Invasion

By the time the group of friends had gotten to the tail end of their laughter, their sides ached, but in a good way. Although they didn't say it aloud, they could all concur that there's nothing like a good laugh at something stupidly funny to start off the day.

It was then that a long shadow stretched over the group of friends. They all turned to see what had blocked out the sun.

"Grandpa!" Littlefoot happily exclaimed.

The large, grey elder longneck lowered his head down to the level of the young dinosaurs and humans with a warm smile. When he saw Aylene and Derek, he looked at the two of them and bowed his head slightly.

"Well," he said in deep, wise voice, "welcome back Aylene, Derek."

"Thanks, Grandpa Longneck." Derek replied. "It's great to be back. But what are you doing here?"

"Well," the elder Apatosaurus gave a small shrug, "I heard a commotion and I was wondering if everything was alright."

"Oh, everything's fine." Aylene said. "We were just enjoying a good laugh."

Suddenly, a strange thought occurred to Aylene and she looked back at her friends. "What were you guys doing anyway?"

The Gang looked at each other, as if they were expecting the first one they looked at to say something. When they got awkward glances, they looked at someone else.

Finally, Cera took a deep breath. "We were getting some treestars and one of them blew away. The one that was meant for me."

"No, it wasn't." Littlefoot immediately protested, knowing Cera was just trying to display her dominance again. "You knew that it was my turn to get the first treestar of the day."

"It was the last one on the tree." Cera gave a small glare. "That changed the rules."

"No, it didn't." the longneck shook his head firmly.

Aylene and Derek looked at each other and couldn't help but smirked. They had to admit that it was kind of funny to listen to these little dinosaurs arguing over food. Mostly because the two human siblings couldn't really think of a time when they argued over food. They didn't even fight over who got the last slice of cake. The only thing they could think of fighting over most of the time was the TV remote. And even then, those occasions were rather rare since they didn't really watch TV very much to begin with.

"Anyway," Littlefoot exhaled, "as we fought over it, the leaf snapped off and the wind carried it away. We chased after it and that's when we ran into you guys."

"You mean that's when you ran into Aylene." Cera gave an impish smirked.

The longneck gave an embarrassed and slightly irritated glare at the threehorn.

"You're not going to let that one go, are you?" he groaned.

"Nope." Cera smugly stuck her horn up in the air.

"Well, you know what they say about a joke." Aylene smirked. "It's only funny until someone runs it into the ground so much that it needs to be buried. Besides, I'm not going to hold it against him."

Littlefoot gave a small smile. Aylene wasn't the type to hold a grudge, nor was she the type to tease anyone. She was very forgiving and knew an accident when she saw one.

Cera looked at Aylene with a small look of irritation that only lasted for a second. Although Aylene was one of her closest friends, the human did have a habit of being a little miss goody-goody that annoyed the young Triceratops a bit.

"And why do you guys have fight over food, anyway?" Derek said casually. "The Great Valley is loaded with vegetation. The stuff practically grows like wild fire here. If you wanted a "treestar", you've got a tree full of them just above us."

Derek pointed to the tree towering over the group.

"You're quite right, Derek." Grandpa Longneck said, lifting his head up toward the tree. "And there's plenty to go around."

Grandpa Longneck grabbed the tree with his mouth and began to shake it with such a mighty force that all the leafs on it began to fall off. They gracefully showered onto the dinosaur children and little humans like a rain of green stars. While the dinosaurs laughed and leapt up to grab the falling vegetation, Aylene and Derek brushed the leafs that fell on them off of their heads and shoulders. Pretty soon, the whole ground was covered in leafs shaped like stars.

"Thanks, Grandpa." Littlefoot said after he swallowed his meal.

"You're welcome, children." Grandpa Longneck graciously smiled. "There's really no need to argue over food. Here in the Great Valley we have more than enough food for us all."

It was then that the elder Apatosaurus lifted his head and turned toward the Great Wall that surrounded the Valley. As he did, he started to notice something coming up over the mountains. At first glance, it looked like a giant, brownish gold cloud moving steadily toward the Valley.

"Hmm," Grandpa Longneck squinted, "looks like we might be in for some rain. Oh, well. It just makes thing grow and…"

"Wait!" Derek suddenly said. "What's that sound?"

Everyone fell silent and listened. There was a strange sound that was getting louder by the second.

"Yeah, I hear it, too." Aylene said. "It sounds like…buzzing!"

The whole group turned and looked back at the approaching cloud. Derek narrowed his eyes to get a better look. As he stared at the strange cloud, he realized that it was moving a little too fast to be a raincloud. In a matter of seconds, it was already over the wall and descending down toward the heart of the Valley. Derek then began to notice individual specks in the cloud. They became clearer as it got closer.

That's when Derek realized what this was.

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed in horror. "It's a swarm of locusts!"

"What?!" Ducky shrieked. "What are locusts?!"

"Giant insects that eat any vegetation they come across!" Aylene said, her face turning white as paper.

If there one thing Aylene hated more than sharks, it was insects, particularly big ones.

The swarm of locusts began to attack. They alighted on anything that was a leaf and began to greedily gobble them all up. Once they were done, they moved onto the next tree and bush. Dinosaurs everywhere began to scramble around, screaming in surprise and terror as the insects swarmed all around them.

Derek, knowing Aylene was terrified of large insects, grabbed his younger sister by the arm and pulled her into a small hole at the base of a tree. Once she was in, he held her close to him with his back to the entrance, using himself as a kind of human shield.

"Derek!" Aylene cried.

