As soon as I saw the T. rexes in that closing shot, my head went to Dinotopia. Fair warning: I am only familiar with the 2002 TV miniseries (starring Wentworth Miller), and I'm cherry-picking things I want from that and possibly from other fandoms in future chapters.
Many thanks to Jael for looking this over and telling me I wasn't completely nuts.
"Guys? I think we broke time."
There was a whump somewhere in the ship. All the lights on the bridge went dark, and the ship's normal background hum disappeared.
"I don't think that's all that got broken," Jax said uneasily.
Another whump, closer this time.
"Gideon? What the hell's going on?" Mick demanded.
No answer from the AI. Just another whump. Then a white mist began pouring into the bridge.
"Coolant leak!" Jax exclaimed. "Everybody, get out! Move, move, move!"
White mist was also filling the passageway, and Gideon wasn't responding to their calls. "Get to the hatch!" Sara shouted. "We've got to get off the ship!"
"If we leave the ship the dinosaurs might kill us!" Nate said.
"If we don't leave, the coolant definitely will kill us!" Jax countered. "Ray, where the hell are you going?"
The inventor had turned toward the crew quarters. "I need my suit…" he said, stopping when he saw white clouds billowing up from that direction.
"Forget it!" Sara ordered. She coughed. "Let's go!"
Hands and sleeves served as gas masks as they ran to the main hatch, coolant vapors trailing them as if in pursuit. With one eye on the approaching cloud, Sara said, "Who's armed?"
"My gun's back in my room," Mick said.
"All I've got is my Swiss Army knife," Ray offered.
She sighed. She was carrying a few knives, as usual, but those little throwing knives wouldn't be much good against a T. rex, let alone more than one of them. "All right. Firestorm goes first. Drive off those T. rexes and look for a place we can defend. Nate and Amaya, you'll have to cover the three of us without powers." After getting nods from the team, she said, "On three… one, two, three!"
She hit the hatch control…
And nothing happened.
"Everything must be offline!" Stein said.
"Is there a way to open this manually?" Amaya asked, coughing as wisps of coolant fumes started reaching them.
Mick shouldered Nate and Ray out of his way. "I got this," he said. "Haircut, gimme your knife."
Ray handed the tool over, and Mick used it to pull a plate off the wall, exposing a latch. He yanked at it, and the hatch fell open. The approaching mist was pushed back by the fresh air coming in... but now they were exposed.
Stein and Jax took a half step onto the ramp and slapped their hands together, merging into Firestorm and taking off. Nate steeled up.
"I don't see any big bad dinos over here," he said as he and Amaya stepped out cautiously. She coughed a little before laying a hand on her amulet. There was a blue glow and the faint sound of a tyrannosaurus roaring as the spirit of the dinosaur settled over her.
Nate turned to wave the others out of the hatchway…
And gasped in surprise at the velociraptor standing over the opening.
"Watch it, guys!" he warned as the beast jumped down onto the ramp with a snarl, landing right in front of him. He threw up an arm as it lunged at him. The raptor's teeth closed over his metal shielding. With another snarl and a shake of its head, it threw Nate away from the Waverider, slamming him into a piece of the concrete that had been churned up by the crash. His steel skin vanished, and he slumped to the ground.
"Nate!" With a roar, Amaya moved between Nate and the raptor, staring it down.
"Where's Fireboy when you need him?" Mick shouted.
Sara glanced up at the sky. "He's got his own problems."
And it was "problems," plural. A pair of pteranodons were swooping around Firestorm, blocking his path. One of them got close enough to clip him, and he tumbled down, splitting back into Stein and Jax as he hit the ground. Stein rolled into a defensive crouch, but Jax…
Jax was too still.
"We're on our own, Mick," Sara said, drawing a knife as the raptor backed away from Amaya.
"Haircut, you're the expert," Mick said as the raptor turned toward them. "What do we do?"
"I... don't know," Ray answered. "There weren't any velociraptors around where Rip time-scattered me."
"Great," Mick grunted. "Sara, I've got an idea. You two get ready to run."
"Mick, what's the plan?" Sara asked, her muscles tensing.
He let out a grim chuckle. "Didja see 'Jurassic World?' Gonna show this overgrown lizard who's boss."
With that, he drew himself to his full height, puffed out his chest and walked slowly forward, keeping his eyes locked with the raptor. Sara and Ray exchanged a wide-eyed look, then started following him slowly.
The raptor made a low clicking sound in its throat. Mick bared his teeth and, with a low growl of his own, raised his fisted hands…
And then was swept off his feet and into the air by a brown blur. Pteranodon? Sara thought briefly before she and Ray were also caught up. Within seconds, they were far above the ground, dangling from reptilian claws.
"Hang on!" a male voice shouted above her.
Her eyes widened as she realized these creatures had people clinging to their leathery brown backs.
Riders? Yes. Riders, clad in red suits… uniforms? Yes, uniforms, she decided, with some kind of leather helmets that covered half their faces. Each rider lay flat against his beast's spine, reducing wind resistance. Sara looked up at the flier that was carrying her, but could only see a black neck strap against a white hide, unique among this…
Flock? What did you call a bunch of flying dinosaurs?
Whatever you called them, a quick head count showed her the whole team had been picked up. She saw Nate startle awake in the grip of one flier, but it looked like Jax was still unconscious.
They were headed northwest, away from the site where the Waverider had crashed. She glanced to her left and could see the Pacific twinkling in the distance. To her right, mountain ranges rose. Ahead, the seemingly empty city gave way to orderly fields and stands of oak trees nestled against more hills.
The creature had grabbed Sara just under her arms, and she was starting to feel the strain when they began descending toward a dirt road winding up a grassy hill. The team was set down with varying degrees of gentleness; the flier carrying Jax flapped and hovered for a moment as it laid him on the grass, while Mick was dropped from a few feet up. He cursed and rolled to his feet as their rescuers continued north in a V formation.
Stein ran to Jax's side. "How is he?" Sara called.
"Breathing," Stein answered. "But he's not waking up."
Not all of the fliers were gone. The white one that had carried Sara remained, circling around them once before it backwinged to a landing at the top of the hill.
It wasn't just the animal that was unique. Its rider was clad in black rather than red. Tall and lean, the man slipped to the ground and clapped his mount's neck before turning to the Legends, striding angrily toward them as he unstrapped his helmet.
"What the hell were you thinking?" the rider snapped at them.
Sara's mouth dropped open at the sound of his voice. She shot a glance at Mick, who looked as stunned as she felt.
The rider pulled his helmet off and stopped in front of Mick, glaring furiously.
"What kind of idiot goes nose to nose with a raptor?" Leonard Snart demanded.