The votes are in. The decision has been made. The die is cast. On with the finale!
RWBY Watches Classic Movies
Chapter 60
"Nice fake out with the big bad." Sun commented.
"The king of dinosaurs in the big city. This should be entertaining." Cinder mused, sipping the glass of tea she had ordered.
'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' Jaune thought. This was his hometown they were going to, like, the actual, real deal. He assumed his doppelganger was at a dig and so wouldn't be there, but what about the girls? Saphron was probably out in Argus with Terra, and Artoria, Seras, and Joan were all old enough to leave home if they chose, but Lucy was still in high school, and Tanya and Ilya were in elementary school. And then he remembered this was all under the assumption that they were the same in this universe. He wracked his mind with worry until Pyrrha took his hand to comfort him.
An InGen helicopter flew past the familiar skyline of downtown Attika. The team had arrived back in Vale a few days earlier and parted ways soon after, Sun getting a flight back to his home in Mistral and Nora making sure Rin got back home safely.
The InGen waterfront complex closely resembled a red carpet event with all the limousines arriving and disgorging a large number of powerful individuals. At the end of the pier, Salem stood at a podium in a flowing black dress that accentuated her curves and drew the eye to the correct places, making a speech even as more guests were filing in.
"15 years ago, my brother Ozma had a dream. Like Ozma himself, it was bold, it was grand, it was outsized, it was impractical, it was… not to be." She said, taking a small bit of pleasure in speaking of her big brother so. "However, half an hour from now, Ozma's dream, reimagined, will come true. For 1/100th the cost of building a destination resort thousands of miles away- "
Nora and Penny stepped out of the red rental car Nora had gotten and walked up to the security guard at the side gate.
"Nice ride." Taiyang commented, leaning forward. "Looks like either 60s or 70s."
"Too dark red for me." Nora disagreed.
"You would prefer a hot pink?" Pyrrha asked.
Nora shrugged. "Maybe throw a little black, white and gunmetal grey to balance it out, and yeah."
"I like your new hair better when you let it down, Penny." Ruby commented.
"I agree." Penny said cheerily.
"Hiya. Is this the Ozpin affair?"
"I'm sorry, folks, this is private property." The guard said, being as polite as he could despite the hour.
"Yeah, but, see we're on the list."
"Look, I need you both to get back in your car- "
"I'm sorry, but this is very important. This is Dr. Polendina, I'm Dr. Valkyrie."
"We have Ms. Ozpin's test results." Penny interjected as the guard began to close the gate on them.
"Yes, exactly! See, we got good news and we got bad news- "
"I can only imagine." Ozpin chuckled in Oscar's head, making the boy laugh along.
"Tonight, we will christen Jurassic Park, Attika, with a mega-attraction that will rival any theme park in the entire world." Salem said, continuing her speech. She saw the gate closing in the distance, and smiled when she saw Nora and Penny behind it. "I want to thank you all for turning up at this forsaken hour of the morning- "
The harbormaster walked up to Salem.
"The ship is here." He said in Salem's ear.
Salem put her hand over the mic to block the sound. "It's early?"
'I do so hate when things do not go to plan.' Salem frowned. She was taking a break from the food, allowing it to sit and digest before she ordered any more, and was sipping from a glass of wine while gently patting one of the wolves that stood sentinel to either side of her.
"It's- you better come look at this." He insisted.
Salem put a smile on her face. "So exciting!" she said to the audience. As she left the podium, she pulled one of the security guards aside. "Do you see that lost-looking couple over there?" she pointed at Nora and Penny.
"Ma'am, you really need to see this." The harbormaster urged.
"Let them in. I want them to see this up close."
"Yes, Ms. Ozpin." The guard answered.
"That's new. I've never known Salem to have much of an ego." Ozpin commented.
"People can change over the course of centuries." Oscar said. "Kind of like how you're letting me have more control lately."
"Are you complaining?"
"No, just an observation."
"Keep trying." A man said as Salem entered the harbor control room. "I want a direct line to Beacon and the Coast Guard, yesterday!"
"Look," the man said, pointing at a radar monitor, "That's their transponder signal, Venture 5888. They're headed into port, but I can't raise 'em."
