After arriving back at Raptor Dyne, Veloci couldn't help but allow his thoughts to go back to the strange creatures Axel had described to him. As he rode the elevator deep into the bowels of Raptor Dyne, he wondered why the species seemed a bit familiar to him. He had never heard of such animals before, and yet there was still something familiar about them, as if he had encountered them once before, so long ago.

Either way, that was of little importance to him. What he was interested in was finding someway to use this discovery to his advantage. He knew he couldn't use the current primordial ooze on the fossils; they'd be destroyed like before. But if he were to modify the ooze, maybe it could work. These odd dinosaurs might prove useful in his battle against the pesky Dino Squad, a group of teenagers who had been a thorn in his side for so long. If it weren't for the traitorous Michelle, he would have been able to kill them all.

He tried his best not to think of Michelle. Thoughts of her almost always invoked feelings of rage within himself, and that wasn't going to help him with his plans of global dinosaur domination. He had wasted enough time trying to kill Michelle, so, for the time being, he had given up on that to refocus his efforts on perfecting the primordial ooze. Despite having gotten the DNA from the so-called 'perfect dinosaurs', the primordial ooze wasn't perfected as quickly as he had initially hoped. There were still some problems to work out, but he was happy that the ooze was at least creating better mutants and were becoming more difficult for the Dino Squad to de-ooze.

The elevator doors opened and he walked into the large, crimson, cavernous lab of Raptor Dyne, filled with monitors, scientists, experiments, and test tubes. The scientists were busy working with the primordial ooze, looking at samples under the microscope. A few of Veloci's men were also present, standing near a computer console, probably to check on statistics or looking at a map to see if any new mutantsaurs had showed up.

There was someone else present, but Veloci wasn't aware of her presence until she dashed towards him from the shadows, nearly taking him by surprise. "So how did your meeting with that..what was her name? Dr. Axel? Or whatever her name is.. How did that go?"

"It went fine, Oscura. No complications." Veloci answered.

Oscura folded her arms. "No interruptions from the Dino Squad?"

Veloci snarled slightly. "Of course not. They only show up if there's primordial ooze or mutantsaurs involved."

"You never know with them." Oscura said, her voice slightly darkened. "They have a way of taking us by surprise."

"Which has decreased ever since we found out they were the 'perfect dinosaurs.'" Veloci said before he started to walk off.

He didn't have to turn around to know that Oscura was following him. Unlike Michelle, Oscura was very loyal to him and was eager to please him. She was probably one of the most enthusiastic employees of Raptor Dyne he had, but that wasn't the major reason he kept her around. Both Oscura and Michelle were infected by the same primordial ooze as the Dino Squad and, thus, both had 'perfect dinosaur' forms. Normally Veloci wouldn't dream of hiring very young humans for his company, but he mad an exception for Oscura and Michelle, believing their abilities would be useful for Raptor Dyne.

And useful they both were...until Michelle betrayed him. Her interference had caused him to lose his opportunity to kill off the Dino Squad when he had the chance to. But that was history now. There was nothing he could do about that. He knew he would get another chance; he just needed to be patient.

"So is there anything you want me to do?" Oscura asked, who was keeping pace with Veloci.

Veloci turned his head towards her while his body still moved forward. "What makes you think I have any mission planned out for you?"

"I didn't think you did." Oscura confessed innocently, but anyone could easily tell she was faking it. "It's just that you haven't given me any assignments recently and I'm getting bored."

Veloci growled. "Oh you'll live. Find some other way to entertain yourself."

Oscura folded her arms again. "I did have a way to do that with Michelle, but she's no longer with us, now is she?"

Veloci growled again but didn't bother to answer. He had more important things on his mind. This was a reason why, at one time, he had preferred Michelle over Oscura. Michelle, though less aggressive, acted more mature than Oscura. Michelle would act more serious and didn't complain so much when she had nothing to do. Oscura, on the other hand, wasn't much of a joy to be around when she went for a long time without anything to do. He guessed it was because she was impatient and wanted her mind to be constantly occupied with a task.

After a bit of silence, Oscura uncrossed her arms and let them relax at her sides. "So what do you have planned?"

