CH. 6
In a room near the top of the fortress, a mysterious pitch black mammoth looks out at the sabers, kangaroo, badger, and rabbit below him. He hears another mammoth approach behind him, but continues to stare out the window as he talks.
"Have you found it?"
"No, sir. But-"
"No buts. I don't want to hear anything about your stupid revenge until that artifiact is found. Got it?"
"Well,-
"NOW!"
"Okay, sir. I'll send part of my army out to search for it." The mammoth states while leaving the room, but is stopped by the black mammoth.
"One more thing. You have traitors in your army."
The herd is still walking north, towards the fortress. Manny is lagging behind, still lost in his thoughts about his possibly deceased wife. Past Ellie notices this and walks back to talk to him.
"Are you still thinking about her?"
"Yeah. I just can't believe... that after all these years... she might be-" Manny cuts off when he hears a rustling through the bushes to their right. "Did you hear that?"
"Yeah. What was it?"
"I'm gonna see." Manny pushes away a couple tree branches to see her.
"What do you see?" Ellie asks she looks through the trees as well. "Oh..."
A male mammoth, about five years old, walks out from behind her leg.
"Is that your son?" Ellie asks.
"It looks exactly like him... when he died..."
"Mommy? Can we get some oranges instead of apples?" the young mammoths says.
"I don't know where to get any oranges, honey," the adult mammoth says.
"But if it's your son, he wouldn't still be that young over all these years."
"Unless..."
"He travelled through time?"
"Maybe..."
"Go. Find out if it's her."
Manny wastes no time walking out of the bushes and towards the mystery mammoth.
"Delia? Is that you?" he asks.
The female looks back to see Manny walking towards her. "Manny..." she sighs before adding on, "No. Delia is gone."
"You're not..." Manny says, downtrodden. "Then who are you? And him?"
"I'm Delia's sister, Delilah," Delilah replies, "and this is my son, and your nephew, Devon."
"Delia's sister? Delia never said anything about having siblings."
"I don't know why she wouldn't mention me."
"Wait. Where's Devon's father?"
"He died three years ago..."
"Oh..." Manny says before adding, "I know how it feels, only-"
"I know. You lost your son too. Don't forget that I lost a sister and nephew that day."
Manny then looks down at Devon. "Hey there, little guy. I'm your uncle Manny," he says, but Devon just hides behind his mother's leg.
"He's very shy. It'll take a while before he'll talk to you."
Manny then realizes that his herd did not know that he was stopping, and continued going forward without him. "Listen, I really need to get back to my herd before they get to far ahead, so I should probably go now..."
"I understand. I hope to see you again. Goodbye," Delilah says as Manny starts to leave back through the bushes.
"Goodbye!" Manny says as he waves his trunk before disappearing back through the bushes.
"Well? Is it her?" Ellie asks.
"No," Manny replies. "It's her sister, Delilah, and her son, Devon."
"Oh..."
"Hey, I still have you and Peaches, and I'm sure not giving up on you guys."
"I love you, Manny."
"I love you, too, Ellie. We should probably get back to the herd before they get even further ahead-"
"Or not," says the brown kangaroo from the battle, now appearing in front of them.
"Where did you come from?" Manny asks.
"That doesn't mattah," the kangaroo replies. "All that mattah's is this!" He then throws a poison spike at each mammoth, hitting each in the trunk.
"What... was... that..." Ellie says before falling to the ground unconscious.
"Ellie... no..." Manny says before joining his wife in slumber.
"Poison spikes- works every time."
The fortress escapees are running (and hopping) south when they finally see the herd travelling north.
"Tyson! Ellie!" Shira yells, seeing these two at the front of the herd.
"Shira? Diego? How did you escape?" future Ellie asks.
"Raz? Gupta?" Tyson says, seeing them following the sabers. "...and Squint."
"We're outta here!" all the possums say when they hear Squint's name, running off into the woods.
"Peaches? Want to go get your uncles?" Ellie asks.
"Sure thing," past Peaches replies, following after the possums into the forest, with past Louis on her head.
"Since the rabbit's not attacking yet," Tyson says, receiving a glare from Squint, "how did you escape?"
"Well, Raz told us to start digging a tunnel through an indentation in the wall of the cell, but to wait to escape through it until you got there, because we could fight off guards easier with more numbers. We decide to stop when all we have left is the outside wall. Of course, a guard slips and falls into the wall, completely opening the tunnel, but, lucky for us, it turns out to be the dumbest guard in the world. He leaves us there, with a wide open escape route, to go tell his master about what we were doing. On the way out, the only guard we ran into was a rabbit- which is now dead," Shira says.
"Okay then." Tyson then turns to Squint. "So, why is this living rabbit here?"
"He's with us now," Raz replies. "And we came to ask ya' somethin'."
"That would be?" Tyson responds.
"We'd like to join tha' herd, if that's okay with everyone here..."
Ellie looks around at the herd, which most everyone nods, except Tyson.
"Sorry Tyson. Majority rules. Looks like we have three new herd members." The three former pirates share happy glances before meeting their new family members.
