C'est La Vie (Worm/MTG/Jurassic World) #01.2

If not for the fact I was fleeing for life, I'd have said running through the jungle was a walk in the park. Even without watching where I was going there were no surprises… except for the one chasing me, of course,. But that was one mistake I wouldn't be repeating soon.

Raising my arms I ran through a tangle of low branches and blocked all but one, a narrow branch — a switch — snapped at my face as I ran past. Warm wetness ran down my cheek. I should have blocked it, but— right. No right arm to block. That was going to be a problem.

A small cluster of short palms was coming up and I ran straight through without a second thought. The rough edges cut and slapped at my face where I couldn't block.

It didn't matter though — none of it mattered — the jungle being torn apart and the earthshaking footsteps hot on my heels made certain of that.

I just made sure I was too far away for it to eat while my rapidly growing swarm scouted ahead of me and tried to shake off the dinosaur. The first part was going great, I knew every obstruction in my path. The second part… not so much.

While there were many fliers that I'd picked up in my swarm that had a venomous sting or bite, none were actually strong enough to do anything to its thick hide. Not even airlifting more potent crawlers onto it had had much of an effect and every time I went for the eyes it either blinked them away or just flat out ignored them.

It was just too big.

A fallen tree trunk was coming up in fifteen… twelve… six… three… I hurtled the half buried and termite infested tree, fumbled the landing, but caught myself and kept running.

Seconds later, my pursuer bulldozed through the trunk and- ! Heart jumping into my throat, I jumped and braced myself as half the trunk arced in my direction.

Too high to jump, and too low to duck under, I could do nothing but take the hit. Lucky me, the desiccated wood crumbled as a termite softened portion softened the impact hit and I was thrown from the clearing.

Not that it didn't hurt, though; my left side everything was probably going to be interesting shades of purple by tomorrow. At least the shrubs I landed in were soft… relatively speaking.

Thorny twigs stuck and poked at me through my suit, but the spider silk blunted them as well as if they had been knives.

Back in the clearing, the T-Rex slowed to a stop and looked about for its prey. Me.

Heart jackhammering in my chest, I scrambled out of the bush and took off into the foliage while redirecting my swarm to scout ahead in my new direction as I ran as fast as I could. Hopefully it wouldn't— nope.

I don't know what tipped it off, but whatever the case, the dinosaur picked something up and was back in pursuit much quicker than I'd have liked.

But at least now I had a bit more of a lead.

Now I could try and work something out.

It wasn't Crawler who could regenerate from any damage my swarm inflicted but could be trapped, It wasn't Lung who could simply burn through the swarm even as he was being poisoned, And it wasn't Alexandria who could ignore the swarm until she was choking on it.

The T-Rex couldn't regenerate, it couldn't breathe fire, and it wasn't indestructible. It was just big, but without any of my usual tricks available to me that seemed to be enough.

Its skin was too thick to get through and I had no prep time to lure it into a trap, It's body mass was too much for my limited swarm to effectively poison, And trying to suffocate just let me learn it lungs were too powerful for anything to stick.

"This is what I get for trying to be normal for a minute, isn't it," I panted. No one answered, but did I honestly expect anyone to?

Fliers coalesced ahead of me to form a fuzzy wall of black chitin that nearly drowned out the noises of the jungle and the footsteps behind me. I ran through it but moments later so did the T-Rex.

Ok. So it either didn't care about walls or it knew better. Either way, that hadn't worked so…

Sidestepping a rock in my path I searched the jungle ahead for something — anything — that might help. In the meantime, I just needed to keep running no matter what… I just needed to keep running.

Heh, if someone had told me this was how my jogging would end up being useful I'd have probably laughed at them… but, well, hurray for cardio.

All this running — sprinting more like — was starting to wear on me though, not to mention I had absolutely no clue when I'd last eaten. Oh, and wasn't that going to be fun.

A thick trunked tree was coming up, easily seven feet wide at the base with thick roots that rose a few feet above the ground. But was it big enough to hide behind or would the dinosaur see through the ruse? Nothing to do but try.

I gathered a fraction of my swarm there, condensed it, gave it shape and form.

Hurtling over a waist high tree root I slid to a stop before scrambling to press myself as close to the white trunk as possible while the simulacrum continued down my original path.

Tired as I was getting from the running, I held my breath as the footsteps drew closer and closer and only released it after it followed my clone into the bush.

The hunter followed after hot on 'my' heels and was quickly catching up, though. I pushed the swarm to move faster, to take it further away, but there was only so much I could do before it would lose consistency and fall apart.

Pushing off from the tree I took off. I caught a flash of white teeth closing around the clone. A moment later a roar shook the jungle. I ran harder and my crashing was louder than ever with the absence of bird songs.

It stopped and cocked its head.

I watched it through my swarm as I ran and started getting flashbacks of fighting Lung on that first night out.

The head turned in my direction.

No. Don't you-

It turned around.

Fuck.

There was nothing to do but keep running while my swarm scouted ahead and try to think of a plan.

This thing was essentially a brute, albeit a big brute. Sure I had methods to deal with brutes, but all of those were geared to an urban environment with alleyways, and rooftops, and cars, and light poles, and... and just more.

I wasn't equipped to handle a two story tall Brute without prep, and to make it worse what few reference points I did have for that were for fighting Endbringers… which actually wasn't that bad a comparison thinking about it. But again, not very helpful as that boiled down to 'Try not to die' and 'Stay out of its reach'.

So what was there to do. Flood the area with my swarm and hide? Well... I seriously considered that as I wove through a grove of small trees.

