Hunted

Sun began to start shining through the green leaves, the trees around him reaching straight up to the heavens. This jungle was still leaving Fox mouth agape, never had he seen anything like it. Every tree was as tall as a building on Corneria, every leaf was as big as Fox himself, the grass was all tall enough to be a cornfield. Thorns connected to vines extended skyward, up the sides of most of the trees. Some of the plants even looked to Fox like they themselves might be deadly, one being red and spraying something into the air. Fox had decided that in his best judgment he would stay away from it at all costs. Who knew what it was spraying into the sky. Fox sure didn't.

The jungle had been silent for the most part as the day progressed, although the entire time Fox had felt as though he was being watched. Fox was in the middle of walking through a section of the jungle where the leaves were so thick overhead that it was nearly pitch-black on ground level.

Fox had put his knife in his boot, after his accident back at the tree he now learned to keep it concealed at all times rather then holding it. Although, fear can make everyone do stupid things.

Fox then heard something, a tree limb snap. His head snapped straight up and to the left, he eyed the tree but saw nothing. Fox now began to walk a tad slower, the feeling of being watched rising inside him yet again. Fox began to break out in a cold sweat, he heard a snarl and now knew something was either watching him or worse, something was hunting him.

Fox reached down and drew his knife from his boot, he was very alert now, almost ready for anything. Then Fox heard another snarl, he spun and began to walk backwards. Something was definitely watching him. The vulpine then spun around again and he saw what was hunting him. The dinosaur leapt from the tree and pinned him to the ground, it must have been at least 10 feet in length. The dinosaur was what was called a lurker, much like a cross between a dinosaur and a very powerful jungle cat.

The lurker put its jaws around Fox's throat, Fox wrestled with it, using his hands to paws to keep the jaws from closing. Saliva had dripped down on his chest and he could feel some of the serrated teeth of the scaly lizard scrape into the side of his neck. Fox bit his lip in fear and continued to struggle with the dinosaur until he was finally able to over-power it and throw the lizard off of him and on to its back.

Fox rolled forward and used his knife to stab the animal numerous times. Blood sprayed up into the air with every incision and the creature began to scream and snarl in pain and agony.

The lurker then stopped moving altogether and Fox stood, blood stained his neck from where the lurkers teeth had merely scraped against his flesh. Fox used what was left of his torn jacket to wipe away the blood, the jacket instantly becoming a crimson color. Fox tossed the jacket aside and broke out in a run, believing he had heard another snarl from high up in the trees. Fox did not really feel like wrestling with another one of the lurkers. He then stopped and turned around, walking backwards, hoping that they had stopped following him. The snarls had quit and the rustling of the leaves in the trees had also stopped.

Fox spun back around and saw something that made his eyes light up for the first time. Out in a clearing, down a low ride, was what looked like some buildings. 5 of them to be exact. They were all concrete and covered with moss but looks did not matter to Fox, what he was hoping for was that Falco and Krystal were in there. Out and away from the horrible dinosaurs that were the dominant species of this planet.

Fox climbed down the steep ridge, it wasn't hard but Fox was clearly running out of energy. Not only had he lost a lot of blood from the bite in his forearm and from the cuts on his neck but he was not used to this type of thing. He was a pilot, one of the best ones in all the universe. Being here, on this planet, hunted by dinosaurs was something he never thought in a million years he would get himself into.

Fox reached the bottom of the ridge and entered the first building, the stench was horrific. The smell of decay was immensely strong in this building, bones laid on the ground from numerous things. Accompanying the bones were the crushed eggshells of many dinosaurs.

"Falco!? Krystal!?" Fox yelled as he walked through the building. It looked much like a warehouse, conveyor belts were everywhere. Fox walked between the conveyor belts, vines ran up almost every single wall of the building. The belts were all broken, some even had small dinosaur nests on them which Fox did not disturbed, he really didn't had a need to. Then his eyes came across something strange, a notepad, and a very old one by the looks of it. Fox picked it up and flipped through the pages, most were unreadable but he could make out the words "experiment" and "wrong".

Fox continued his search through the building, he was stills seeing nothing but the belts and bones. Although he figured that there would be nothing in this building because of the horrid stench he also thought there would be something in this building about the history of this planet. Fox actually did not care about the history but it was something that was keeping his mind off of Krystal and Falco and that is exactly what he needed right about now.

Fox laid the pad of paper back on the ground and continued to amble through this warehouse type building, his eyes then came across something else. What he found now was more then a simple pad of paper but an actual experiment log.

The cover of the binder had the word "Log" written in big red letters on the front but when Fox opened it, all that came out was the dust of paper long gone. Fox chucked the binder over his shoulder and stepped over some bones. Then he stopped, he turned and looked down at the bones. They certainly weren't that of a dinosaur but looked more, primate, almost identical to a monkeys except for a few different things. Fox raised an eyebrow and knelled to pick up the skull when the ground shook, the impact tremor shaking all the bones on the ground. Fox stood and ran, his entire body shaking with fear now. He had learned from last night what those impact tremors were usually accompanied by and what that was, was almost universally very bad.

Fox looked around the building, desperate to find a place to hide when he felt the ground shake again, Fox began to look panicky. His paws were shaking, the knife clutched so tight in his right paw that he was actually starting to sweat. Then Fox saw a door at the end of the hallway, he bolted and ran through it but what he saw on the other side made him freeze in place instantly.

The door was actually an exit and lead straight back out into the clearing and there, standing at least 10 feet in front of him was the tyrant lizard in all form. Blood dripped from the massive creature's jaws, as it ate the remains of a rather large sauropod. Fox's mouth hung open in both fear and amazement.

He could not believe what he was seeing, the animal was as big as a house and moved as if it was small as a rat. The motions so fluid and quick that Fox didn't think it was even possible. Fox took a step backwards, attempting to go back inside the building he had just exited very slowly. His boot came down on a twig and snapped it in two. The sound seemed like the loudest thing Fox had ever heard in his life.

The big animal then swung its head around, it eyed Fox for a good whole 30 seconds before it gave a deafening roar. Fox shook in place and starred up at the massive animal, then out of sheer fear he turned and ran as fast as he could. He could feel the ground begin to shake and then all of a sudden he felt a sharp pain in his left side and he went flying through the air. He landed on his back, he bit his lip in pain and clutched at his side until he saw the rex begin to run at him. Desperate, Fox stood and looked around in a sort of spasm motion until he spotted something. He ran like all hell toward a hollowed out tree and dove inside, the rex roared in protest.

The big head of the rex attempted to come in through the same hole Fox had come in through but it was simply to large. The rex began to head-butt the tree until it gave one last final roar and wandered off. Fox leaned back against one of the walls inside of the trees and sank to the ground. Never in his life had he been faced with something as life threatening as that.

Not even space dogfights compared to what he had just been through. The strangest thing that raced through his mind though was that if it was toying with him or not. The rex clearly could have killed him while he was running but it didn't, it only sent him on a nice trip through the sky which actually allowed Fox to escape.

Fox walked out of the hollow tree when he was sure the massive lizard was gone. He ambled back across the building and toward the buildings again, his side hurt excruciatingly bad, almost as if he was just shot point blank.

"Krystal!?" he yelled again only this time he couldn't keep the sadness and worry out of his voice. He was still speculating on why this would happen to him on his way back to Corneria so he could start a family. Fox walked back into one of the buildings only this one seemed strange, he heard the crackle of a fire and thought for sure he could hear voices.

Fox ran, a smile on his voice, and into the room with the fire, "Falco!" he yelled but what he saw left his mouth open.