Hello, Happy New Year, one and all!

Here's the second chapter, I hope you like it!

Diego woke up slowly, as he would have done in any other morning, and he was excited about spending another day close to his wife. After years of wondering if it would have been a good idea having children, since the young herbivores were scared of them, now they were celebrated as heroes, and nobody was afraid of them anymore. So, nothing stopped them from raise a family, and they would have become parents soon.

However, something worried Diego: he didn't smell Shira. He would have thought she went hunting, after all, being so stubborn and determined, nothing, even being pregnant, could have stopped her. But this thought didn't last long, since Diego smelled other sabers, which he unfortunately knew well: Soto, Oscar, Zeke and Lenny, his ex-packmates.

Diego jumped up as soon as he realized it, and, looking around, he saw he was indeed with them, which were luckily still asleep, since he didn't make a sound, but, even stranger, he was in the cave where he lived before he left the pack and became friends with Manny and Sid.

"I'm definitely dreaming." He thought, but when he pinched himself, he felt pain.

"What the…?" Diego thought, messing with his head "It's not a dream!"

"That's right, it's real." A female voice, the same "Mildred" talked to, told him. The saber looked around, trying to find who spoke, but he obviously didn't see anyone. However, he didn't say anything, since the last thing he wanted was to awaken the others.

"Go outside, tiger, and I'll explain everything. Only you can hear me here, but if you'll talk, they'll hear you, and I guess you want to avoid it, don't you?"

"Of course." He thought, and he walked out of the cave, only stopping when he was sure none of the sabers would have heard him.

"Whatever you are, show yourself!" He exclaimed growling.

"It sounds like you've a nasty temper." She laughed, and continued "I can't show myself, since I'm bodiless, or tell you who or what I am. However, I know you're obviously wondering why you're here; long story short, you, your wife and your weird herd lived in a facilitated universe and so I brought you here, to make you live again all the adventures you had after leaving your pack, and you'll stay here forever."

"But it doesn't make any sense! Why in the world did you do that?" Diego exclaimed upset.

"Er, 'cause I felt like it," She said, to keep the promise she made to Mildred, namely that the mammoth would have been the one to tell her friends why it happened to them.

"It's fun to ruin people's lives, isn't it?" Diego asked angrily.

"Let's say yes." She replied coldly; she didn't do it for that reason, but she had to lie.

So, what am I gonna do? Becoming friends with Manny and Sid, betraying my pack and risking my life once again?" The saber asked upset.

"Not exactly, I'm not that mean, I made your best friends remember their previous lives, so that you have someone who feel the way you do by your side."

"And what about Shira?" He asked worried.

"Well, since giant apes went extinct eighty-five thousand years ago, iceberg ships don't last as long as they do in your universe and the continents already split up, I can't guarantee someone saved her when she ended up in the sea."

"No! But why? What did I ever do to you?!" Diego exclaimed upset, trying to hold back his tears. Being a predator, he was very good at staying calm, even in situations of anxiety and panic, which had been useful to avoid that the other members of the pack were awakened just before, but he wasn't able to withstand when he knew his wife could have died.

"Listen, I know you hate me for doing this, but don't think of it only as a negative experience. I mean, you was able to save Manny, Sid and Pinky, but am I wrong or is there someone who died because you still didn't betray your pack?"

"Pinky's…mother." Diego replied, realizing the opportunity he got.

"That's right, and I know you never forgave yourself for forcing her to jump in the river where she died, letting the baby grow up without her. And now you're living this again, so do the math."

"I won't force her to do it and she'll live!" Diego exclaimed, almost smiling, and then asked "So Soto isn't smarter in this universe, is he?"

"No." The voice laughed "He still wants revenge, but for a different reason."

"And what's that?"

"Well, in your universe your three sisters and the husbands of two of them were killed by the humans, but here the sabers live in all-male and all-female groups, and when you and your brothers left your parents' territory and got here, there were two packs of females with which you could have had children. But one pack was killed by the humans and the other ran away, and since the adjacent territories are filled by other males, stronger than you, you're stuck here and Soto is mad at the humans because they are the reason for which he can't have children."

"I got it. Why does Soto have to be so stupid?! We kill entire families hunting, and no one's ever taken revenge on us, so he's no reason for doing it to them."

"Yeah, why don't you tell him?" The voice asked sarcastically.

"I know, he'd destroy me. And Oscar would help him, he's always been jealous of me, just because I'm stronger than him even if I'm younger."

"And so does he here. The birth order is the same: Soto, Oscar, you, Zeke and Lenny, which, as in your universe, is a scimitar and has been adopted. Lucky for him, he was a few days younger than you all, so your mother was able to raise him."

"Wait, "you all"?" Diego asked confused "Are we quadruplets?"

"Yes, another difference is that the sabers often give birth to more than a cub at a time here."

"OK. Anyway, I gotta find Manny and Sid. I just hope the others don't wake up." The saber said, continuing "Is there anything else I need to know?"

"Um…oh, yes. Your species were called "saber-toothed tigers" in your universe, but here you're just known as "long-toothed cats", since this kind of weapon don't exist yet and normal tigers live far away."

"All right."

"Well, good luck."

