Park Center: Hallways
"Father, slow down!" Luliera called out after Wiesen.
"How about you speed up, my daughter." Wiesen barked from around a corner. Luliera soon after heard a thud, and Wiesen's cry of pain. Luliera quickly caught up to her father. She laughed at the sight before her. Wiesen was on his back with his legs completely splayed out, grabbing his snout in pain. "I'm fine, I'm fine. No need to help an old raptor up off the ground." He said sarcastically while standing up.
"Well if you had not been sprinting down these passageways you would not have crashed into a wall as tough as rock."
"They are called hallways for your information, and they are not as tough as rock. Human structures on the outside are usually tough as rock, or tougher." Wiesen explained.
"Let us just search for Zeal. Your elaborate explanations are going to put me to sleep." Luliera complained. The velociraptors slowed to a walking pace. Every now and again they would open a door to see what was inside, or check for Zeal's scent. Eventually both raptors lulled themselves into the routine, and sped up their search. "Do you think it was wise of me to leave Vare and Rave together?" Luliera asked, poking her head into a door.
"They may argue constantly, but when push comes to shove they can work together quite well." Wiesen reassured Luliera. Wiesen glanced at his daughter. Luliera's face was in a scowl which Wiesen knew that meant she was doubting her actions. "Remember the week I gave you lead of the pack?" Wiesen asked.
Luliera's scowl was instantly transformed into smile which, for a raptor, was basically showing their teeth in a non-threatening display. "Yes, I remember. It was the most chaotic week of my term as pack leader. I made the worst choices any fawltreheol possibly could."
"Agreed. To select Vare and Zeal to construct an escape plan ended quite horribly. Vare probably still has the scar above his eye from the incidents at the end of that week." Wiesen smirked inwardly at the idea.
"What was the point of you pointing out my past errors in judgment, father?" Luliera asked, her scowl returning.
"Do remember what I did that whole week?"
"You sat atop the enclosure trees and watched havoc ensue." Luliera said with sarcasm. "Your help would have been appreciated you know." Luliera snorted. "The decisions I made were awful, and on several occasions the humans came in to settle us with those weapons. Fights broke out often in the pack that I almost could not settle. It was so frustrating." Luliera growled then checked another room. "You should have helped me father."
"If I had did that the pack would have never respected you as a leader, and you would have never gained the experience needed to be one." Wiesen commented then added. "Plus you would have never discovered what all pack leaders must learn on their own. The Rampage ability."
"You mean that horrible ability of our kind." Luliera spat out. "It nearly made me kill Zeal, and I injured four others while chasing him. I'm just glad he's so fast or could have died from that-"
"Rampage." Wiesen interrupted with a stern voice.
"Excuse me?" Luliera said.
"The ability is called Rampage, and you should refer to it as such." Wiesen stopped walking and faced Luliera. Luliera turned to face Wiesen as well. "Without that ability a pack leader would not have absolute control of their pack."
"What need would I have to basically turn myself into an unstoppable killing monster?" Luliera retorted. "The times I have used it I have caused great destruction. I only have control over it for a short amount of time. It is a curse that is only unlocked once a raptor experiences extreme anger." Luliera hissed.
"You deny your ability and therefore it denies you control of it." Wiesen stomped his foot on the ground. The force from his action shook the ground under Luliera's feet. She knew that no raptor had that kind of strength unless they used their primal ability. "I've seen you use the primal ability before Luliera, and if you were to actually accept its true worth you would be a threat to even a Tyrannosaurus Rex." Wiesen's voice had taken on an air of power. His rough skinned hide, characteristic to many dinosaurs, had changed from a dusty copper brown to a dusty tinted red color. Luliera looked into his eyes and saw the color had changed from its usual yellow tint to a deep crimson red. His irises narrowed to a mere black slits. "Rampage is a privilege few raptors can use. It is our heritage and your birth right as my daughter." Wiesen's eyes returned to normal. His voice became solemn and sincere. "One day, once you control it, you will understand how Rampage can be used to its full potential."
Luliera sighed. "I have some control father." Her words were nearly inaudible, and carried with them her sadness, but she quickly perked herself up. Luliera assumed a dominant stance, but her voice still carried a slightly saddened tone. "You may be correct in your wisdom, father, so I shall heed your words and take them to heart." A smile crossed Wiesen's jaws. "But I will only use my 'gift' as necessary, and as I see fit as the pack leader." Luliera growled in a domineering voice.
