Hello guys, here's a new story by Sim0ns1!
Like I always say at the beginning, English is not my first language (I'm Italian), so most likely there will be grammar mistakes (maybe there are mistakes in this sentence, too XD), I'm trying my best but I can't be perfect, so if you see a mistake, please let me know and I'll correct it.
Ice Age belongs to Blue Sky Studios.
Enjoy! :D
In a barren wasteland, completely covered by snow and with no living things inhabiting it, there was a big snowstorm going. It seemed a very peaceful place.
Suddenly, something crashed to the ground, making a really loud noise and kicking up a lot of snow. It was a flying saucer, and a male saber-toothed squirrel known as Scrat came out of it, holding his precious acorn.
The rodent was pretty shaken up by the fall, and was trying to walk, barely able to keep his balance.
However, Scrat immediately recovered at a really weird sight: a yellow light was coming towards him at full speed. He screamed and started running away as fast as he could, still with the acorn in his hands.
He only stopped when he reached the top of a steep slope. The squirrel was hesitant to go down, but when he turned and saw that the strange light gained ground, he screamed again and went back to run.
Unfortunately, Scrat was too slow to escape, but he finally got a lucky break, for once. He tripped over a small rock, starting to roll down the slope, and at the same time to "outrun" the light, since he was obviously moving faster that way.
At the toe of the slope, the rodent ended up In a small pond, losing his grip on the acorn he was able to hold even when rolling.
The fruit was only a few inches from him, so he swam towards it and when he was about to grab it, a sudden temperature drop froze the lake, trapping the two there for the following twenty thousand years.
Lastly, the light reached the point where Scrat was, but due to what happened to him, it seemed unable to do what it had to and simply disappeared.
Two months later…
Hundreds and hundreds of mammals of different species were heading south together, as in any other winter, going down a large grassland that was surrounded by conifers.
"You've to believe me!" A crazy-looking female giant ground sloth exclaimed, standing on two legs, while the other mammals kept walking annoyed by her.
"Winters are becoming warmer year after year! It's just a matter of time before we witness a long series of disasters!" She continued.
"Yeah, and then what, a new evolved predator will drive us all to extinction?" Another female sloth passing by laughed.
"It could happen!" The first one affirmed, and then got down and started walking in disappointment.
"No one understands me!" A teenager female short-faced bear cried, making her parents groan.
"We've already been over this." Her father said, rolling his eyes.
"Couldn't you just try hibernation to let your daughter stay with the love of her life?" She sobbed.
"You chose a brown bear as your boyfriend, his species hibernates, and ours doesn't, face it." He answered bothered, like it was the hundredth time he had to.
"I don't care! I hate you!" She screamed and ran away from them.
The two adults sighed.
"I was there, pinned against a rock face and with a whole pack of coyotes ready to tear me to pieces." A dwarf pronghorn buck said emphatically and proudly, puffing out his chest "Guess how I got out, Joe."
"I'm not Joe." An American zebra stallion, next to him and twice his height, replied coldly, before picking up the pace.
"Huh? Joe? Joe?" He called, realizing that he was in the middle of a huge zebra herd, which members seemed identical at his height.
"Why did I think befriending a zebra would have been a good idea?" He told himself, still walking and looking around for his friend.
Suddenly, the herd's members stopped and the buck, not noticing it, ended up hitting some of their legs. When he made his way and looked up to know what caused it, he got surprised.
A brown-haired woolly mammoth bull was walking in the opposite direction, apparently not paying attention to what was around him. An orange-haired mammoth cow was following him with the same indifference.
And the weirdest part was yet to come: behind her, there were two saber-toothed tigers. The male was very old, his left fang was broken and most of his other teeth lacked, and his fur color was dull orange. The female, instead, was an adult, with gray fur and black stripes, and was helping the male to walk.
And lastly, a male ground sloth, which fur had turned brown due to the dry fungus in it, followed the two carnivores. Those three acted just like the mammoths did.
Obviously, the migrating animals were annoyed with their presence, and most of them even yelled and made fun of them, but the five mammals didn't care.
At least until a male giant capybara spotted them and opened his eyes wide in surprise.
"Wow, I can't believe it!" He exclaimed, and turned to his herd "Don't you remember guys? They're the mammals who saved the world, the ones those migratory birds told us about!"
"Whoa." The capybaras, impressed, said in unison.
He ran towards the strange group and stood in front of it.
"Wait, wait, can I have a word with you?" He asked, while they stopped confused, looking at the rodent with an eyebrow raised.
"It's an honor for me to meet you, the members of the weirdest but toughest herd ever seen! But there's something different, you were more than five, right?" He stopped to talk when the mammoth bull grabbed him with his trunk, putting their faces at the same height.
The capybara laughed nervously.
"Next time you get in my way, I'll crush you." The mammoth bull hissed, and dropped the big rodent before leaving.
"You know, Diego, I've always liked the flesh of capybara." Shira, behind him, said with an evil laugh.
"So do I, Shira, even if I'd kill him in a very slow and painful way due to my bad dentition." The male saber smirked.
"No, please, don't eat me!" The capybara begged, shivering.
The sabers laughed and walked away.
"Excuse them, it's not your fault...it's just a bad period." The sloth said depressingly to the rodent.
"A lot of things has happened and they aren't reacting very well." The mammoth cow explained in a kind, but sad, way "And we aren't too…"
"Ellie, Sid, move!" The mammoth bull called impatiently.
"Relax, Manny, we're coming." The sloth replied.
The two started walking and reached the rest of their group, while the capybara looked at them confused.
