In the vet offices at Prehistoric Park, Linda Eberhart was looking through her patient notes for the day. It was a slow day today; the worst was an injury sustained in a territorial fight. There was time for her to check in on the long-terms. There were four; Keehar the Rhamphorynchus, Lightning the Argentinosaurus, Cirrus the Ornithocheirus and a Macogryphosaurus that Drew's team had found on the last mission. All of them were doing well; in particular, Keehar and Lightning had both greatly recovered from their injuries when they were found. Lightning would be discharged today and Keehar was mere days away from being discharged.

After checking on the herbivores, Linda had gone into the indoor recovery bays to see the two pterosaurs.

As she watched Keehar clambering around his recovery aviary, she recalled the three hours they had spent in surgery fixing the many broken bones he had suffered in a Jurassic storm. He was half-dead when the team had brought him back and Linda was honestly not expecting him to pull through. He'd spent a week in the critical care section before being transferred to recovery, where he'd spent the past six weeks.

The other pterosaur in the recovery bays was Cirrus, the giant Ornithocheirus. When Jack, Adrian and Alice had found him, he was severely injured and near-dead from heat exhaustion, malnutrition and dehydration. Linda had not expected him to survive the night. However, he'd pulled through and, in the intervening three weeks, had gotten some of his strength back. However, he still had a long road ahead.

Suddenly, a voice chirpily went at Linda, "Morning, doc." She suddenly turned around to see Jack Denham and Adrian Sky walk into the vet offices, smiles on their faces. Linda smiled fondly back at them, "Good morning." Jack looked around and smiled, "So, Doc, how are things today?" Linda smiled, "Oh, everything's fine. What are you guys doing here?"

Jack gestured towards Cirrus, still in the recovery pens. "Just wanted to see how Cirrus was", Jack threw a fish to the giant Ornithocheirus, who chuffed happily in response, "He was in a bad way when we found him and it's been the first time in three weeks I've had the opportunity…" Linda smiled at him and said, "For the most part, he's getting better; he's gaining weight, he's fully rehydrated and the wounds on his wings have healed. Basically, his condition has radically improved than from when you guys found him." Jack smiled, "Good. I'm very glad to hear that. Fingers crossed he'll be back with the main flock soon."

Adrian, meanwhile, was playing with Keehar through the bars. That was usual. Ever since the little Rhamphorynchus had been out of the critical care ward, Adrian had been visiting him almost every day and the small pterosaur seemed to enjoy these visits greatly. Linda smiled at the image, they had developed quite a close bond.

Suddenly, Jack looked at his watch, and said, "Anyways, we'd best be heading off. We're on the mission today. You'd best be prepared for whatever we bring back." He turned to Cirrus, "Good luck, big guy", to which the pterosaur cawed in affirmative.

As Linda left, Keehar noticed something about the door to his aviary. The previous week, the latch to this particular aviary had loosened slightly, due to an accident when transporting a particularly uncooperative Coelophysis to rehabilitation. Keehar glided a few steps and hopped towards the door, put his head under the latch and pushed it up; he could lift the latch with his snout! Keehar, after ensuring no-one was looking, clambered out of his cage and looked around; he had smelt a familiar scent on the air and he would follow it.

Meanwhile, Drew Luczynski was sitting in his office, waiting for his team. Suddenly, a voice said, "What up, fearless leader?". He turned to see Jack and Adrian walking towards them, smiles on their faces. "Where were you?", Drew asked, "You guys were supposed to be here five minutes ago". In response, they rolled their eyes and Adrian replied, "We were headed down to the vet offices to see how Keehar and Cirrus were doing; that's why we were late. Anyway, what are we going after?"

Drew smiled and showed them a picture of a small dinosaur. At first glance, it looked like a miniature version of the Utahraptor in Raptor Territory. However, its legs and arms were covered in long, asymmetrical feathers, like those on a bird's wings. Drew smiled, "Microraptor."