"Try again." Salem said as the signal got closer to the port.
"Skipper, SS Venture, this is InGen harbormaster, do you copy? Over." There came no reply and the signal dot kept creeping closer. "Skipper, SS Venture, you are approaching the breakwater at flank speed. Reduce at once. Over."
"Something's happened." Blake realized with a frown.
"Most people don't realize they are at their most vulnerable while traveling." Cinder commented.
"She would know, wouldn't she?" Roman whispered to Neo.
The security guard led Nora and Penny onto the dock while Salem was in the office. As they approached the group of investors, the muttering crowd ceased and turned to look out over the water, hearing a low rumbling coming from it.
"What's everybody looking at?" Penny wondered aloud.
Nora looked out into the darkness and her eyes widened. "We should have stayed in the damn car."
The rumbling grew louder as Salem stepped out of the control room. As she did, a massive cargo ship became visible on the water. And it was not slowing down for anything. The people on the dock ran for it back to their cars as the ship tore into the dock. It slowed down the further it went in, until, at about the half-way mark of the ship, it ground to a halt.
"That's a hell of an entrance." Yang commented, with a weak chuckle.
A security guard rushed over and helped Salem to her feet.
"Are you okay, Ms. Ozpin?" he asked.
"I don't know, how do I look?" she asked, half-joking.
The two walked through the mess of fallen people and others helping them up, and onto the ship, Nora nd Penny hot on their tails. The deck of the ship was a mess, but then, that's to be expected when you crash into a dock and through the harbor control room. The security guard walked up a staircase to the bridge of the ship, and gasped in horror at what he saw within.
"Where's the crew?" Salem asked, coming up behind him.
The officer gulped. "All over the place." He answered, feeling like he was about to be sick. Salem saw why as he moved further in and saw a severed hand hanging off the wheel. She covered her mouth, more to prevent herself from vomiting than to hide any look of shock.
"What the hell happened?" Blake asked.
"That, Ms. Belladonna, is one of the biggest mysteries in recent cinema history. This situation never happened in the novel, so we must simply speculate."
"Maybe it was one of the rexes?" Yang guessed.
"No. The adult would have been safely locked in the cargo hold for the entire trip. Hopefully kept heavily sedated." Weiss said, her chin in her hand.
"Then, maybe it was the baby."
"No. Salem specifically ordered it to be transported separately from the adult."
"Raptors?"
"Possible. In the novel for the first film, it was mentioned that a group of Velociraptors had snuck onto a supply ship and that a few had made it to the mainland and were hiding out in the jungle."
"I don't see it happening, though." Summer argued, "It's not in the nature of animals to go that far in the search for food. Only people and Grimm show that kind of thinking."
Out on the deck, Nora and Penny were looking around, trying to piece things together. Which was just a little difficult with the repetitive whirring of the motors for the partially open doors to the cargo hold right behind them. Nora found the control console for it and saw a hand holding down one of the buttons on a remote control.
Salem came out from the bridge. "Check the cargo hold! There may be crew down there!"
"Idiot." Salem said, knowing full well who she was insulting.
Cinder blinked, not sure of what she had just heard. She shook it off. Surely not.
"Everybody off the boat!" Nora yelled. She saw one of the guards find the remote and pull it from the hand's grip. She leapt at the man, telling him not touch it, but it was too late.
The adult T. Rex burst from the cargo hold with a roar, chasing after the people who scrambled to get off the deck. Salem watched in horror as the beast walked down the make-shift ramp and continued its' pursuit. Thankfully, the guests had been evacuated, so all that was left was security guards who wisely chose to jump into the water and swim for safety.
Nora came up behind Salem and whispered in her ear. "Now you're Ozma Ozpin."
"Valkyries keep their promises, ya blonde bitch!" Nora taunted the on-screen Salem.
"Except when they don't." Jaune said with a smug grin.
"Quiet, you."
The tyrannosaur chased a few more guard through the entrance to the harbor, stopping at a rocky outcropping. It inhaled and roared at the unsuspecting city just across the water from it.
"Why the hell wasn't it tranquilized?" Penny asked a security guard as he scrambled to check the damage and help his coworkers.