Wiesen tossed his head back and laughed into the air with joy. Luliera couldn't help but smile at her father and his unpredictable actions. "That is what I like to hear, Luliera." Wiesen ceased his laughter and began to slash the air pretending to attack an invisible herbivore using his sickle-like killing claws. He resembled a boxer hitting a punching bag. "That rough and tough attitude is exactly what I expect from a fawltreheol of my blood." Wiesen said through slashes.
"Be careful, you may strain a muscle." Luliera warned. She began to walk down the hallway again. Her head high with pride, but her mind filled with thoughts.
"I am perfectly capable of…oww, oww, cramp!" Wiesen said hopping on one leg. His right leg stayed frozen in a kicking position.
"I told you that would occur, did I not?" Luliera continued walking on, not even looking back.
"Shut down that smugness of yours and help your father already." Wiesen barked out while hopping towards her.
"As you wish." Luliera said with a smug expression. It took several minutes of intense massaging with tail and snout to restore Wiesen's leg to its original dexterity. Once accomplished, the two velociraptors continued further down the hall sniffing the air and checking rooms for Zeal's scent. Out of nowhere, a questioned struck Luliera she had not thought to ask Wiesen in their earlier conversation. "Did you ever instruct Zeal in the use of Rampage?"
"If I did, do you honestly believe we would be searching room after room looking for him? Or that he even would have called for help?"
"Why did you not? Many times I have heard you say how his perfect timing coupled with his extreme speed makes him your best learner out of the entire parqou. He would seem to be the model candidate to teach such ability." Luliera said.
"He is still too young." Wiesen stated plainly.
"What difference does that make?" Luliera asked.
"For velociraptors, the ability can only be unlocked through severe or extreme anger. We are not like the tyrannosaurs who can summon their ability and control it at will. Raptors must experience the anger to trigger it, or it could never be triggered at all. Once in your first ever Rampage, you must burn away all the anger that initially triggered the primal reaction which is no problem for an adult raptor; however, in the case of juvenile like Zeal, the anger would never subside. He would have to be beat nearly to death to snap out of Rampage." Wiesen explained.
"Seriously?" Luliera tilted her head in surprise.
"I am afraid so, though now I am kind of wishing I did teach it to him. It can be extremely useful to him on this adventure of his." Wiesen exclaimed.
"I would rather you not at the moment. I do not wish to be the one to beat him into bloody oblivion just restore his conscious state of being." Luliera huffed. "I wish not to use Rampage unless absolutely, without a doubt in my mind that it's necessary." Wiesen's comment to his daughter went unheard as a loud screech from a siren blasted down the hallway and throughout the building. The fluorescent lighting in the entire hall turned red and flashed on and off in wave like pattern. The flashing lights painted the hallway completely. Both raptors could hear the footsteps of an uncountable number of humans coming from either side of them over the screech of the siren. They were going to surround the dinosaurs on both sides, and Luliera and Wiesen knew the people would most likely be armed to kill.
"I sincerely hope you find it necessary in this situation to use your Rampage, my dear daughter." Wiesen looked to his daughter with a smile as his eyes turned crimson red and his irises narrowed once again.
"Indeed I do find its use dire necessary now, my father," Luliera returned Wiesen's smile as her eyes too shifted into the deep crimson red of blood, and her irises narrowed to black slits.
XXXXXX
'SLAM!…SLAM!…SLAM!' Zeal sprinted as fast as he could down the halls of the Park Center. He had no time to open doors by hand due to all the humans firing their lightning weapons at him, so instead he kicked every door in his way with full power to open it, resulting in a crashing sound each time he did.
"I…" 'SLAM!'
"Hate…" 'SLAM!'
"Humans!" 'SLAM!' Zeal growled in anger. Lightning bolts of blue streaked pass Zeal's body only inches away. The raptor swerved around office desks and computers to avoid tripping, and the swerving made him a harder target to hit. "This chase has become tedious. It has taken place all morning. This must end." Zeal complained. Zeal jumped on top of a desk and crouched low with his tail high. He knew he was taking a risk by stopping his erratic movement but the humans who were shooting at him seemed to have terrible aim anyway. The raptor pushed off the desk with his muscular legs and hands and landed on another desk. In the process, he knocked over the computer on the desk he landed upon, and sent paper flying everywhere. The papers nearly blinded him with their mass numbers flying through the air. A planned formed in Zeal's head. Still under heavy fire, the bird of prey assumed the same position as before and leapt to another desk, kicking up even more papers than before. Zeal repeated his process on every desk he could reach until the room was almost white with flying papers.
