Quick Disclaimer: I don't own anything about 'We're Back!' or the storyline.

Friends and Sacrifices:

Part 1: Sacrificing It All

Rex wasn't sure what to think when he came across the decidedly disconcerting scene. The very man that they had been warned not to mix with no matter what, with a firm hold on Louie and Cecilia's shoulders.

"It's him. Professor Screweyes." He whispered as he took this in, knowing that all importance right now seemed to be getting the two kids out of there as fast as possible.

"Cecilia, get away from that man!" Dweeb pleaded, the same notion evident in his voice. Woog nodded his ascent.

"Hey, chill out! We just joined his circus." Louie nonchalantly replied, seemingly oblivious to their concerned looks or the fact that the man behind them now looked to the dinosaurs with a half-scrutinizing, half-unsettlingly curious eye, like that of a shoplifter seeing a target in a store.

"But that's Professor Screweyes! We were warned about him!" Rex said boldly, not just yet noticing the official-looking roll of paper in the professor's coat pocket. And this time, the professor himself came to answer.

"Warned? By who?" He asked sharply, now giving the t-rex an equally hostile look. The other dinosaurs and the slippery circus master seemed to square off for a moment before Rex fearlessly struck back with his answer.

"Your brother."

"So that's how you got here and funny you can talk! So he's fed you that brain stuff of his, and he warned you about me. Let him look to his own affairs. Did he show you that hooky wish-radio of his, uh?" The old man said slyly as he moved toward a nearby switchboard, pulling the switches to turn off various lights. It was obvious that the show was done for the night.

"Yes! We heard what people are wishing for!" Dweeb replied excitably, remembering the various children they had heard. It had been a wonderful recollection that still stood out in their minds.

But tonight was going to be far from wonderful.

"Well, I have a radio too. Let me show you." Screweyes looked over at the group, almost menacingly, and curiosity was instantly stomped out of their minds by the sudden eeriness and foreboding that swept through the empty circus ground.

"Nope, no way, nada, we don't want anything to do with you." Rex replied swiftly before gesturing to the young ones, stuck dead in the center of the verbal struggle and looking very much like they wanted to jump ship themselves. "Come on kids; come to the museum with us. The Museum of Natural Hist-"

His quick escape was instantaneously cut off by Screweyes, who was waving a roll of paper in his hand. Rex got the impression that the character before them held the kid's freedom in the palm of his hand.

"They're not going anywhere. They are under contract to me for a very long time." The professor stated with an air of brash finality as he pulled down a final switch, sending the whole circus ground into a shade of shadows.

The t-rex swallowed. Okay, definitely freedom. He looked sadly down at the two children, noticing that Cecilia had broken into a cascade frightened tears. Elsa flew down to the sobbing girl, and tried to at least stop the crying with a comforting wing.

"But these are the first children we've met." The Pteranodon protested as Rex moved his head into more level ground with the rest of the group.

"We like them." He backed, although knowing that his, or any of the others, objections probably would do anything to change the cold-hearted circus master's decision. Even Louie had tried to make the bad situation a little better.

"Hey, it's gonna be alright." He consoled, trying to at least stem Cecilia's crying somewhat. He had gotten her into this, after all, and he was going to get them out.

"Oh, I don't think so. Unless we can work something out with your friends here." Professor Screweyes articulated, voice sounding all the more like this was a sink-or-swim moment for the dinosaurs and kids. The next thing their eyes all focused in on was the screw in his left eye, glowing a sinister green.

The next thing they all realized was that they were in a huge tent, the main tent, and before them was a large object, with green pulsing lights. It was as though the cluster had walked into a horror movie, and right now, the ending was nowhere in sight. Rex shook himself out of a light daze, and carried out a quick headcount just to be sure everyone was still there. Like it or not, this t-rex wasn't about to let Professor Screweyes get a hold of any of his friends.

Dweeb looked back at the bigger dinosaur with a questioning glance, more namely saying 'how did we get here?'. Rex replied with a small shrug and fixed his eyes on the machine in front of them. Before they could understand exactly what was going on, Professor Screweyes opened the curtain and broke into speech.

"This is a time of loud wishes, yes, but even louder, fears. This," He now gestured to the large and eerie looking item behind him. "Is a fright radio. It picks up what people are scared to death of. You see, I find out what they're frightened of on this radio and that's what I try to give them with my circus. It's a public service." By this time, the dinosaurs and children had come a little closer, the overlarge radio piquing their curiosity. Rex personally couldn't understand the point behind what was being said; he had come into this time to grant wishes, not scare people, although he had to admit the dinosaurs had probably inadvertently done that already.

"But this is the station that comes in the loudest of all!" The professor announced with the finality of Dr. Frankenstein about to pull the switch that would bring his creation to life. The very atmosphere made them look over their shoulders a few times, just to be sure of no hidden spooks. Professor Screweyes moved the switch for a moment, then stopped at 'paranoid'.

What happened next could have been described as an explosion, but not of fire and metal. They all instantly learned the difference between the two radios at once, other than their size. For one, while the wish-radio had used the calm imagery of bubbles to portray children's wishes, the fright-radio seemed to spew out ghosts, shrieking, wailing ghosts. Now regretting the close seat, the dinosaurs and children hightailed to the other side of the circus tent. Voices seemed to break out among them, all giving into the cacophony of sounds.

"Monsters under the bed!"

"Monsters are gonna eat me!"

"Red eyes staring at me…"

"Monsters in the closet…"

The screaming and howling continued to rain down as the group huddled together. Rex now did not blame Dweeb at all for practically hanging onto him like a badly spooked friend in a walkthrough haunted house, the situation definitely felt like a b-rated movie. Screweyes came to the front, pushing through the ghostly figures like one would walk through a curtain.

