlefoot noted that the bright circle was starting to set. He and the gang had had countless adventures: from exploring new places to defeating sharpteeth. Now, he realized that aside from their daily playing, they were slowly settling down. It had been two years since their last adventure. They hadn't even ventured into the Mysterious Beyond for a while either.
Maturity hit him well. He was taller, standing at about 1.6 meters tall at the neck and his legs had become a bit more muscular. He still had lots of growing to do.
As the gang had grown a little older, their families began giving them all a wider birth to play. Today they had been playing in a part of the Great Valley whose geography included dense undergrowth and a small stream that ked up to a waterfall on a rocky slope. The group decided to take the rocky slope across as it would get them back to the herd and nesting grounds fairly quickly.
Spike, who was last in line, just climbed up the rocks when the gang felt the ground under them beginning to shake.
"Earth shake!" cried Littlefoot. The ground began to shake even harder. Boulders fell all around them; they tried to move with caution. A crack in the formation the gang was standing on suddenly widened. Rocks of all sizes rolled into the hole into the cavern below. And so did the gang,
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" they all screamed in terror as they barreled into the cave. Nothing they hadn't experienced already.
The group landed all over at the bottom of the subterranean slope. There were still rocks coming down. Chomper had to roll sideways as he was almost crushed by a boulder. That same boulder almost crushed Ducky and Spike as well.
"Hey everyone!" There's a cave leading outside! I see light!" Ruby called out to her friends. She led the gang into the light. They were not pleased by the scenery outside.
"This not the Great Valley" Petrie said, shuddering.
"Obviously not!" snapped Cera. "We're stuck in the Mysterious Beyond!"
"Guys! Calm down!" shouted Littlefoot. "We've been the Mysterious Beyond before and we've found our way back to the Great Valley. We can do this."
"You're right" agreed Chomper.
"This kind of looks like here we were during the Great Freeze. With Mr. Thicknose" observed Cera.
"Yeah! You're right! You're right!" said Ducky. They all decided to go the direction that they thought had brought them and Mr. Thicknose back to the Great Valley. It was challenging though considering that at that time, they had been walking through snow versus barren exposed rock now.
Around an hour into their trudge towards what they assumed was home, a newcomer to the Mysterious Beyond, a drifter from out of town looking for new food, picked up their scent. Normally a fish eater, this large superpredator also had a taste for dinosaur flesh, especially flesh that was young and fresh. Much larger than the prey he was pursuing, the new carnivore caught up with the young ones fairly quickly. He kept his distance; walking slowly and stalking them.
"Do you get the feeling someone is watching us?" asked Ruby.
"Yep yep yep" shuddered Ducky.
The gang heard a low growl followed by heavy breathing.
The Spinosaurus realized that his prey may have heard but undeterred, he was about to go in for the kill anyways.
Spike found the first green food they'd seen in nearly a kilometer and gobbled it all up. Everyone else was slowly backing up as they heard the growl again. Littlefoot had a bad feelin g about this. The unseen dinosaur roared again.
"It's Red Claw" said Ruby, in awe about the return of their fairly common sharptooth adversary.
"I don't think so" Littlefoot said cautiously. "It sounds bigger."
Cera, feeling brave as usual, climbed up onto a boulder to see if she could get a closer look. Standing up high, she could see a dinosaur in the distance but she couldn't tell if it was a leaf-eater or a sharptooth. However, it soon occurred to Cera that the figure was getting closer to them and it seemed to notice them. The distinctive roar echoed across the landscape from the figure back to the gang.
"We have to go!" screamed Cera. "We have to go now! Sharptooth!"
"What?! No! Ahhhhhhhh!" Petrie shrieked.
The humongous Spinosaurus, picked up speed and gave chase.
"Run for it!" yelled Littlefoot.
Littlefoot took off first with the others following close behind him. The Spinosaurus, or the "sail-back sharptooth" chased the young dinosaurs through a rocky path the soon became a small, winding canyon, part of a dried up riverbed. They ran through seemingly endless meanders going sideways, left and right.
Ducky suddenly sped ahead of Littlefoot and the others. She wasn't getting eaten today. As Ducky rounded a corner with her friends and their new adversary behind them, she was greeted by a familiar face who made her shriek in terror.
"Aeeeeeeewhhhhh!" Ducky cried. She helplessly pointed up at the obvious form of Red Claw, the large Tyrannosaurus Rex with the distinctive red scar going down from its face on its left eye all the way to its left claw.
"Red Claw!" cried Petrie as he and the others caught up with Ducky.