"What's it doing?" A man shouted over the fire of his electrical weaponry.
"I don't know, but I can barely see it anymore." Another man said.
"Stop firing! Stop firing!" A man with a military colonel emblem stepped in front of the 20 MPs he was in command of. "These guns might set this room on fire with all these floating around." He pointed a finger at the fluttering paper which refused to settle to the ground. The colonel gestured to his five most elite men. The men approached cautiously, still wary of the velociraptor in the room. It hadn't left yet. There had been no slamming sound from it kicking the door open to leave. In fact, it was dead quiet in the room. "I want you five to double back and find a ventilation shaft to the first section of the Museum area. Disperse yourselves in the vents and wait for us to push him that way. Then tag the son of bitch." The colonel whispered. "We've been chasing this animal all morning, and from the way he's taken us through the building, I'm sure that's the way he is heading." The five soldiers nodded and turned to leave. "One more thing boys." The soldiers stopped. "Set your guns to kill." The five men hooped, and hollered, and high fived each other as they turned a dial on the side of the weapons. The spark at the end of their guns changed from blue to red, and crackled loudly with deadly electrons. The men ran out the way they had come in, and yelled in joy like cowboys.
"What are they yelling about?" Zeal said to his self. Something was wrong. His instincts told him so. The men had stopped shooting the electricity at him. The only noise was that of the papers settling. Zeal quickly crawled under a desk, and started navigating his way through the desk to a position behind all the men. A low growl escaped his throat as he anticipated the taste of warm blood. The carnivore positioned his self behind the person who looked to be the leader of the men. He had a weird symbol on his shoulder the others did not have. Zeal slowly walked from under the desk. The papers still covered him from sight of anyone, but only for a few seconds as the rest of the floating material fell to the ground.
The colonel heard a low growl to his left and snapped is head in that direction. The 6' 2" man stood face to face with a velociraptor. The creature's nose was practically touching the colonel's nose. The creature narrowed his yellow with a green tint eyes at the colonel, baring his rows of predatory teeth. A deep primal growl came from its throat. The dinosaur's leg muscles twitched with anticipation and excitement. It might pounce at any moment, but did not. The colonel could see the animal wanted him to make the first move. The armed men only watched on, afraid that doing anything would provoke an attack from the monster.
"Clever girl." Were the colonel's last words before the velociraptor leapt onto him screeching a battle cry, and sinking its jaws into his neck, and killing toe claws into his abdomen. Blue electricity fired everywhere as the screams of a dying man called out for help but soon ceased as steel jaws ripped through his throat and pulled masses of bleeding flesh away from his body. A large gaping wound was left in the barely distinguishable neck of the colonel. The carnivore barked in victory, completely ignoring the streaks of blue closely passing his head.
"I am not a female! Now who is next to die?" Zeal yell was fueled by anger at the man calling him a girl. Blood still dripped from his jaws. He lowered his body and opened his mouth to show his blood coated teeth. The predator raised his clawed hands and toes, and then raised his stiff tail high into the air. The armed soldiers may not have understood exactly what the raptor said, but they got the just of it. Over half of the 15 remaining men ran out of the room screaming in fear, but a few brave souls stayed behind to confront the dinosaur. They continued to fire their guns as Zeal slowly stalked towards them emitting a threatening growl. Zeal pounced towards the closest man, his sickle claws held high at the ready. The targeted man closed his eyes and shot wildly into the air. The panicked man was rewarded when he heard Zeal yelp in pain and tumbled to the side of him. The man's relief, however, was short lived when Zeal rose to his feet and bellowed at him in anger. "That hurt." Zeal said staring the man down.
Zeal's attention was torn from the man when three more streaks of electrical blue energy surged through his body. The pain nearly made the raptor collapse, but Zeal refused to give in so easily. The bird of prey focused his mind and fought through the muscle twitches resulting from the excessive amounts of electrical current coursing through him.
"It's refusing to go down. Hit it again." A soldier said. The remaining four soldiers closed in a circle around the carnivore and aimed at him. Zeal assessed the situation he was in. He had only one option left and that was to implement his perfect timing technique. He knew it would take a lot of energy to perform it. His muscles would fatigue from the strenuous force of moving faster than normal, but it was either going to be aching muscles or death. They men fired all at once. The resulting electrical crackle was as loud as lightning striking a tree.