"Do you see what they're most afraid of?" He asked, grinning oddly at them.

"No." Woog was the one to reply; he was right, it had all been a little confusing when you had people screaming all around you in the manner that reminded you of a late-night horror flick.

"Monsters!"

"Monsters?" Rex repeated, somehow getting an odd impression of what was happening here. They were being backed into a corner, and the chances of getting out were getting slimmer by the minute.

"You!" Screweyes resoundingly answered back, shocking all the dinosaurs. Brought to make wishes come true, yet they weren't wanted at the same time?

"Us?!"

"With a little help, yes." The old man held up a jar of greenish glowing capsules.

"W-what's that?" Cecilia asked, shakily pointing to the container.

"It's Brain Drain, the remedy to my brother's goody-two shoes cereal! It'll take you back. It'll make you monsters." He finished the last sentence with such a hiss that the pair of kids backed up a little further toward their dinosaur friends, eager for some method of safety in this hopeless situation.

"But we don't want to be monsters." Woog protested, and Dweeb let out a sound that was interpreted as a final 'no'.

"We're not taking anything. You can forget it." Rex replied with defiance etched in his voice.

"All right. You're free. You can go. I can't stop you," Screweyes carefully put the container away, and for a moment, it seemed as though things were looking up a little. But the rogue circus master still had one more card to play. ", but the kids…are mine."

Leaning forward, they were all stunned to see what looked like whirls of green, and dizzying sparks; the work of hypnotism. Swirling in an oddly mesmerizing way, they drifted right toward Cecilia. She started to raise an arm stiffly, like a sleepwalker.

"W-What are you doing? Don't look, Cecilia!" Louie cried, placing a hand over the girl's eyes, only to have the beam turned on him with its ensnaring charms. The swirling control hazed into their faces for a moment, then vanished into them.

"Among my many rights under this contract, including copyrights on all their ideas, I've got an exclusive option on their will power." Screweyes explained, delicately taking one pill, and breaking it in half, which he handed to the two hypnotized children. "Now this is just a temporary dose. My way of demonstration."

Each child swallowed their respective half, and the dinosaurs gasped in horror as their friend's forms began to contort, change, and shift, until, with a final green flash, they became…

…Monkeys. Two little monkeys dressed in Louie and Cecilia's clothing. Louie even started to chew on his hat.

Rex felt a ripple of outrage, probably stemming from some long-forgotten counterpart, to whom rage was power.

"Change them back! Or I'll-"

"Or you'll what? You're too enlightened by my brother's brain grain, you've lost your savagery, you've lost your frightening prehistoric power to intimidate!" Professor Screweyes thundered, dropping a banana down on the two monkeys, who clamored for it like two starving dogs. "You're civilized now, and I've got a contract. And you're going to respect that like the chumps that you are. But, I tell you what I'd be willing to do, you all agree to take the Brain Drain, and I'll rip up this contract and set the kids free. If you don't take it, I'll bill them as the Wild Children of the Hellzapoppin, and I'll use them to scare people at the side show. It's up to you."

Now things had gotten worse, decidedly to the point where it would have made any game-player stop and put the board back on the shelf, or hit reset. But in this case, no reset button came as a savior, and there was no turning your back on this problem that had evolved into more of a catastrophe.

Friends. They do things for each other. They help each other. Rex thought as he turned the situation over and over in his mind, knowing full well what would happen if he said yes. With the Brain Drain came the monster within that he had been glad to be rid of, but if he said no, he'd lose Louie and Cecilia.

With a deep breath, the t-rex uttered, quiet and defeated, "I'll take it."

"And I'll take it, you loathsome creature." Elsa answered, defiant, but still submitting.

"I'll do it." Dweeb choked, a small tear running from his eye.

"Me too." Murmured Woog, also tearing up.

The group was aware that they had just sold themselves away, freedom pulled off like a fisherman would skin a fish.

"Now you can come with me. You're going to have to be kept in cages and chains, because you're going to be wild again!" Screweyes ordered as the dinosaurs dejectedly filed out behind him. Well, all but one.

The sound of small voices and yawns brought Rex to a momentary halt, and he turned around to see the two children-turned-chimps huddle up on the floor, and slowly drift off to sleep.

He looked down gently at the slumbering chimps that were Louie and Cecilia. Noting, with a small twinge of sadness, both the children's faces seemed to be in a frowning set, as though they were still under Screweyes's control.

"Don't be scared. It'll be alright. It's no more than a bad dream." He soothed, softly running a clawed hand along the excess fur, as though to will it vanished. And vanished it did.

Rex smiled as he viewed the two sleeping children, wishing that he could stay and greet them once they woke up. But a harsh voice from the mouth of the tent broke the warm moment.

"C'mon you!" Screweyes snapped, and Rex let out a heavy sigh. He wanted to stay longer, but he knew it wasn't going to happen. He was going to be a monster again, and there wasn't anything he could do. The t-rex had agreed to save Louie and Cecilia, and now there was no turning back. He just had to tell them one thing, just so that maybe, not everyone would think of him and the other dinosaurs as monsters.

"We were friends for a minute, Louie." He started to say, but was cut off by a hard lump in his throat.

He had to go now. He got up to leave, heart aching with the words that he had wanted to say.

"Rex…?" Louie mumbled in his sleep, causing the kind-hearted T-Rex to swallow his guilt and sorrow before turning to go.

"Remember me." He murmured mournfully back, before turning fully towards the exit, walking to what he knew would be the end of himself.

So, good and angsty? Will be more coming. Please r&r.