Veloci answered, "Nothing for the moment. I need to wait until I learn as much as I can about these new dinosaurs before I attempt to recreate them with primordial ooze."

Oscura cocked an eyebrow. "What? Didn't your last attempt fail?"

"Yes. I'm quite aware of that." Veloci hissed. He quickly regained his composure. "Which is why I am going to need to perform increased experimentations with the primordial ooze to create a batch that won't harm fossils. My earlier batches, from before I obtained the 'perfect dinosaur' DNA, didn't harm fossil, but, for some reason, after adding the dinosaur DNA to the mix, it causes a reaction that destroys the bone." He tilted his eyes upward in a thoughtful way. "I'll need to find a way to fix that problem before I attempt to use the stuff on fossils again."

Oscura chuckled lightly. She was sometimes amused by the experiments Veloci would do recently. "And which of your men will be the lucky contestants?" Recently, due to interferences from the Dino Squad, Veloci has performed many recent experiments with his primordial ooze on his own men in the safety of Raptor Dyne.

"I won't need any human for this. Or animal for that matter." Veloci said. "What I need are fossils. Useless fossils, ones that I won't care about if they are destroyed or not." He stopped as he stood in front of a large computer monitor, the same one he had used before when he was trying to find the 'human accomplices'.

"And what would that be?" Oscura asked.

Veloci turned to her. "Ancient mammalian fossils."

Footsteps could be heard as someone approached Veloci from the side. The figure was dressed in the typical Raptor Dyne outfit, but the helmet was gone, showing the easily recognizable face of Zoom. Veloci had forced both him and Ryan to join Raptor Dyne.

"I didn't know you were interested in mammalian fossils." Zoom commented nonchalantly, smirking. He immediately became quiet when Veloci turned to glare at him.

"You'd be wise to watch your mouth, human." Veloci warned him. "Or would you want to be part of yet another experiment?"

Zoom shook his head and smiled nervously. "No thank you." He said as he started to take a couple steps back. "I just never thought you would want anyone to get mammal fossils."

"If I had a choice, I wouldn't." Veloci said, not doing anything to hide his apparent disgust of the idea. "But this is one of those rare times mammals will actually be useful in my plans."

"And just who are you sending out?" Zoom asked, trying to sound calm.

Veloci paused for a moment to think. He didn't like the idea of sending Zoom or Ryan out to do anything. They still needed to prove their worth to him before he allowed them to even set foot outside of Raptor Dyne. He thought of Oscura, but her violent tendencies may make the mission more difficult. Kista is a possibility, but he wasn't entirely sure. However, there was still one other person he could send.

"Zoom, go find Peter for me." Veloci said as he interlocked his fingers. "And tell him I have a special task in mind for him."

sss

"Did you hear the news today?" Mrs. Maxwell said. She was sitting at the dinner table, cutting up her piece of steak. She was looking at her son, Max, when she spoke. "There was a recent murder."

Max, who was in the process of eating a spoonful of vegetables, glanced over at his mother. He swallowed the food and said, "No I haven't heard of any murder. Where did it happen?"

"Somewhere in town." Mrs. Maxwell responded.

Max's eyes widened slightly. He briefly wondered if any of his friends were the victims, but he mentally shook the thought out of his mind. If they could handle a prehistoric velociraptor bent on world domination, they could handle a single murderer. Still, the thought of a murderer being in Kittery Point was worrying him. He looked down at his plate and wondered if he wanted to finish eating.

Mr. Maxwell looked a bit upset with his wife. "Do you always need to bring up bad news while we're having supper? I just want to enjoy my steak, not worry about who died today."

"Well I'm sorry." Mrs. Maxwell said, though her town of voice showed she wasn't being very sincere. "I was just trying to make conversation."

Max, who wasn't feeling very hungry anymore, placed his fork on the table and turned to his mom. "What did they say about the murder?"

His mom said, "They found a body ripped to shreds in the woods earlier today. Organs strewn all over the place. They aren't actually sure if it was a murder or not. Some say a wild animal did it, perhaps a black bear. But others are saying some insane person did it."

Max flinched at the thought of body parts all over the forest floor. Mr. Maxwell, apparently tired of hearing his wife's gruesome story and feeling concerned for his son's well being, said, "That's enough talk of that. There'll be no more discussion of murder for the rest of the night."