Zeal focused his mind in an instant as he once had did when fighting Sarl and Dierna. The agile raptor lowered his self until his stomach touched the ground. He glanced above his self just in time to see two of the blue streaks collide into each other. Discharging sparks flew in every direction. The other two blue streaks flew past each other while only grazing sides, but causing tons of sparks to fly. Zeal watched in slow motion as the passing streaks flew into the chests of the men opposite each other. Each screamed bloody murder right before their minds blacked out from an overflow of electrical current. While still immersed in the effects of his technique, Zeal spun on the spot, swiping his tail under both men's feet that still were standing. They yelped in surprise and fell to the ground. One of the fallen soldiers let go of his electricity gun in the fall and was left defenseless. Zeal turned his attention to the fallen man that was still armed. He was the most immediate threat. With unreal velocity, Zeal pounced on the man and placed his foot on the human's throat. He lifted his toe claw and, just as swiftly, brought it down into the exposed throat. There was no scream, nor gasp for air. Zeal's claw completely cut off the man's airway. The cynical raptor snarled at the slowly suffocating soldier. The soldier felt blood from the predator's jaws drip on his face as he struggled to move the creature off him to get fresh air. His efforts were futile. His lungs burned for the need of oxygen, but then everything went black.
The velociraptor cocked his head to the man still on the floor without a weapon. He was staring at the body of his dead comrade until he noticed the raptor glaring at him. The remaining soldier scrambled to his feet and pulled out a combat knife from his jacket. Zeal stalked towards the man, but soon felt the effects of his muscles beginning to fatigue, and his perfect timing technique wearing off. He would not have the energy to fight soon, so he decided to finish the soldier quickly instead of making him suffer like he had planned to do. Zeal hopped onto an office desk near the man. He soldier stood in a Close Quarters Combat stance ready for a fight. Zeal hopped down in front of the human, but immediately took a step back as the man swung the knife at him. The soldier quickly returned to the CQC stance, but Zeal began to sway his balance from foot to foot in anticipation. The raptor tried to circle the man, but the man just kept facing Zeal, making sure to keep the deadly animal in eyesight. Zeal hissed in frustration at the man which elicited another swing of the knife towards the raptor's neck from the man. The agile dinosaur easily leaned out of the way, but felt the strain of quick movement on his slowly fatiguing muscles.
"I tire of this dance." Zeal said trying to circle the man again, but failed as the main continued to face him no matter where he moved. "This ends now!" Zeal bark towards the soldier. The soldier fell for the taunt and swung his knife exactly where Zeal wanted. Zeal bit down on the human's hand, crushing bone and drawing blood in the process. The man yelled in pain. He lost grip of his knife and let it fall to the floor. Using power neck muscles, Zeal swung the man in circle and let go of his hand, letting him fly upward. But before he was out of reach, the agile predator swung his knife-like toe claw around to meet the human's neck. The kick not only sent the man flying across the room but also ripped the flesh clear off the man's neck. When the soldier hit the opposite wall of the room he was already dead.
Zeal relinquished total control of his perfect timing technique, and felt the full blow of his muscle fatigue. They nearly locked up on him, but the raptor fought through his aches so that he could at least find a hiding place before his cramps became too much. Zeal ran up to the closed door that lead to the next room and kicked it open. The scent of the blue shirt man had led him directly to the door, but it stopped after that. The recoil from kicking, that usually had no effect on the raptor, left him crippled in agony and howling a hoarse cry of pain. Zeal shook his head to regain control of himself. He sniffed the air in the room to see if he could pick up the blue shirt man's scent, but nothing came.