"It was." He said, flustered, "Sienna hit it with two darts of concentrated Carfentanil. Over ten milligrams."
"Ten milligrams?! That should have put it into a coma!"
"It stopped breathing, so we gave naltrezone to counter act the effects, but we did know how much to give it."
"You administered an antagonist without knowing the proper dosage?! You put the animal in a narcoleptic state. It's a locomotive now."
"Put simply children, don't mess with things you know absolutely nothing about." Glynda said.
"Especially when powerful drugs are involved." Ozcar agreed.
"Look, we're prepared for this."
"I sincerely doubt that." Emerald quipped.
"Better question; are there any more dinosaurs on the boat?" Nora asked.
"No, we brought the infant in on a plane. Look, we had this to tranquilize it." he grunted as he pulled out a tranquilizer gun from within a transport truck.
Penny had moved on and was looking up at Salem, who was sitting above them. "Hey, do you have the infant?"
"It's safe." Salem said forlornly.
"In all the time I've known her, I've never heard Salem that defeated." Ozpin said, once again amazed.
"Nora," Penny said as she pulled Nora aside, "The animal's dehydrated, so the first thing it's gonna do is find a water source and then it's gonna find the next thing it's body needs."
'Meaning food.' Nora thought. 'Which means meat, which unfortunately means people.'
"All the containment equipment is here, we just need to get it back to the dock. The boat might still be seaworthy."
"Okay, so, am I thinking what you're about to say?"
"When we brought the baby to the trailer, it came. There's no reason to think the same won't happen again."
Nora sighed, knowing her girlfriend was right. "Yup."
"Are they doing this?" Jaune said, having pieced their plan together. "Are they seriously doing this?"
Up above, Penny knelt next to Salem. "Where's the infant?" she asked her.
Salem looked to her, still in shock. "It's in a secured facility, why?"
Nora squatted down in front of her. "Where's the facility?"
"Yes, friend Jaune, we are seriously doing this right now." Penny agreed.
"This is a horrible plan." Blake said, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"I'm game. Let's do this." Nora said excitedly.
Elsewhere, the adult Tyrannosaur was walking through a suburban neighborhood, sniffing the air in it's search for water. It turned and walked in between two houses, knocking over a stone wall in the process. To it's left, it saw a pool in the backyard of a house and moved closer to it.
Jaune's fear grip on his armrest tightened. He knew that neighborhood. It was maybe five miles from his own house. What he couldn't figure out was how the big bastard had managed to get through downtown and into a suburban neighborhood, quickly and without being seen. You'd think something like this would be all over the news.
Inside said house, a small boy slept with a fish tank illuminated next to him as a pseudo-night light. He felt the tremors from the tyrannosaurs' walking and slowly woke up. He sat up in his bed and yawned. Looking out his window, he saw the darkness telling him he was awake far too early. Then, he saw the head of the T. Rex looking in at him. The beast let out a low, rumbling growl, warning him to not interfere. Calmly, the boy rolled out of his bed and walked to his parent's room.
Outside, the rex began to lap up water from the pool, but it was rather annoyed that the family dog was barking at it. The boxer pulled on it's chain, carrying its doghouse closer to the pool, but the rex let out a short roar of warning. The dog wisely retreated to it's shelter and resumed barking.
"There's a dinosaur in our backyard." The boy told his sleeping parents. They either didn't hear him or were ignoring him, so he grabbed their sheets and began to pull them off. At the loss of their contained body heat, his parents groaned as they awoke.
"Benjamin, what are you doing?" his father asked, while his mother groaned into her pillow.
"Come on!" he said impatiently.
"What?"
"There's a dinosaur in our backyard." He said and his parents groaned as they got out of bed.
They argued quietly about why this kind of thing kept happening with their son, as said son impatiently pushed them down the hall into his room. The father insisted that he needed to be fed so he could stay asleep through the night, while the mother insisted that he needed a proper night light instead of the fish tank. The father stopped dead in his tracks when he looked out the window. Curious his wife joined him and saw the tyrannosaur chewing on something, with a chain dangling from its mouth attached to a doghouse. The chain snapped and the doghouse fell, smashing on the ground.
"Not the doggo!" Ruby wailed.