"I'm sure the chief will be extremely happy to know what we've found." A female megafaunal wolf with gray fur said maliciously.
"Happy? There's no room for emotions here." A male of the same species, with black fur and scary yellow eyes, replied impassively.
"This explains why you're so deadpan." She affirmed "But I bet you, just like me, lose your cool in front of food."
The he-wolf continued walking, ignoring her.
" I mean, imagine, it's a bad day and you don't feel like hunting at all, when you suddenly find a delicious, sweet and unattended carcass." She already started licking her lips and drool before she could even finish the sentence.
"I regret asking them to find me a mate." He told himself whispering.
"I heard you!" She hissed.
"I know, it was intentional." He affirmed.
She was about to say something else, but decided not to when she noticed they had arrived in front of a huge teepee.
Two men guarded the opening. They nodded towards the inside when they saw the wolves, allowing them to enter.
The duo walked until the other side of the teepee, that was pretty dark.
When they stopped, the male wolf bowed, and after a few seconds the female did it too.
"Luken, Belinda." A female voice, whose owner could barely be seen in the dark, spoke right after they got back up "Give me good news."
"There is a small family of sloths in the area, but no mammoths or saber-toothed tigers, chief." Luken said.
"Perfect." She replied satisfied "Bring the slave, I'll be right there."
The wolves nodded and quickly left, while the human figure in the dark made an evil laugh.
Inside a cave, a little sloth girl with light gray fur and a short black scalp (similar to the hair of Rose, the female sloth that made a cameo in the second movie, but straight) was sleeping one a rock. All of a sudden, she opened her eyes and gasped.
"I'm late! I'm late!" She exclaimed, getting up and looking around only to find out she was alone "Oh, no! They're already gone!"
She started running towards the opening of the cave, and when she came out of it, she breathed a sigh of relief, looking at a female sloth with lilac fur and short, wavy, purple hair, who was picking berries from a bush.
They were in an open space within a forest.
"Mom!" the little sloth exclaimed, hugging her as soon as she reached her.
"Good morning, Vivian." The lady replied sweetly, but became confused when she realized her heart was bursting "What's wrong?"
"I thought you migrated without me." She confessed, almost crying.
"Oh, honey, why should we do this? You're family, and no one in this family is left behind." The older sloth explained, hugging her daughter in return.
"So," the younger one spoke, feeling better "where is everybody?"
"Well, your father decided to wait tomorrow to migrate, since his feet hurt, we'll join the animals from the north." Her mother answered "And now he went with the others to look for food, this bush is one of the last with berries."
She took a berry and gave it to the little sloth.
"Thanks!" Vivian smiled, and quickly ate it, getting her face dirty "It's delicious!"
The adult sloth chuckled, but a loud scream from the forest caught their attention.
"T-That was…" She muttered shocked.
"Dad!" The kid shouted.
Other three screams came from there. The lady smelled the air and her eyes opened wide.
"Vivian, run!" The mother exclaimed.
"But what about you?" Vivian asked terrified.
"I'll be fine, now go!" She ordered, trying to hide her fear.
The young sloth started running as fast as she could, and turned when she heard a scream, seeing a black dire wolf jump on her mother.
"Don't stop!" Her mother yelled, before the predator silenced her forever.
"No! Mommy!" She, utterly horrified, shouted, and then gasped when she noticed a gray dire wolf that was chasing her, becoming closer and closer.
Vivian could hear the carnivore licking its lips, laughing hysterically and growling behind her.
When she thought it would have been her end, she spotted a leafless tree, with several little branches, on the edge of the clearing.
She was able to jump on the tree before the wolf could snap its jaws on her, and quickly reached the top. The predator tried to climb too, but failed due to the species he belonged and the thin branches.
The wolf growled at her and broke some branches in disappointment.
"Belinda, stop it." The black wolf, popping out from behind her and pulling her out of the feeding frenzy, said firmly "It's a kid, and we killed all her family, she's dead anyway."
"But, I-" She tried to speak, but was cut off.
"I said stop it." Luken ordered, and continued "Do you smell that?"
Belinda smelled the air and became confused "Mammoths…sabers…sloth…together?"
"Weird." He agreed "Come on, we have to warn the chief."
The male wolf ran away and the female, after barking menacingly at the young sloth, followed him.
Vivian, crying her eyes out and shivering, could just hold on to the tree in shock.
I know, this chapter is really confusing. You must have a lot of questions: what was the light that chased Scrat? Where are Crash, Eddie, Buck, Peaches, Julian, Brooke and even the dino-birds? Why is Diego so old? And...why is Sid brown? XD
Well, the only question I can answer is the latter: at the end of the first movie, when Manny, Sid and Diego say goodbye to Roshan, the human baby, and start migrating together, the sloth states "I turn brown when the fungus in my fur dries". I thought it would have been funny and interesting to have him look like that, after four more movies and several shorts where he has always been yellow.
By the way, the other questions will get a reply in the next chapters.
Plus, as you must have guessed, Scrat's first appearence in this story will also be his last one, so if you are a fan of this character, I warn you that you won't see him again here, unfortunately.
I also hope you liked the mammal species I chose for the migration. I tried to use real ice age (North American) animals that you could have imagined without searching for their pictures online. In particular, I put the giant ground sloth as an "apologize" to the ridicolous and unrealistic way the five movies depicted those animals.
Lastly, if you don't know, the title is based on the "human overkill" theory, according to which the humans caused the extinction of all the big mammals of the ice age by hunting them. I chose it because...well, you will find it out later on! XD
I hope you liked the first chapter, stay tuned to know more!
And don't forget to leave a review, feedback is very important to me.
See you in chapter two! :D