"I must find a hiding place at least. I know more humans will come, and with more deadly weapons." Zeal thought about what he had said as he walked into the next room. Harnessing lightning as a tool was bad enough. He didn't want to stick around to see what other elements the humans might have at their disposal. "Whoa." Zeal looked around his self to see the walls in the room were gone, or maybe never even put into place. Metal beams, like the ones he had jumped across in the building of electrical power, stood horizontal and vertical within the walls. They appeared to be bracing everything up that was in the room. There were also two scaffoldings in the room that sat on opposite sides from each other. One stood higher than the other and almost reached the ceiling. "Perfect. No humans could reach me up there without making excessive noise and alerting me to their presence." Zeal jumped 10 feet straight up onto the lowest scaffolding, and then jumped the next 13 feet upward and landed safely on the tallest scaffolding. He would have normally just jumped and grabbed onto the tallest scaffolding, and pulled himself onto it, but his muscles lacked the energy for such a feat. Out of habit, Zeal started circling the spot on the scaffolding he picked out to rest on, but stopped when he noticed there was a door level with the scaffolding on which he stood. Zeal reached for the handle with his hand, but stopped short of grabbing it when he realized he barely had strength to fight off any danger that may lay behind the door. "I think I'll take a quick rest to recuperate instead of throwing my careless carcass into more life threatening situations." The raptor resumed his circular pattern until he was comfortable with his chosen spot, then he laid down and closed his eyes.
XXXXXX
Rave and Vare rounded a corner of the hallway together and turned down a corridor that led to their left at full speed.
"Are you sure we are following the yearlings' scent?" Rave asked.
"I'm positive." Vare responded, inhaling the air.
"Positively incapable of tracking." Rave said under her breath.
"What was that?" Vare eyed his sister suspiciously.
"I said your nose is going to lead us off a cliff." Rave snorted. "We've been chasing their smell for a good while now. Are we going to find them or not?"
"This place is like a maze. I don't even know how the humans navigate it, but I think we are getting closer. The humans' scents are getting stronger." Vare explained. The raptors rounded another corner and simultaneously skidded to a halt. They stood in large room with a ceiling almost 40 feet high. The length and width of the room was large enough to fit a Spinosaurus, T-rex, and Giganotosaurus side by side. A single window with a couple of scaffoldings were the only things in the room making it more than just an empty box. A door lay on the opposite wall of the room. Vare held his snout high and inhaled deeply. "The yearlings' scent leads to that door. Come on."
"I'm not so sure Vare. My instincts tell me something is not quite right." Rave said.
"Do you not trust my decision, or tracking skills?" Vare asked slightly annoyed.
"No, it is not that brother. I promise." Rave reassured.
"Excellent. Come on then." Vare walked further into the room, but stopped in front of the window when he heard a low rumbling. "What's that?"
Rave looked at her brother questioningly. "What's what?" Rave answered her own question when she gazed at the window for a quick second and saw a large eye gazing in on her brother. The owner of the eye backed away from the window, and out sight. Directly afterward, the ground began to shake beneath the raptors' feet.
"You feel that too, right?" Vare asked with a panicked look on his face.
Rave figured then that her brother hadn't noticed the eye in the window next to him. "Vare do you trust me with your life?" Rave asked in a serious tone of voice. Vare heard the sincerity in his sister's voice.
"Of course, Rave." Vare answered honestly. "But that has nothing to do with these tremors at the moment which seem to be getting stronger." Rave knew that whatever carnivore was charging at the wall was about to hit, and she had no time to explain to Vare what was going on.
"Vare, use the first move learned in the leap game! Lenrainel the leap game." Rave shouted 'remember' in the ancient language in hopes her brother remembered what to do. His life depended on it.
Vare stared at Rave for a second when out of nowhere a wave of memory rushed through his mind.
XXXXX Two very young velociraptors sat on a small rock. They had run out of games to play, and neither could think of a new one to make up.
"This sucks. There's still three hours of good daylight left, and we're out of stuff to do already." A very young Vare complained to his equally very young sister.
"Maybe Wiesen knows some fun stuff. He knows all that fighting stuff anyway." Rave commented.
"Naw. He'll just make us practice fighting moves again. What about Luliera? She's the pack leader. It's like her job to know fun stuff, right?" Vare said, his hopes rising.
"No. Last time I asked her about games she just made me practice tracking skills." Rave grimaced at the thought. The siblings sighed simultaneously in boredom. An adolescent Zeal happened to be passing by at the moment of the double sigh, and stopped to investigate.
"What's going you guys? You look bored." Zeal said to the younger raptors.
"We are." Rave said.
"We ran out of games to play, and we don't want to practice tracking or fighting." Vare said.
"Not possible. There are so many games. What about predator and prey?" Zeal questioned.
"Did that already. It was the first game we played." Vare stated.
"Alright. What about Triceratops horns?" Zeal asked.
"That was the fourth game." Rave sighed.
"Okay. How about stampede?"
"Did it." Both Rave and answered together.
"Rushing river?" Zeal asked, starting to think that maybe the two yearlings did play all the games possible.