Max, feeling a bit relieved at his dad's intervention, immediately got up from the table. "Well I'll excuse myself now and get to bed."

His mom looked over at him, confused. "Tired already? It's only about seven."

"Early to bed, early to rise." Max said as he disappeared from the dining room.

sss

The next day at school, Max relayed the information to his teammates during their lunch hour. They all looked shocked that a gruesome murder occurred so close to where they lived. While opinions on what could be behind the murder varied, one opinion they all shared was that Veloci wasn't involved. They saw very little reason for Veloci to want to dismember a human and leave them out in the open. It wouldn't further his goals any.

They also agreed that they should inform Moynihan as soon as possible. If there was a chance that a mutantsaur was responsible, they would need to find out quickly before the animal was shot, risking further contamination if it were eaten by other animals. Another bad thing that could happen is the animal could be caught and its DNA tested, which might expose primordial ooze to the public. They agreed that if primordial ooze were revealed to the public, it could create more problems than it could potentially solve.

"I sure hope an animal wasn't responsible." Buzz said softly. He rested his arms on the cold, flat table. "I don't like the idea of allowing another man with a gun to shoot another wild animal."

"I don't like the idea either, Buzz, but you know that's only done to avoid further conflict." Fiona explained.

"Yes I know." Buzz said. "Still..."

"We don't even know if it was an animal. For all we know, it was just some random nutjob who had apparently had nothing better to do but rip the body apart." Michelle chimed in. "The only way we'd be able to find out what it was is if we find the body and examine it for ourselves, or we could wait until the biopsy report is done and they release the information in the newspaper."

Buzz turned to her. "How messed up would someone have to be to do something like that?"

Michelle smirked slightly at Buzz. "You and I both know there's a lot of people out there who are like that."

Buzz knew Michelle was right, but sometimes he wished she wasn't so blunt about it. While he liked her, there were times when she would do something that would bother him. Michelle was, most of the time, a sympathetic person, but once in a while, her somewhat colder, sometimes sarcastic side would show up, more often when she is frustrated or upset. Regardless of that, though, the team still valued her input.

Michelle continued, "Anyway I'm sure this is just an isolated incident. The odds of a similar crime like this happening again in this same area are slim. And we all pretty much agreed that Veloci isn't behind this whole thing."

"It doesn't matter if Veloci was involved or not." Max said, looking over at Michelle. "The point is someone was murdered in this town. Don't you care about that?"

Michelle shook her head. "I never said I didn't care. I'm just saying that there might not be another murder like this again in this own."

"Unless a serial killer were involved." Rodger pointed out.

Michelle glared at him. "Do you have to be such a downer?"

Rodger said, "But it's the truth. If a serial killer is involved, then who knows who else will be killed?"

"Did they ever identify the body?" Caruso asked cautiously.

"No, at least not yet." Max explained. "The body was apparently too torn up to be identified and there was no ID on the body. So they have to wait for DNA results."

Terri said, "Perhaps I could go check to see if I can identify the body."

Max immediately shook his head and narrowed his eyes slightly at her. "Two problems with that, Terri. First, the body was moved and taken somewhere so they can analyze the blood. And second, I don't think they will allow a baryonyx into a building."

Terri frowned. "Come on, this is one of those times where a great sense of smell will be helpful!"

Max raised his hand. "Enough. Just because you can morph now doesn't mean you can go dino whenever you want to. And don't forget, transforming will make you visible to Veloci, and when he sees that you are alone, he may have his men go after you."

Terri sighed softly. "Yeah I know." Recently, due to an accident, she was exposed to primordial ooze and gained a baryonyx form. But despite being able to transform, the team tried to restrict her from doing so as often as possible for her own safety. They were worried she'd go dino and go somewhere by herself, making her an easy target for Veloci.

Buzz said, "So...which one of us is going to tell Ms. Moynihan?"

Being leader and feeling like he should accept the responsibility, Max got up. "I'll go tell her."

"Now?" Caruso asked. "But lunch isn't over yet. We aren't allowed to just wander the halls, you know."