That might work, but what about sound and smell? It seemed to be able to hear me pretty well. But then it was a predator, and following that train of thought, there was no reason it couldn't smell me just as well. And all this running was going to leave me smelling rather ripe before long- An unnaturally flat stone surface at the edge of my range.

I felt at it with a bit of my swarm. It was way too smooth to be natural. Artificial? I threw more of my swarm at it while ducking under a thick, moss covered branch.

The surface was perfectly flat with some kind of metal box on one side and caged lights along the edge. Smooth, save for cracks and pitting, and the texture didn't say stone but rather concrete… and set into a rock face?

I found a concrete border at the center of the concrete; right angles at the top- corners, running from ground level and going up eight feet, across three feet, then coming back down. And inside the border, metal.

I tried not to get my hopes up as I felt it out, but it was hard. The surface was pitted with rust and peeling paint, but there was another piece of metal protruding from its left side approximately four feet above the ground. A door. It had to be. There was nothing else that fit. The why was irrelevant, it could lead down to a drug cartel's meth lab for all I cared, just that it was there and that it led anywhere other than here.

Flooding the area I formed a better mental image and confirmed it was a half hexagon concrete facade set into a cliff face, with the additional detail that there were some vines hanging down in front of the door and some palm trees on either side. The inside was another matter, though; there wasn't much to work with so I had to send my swarm under the door.

A room. Not too small, but not very big. Dark and damp, with some kind of rusted machinery and a lightly cluttered metal shelf.

And the outside… the vegetation was sparse, more so than it should be if it were natural and as my swarm grew the closer I got the clearer things became. A dirt road with a single rail running down the center, there was little else it could be. There was also some sort of… fencing running alongside it? Metal posts, rusted, were coming out of a concrete base at regular intervals with thick metal cables hanging loosely between them.

There was a solid metal gate in the road, crumbled and deformed, with a matching sized cap in the fence

What?

A chunk of my swarm disappearing off the T-Rex as it smashed through a low hanging branch made me all too aware of the timetable I was on and stopped looking at the big picture to focus on the important details.

The door; would it open? It was covered with rust and had suffered from exposure to the tropical weather for who knew how long, but what about the handle? Was it frozen shut from rust? Was the door locked?

Ants and other crawlers worked themselves into the gap between the jamb and the door; searching out any obstructions or obstacles.

Aside from the door latch and a pile of leaves and some debris at the foot there didn't seem to be anything in the way of opening the door. There was a bolt, but it was retracted into the door frame. As for the handle... several the ants made their way into the mechanism before getting trapped in something thick and sticky.

Just a hundred feet away now and I could make out my objective. A curtain of vines hung down in front of it as I'd seen, but sure enough, it was there; pale tannish-grey concrete with a rusted door set into a black rock face.

Covering the distance to the edge of the jungle I burst into the open, absently noting that, yes, it did look like there was a dirt road (red with iron) and that there did appear to be some kind of fence running beside it. But that was just information in the periphery, I was focused on the door.

My lungs were burning as I pushed aside the vines and threw myself at the door handle. It turned, but only part way before grinding to a stop; not from any lock though, it was rough and halting.

I worked the handle back and forth a few times, making a little progress with every attempt while my ants' confirmed that the latch retracted a little each time.

But it wasn't enough; the T-Rex was getting closer and closer, to the point I could almost feel its footsteps.

Just being within range meant it was too close.

I threw up insect clones at random and that seemed to slow it down a little. However, after three attempts at snapping three and coming up empty, it ignored the others focused on my trail; moving increasingly faster with each passing moment.

I brought my elbow down on the handle and it turned even further. It also made my arm go numb, but I ignored it and brought my elbow down again, and again, and again.

It was getting closer.

I brought my elbow down again, and at that point, the only thing saving me from a broken elbow was the armor and padding built in my costume.

That didn't mean my arm wasn't unaffected, though; but what was one more bruise?

Shifting position and pressing my stump against the door to balance, I lifted my leg and smashed the heel of my boot down on the handle. It turned the rest of the way with a short screech and I fell on my ass, but I was able to confirm that the latch fully receded thanks to the ants'.

The T-Rex wasn't getting any further away, and- and that was really fucking close!.

Scrambling to my feet, I cranked the handle and hauled back on the door. Putting all my weight and strength into opening the damn thing I managed to pull it open on shrieking, rust encrusted hinges before it ground to a stop.

Shit.

I pulled back on the door again, and again, and again. There was a rapidly growing fear in the back of my mind that with each pull that I might snap handle off but I kept it up anyway, all I needed was a foot.

Branches snapped a short ways into the jungle and I flooded the air with all my fliers; turning the area into a reenactment of the 8th plague of Egypt.

The heavy door ground open just enough as the ancient predator neared the road and I pushed myself into the gap. Almost, It almost wasn't enough. I sucked in my breath and slipped through scant seconds before it broke through the tree line.

It stopped and stooped down to sniff the ground. My swarm went for its nostrils, but only made it so far before it exhaled and took one step toward my hiding place, then another, and another.

Frantically, I grabbed for the handle and pulled. The hinges shrieked as I pulled it shut. Almost as if I was waving a 'here I am' sign, it charged and slammed its head against the door.

With how heavy the door was, I was pretty sure that it was solid steel or close enough. So needless to say, it was heavy. I'd barely managed to close it a few inches before it was forced to shut so fast it hit me in the chest and I thrown back.

At least I didn't hit my head.

I sat up a little as the T-Rex hit it again and something creaked under the strain. But it held.

Laying back I gently rested my head on the floor while it paced back and forth outside, listening to its footsteps and watching it through my swarm.

Too bad, so sad. No easy meal for you.

Chest heaving, I cracked a small smile as and closed my eyes.

Well, it could keep pacing for all I cared; I wasn't coming out.