"Did it." The raptors said together again.
"Dominance circle?"
"Did it."
"No claws?"
"Did it."
"Nests?"
"Did it." Rave chirped. "Reluctantly, anyway." Vare added. Rave shot Vare a glare.
"What about the game I made?" Zeal questioned. Vare and Rave looked at each other and then back at Zeal.
"You made a game?" Rave asked. "Is it fun?"
"Will you teach it to us?" Vare chimed in. "And what is it called?"
"It's called the leap game, and it is pretty simple." Zeal stated.
"Well what are waiting for, spit it out already." An impatient Vare demanded.
"Cool your speed, Vare. I'll explain it." Zeal said calmly. Vare just huffed. Zeal continued his explanation. "The objective of the game is to successfully copy all the moves of the Saurilied that went before you, as well as, all the Saurilieds that were before them."
"Sounds hard." Rave commented.
"Well, after a few turns it starts to get hard, but that is what makes it so much fun. You can make each move as complex as you wish until one of the players can't perform it. That player then gets a letter that will eventually spell out 'lixet' which is the Ancient language term for 'leap'. Whichever dinosaur is last left in the game is the winner which means they did not have enough letters to spell out lixet because they performed most of the moves correctly."
"This sounds kind of cool. Let's try it, Vare." Rave said standing up from the rock.
"Okay." Vare stood up as well, nearly bursting with excitement.
The yearling raptors looked at each other and then back at Zeal again, then asked in unison. "Can you show us a move?"Zeal just laughed at the two younger raptors.
"Yes, of course I will show you one." Zeal said as he lowered his body to the ground. Rave and Vare watched on with great interest. Zeal laid against the ground for a second before he suddenly side rolled several feet to his right. He immediately followed up with a forward roll which he transitioned into a front flip by pushing his body off the ground with his hands and feet. In all, his forward movement probably sent him flying about 13 feet forward from the spot he had started at.
"Whoa. Think how far you would have flipped if you were an adult." Vare said in awe.
"Go ahead and try it. It's fun. Then you can add on to it what moves of your own you want to do." Zeal said. He watched as both raptors tried to copy his complex motion, but struggled to pull off the front flip. With some helpful critique from Zeal, though, the yearlings had the move and the game down pack in no time flat, and soon were playing without any help from the adolescent Zeal.
"It looks like you yearlings no longer need my assistance." Zeal smiled at them both, then looked towards the horizon at the setting sun. "I have to leave now anyway. I am sure you guys know how Wiesen is when you arrive late to one of his notasels." Zeal began to walk off into the foliage of the raptor pen enclosure.
"Zeal, wait." Rave and Vare barked in unison again. Zeal halted and peered over his shoulder to see the two grinning at him. "Thank you, Zeal." They said together and inclined their heads. Zeal smiled at them once more, and without a word, disappeared into the foliage. XXXXX
Vare's mind snapped back to reality as the wall next to him began to crash inward. The quick velociraptor dropped to the ground just in time to see a massive chunk of the wall fly over his body. Without hesitation, Vare rolled several feet to his right.
"QUICKSICKLES!" The pressure of the voice vibrated the air. A pair of humungous jaws bit down in the place where Vare had been only seconds ago. "OUR BOUGHT IS NOT YET OVER!" Vare rolled to his feet, but stayed crouched low, and look to the owner of the jaws that almost ended his life.
"A T-rex!" Vare exclaimed.
"YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE WITH SUCH EASE THIS TIME QUICKSICLES!" The head of the T-rex lunged forward at Vare. Vare pushed off from the ground with his hands and feet and flipped forward out of reach from the rex's teeth. The rex crunched only air. Vare landed next Rave. Both raptors lowered their heads, raised their claws, and hissed at the rex. The Tyrannosaurus rex turned its head to get a good look at the raptors. "You are not Quicksickles." The female rex said in a calmer, but still very agitated, voice while staring directly at Vare. "Though you do smell of him. You must be a part of his parqou. Tell me where he is, so that I may stomp him into oblivion!" The rex demanded in a fierce growl.
"How do you know Zeal?" Rave hissed in response.
"Zeal has a last name?" Vare asked Rave with a puzzled expression.
"Brother this is neither the time nor place to ask that question." Rave glared at Vare.
"Young fawltreheol, I do not have time for your indecisive banter!" The alpha rex roared out. Vare and Rave cringed at the deafening noise. "Tell me, where is Quicksickles or I will be forced to wrench the answer from your dying carcasses."