Max grabbed his plate and lifted it off the table. "No not yet. I was just putting the tray away. I will inform Moynihan when we arrive at the lighthouse today." The others watched him as he walked away.

When he came back and sat down, Michelle looked at him intently. "Let us hope that, whatever it was that attacked that man, isn't going to come back anytime soon."

"But you were the one who said..." Max started to say.

"I'm aware of what I said." Michelle cut him off. "But it wouldn't hurt to remain cautious. That is something I learned while working at Raptor Dyne. Having your guard up is better than having it down." She looked at Max, then the other members of the team. "And trust me, I know this from experience. So hopefully, whatever attacked that man, was alone and isn't planning on coming back."

sss

At a facility in Kittery Point, two men, both dressed in white clothes, were standing close to a body, or what remained of it. The body, the same as the one Max heard about, was missing a lot of body parts, including an arm and both legs. The stomach cavity was ripped wide open, most of the organs missing. The head was crushed beyond recognition and the lower jaw was missing. It was a gruesome sight, but these two men, trained to deal with dead bodies and having been in many different cities, were used to scenes like this, although this was a tad more gruesome than other ones they've seen.

Next to the table with the body was a metallic tray filled with tools. One of the men grabbed a small Q-Tip and placed it inside what remained of the victim's mouth. He rubbed it lightly and gave the sample to his partner, who took it without question.

"Take that to the lab and analyze the saliva." The man ordered. The other man nodded and left the room.

The remaining man looked back at the body, his face scrunched up in disgust. "It's amazing that there exist people in this world who would do such a thing..." He looked the body up and down and shook his head. "And yet time after time, it's been proven that there are people like that, often in such gruesome ways."

He heard the door open behind them. "Who is it?" He asked without turning around.

"Don't tell me you don't recognize me. It's me, Dr. Axel!" The woman chuckled and smiled playfully. "Is your memory beginning to fail you, Stewart?" She asked light-heartedly.

Stewart failed to see the humor in Axel's statement. Frowning, he said, "This is no time to make a joke. There was a..."

"..murder yes. I was informed of that." Dr. Axel said.

"So why are you here?" Something then came to his mind. "And how did you get in here anyway? No one except certified staff is allowed back here."

Axel smiled slyly at him. "I have my ways." She leaned in close to Stewart.

The man moved away from Axel and turned his attention back towards the body. He had been in the same college as Axel and, at times, had worked with her until they chose vastly different fields to work in. Sometimes she would stop by to say hello to him and he did enjoy talking with her most of the time, but this was one of those times when he wasn't in the mood for her humor.

Dr. Axel approached him from behind. Her eyes looked at the corpse on the table. She looked at Stewart. "So..no luck in identifying the body?"

Steward shook his head. "Not yet. I sent my partner out to analyze the saliva. We should have results soon, but not today of course. It takes time, you know."

"Yes I know." Axel nodded her head.

"Anyway you should get out of here." Stewart pointed towards the door located in front of him. He looked at the woman. "I'm not sure what you did to convince the staff members to allow you in, but you should go before things get worse."

Dr. Axel frowned, but nodded her head. She seemed disappointed she had to leave early, but she understood the rules well enough. She waved goodbye to Stewart and opened the door. But before she closed it, she looked back at him and spoke in a low voice. "I think things may have already gotten worse."

Stewart looked confused. "What do you mean?" But it was too late. Axel had already shut the door behind her, leaving a baffled Stewart behind in the room. "What was she talking about...?" He asked himself quietly.

But he had more important things to focus on now. Dr. Axel's puzzling message would need to wait. He went back to the body. While his partner was delivering the saliva sample, he would work more on examining the wounds. This was his partner's specialty, but he would be back in a few minutes. There was no harm in starting without him.

He wanted to take a closer look at the wounds on the lower part of the body, where the legs were now just stumps. He could easily see a piece of bone sticking out of both of them and recognized it as what remained of the thigh bone. He leaned a bit closer to stare at the wound. He had initially believed the legs were sawed off by an amateur, but then something caught his eye, something he hadn't noticed before until now. The bone didn't look like it was sawed off, but rather chewed off.