"Wait. Shouldn't Manny be here to have say in this matter?" Tyson asks.
"Where is Manny? And past me?" Ellie responds, the entire herd looking around in wonder.
"Oh no..." past Peaches says, having returned with four possums on her tusks. "Please don't tell me that my parents have been taken hostage now."
Manny and Ellie awake to see themselves deep inside a cave, each of their legs chained to the cave wall.
"Where are we?" Ellie asks.
"I think we're in a cave," Manny answers.
"I meant where's the cave."
"I have no idea."
"And why are we chained to the wall?"
"Don't know that either. Here, let's see if I can break it." Manny tries cutting the chain with his tusk, but to no avail.
"You can't break a steel chain with that flimsy tusk of yours!" Tyrone exclaims as he walks up to the mammoths, followed by the kangaroo that knocked them out.
"Let us out of here!" Ellie exclaims.
"And why would I do that?" Tyrone asks.
"Because if you don't, when I do get out of here, I will ground you into pieces." Manny replies.
"You'll do that anyway."
"If you let me out now, I'll make it less painful."
"Uh, no. I have more important matters to attend to. Duran, watch over all the prisoners and make sure none escape."
"Yes, sir!" the kangaroo replies, now being revealed to be called Duran.
"All the prisoners? Are there more than just us?"
"Yes. But, that doesn't really mattah' when you're chained to tha' wall, does it?" Duran then starts to burst out laughing.
"I gotta go check on the othah' prisonahs. If ya' escape, ya' gotta pass by me, though. Remember that." Duran laughs again as he walks away from the mammoths.
They both struggle to get loose from their chains again, but fail.
"Manny... What are we going to do?" Ellie asks.
"We have to find a way to break these chains," Manny replies, trying again, and also failing again.
"After all that's happened, I'm not sure the three of us can get out alive..."
"Three of us?"
"Oh... I never told you, did I?"
"Tell me what?"
"Manny, I'm... I'm pregnant."
"YOU'RE PREGNANT?"
"MANNY!" "ELLIE!" Each member of the herd, new and old, repeatedly yell out their names as they search for them in the forest.
"This is pointless," future Ellie says. "I know Manny, and I know myself, and I know that since we're missing, the only explanation is that we've been taken hostage."
"Well, I have a pretty good idea of who did it," Tyson says. "I just don't know where they took them."
"I migh' have an idea." Raz says.
"What?" most of the rest of the herd asks.
"Tyrone has a secret cave on tha' far west side of tha' island where he keeps his prisonahs. I'm takin' a wild guess and sayin' that's where they are."
"How'd you know about this?" asks Squint.
"Tyrone had me watch tha' prisonahs one time. Normally, he has that other kangaroo, Duran, do it, but he was off on anothah' mission for Manny."
"Why didn't you mention this before?" past Peaches asks.
"I just now remembah'd it."'
"Do you remember where it is?"
"Yeah. I can lead ya' to it."
"Then let's go!"
The herd heads out to the west side of the island, hoping to find the lost mammoths.
"Why didn't you tell me that you were pregnant?"
"I was going to, but then Tyson showed up, and I decided not to mention it yet, since you would never let me come here if you knew."
"Wait. If we have another kid, then- where is he?"
"Huh?"
"He should have a future counterpart, like the rest of us right? Where is his?"
"The only other mammoths here are Ethan and Graham... Ethan technically our son, but not birth son, and Graham's our grandson. You're right; where is he or she?"
"I guess he could be in the evil army; no one wanted to mention him since he's not the leader of him, and not that important."
"Or he could have... died..."
"Don't say that. I would never let my son or daughter die. Even if I did turn evil."
The mammoths' conversation is interrupted when some small rocks fall from the back wall of the cave.
"What was that?"
More rocks fall as a guanlong busts through the wall and into the cave with Manny and Ellie.
"How did he get here?" Manny says as the guanlong eyes them hungrily. "Oh no..."
The guanlong runs at Manny. Manny lifts his front leg as the guanlong is about to bite it, but it ends up biting through the chain instead. Manny whacks the guanlong on the head with his tusk, effectively knocking him out.
"The dinosaur's teeth! We can use them to break the chains!" Ellie says.
"Good idea." Manny then starts to use the unconscious guanlong to free himself. "So... how did this guy get here?"
"He came through the rocks... Wait a second... You don't think..."
Manny frees himself and Ellie and they walk over to the rock wall. They start to slowly pull out rocks when a very familiar weasel suddenly busts through the wall.
"Buck!" Manny and Ellie say at the same time.
"You two mammoths again? Where's the rest of your group?" Buck asks.
"There somewhere on this island. We were taken prisoner. See those chains over there?" Ellie says, pointing her trunk at the broken chains.
"Who took ya prisoner down here?"
"A human named Tyrone did."
"How? Tyrone's living in here, just like me."
"What?"
"Yeah, come see." The weasel leads the mammoths through the wall he just bust through, the mammoths moving a few rocks so they can get through, and find a human that looks exactly like the Tyrone that just imprisoned them.