Chapter 10

The group continued their search for Vanille. The sounds of the dinosaurs could be heard from every direction, which made things difficult for them. They had no idea how far away they were and when they would encounter anymore of them. Their encounter with the Raptors the previous day was unlike anything they had experienced on Gran Pulse. These things were fast, agile and intelligent. Lightning's mind was still on the one she and Fang fought. The way it looked at her before it left, it was almost like it wanted to remember her, like it had sworn a vendetta against her. She thought she was acting crazy, surely these things weren't that smart, anyway that didn't matter right now, all that mattered was that they find Vanille and then find out where exactly they were ad why their brands and powers were gone. Fang was continually calling Vanille. She was interrupted by Lightning

"Maybe its not a good idea to be shouting"

"What, you afraid that thing from yesterday is still following us"

"No, but we don't want to attract anymore unwanted attention"

They continued walking through the jungle. Fangs attention suddenly turned to a sound in the distance.

"Vanille ?" she said as she ran off to where she thought the noise had come from.

"Fang wait !" Snow cried as he followed her with the others not far behind. Fang had stopped.

The sound of heavy footsteps and branches snapping could be heard from the trees.

"What do you think it is ?" asked Hope.

"I dunno, but its something big" Replied Sazh.

The creature let out a low grunt before stepping out in front of them. Sazh was right it was something big but it wasn't just one creature there were two more to its side . It was green in colour and on its back was a double row of pentagonal shaped plates. They didn't pay any attention to the humans who stood there watching them. It had become clear that these creatures weren't trying to make a meal of them, one of the creatures had a fern in its mouth. The from behind them a fourth one appeared. It shook its as it walked past them.

"Hey look at that" Hope said pointing to the creatures tail which had four spikes sticking out from it.

"Yeah, wouldn't want to get a swipe of that" said Sazh. "If only Dajh could see these"

Vanille and Iain were after making their way to the . He was at the exact same spot a couple of days ago. It then hit him that the were no dinosaurs in the around at all. Something was in the water.

"Well then should we cross ?" Vanille asked

"No wait, something's not right" he said looking into the water. It was deep enough for the Spinosaurus to swim in but he also knew there was another creature that used the water to hunt. Then he saw it. There was a dark shadow in the water. It was facing the side of the river they were on, it laid there motionless, but Iain knew it could see them.

"Look there" Iain said pointing to the shadow.

"What is it ?"

"A Deinosuchus, and it sees us"

"Why is it just lying there ?"

"That's its hunting strategy, it waits at the bottom of the water and the when prey get too close it jumps out and grabs it, if we try to cross the river its gonna go for us before we even get a few feet"

"Well then what do we do ?"

"I don't know, maybe we could travel upstream the water could be shallower there, or we could go back and take the longer way around"

"Lets go back"

"Are you sure ?"

She nodded.

"Alright then lets go"

They went back into the jungle, forcing the Deinosuchus to wait once more for unsuspecting prey. Iain's mind was on Vanille's friends. The last time she saw them was when they were being chased by the Raptors. He knew that the chances of them surviving an encounter with the Raptors were very low. He had only seen the Raptors once and the only reason he survived was because they had gotten his friend. He felt guilty about the fact that he just ran away instead of helping him. After that he didn't see the Raptors anymore, but he was still haunted by the horrifying shrieks of the Raptors and the screams of pain his friend made as they tore him open. Still he didn't want to give Vanille more to worry about, he knew her whole cheerful personality was just a cover up. She was hiding some dark secret from him, which he understood, they had only met so it was perfectly normal for her not to tell him. But still he knew something was wrong and he wanted to help her. He thought it would be a good idea to leave it alone for now and if she'd bring it up then he would do the best he can to help.