"Ha! Such a bluff!" Vare barked. "Not even a rex, with all its strength, could smash full body through a human wall from the outside. The T-rex just laughed at the raptor's comment. "Tell us rex, what is so funny?" Vare growled.
"Nos qiley." The rex spoke 'not quite' in the ancient language. "I perceive from your ignorant comment that your elders have yet to teach you of the primal abilities that you and other carnivores possess." The T-rex said as the pupil of her eyes began to narrow into black slits, and at the same time, the white of her eyes turned a blood-shot red.
XXXXXX
Zeal woke with a start as the scaffolding shook beneath his body. His instincts took over. The swift raptor stood up and kicked the door behind him and dashed inside. Zeal gazed back over his shoulder. He saw both scaffoldings collapse to the floor with a loud metallic clang. Zeal didn't have time to wonder why it had happened because the floor beneath him began to rumble and shake to the point he almost lost his balance and fell. When the rumbling quit, Zeal wasted no time in sprinting down the hallway he had entered to find the source. The raptor smelled the surrounding air while in a full on sprint.
"Kenduari!" Zeal exclaimed as her scent wafted past his nose. "She must have tracked my scent here. Wait a second." Zeal slowed to a trot to intake the smells in the air around him better. "There are two more scents I know, but who are they?" The raptor's eyes widened in realization. He broke into a faster sprint than he was in before. "If those two nimrods get themselves eaten by that rex I will kill them." Ignoring the flaw in his logic, Zeal picked up speed when he heard the unmistakable roar of T-rex in the distance. Zeal was ecstatic that there were no doors he had to kick open in the current hallway. Nothing hindered his speed except for the constant weaving and jumping over desk that lay in his path.
Another tremor, much more severe than the first one, shook the building, and nearly made Zeal trip at 83 miles per hour. "That would not have been pretty." Zeal thought. "Does this hall ever end? This building must be miles in length." As luck would have it Zeal was fast approaching the only door in the hall. Using his binocular vision, he noticed it was entirely made of metal. "This is going to hurt."
With all the momentum from his sprint, and in a display of sheer determination, Zeal leapt at the door. The moment before impact the agile bird of prey flipped so both his feet kicked the door at the same time. 83 miles per hour of muscular hollowed boned predator rammed into the metal door. The door flew off its hinges and into a room that was large enough to fit three super predators side by side.
Zeal lay on the floor howling in pain. He did not get a chance to see his strength's effect on the door because directly after the impact he dropped to the ground on his side from the extreme pain his feet were experiencing. "I need to help Rave and Vare." He said rising to his feet. "I know those two can't stay out of trouble for long." The raptor let out a hoarse whine of pain as the base of his toes touched the solid floor, but he refused to give up. The raptor hopped down into the room below the door entrance. His landing was sloppy because of his sore feet. Zeal knew that meant his jump heights would be limited for a while. The predatory dinosaur in took the air in the room. "I can't pick up Kenduari's scent." Zeal stated. When he felt a breeze on his left Zeal looked in that direction to see a T-rex sized hole in the wall. "Oh she was most definitely here." Zeal sniffed the air again. "I can smell Vare and Rave, but cannot tell which way they went. Kenduari must be using that Primeval ability. Apparently it could hide more than just her scent." Zeal snorted in frustration. "I will just have to take a gamble to where they went." Zeal looked to both doors in the room. One was closed, but the other had been left open. Neither showed any sign that Kenduari may have attacked it. Zeal assumed she must have left after breaking through the wall. The raptor chose to take the door that was already open.
Zeal walked into a hall that had the clear stuff humans made, called glass, everywhere. One wall was entirely made of glass. It lined a ramp and stairs that led to a door further down the hall. Zeal started walking along the path of the glass wall when suddenly two familiar scents hit his nose. "They are alive. Thank goodness." Zeal breathed a sigh of relief. He checked the air one more time to make sure no other threats were nearby, but was rewarded with another familiar smell. "The blue shirt man." The raptor said in joy. "And his scent is coming from the same direction as Vare and Rave's. I can search for them while following the blue shirt man as well." Zeal trotted down the hall, following the familiar smells with excitement. He was so close to getting off the island. All that was left for him to do was to keep stealthy and follow the blue shirt man to the huge ship which was the only way off the island. Zeal could easily stay hidden within the confines of the ship for days without being detected.