The two carnivores glared at each other and seemed to size each other up. Both seemed to lose interest in the young dinosaurs. The gang had to quickly scramble out of the way as Red Claw and the unknown Spinosaurus charged at one another and butted heads. Immediately, the Spinosaurus made a lunge for Red Claw's neck. The Tyrannosaurus narrowly dodged the attack and headbutted the Spinosaurus. The Spinosaurus fell bac, recovered, and went for what he was waiting for: the neck of the deformed Tyrannosaurus. Red Claw struggled in the super predator's jaw grasp. He roared and bellowed in frustration. The Spinosaurus seemed to almost grin as it shifted positions and began to twist with all its might.
Littlefoot was following his friends to safety when he heard an eerie, bone-snapping sound. He turned and gaped in horror as the lifeless form of Red Claw landed on the ground with a loud thump, almost crushing him. What was even more frightening was the fact that Red Claw's head now seemed loosely attached: the neck of the Tyrannosaurus was so horribly mauled and twisted that his head was only hanging on by a few strands of muscle. Cera turned around and saw Littlefoot still staring at the grim spectacle. She ran back and shoved him to get going. Littlefoot followed his friends as the Spinosaurus roared in victory as it stepped on and crushed Red Claw's deceased form.
About 2 kilometers later, the gang gasped for breath.
"I think we lost him" Cera said.
"Yeah, me too" replied Littlefoot.
"I thought you knew where we were going!" Cera yelled at Littlefoot.
"But the Mysterious Beyond is so big! We may not even know where we are!"
"I definitely don't recognize this portion" said Ruby. "And I've lived in the Mysterious Beyond."
The gang's optimism quickly dried up like water in a devastating drought when two new noises attracted their attention.
The first noise was a familiar one. It was the noise of the ground shaking.
"Earth shake!" cried Chomper.
"Again!" added Petrie.
"Look!" screamed Littlefoot. "The fire mountain!"
To the gang's surprise , a volcano was erupting. Unaware of modern-day scientific terms, the gang watched in awe as a volcanic mudflow began flowing down the side of the volcano…. And right into their path.
"Run!" shrieked Cera. Everyone turned and ran. There was another explosion out of the volcano. Littlefoot turned and looked back and saw flaming pyroclastic material raining through the air.
"We're trapped!" screamed Cera. She and the others gaped in terror at the sight of a new group of sharpteeth who, despite the impending eruption, seemed very intent on killing and eating them. These new dinosaurs appeared to be covered head to toe in feathers save for their snouts which almost looked like a beak and they had feather-like arms that kept them balanced. Their tails ended in a stream of feathers. These were Dakotaraptors and there were 5 of them: 5 meters long and built large yet still very agile. The pack began to close in.
"Sweat trickled down Littlefoot's neck. Flaming fireballs raned down while a pack of hungry sharpteeth awaited them. For once, the young longneck didn't know what to do.
One flaming rock, as large as a car, flew thrpugh the air and sailed right to where Littlefoot stood. As he turned and tried to run, the young dinosaur couldn't help but stare. Soon, the flaming rock took up all his vision.
"Littlefoot!" all his friends cried.
Littlefoot could feel the heat of the rock. Some embers and some smaller, burning hot debris trickling off the large rock hit his skin and scalded it. Suddenly, a swirling wind appeared and enveloped the young longneck. In an instant, Littlefoot was gone. The rock crashed into the earth in the very spot he was standing in not even a second ago.
The gang gaped in awe and horror. Littlefoot was gone, the sharpteeth were circling them and flaming rocks rained down all around them.
"Look out!" cried Ruby as another, even large flaming rock sailed through the air right towards them. They were surrounded; literally on all sides and from the air thanks to the flaming rock. The gang continued to struggle. Suddenly, some of the Dakotaraptors leapt up, with their middle claws ready. The rock's heat resonated on the young dinosaurs' skin. Another swirling vortex came out of nowhere and enveloped them all. Cera stood in front right as one of the Dakotaraptors was about to claw out her eye. Her pupil took in the claw and blocked her vision. The swirling wind came just in time. In a flash, the rest of the Great Valley gang was gone and the Dakotaraptors were alone. However, right as the flaming rock hit the pack of Dakotaraptors, a supernatural force whisked them away as well. Soon, the entire landscape went up in flames.
Littlefoot opened his eyes. He was falling; falling through a seemingly endless void. Suddenly, he felt as if he were floating. It was almost peaceful: his mind seemed to shut down and he felt like he was watching himself sail through of void of nothingness. Then, he was able to see around him; it wasn't dark anymore. As he floated upwards, Littlefoot was able to make out scenery flying by such as tall mountains, green forests, and streams. Was he back in the Great Valley? Not even close. He landed on a round stone floor.
"Littlefoot, longneck of the Great Valley, you've arrived just in time" a new voice called out to Littlefoot. The voice seemed to belong to a male and the voice had a wise, serene, and old tone. It almost reminded Littlefoot of his grandfather.
Deeply frightened, Littlefoot took a deep breath and tried to answer back.
"What are you talking about?" Littlefoot asked.