Chapter IV: That's MY hopper!

Much later that night, Littlefoot's parents and grandparents were all fast asleep. His mother's head was leaning against Bron's back, who was leaning against a bent tree. Littlefoot was silent as he slept on top of his mother's head. It was about an hour before the sun was ready to rise, but the moon was still shining bright against the dark blue sky.

As they slept, a dragonfly was slowly making its way towards Littlefoot. It flew from side to side at first, passing by his grandmother's head, where a still bullfrog was sitting, waiting for the dragonfly to get closer to him. Once the fly was at the right distance, the frog suddenly leaped into the air, and grabbed the fly with his long tongue. The frog landed just inches away from Littlefoot, waking him up abruptly. He gasped as it came into view, chewing down the last parts of the dragonfly. Littlefoot looked at it for a moment as it croaked in his face, and then proceeded to hop away from him and onto the ground. By now, Littlefoot couldn't go back to sleep from seeing what he did. His curiosity quickly kicked in, and he began to go after the frog.

"Hey hopper, come back!", he shouted to it.

The frog stood still at the enterance to a small cavern that ended just a few feet away. Not wanting to startle it again, Littlefoot slowly crawled up to the frog so that he wouldn't be heard. But unsurprisingly, the frog hopped away again just as he was getting close.

"Hey!", he shouted. With his curiosity now on full blast, he crawled up into the cave, and began to walk into it. But the second he did, something he never could've expected happened: The three horn, Cera, ran up to him, and she didn't look happy at all.

"You again?", she started. "Go away!... That's MY hopper!"

She started to walk away from him, but Littlefoot followed her. He felt quite insulted at what she said. After all, he was just trying to chase a frog, or "hopper" as they called it.

"Well, I saw him first.", Littlefoot protested. Cera replied, "Well he's in MY pond!"

Littlefoot was mad now. From his point of view, what right did she have to tell him to just back off like that?

"Your pond?", he started. "Who says it's your pond?"

Cera turned her head around towards him and said, "Says me, longneck."

Well that did it for him. He started towards Cera at the end of the cave. Once that started, Cera slid down a small, smooth path into the pond, landing with a splash. She eyed the hopper closely, watching for any sudden movements it could make. But without warning, Littlefoot also slid down the path, smashing into Cera with a large splash that scared the frog enough for it to go underwater.

Littlefoot was on top of Cera for a moment until she gave a nasty glare towards him, with a look that read "Get off me now or you're dead".

Littlefoot slowly climbed off her back when they saw that the hopper they were chasing went for underwater in the pond. In turn, it created a large bubble in the water that was growing by the second. Cera, wanting to have some fun, promptly jumped onto the huge bubble, which made it splatter all around her. While she did this, Littlefoot was also noticing the bubbles beginning to form around him. He got close to one of the rising ones, stared at it for a second, and without warning it popped right in his face, followed by a loud croak from the frog.

Cera was slowly getting back onto her feet when yet another bubble was forming right benieth where Littlefoot was standing. This one was big enough to tip Littlefoot over onto his side and in the water. Cera could see the hopper's eyes in the bubble, so just as Littlefoot fell over, she pounced onto the bubble, which made it burst immediately. Realizing how fun this was becoming, Littlefoot started to laugh as hopper made more bubble appear in the water. Cera spotted another large one forming to her right, so she looked at it for a brief moment, and jumped onto the top of it, obviously making it burst again.

Littlefoot stopped laughing for a moment and said to Cera, "Over here!", signaling that hopper was right by him. Cera looked over and saw another bubble forming next to Littlefoot. Cera said to him, "Hey this is fun!"

For a about 10 seconds more, the two young dinosaurs continued to chase after hopper and burst the bubbles forming around him. It seemed like a lot of fun for younglings their age. However, they were having so much fun, that they were completely oblivious to a dark shadow that was slowly looming over the rocks around them. Then, they began to feel vibrations in the ground surrounding them, followed by the same shadow completely shrouding them. They both stopped for a moment and looked around them. the vibrations were getting stronger, and the shadow was getting larger and darker.

At first, they had no idea what was going on. The vibrations had now become all out shaking, and tons of smaller bubbles were forming around them because of it. They both looked around, trying to identify what was causing this.

And then, Littlefoot saw it. Directly behind the two of them was the most dangerous and most terrifying thing that either of them could've imagined. A massive, carnivorous beast was running streight at them, eying them in the most menacing way possible. They both identified what it was immediately.

"SHARPTOOTH!"