"Um, thanks." The saber replied, and looked around him to be sure none of his packmates was listening to them, and then he ran away. What he didn't know was that someone was doing it, hidden behind a rock; when Diego left, the figure got back in the cave quickly.

"Everything is going as I wanted." The voice said laughing, noticing the other cat.

Mildred had no idea how to find Sid; she checked the tree where he told the mammoth he lived with his family, but it was empty, despite the voice confirmed the sloth was abandoned by his relatives here, too. So she headed to the place where they met each other for the first time, hoping that he was smart enough to do the same thing.

However, she forgot one small detail: she knew Sid woke up, the first time, because Manny almost made him fall off his branch by making the earth move walking. So, since it didn't happen here, she didn't know how soon the sloth would have woken up. The mammoth sighed, looking at the view from the cliff.

"I'm sorry guys, I shouldn't have done this to you." She thought with tears in his eyes, drying them with her trunk. Then, she heard a scream, which she knew very well, that was becoming louder and louder until someone bumped into her legs. When she turned, she saw a sloth, which was clearly Sid, but he was very different: his head had a "normal" shape, resembling a bear's, and had small ears; his tail was much longer, enough to touch the ground, and he was bigger, half the mammoth's height. The only weird thing was that his limbs were very short, disproportionate to the body.

"Oh, I'm sorry, miss." He apologized.

" Sid, it's me, Manny. Glad to see you." She replied annoyed.

"Me too. Wait, what?! But why?" The sloth asked confused.

"You see, apparently, in this stupid universe male mammoths are solitary, so if I had been, I wouldn't have been sad because of my family's death and I wouldn't have gotten here. So I'm stuck in this ridiculous body!" The mammoth exclaimed angrily.

"Oh, come on, you're pretty." Sid laughed.

"Say another word and I'll let those two impale you." Mildred threatened him, pointing at the bisons who chased him. They were surely Carl and Frank's counterparts, and the sloth had clearly been able to annoy them this time too, something didn't surprise his friend.

"No, please, save me!" He exclaimed, hugging her left front leg.

"Get off me!" She exclaimed, dropping him on the ground; something reminded her their first meet.

"Come on, you're making a scene." Carl said.

"We'll just take our furry piñata and go." Frank added, while Sid hid behind Mildred, as he did the first time.

"Okay, listen, I'm sorry for what I said, but you're my only hope. Sloths have long claws to defend themselves here, but I'm a disproportionate dwarf, so I have short limbs and my claws aren't long enough." Sid explained.

"Look, we're gonna break your neck so you don't feel a thing. How's that?" Carl told the sloth, and Frank nodded smiling, liking the idea.

"I know you aren't gonna eat him after you kill him, since you're vegetarians, and you know, I don't like animals that kill for pleasure." The mammoth said menacingly, hoping that bisons were lazier or less determined than rhinos. This made Sid smile because he realized that she would have saved him again.

"Save it for a mammal that cares." Carl replied angrily.

"OK, if either of you make it across that sinkhole in front of you, you get the sloth." Mildred dared them, which looked at the ground, that resembled quicksand here too, worried, while she thought "Sid's not stupid enough to make the same mistake twice…oh, wait."

"That's right, you losers, you take one step and you're dead!" Sid exclaimed, throwing a pebble, that bounced on the ground several times, making the bisons realize that it wasn't quicksand. Carl smiled maliciously, while Frank looked at them as if to say "you're pathetic". "

"Why, Sid, why?" Mildred said exasperated.

"I apologize." Sid laughed nervously, and then he ran behind his friend.

"I should warn you a mammoth isn't strong enough to hold them off the ground here, and if you'll fall off this cliff, you'll be lucky to have almost all your bones broken." The voice explained to Mildred and Sid, while Carl and Frank weren't able to hear her.

"Get them!" The bisons screamed, running towards the mammoth.

Rewiew response:

Ninxi: Thank you!

dinofelis: Thank you! Diego would betray his pack because, as Manny/Mildred and Sid do, he remebers his previous life, while I found a way to make the sloth still clumsy, as you must have read. I chose, for the first chapter, the species who most resembled the ones in the movie (plus, glyptodonts didn't live in North America 15.000 years ago, so I had to replace them with other slow creatures, the ground sloths, while the long-horned bisons went extinct 21.000 years ago, so I used the Ancient bisons to replace the rhinos).

Notes

Diego and Sid belong to the same species they did in the movies, but the first one's species obviously can't have the same name, I know "long-toothed cat" isn't original, but it's the best I could come up with. You got a better one? Please tell me.

And Sid had to resemble a real ground sloth (he is still a Jefferson's ground sloth, since it was the only one living in parts of North America covered by ice in addition to the Harlan's ground sloth), so I made him have disproportionate dwarfism (achondroplasia), because the only known wild dwarf animal (an Asian elephant) had this kind of dwarfism, so that he was still clumsy.

Anyway, it is still unknown how saber-toothed tigers lived: they could have been solitary, they could have lived in monogamous pairs or in all-male and all-female groups. I chose this last because it was the only one that fit with the story.

Will Diego find his friends? Will Mildred and Sid defeat Carl and Frank once again? Who heard what Diego said? Stay tuned to find out!

I really want to know what you think, and I'm open to suggestions, so please review.