If the bone was chewed off, that meant that an animal was the culprit. But he wasn't entirely positive on that. Perhaps a human made the kill and an animal had showed up to scavenge some parts. That would explain why body parts were missing. But now that he thought of it, he didn't see remains of a typical human attack. There were no clean slits or bullet wounds. He glanced at the crushed skull. Perhaps that was the killing blow. Perhaps the man's head was crushed under tremendous weight, like a truck, and that's what did the victim in. Stewart couldn't be certain until he analyzed the body some more.

He waited for his partner, Will, to come back while he examined the wounds on the body more. Further examination seemed to point towards an animalistic attack rather than human attack, but he wasn't willing to draw conclusions until he could discuss things more with Will. He wanted to show his findings to Will and listen to his input on it.

But when the minutes turned into an hour, he started to feel confused. It shouldn't have taken this long for him to deliver the sample. What could be keeping him? Perhaps Will was pulled over by a staff member to speak with him, perhaps about the body. That was the only thing that could be the problem. Will wasn't the type to just wander off like this.

Stewart walked over to the phone sitting at a desk that was attached to the wall. He dialed a number and it rang. He waited for someone to pick up. But after several moments and no one picking up, Stewart hung the phone. "That was odd. I guess they left early." No one picking up didn't really alarm Stewart. There was probably just no one at the desk at the moment, perhaps on a bathroom break. But instead of calling back, Stewart decided to go looking for Will himself. He exited the room behind him and locked the door.

He made his way down the hall, walls painted with white with a horizontal stripe in the middle. All the doors in the hallway were shut, just like he expected them to be. He looked up at the sign that showed him where the lab was. He went in that direction and walked up a flight of stairs. He turned left and went down another hallway. He could see the hallway turned right. The lab would be down that hallway. He came to the end of the hall and turned...and froze.

On the hard floor, he could clearly see blood stains. There was no blood anywhere else, just on the floor, and they looked like footprints, which lead into a room, and the door was wide open. This took Stewart by surprise. In most of his time working here, the doors were almost never left open. What else struck him as odd was the the lights were all off, putting the room in shadow. If no one was in there, then why was the room left open?

Considering that there were some new people that recently joined the building, he thought that someone had just cut themselves, left the lab and didn't close the door. It was hard to tell where the footprints were heading, but that is likely what happened.

He walked towards the room, being careful to avoid the blood stains on the ground, and entered the room. He flipped on a light and looked around. The room was devoid of any staff members, which didn't surprise him. He looked at the floor to see where the blood stains were coming from. He followed the blood stains and it took him to a corner in the room, behind a large desk. He frowned. That was unusual. That desk didn't usually carry any sharp tools. In fact, it was empty because the staff member who used to own the desk had left recently.

Walking over to the table, he looked over to see the origin of the blood trail. He was expecting to see a sharp tool with blood on it, having been dropped when the staff member accidentally cut himself, but instead he got a gruesome surprise. He let out a scream and almost stumbled backwards. On the ground, next to the chair, was the body of Will. The body was mutilated, the head and limbs ripped off and intestines hanging out from a large gash in the stomach. The only reason he knew it was Will was because the name tag was still on the bloodied shirt.

He looked around him and realized there were more blood stains. When he followed them, he came across more bodies. Most of them were located in one spot, as if the killer had piled them there to make room so he could get out. He quickly took notice of the smell of death that hung in the air and covered his nose. He quickly rain out of the room and down the stairs. At the base of the stairs, he leaned against the wall, breathing quickly.

When he caught his breath, he quickly went to the office where his boss would be, but when he opened the door, he was met with the same grisly image. His boss's body was torn apart, just like the other bodies were. He slowly backed out of the room, unsure of what to do. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone to dial for help.

But before he could dial any number, something whacked the phone out of his hand. He flinched in pain and held his hand, a red mark forming where he was struck. A shadow enveloped him and he could feel hot breath on the back of his neck. He looked around and saw a flash of yellow white, then something grabbed a hold of his head. Pain erupted from his skull as what felt like multiple thick needles bit into him and he closed his eyes tightly. He was pulled onto the ground, hitting it with a thud. Then something heavy stepped onto his chest. He managed to open his eyes and saw what looked like four large, bloodstained claws on his chest.

"What are y..." That was the last thing he managed to say before there was a loud crushing sound and his world went black.