Lost in his thoughts Zeal almost passed the door that contained the trail of scents he was following. Before opening it he peered through the circular window to look inside the room. He let out an unintentional loud gasp at what his eyes beheld. "The blue shirt man." Zeal said in a low voice.
XXXXXX
Dr. Grant heard a noise he wish he had not as he turned to face the only door in the control room. Through the window, his eyes met that of a velociraptor's. Despite the other three people in the room, the dinosaur's piercing gaze stayed locked on Grant. Grant watched the raptor's gaze slowly shift downward.
"Ellie! The door locks!" Grant shouted to his girlfriend and colleague. "Get the door locks!" Grant stood frozen for a second as he saw the handle on the door turn, but only for a second. He hastily launched his body into the door before the raptor could completely open it. The dinosaur screeched in anger and began to slowly overpower Grant until Ellie too shoved her body weight against the door. Even with the combined strength of both adults, the raptor was still putting up a fight. Grant knew it would not be long before the raptor won the battle of strength. Their only hope was that Lex and Tim could find the file on the computer that would turn on the door locks.
XXXXXX
"Humans are…stronger… than I thought." Zeal panted as he tried pushing the door open against the combined weight of the blue shirt man and the yellow haired women. Zeal heard the young girl in the purple shirt shout the words 'We got it!', and then a loud click sounded from the door, and it completely locked the raptor out. Zeal could hear the laughter of joy from the four humans inside the room at their accomplishment. The clever raptor scanned the area for any possible way into the room when his eyes landed upon the glass wall that lined the room. "You are not getting away that easily." Zeal backed up as far as he possibly could.
"It's coming through the window!" The yellow haired woman shouted. Ear piercing sounds rang out near Zeal's head, disorienting him. Still the raptor jumped shoulder first into the window. The glass shattered without much resistant. Zeal rolled to his feet the moment he hit the floor. By the time he got his bearings the humans were already on a ladder climbing into the ceiling. The blue shirt man was the last to ascend the ladder, but Zeal was too late to stop him from kicking it over to the ground. The cunning raptor hopped onto a desk and started jumping from desk to desk to keep track of the humans' movements above him. He finally stopped when he believed he was directly under the blue shirt man. The raptor scanned the tiling above his self so he could to pick the perfect time to strike. Zeal stood on tip-toe and shoved his head through the thin grated tiling of the roof. It turned out to be heavier than he had expected. Despite the extra weight, Zeal turned his head and instantly spotted his target. The blue shirt turned on the spot to see the purple shirt girl atop the tiling on top of the velociraptor's head. He delivered three swift kicks to the raptor's face which caused him to fall to the ground below, and knock over the desk he had used.
"Argh, My head." Zeal complained, rising to his feet. He shook his head to clear any remaining fogginess then looked up. The legs of the girl were dangling above him. He looked for the closest desk, but it had been knocked over during his fall, and his feet were still too sore for him to perform a jump above 10 feet. Zeal jumped straight up anyway and snapped at the girl's legs, only missing by inches as she was pulled away just in time. The raptor felt the shock surge through his body from his sore feet hitting the ground. He quickly shook it off.
Zeal paced back and forth thinking and snorting in aggravation. "So much for keeping it stealthy."
Me: Thank you for reading this far through my story. Any reviews and/or constuctive critisim would be greatly appreciated. It helps drive me to write. Also. Book one of A Raptor's Tale is soon coming to a close.
Zeal: So what's the bad news.
Me: Shut up.
Kenduari: I actually look forward to the second instillation of this little series of our writer. He told me there would be more parts with me in them.
Zeal: What! You didn't tell me anything.
Me: You didn't ask.
Kenduari: And humans think fawltreheol are smart. HA!
Zeal: I take that to offense!
Kenduari: Your point? *flashes her teeth*
Zeal: Nevermind.
Me: Anyways...Book one is just about over, and Book two is on its way. I'm kinda trying to make all the stories roll together nicely. Only time will tell though. I hope you guys enjoyed everything i've written so far.
Kenduari: Argh! You are boring us into extinction.
Me: Calm down, sheesh. I'm just trying to thank everyone for reading this far. I appreciate the reviews, favs, and story alerts too. I'm sure Zeal would agree with me.
Zeal:Zzzzz...Zzzzz...Zzzz
Me: ZEAL!
Zeal: I'm awake, I'm awake
Me:*Sigh*