"I'm gonna punch this thing right in its stupid face!" Yang growled, her eyes red.
"Huntress vs a T. Rex? I'd pay good money to see that." Mercury jeered.
"With what money, dickhead? You're broke." Emerald remarked.
"Never said it would my money, did I?"
"… Fair enough."
The young boy jumped up on his bed, camera in hand and took a picture. The flash startled the tyrannosaur, causing it to roar and the parents to scream.
At the InGen Jurassic Park complex, the guards at the front gate walked out of their little booth and started motioning at something, telling it to slow down. But Nora did not slow down. There was no time to slow down. She gunned the motor and rammed through the metal barriers into the complex. They sped through the arena and into the holding area.
Penny, seeing the infant, jumped out of the car and ran to its cage. Nora held up the door as her girlfriend inspected the infant.
"He's been sedated." She said, inspected the infant's dilated eyes, "Really heavily. Give me a hand." She lifted the baby into her arms and carried it to the car. Nora held open the passenger-side rear door as Penny climbed in.
"You know, if the adult sees us once again with its' child, won't he be like, 'You!'? You know, like some kind of angry recognition?" she asked.
"Who knows?" Penny answered, carefully putting on her seat belt, "He may be just happy to see us."
"Again, I love the banter you two have." Blake commented. "It really feels natural."
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" a security guard yelled as Nora climbed into her convertible, gun pointed at her.
"We're taking the kid." She said simply, closing her door. "You really want to stop us? Shoot us."
"Man, say what you will about her, but Pinky has got some basketball-sized, brass balls on her." Roman whispered.
"Daring the guy who has you at gunpoint to shoot you is a very Nora thing to do." Jaune commented with a smirk.
"Yup, just gonna sit here and keep being awesome." Nora said, reclining her chair, kicking up her feet and putting her hands behind her head.
"How will we find the adult?" Penny asked as Nora backed out of the arena.
"Simple: follow the screams." Nora told her.
Sure enough, a woman screamed as she shifted her car into reverse and floored the gas. People screamed around her as she ran into another car with a crash. However, the civilians were more concerned with the massive, fuck-off dinosaur chasing them through the streets of Downtown Attika with a hungry look in it's eye.
"See, this is more what I was expecting." Cinder said with a smile.
"Penny did say it would go for food after it found water." Ruby groaned.
"Not in so many words, but I think we all knew it deep down." Weiss sighed.
A bus turned onto the same street and sped past it. The driver urged the passengers to get to the other side of the bus as the Rex came up alongside it and held pace with the vehicle. It rammed it's head up into the bus, throwing people out the other side and creating a massive cave-in at the front entrance. With the driver now unconscious, bus drove straight into a movie rental store, causing the patrons within to scatter.
More civilians ran from the T. Rex, running over cars in their desperation. One man made the mistake of breaking off from the pack in an attempt to find refuge in a nearby building. It probably would have worked if he had been further up in the pack. However, the Rex caught him in his jaws and bit down hard before placing him on the ground and beginning to eat.
Nora pulled up to an intersection just outside downtown and saw the crowd fleeing from the beast.
"Here we go." She muttered. Quickly, she pulled off the road into a gas station. She urged Penny to wake up the infant. "It won't come near us if we can't get it to make some kind of sound!"
"Come on, kid. Wake up! Wake up!" Penny said, lightly shaking the infant, making it groan.
The Rex sniffed the air and let out a roar.
"I think it knows." Yang commented.
"Captain Obvious." Blake said, giving Yang a mocking salute.
"Brat." Yang chuckled back.
"He knows." Penny said. Nora jolted as the gas station's signature 76 ball logo was knocked from it's perch and rolled past them. Nora peeled backwards out of the gas station, the adult hot on their tails as Penny pulled off the baby's muzzle, allowing it hoot and howl once again.
"Yeah, Nora, slow down a little." Penny said as Nora righted the car and floored it.
Nora looked back, flashes of Isla Nublar hitting her. "Uh, I don't think so."
"After what happened to her on the other island, I don't blame her." Emerald commented.
"Seriously, what was the point of not going all out when you're being chased by fucking T. Rex?" Mercury agreed.