"Hang on, Aylene!" Derek said. "It'll be over soon!"

From outside the hole, Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike were rushing around to find places of their own to hide from the terrifying plague of leaf-gobbling insects. Littlefoot made a mad-dash for a tangle of roots and squirmed his way in behind them, Cera leapt behind a larger boulder and dropped flat to the ground, Ducky and Petrie raced inside a hollowed out log lying on the grass, and Spike ducked into a tree that was split open at the base.

For the next few minutes, the horrible sound of high-pitched buzzing, panicked screams, and thundering footsteps rang throughout the Valley as the locusts continued to eat away at all the vegetation in sight. Just when everyone began to think there would be no end to this, the locusts all left as quickly as they came.

But they damage they had done remained.

Aylene and Derek slowly crawled out of the hole under the tree and took in a breath of horror at the sight before them. All of the leafs had been eaten away, leaving barren trees and bushes for as far as their eyes could see. There wasn't a single leaf left anywhere.

"Oh, no." Aylene whispered.

One by one, Littlefoot and the others began to creep out of their hiding places. Like the two humans, they all stared in horror as they saw that their home had been ravaged. Without the surplus of vegetation, there was no chance of them surviving in the Great Valley.

"I do not like locusts." Ducky sadly whimpered. "Oh, no, no, no."

Meanwhile, Strongfang was walking on the shore of the beach, looking for any source of food that he could bring back to his family. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any leaf-eaters in the area for him to hunt, and that was discouraging. He knew he had to find something soon, but his luck seemed to be running out.

Just as he was about to give up and turn around, he heard the sound of water splashing not too far away from him. Curious, he slowly walked over to where the sound was coming from. It was just beyond a sand dune a few feet way from him. When he reached it, he looked around the mound to see what was making the splashing.

What he saw was a pack of biters. However, these biters were different than the typical meat-eating variety. They had long snouts and jaws that resembled something like a bellydragger, long arms with three long, sharp talons on each hand, and some webbing on their talon feet.

The largest of the pack had a dark red color. Around his snout was a large, jagged scar.

The moment Strongfang saw that scar; he immediately realized that he knew this pack. He hadn't seen them in ages, but he certainly knew who they were.

"Battle Scar!" he called out. "Is that you?!"

Upon hearing his name, the leader of the pack lifted his head and turned in the direction the voice came from.

"Strongfang?" he said when he saw the large bitter.

Strongfang walked out from behind the sand dune and headed over to the pack. They all stopped what they were doing and turned to greet him.

"Well, this is a surprise." Strongfang said with a grin. "I haven't seen you guys in ages."

"I know." Battle Scar said. "But it is good to see you, old friend. How have you been?"

"As fine as I can be. Things have been kind of rough though. I have a family to feed and I can't find any food."

"Hmm," Battle Scar thought for a moment. "I think we can help with that. Do you think you could settle for some fish?"

Strongfang blinked at the offer. "Well, I've only had fish on a few occasions."

"Then just leave it to us," the scarlet biter turned to his pack. "Bar, Onyx, see if you can gather up some large fish for Strongfang."

"Yes, Battle Scar!" the two biters he addressed nodded in respect.

They then immediately went into the shallows of the ocean and began to hunt the fish swimming by.

"Oh, you don't have to do that." Strongfang said humbly. "I'm sure I can find something for my family. And you have your whole pack to feed."

"I know," Battle Scar said, "but we are more than happy to help you out. After all, you helped our pack on many occasions in the past. And don't worry; this place has a lot of fish for us to feed on. We'll be fine."

"Thank you, Battle Scar," the dark green biter nodded gratefully.

"By the way," Battle Scar's voice became very serious, "We've been hearing rumors that Sharptooth has been defeated. Is…that true?"

Strongfang gave a pained expression when he heard the sound of his brother's name. Battle Scar face softened when he saw this. He knew that Sharptooth and Strongfang were brothers, and he knew that they both hated each other. He understood that the subject of Sharptooth was a hard one for Strongfang. Although he didn't want to press the topic any farther than what he asked, he had to know the truth.

"Yes, it is." Strongfang finally nodded. "He was defeated by a group of young leaf-eaters and human girl."

Battle Scar stared in wonder as Strongfang told him this news. His eyes seemed to glisten with hope and relief. The whole pack also heard the news and turned their attention back to Strongfang. Each of them looked as if they wanted to hear more.

"Who did it?!" one asked eagerly.

"How did they do it?!" asked another one.

"I don't know how they did it," Strongfang replied, "but it was a longneck, a threehorn, a swimmer, a flyer, a spiketail, and a human. They defeated him. I've even seen them with my own eyes. They now live in the Great Valley."

The whole pack began to chat amongst themselves in excited and relieved voices when they heard this. Strongfang could just see the happiness overflowing from the group of biters as they exchanged joyful remarks to each other.

"Strongfang, you have no idea how relieved we are to hear that." Battle Scar smiled. "Thank you."

Strongfang graciously nodded. "Sharptooth won't threaten you're pack anymore, Battle Scar. I hope you can rest easier now."

"We can." Battle Scar replied.

A few minutes later, the two biters Battle Scar had issued to catch some fish came back with three large catches in their jaws and talons. They gave them to Strongfang, who easily picked them up in his massive jaws. He gave one last grateful nod to the pack of fish-eaters before turning around and walking back down the path that would take him back to the island, where his wife and son would be waiting for him.

As he did, Battle Scar looked over to the east and gave a very thoughtful look.

"We owe a lot to those kids," he said to himself. "I hope someday we will have a chance to return the favor."