Jack raised his eyebrow quizzically and said, "That's the dinosaur with the four wings, isn't it? The one that flew?"

Drew nodded, "Yeah. However, "flew" is pushing it; Microraptor could use its four wings to glide, it didn't have the muscles for powered flight," Drew explained, flicking through pages of the file. "But Microraptor was key to the debate about birds evolving from dinosaurs; it gave us a little hint about how flight evolved. Microraptor and several other feathered dinosaurs have been found in a place in China called the Yixian Formation, which happens to be one of the richest fossil sites in the world." Jack smiled, "Well, fearless leader, what are we waiting for?"

And, so, they headed to the portal site. An employee entered the time period and location and the portal whirred into life. Drew put the remote in his pocket and, after securing it, turned to Adrian, who nodded, and Jack, who gave him a wink and a thumbs-up. Drew nodded at them both and they entered through the portal.

As they left the portal, the first thing that hit the team was the humidity. They looked around to see where they had emerged and the sight was breath-taking. They had emerged on the shore of a lake by a dense forest. However, unlike the redwood-dominated forests of the Jurassic, this was dominated by gingkoes, cycads and seed fern trees. From the lake, they could see a dense undergrowth of horsetails, ferns and primitive flowers. In the air, they could hear the calls of pterosaurs and, in the undergrowth, they could hear the squeals and hisses of dinosaurs. In the distance, a large mountain loomed, with a plume of smoke above it. Jack pointed it out and aid to his teammates, "That's a volcano, I presume?" Drew nodded, "This region is very volcanic in nature; that's why the forest is so verdant. Volcanic soil is amongst the most fertile on the planet; if we're lucky, it won't erupt while we're here."

Jack chuckled and went, "'Lucky'. Something we rarely are, eh, fearless leader?", turning to his teammates, causing them all to chuckle. Suddenly, they were snapped out of it when the Earth began to shake violently. All sound in the forest went quiet and a large tree by the lake fell to the ground. After a minute, the tremor ceased. Adrian turned to Drew and said, "You were saying?" Drew looked around; the tremor had been minor, both in scale and duration, but… it wasn't particularly safe to stay here. Drew turned to his team and said, "We head to higher ground." Jack nodded and said, "Righto, fearless leader." And the team began to head to a higher section of the lake, with farther away from the treeline; it never hurt to be prepared. As they hiked the short distance, Drew turned to see a strangely familiar shape flying behind them; however, the shape was moving so fast, it was practically a blur.

Once they had reached their new spot and set up camp, they looked around for any signs of their targets by the lake. Suddenly, they heard a loud squawk and looked up to see a flock of pterosaurs flying over the lake. They had short, rounded wings and a wingspan of about four feet. Their bodies were covered in dark brown fur, grading to a lighter colour on the belly. They had short beaks and deep heads with a short, curving crest. As they looked closer, they noticed two different crest types in the flock; the ones with the large, yellow-coloured crests were evidently the males, whilst the ones with the smaller, grey crests were the females.

Adrian turned to his compatriots and asked, "Any idea what these guys are?" Drew said, "From the looks of it, I'd say they were Eosipterus; a common pterosaur in this region." Jack asked, "Another question; how are we going to get this lot through the portal?" Drew smiled at him, "Oh, ye of little faith… I've got a plan. Jack… get the bait bag."

Following Drew's instructions, Jack grabbed the bait bag, filled with fish, and emptied some of it onto the lake shore. The pterosaurs sniffed the air, veered towards the pile of fish and dived towards the lake shore, moving in perfect, synchronised harmony. When they had gotten close enough, Drew activated the portal and the pterosaurs, moving as if a single entity, dived through the portal, into the present.

Jack, grinning wildly after the events, turned to Drew and asked, "Now, fearless leader, what do we do next?" As Drew was about to speak, he was suddenly cut off by a series of loud, barking caws…. Coming from their camp.