"Aww, the kids are finally getting along." Torchwick mocked them, with Neo rolling her eyes at his antics.
A squadron of police cars pulled up as they entered the harbor area, along with a department of animal control van. The Rex roared at them, making every car freeze and then immediately turn around and go back the way they came.
Nora and Penny sped past empty and half-empty warehouses on their way back to the ship.
"This guy's almost fully awake." Penny said, "Do you know where you're going?"
"Yeah, the waterfront's right on the other side of these warehouses." Nora assured.
"Is there any way through?"
"If not, then…" her convertible burst through the wall of one of the warehouses and pulled to a stop in the middle of it.
"Once again, a very Nora move." Jaune commented with a grin.
"Sometimes the only way to solve a problem is with brute force." Nora defended.
"So long as the problem can't fight back." Yang said, rubbing her prosthetic arm and remembering her dad's advice.
"There we go." She hopped out of the car, ran around to the other side and took the infant from Penny. "Alright, you have to follow me now."
"Where's the Rex?" Penny asked as she got out and ran after Nora. "Is it still behind us?"
As if in answer to her question, the beast rammed through the same wall they had gone through, chasing after them. The pair wound their way through the maze of warehouses, trying to put extra distance between them and the adult while making their way to the boat.
"Shoot it." Salem said into her scroll. "Yes, tell them to shoot it." She saw Nora and Penny run past her car with the infant in hand. She scrambled to get out and follow them. "No, you idiot. Shoot the adult, I want the baby back alive." She chased after the two gingers as best her dress allowed, down the ramp onto the dock and up the wreckage onto the deck of the ship.
"Dr. Valkyrie!" she yelled out. Looking around, she saw the pair run from the cargo hold and jump overboard, landing in the waters below. "What have you done with it? I want that infant!" she heard a howling behind her echoing up from the hold. Cautiously, she walked into the entrance. "Are you there?"
"And now I'm getting death flags for her." Blake said.
"Not exactly a devastating loss." Weiss shrugged.
'The first movie was a lot better than this one.' Ruby thought to herself.
Descending into the hold, she quickly realized just how dark it was, even with some of the lighting on. As she made her way to the bottom, she stepped on something metallic. Picking it up, she recognized it as the infant's muzzle. She heard a small growling nearby and looked up to see the infant growling at her from behind a wall of thin netting.
"There you are." She said with a disingenuous smile. She quickly tried to get the muzzle back on the animal, but it quickly escaped past her. She tracked it find that it had run behind the leg of its parent.
Salem quickly backed up to the wall, moving slowly along it, trying to find a way out. She tried to lose it in some cover, but she made too much noise as she ran for the stairs. As she ascended, the adult grabbed by the legs and deposited her back on the floor of the cargo hold. As she tried to crawl away, she felt a pair of eyes upon her. Looking back, she saw the infant looming over her before it pounced on her.
"Karma can be so poetic sometimes." Yang sighed.
'That took longer than I expected.' Salem mused. 'My bets were on my idiotic counterpart dying on the island, most likely at the hands of those fascinating Velociraptor creatures.'
As her screams echoed out of the hold, Penny ran up onto the bridge, holding an air rifle in her hands and a tranquilizer dart between her teeth. As she began to load the weapon and take aim, Nora reached the deck controls for the hold and slammed her hand on the close button. The adult roared as it noticed its prison closing in on it once again. Above her, a Bullhead circled, a man with a military assault rifle taking aim from the side.
Before he could fire, Penny took her shot, hitting the beast in the neck. It howled in pain, and seemed to almost glare at Nora as the bay doors closed shut above it. Nora sighed as she heard the mechanical locks move in place.
"And there's a really first-rate shot at the deck of the ship." Lisa Lavender reported a few days later. "And the cargo hold that, for the moment, anyway, contains the animal itself, presumably with the infant alongside. Now, by our calculations, they should be nearing the half-way point of this trip. Cyril, can you still hear me?"
"Okay, so, random thought," Nora said, her brow furrowing, "But is it just me, or does Lisa Lavender sounds a scary amount like Pyrrha?"
"What?" Pyrrha asked, confused and a little embarrassed.
"Listen."
Rin looked over at her mother, and saw that she and Penny had fallen asleep in each other's arms. Not exactly surprising considering all the shit they had been through in the past week or so. They had more than earned their rest. She was brought back to reality as the live news broadcast continued.
"Yes, I can, Lisa. We are in fact half-way to the island. It currently 206 nautical miles from our present location. We're moving at about 20 knots, which should put our arrival at somewhere around 11:30 am, Valean Eastern Time.
"One of the biggest concerns throughout this voyage has been safety, and as you can see by the ever-growing escort around the ship, neither Vale nor any other Kingdom is willing to repeat the Attika Incident."
"Alright, now, we'd like to take this time to run the tape of our interview earlier today with Ozma Ozpin." Lisa said, which made Rin put down her popcorn and get a bit closer to the TV. Her mom had told her about Ozpin, but she wanted to see what the man had to say for herself. "He is the former head of InGen Bio-Engineering, and the man who is now spearheading this movement, not only to return these animals to their environment, but ensure the island itself remains intact."
"Holy crap, she does!" Yang said, her eyes widening.
"That is scary close." Weiss agreed.
"That is not how I sound. Right, Jaune?"
"I will never watch Vale News the same way again." Jaune muttered to himself.
"It is absolutely imperative," Ozpin said, sitting at a table and wearing his familiar green and black suit, "That not only Vale, but all the Kingdoms, work with the Chiefdom of Menagerie and their Department of Biological Preserves to establish a set of rules governing the preservation and isolation of that island. These animals require our absence to survive, not our help. And if we could just step aside, and trust in in nature, life will find a way."
On the island, the adult Tyrannosaurs were playing(?) with their child while a herd of Stegosaurs walked past in a column. A pterosaur alighted on the top of a nearby tree and let out a yell that mingled with the grunts and roars of the other denizens of InGen's artificial Lost World.
"Mmmm, I liked that." Yang commented as she stood and stretched.
"I did too," Blake agreed, "But I heard Logan mention that this movie and it's predecessor where book adaptations and that has me just a bit interested."
"Done."
Blake's scroll hummed. Taking it out, she saw that she now had a pair of new audio books in her inventory. "Huh, thanks."
"I hope you enjoy them as much as I did."
"Glad I got to be in another movie." Sun commented. "The music was great as always, but I gotta wonder why I've only had supporting roles thus far."
"Come on, man, this is only, what? The second movie you've been in? Give it some time." Neptune assured his best friend.
XX
I don't know why I even bothered to do a re-vote. A few reviewers changed their minds based on the ship options, but the count was basically the same, with the Disney-Arkos movie beating the Sci-fi- Baked Alaska movie by a factor of 2.5:1.
Also, for the folks who don't know, the Baked Alaska ship is Yang x Neo. A bit of a crack ship, but still cute at times when Neo isn't being portrayed as a sado-masochist.
Also, I would like to apologize if it seemed like I was half-assing it on the reactions with this one. There's no excuse for it, but honestly, The Lost World is my least favorite of the Jurassic Park movies, plus I was writing this one with barely enough time before I had to post the chapters each week, instead of being a few chapters ahead like I usually am. I promise that I will try to do better with the next film.
Before I sign off, I do have a pretty big announcement to make. Ever since the start of all this, you all have asked me to do a certain series of films, and I have continually declined, citing a lack of available characters to fill every role necessary. Additionally, a friend of mine in the sites community was already making a go at it. I am somewhat pleased to tell you, this is no longer the case.
BUT! In order to do so, I have a challenge for you all. The current count of followers this story has sits at 1,188, which is still insane to me. Let's get even more crazy. If we can reach 2,000 followers by this story's 2nd anniversary, the MCU will replace all future filler chapters and go in order from Iron Man to Endgame.
TL;DR: The MCU is on the table, but only you guys can make it happen. In the meantime, I will be composing cast lists for the heroes and brainstorming ideas, so please, if you have suggestions, leave them in a review, but don't expect them to be followed if this goes down.
So, what say you? Challenge accepted? I hope so.
Be sure to Follow, Favorite and leave a Review, and I will catch you all in two weeks time.
Next Update: 2/11/20