If you've read 'The Battle Before Time', you will recognise the first one and a half chapters of this story. However, 'Mentors of Yesteryears' marks the beginning of the expansion of The Battle Before Time, so keep reading! It lays the ground work, sort of like a montage transitioning from The Land Before Time we all know to the war on the horizon.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Littlefoot's Mentor

Hi! My name's Littlefoot. If you know anything about my friends and I, you know that our childhood was weird ... and wonderful ... and scary. It's all 'Oooh! Aaah!'. Then comes the running and screaming. I mean, I was sure my journeys ended with The Great Valley. It turns out with a little curiosity and a touch of bravery, you can have adventures every other day, leaving your folks unsure of whether they should be proud or petrified enough to keep you in your nest forever. You know, no matter how crazy life got, there are some things that always stay the same. You wake up and you always find the earth beneath you, and the stars too high for any flyer to reach. Fire is hot, ice is cold. Up is up, down is down. Well ... turns out I was wrong. The earth can be taken. It can be taken in ways you never imagined. The stars can come crashing down on your head. Fire can be cold. Everything you ever knew can turn upside down. You try to fight it. You hold on together 'till the very end. Then the end comes and you look around.

The world as you know it is gone forever.

Yeah ... that was kind of intense. I'll start at the beginning.

Chomper and Ruby had been living with us for a while when Doc, 'The Lone Dinosaur', came to the valley on one of his visits.

A young Littlefoot watched in awe as Doc went through what was apparently his morning routine. Moving with grace and speed belying his size, the giant sauropod skillfully battled nonexistent foes with his tail, sending thunder cracks throughout the canyon as it split the air like a mega-sized whip. Always moving, he bolstered his lashing attacks with shoulder shoves, chest bumps, knee jabs and the occasional headbutt. It seemed any part of his body was a workable weapon. Littlefoot could practically see the imaginary sharpteeth he felled. Before long, the adult's keen eyes spotted the young longneck staring up at him.

"Um ... hi," Littlefoot greeted. "Didn't mean to spy on you like that."

"No harm done, kid," the adult replied in his gravelly voice.

Littlefoot's excitement took over from there.

"Doc, how do you move like that? You're so big!" gawked the youngster, before catching himself. "I- I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to move like that. I mean, you are The Lone Dinosaur, after all! It's just that I've never seen grownup longnecks do it without hurting themselves!"

Doc gave a dry chuckle. "Been conditioning my bones and muscles since I was young. Figured that if I kept it up, I'd never lose my agility as a grownup."

Littlefoot's eyes lit up. "Could you teach me?"

Doc shook his head. "No. You might break somethin' if you don't do it right. I did. Several times, actually. Aren't those tail tricks I taught you good enough?"

"They were ... great," Littlefoot slowly stated. "But I wanna learn how to fight - I mean really fight!"

Doc frowned. "If you know how to fight, the fight will chase you, no matter where you go, like a sharptooth on a trail. Trust me. You've got a better life ahead of you. B'sides, I was just visiting - be gone by the next time The Bright Circle's high."

Littlefoot sighed and lowered his head in disappointment.

Doc stared at the child and an odd look crossing his face. The youngster had experienced so many harrowing escapades. Too many for a kid his age. It was scary to think of the number of times he'd left The Great Valley without adult supervision. The Mysterious Beyond was calling to him. Why did he heed its voice? For the call of adventure? Sometimes, perhaps, but more than anything, for friends, for family, even for total strangers. And who were these dinosaurs? Longnecks? Leaf-eaters? No. They could be anyone. Some of them weren't even 'dinosaurs'. The world was on his shoulders, and it would only get heavier as Littlefoot discovered just how big the world was. It didn't help that the kid was too curious for his own good. Doc had found his place among the legends, whether he liked it or not. He had become 'The Lone Dinosaur', immortalised as a hero. What would Littlefoot become? Doc didn't know, but he was sure that the youngster would be greater than The Lone Dinosaur had ever been, in part because he would never be alone. Wherever he went, his friends would be there. If none went with him, he would make new friends. However, he had to survive long enough to step into his destiny.

"Guess my stay got extended a few years," Doc mused. "Dara likes it here. We could settle down."

Littlefoot stared at the adult in abject confusion. "Huh? But … you're a wanderer."

"'Was'," Doc corrected, turning to leave. "We'll start tomorrow. Meet me here at daybreak."

He smiled as the youngster's whoops and 'woo hoos' met his ears.

Day 1

To say Littlefoot arrived at 'daybreak' was a bit of an understatement. The child had Doc wondering if he'd slept there, but as the grownup commenced with his morning routine-turned-tutorial, Littlefoot was the one left wondering.

"What on Earth are you doing?" asked a thoroughly baffled Littlefoot.

For the past minute or so, Doc had been rubbing his scales against the side of a cliff.

"Perfect place for a rock bath," the adult stated before rolling on the stone floor, trying to expose the hard surface to every possible inch of his skin.

"A 'rock bath'?" asked Littlefoot.

"Yeah," Doc answered. "It turns your skin to stone. Makes it hard for sharpteeth to leave a mark."

Littlefoot couldn't help but let his eyes wander to the scar running down Doc's temple and neck.

"Well, most sharpteeth," Doc amended, catching his gaze. "Didn't get this from a sharptooth. I got it from THE Sharptooth."

Littlefoot gasped. Among the predators, there was one who stood above them all. Epitomising the concept of the sharptooth, he was known only by the blanket term that encompassed his kind.

"Funny enough, you could thank Sharptooth for what I'm teachin' you," Doc stated with a note of bitterness in his voice. "He took my sister, my last flesh and blood in this world. I tried to fight him. He was practically invincible. Barely made it out with my life. So, I followed him, tryin' to learn his secrets. One day, I found him rock bathing. Saw him pushing his body beyond the limits of his kind. I adopted his techniques. Took them further. Was determined to be faster and stronger than he had ever been. For years, we fought, neither able to finish the other. Then one day, word came from a flier that a couple o' kids lured Sharptooth into a waterhole, shoved a rock on top of him and that was that."

Littlefoot opened his mouth to state that he and his friends were the 'couple o' kids', but the smile on Doc's face confirmed that he already knew.

"'Journey to Big Water' ,'Land of Mists', 'Stone of Cold Fire': a few of the legends you've lived, and you're bound to live more," Doc stated.

"I wouldn't call them 'legends'," Littlefoot declined.

"I would," Doc declared. "That's why I gotta stay here, to see this through."

Littlefoot stared at the ground. "So ... I'm holding you back?"

Doc laughed - an increasingly common occurrence that Littlefoot was still getting accustomed to.

"Training you has been nothing but a pleasure," Doc admitted.

Littlefoot's eyes lit up as his chest puffed in affirmation.

"Wanna know why I could never get the better of Sharptooth?" asked Doc.

Littlefoot thought for a moment, attempting to figure it out. When he drew a blank, he nodded.

"He had a head start," Doc explained. "Thing is, I didn't learn the rock bathing secret 'til I was half grown. Start from your age and you'll be a force of nature."

Littlefoot immediately threw himself against the cliff and began to rub as though his skin were crawling with tiny biters. After a few seconds, he came to grips with his mistake.

"Oww ..." Littlefoot moaned as he stopped.

"Try to be a bit more careful about it," Doc instructed. "Start by rubbing hard enough to feel the burn without bruising."

Day 12

Pride.

That's what Doc felt as he lay under the morning Sun, watching Littlefoot practicing his teachings on a rock roughly the size of the kid. Such a fast learner. Was this what it felt like to have a son? Maybe he would one day find out. Maybe not. He could neither count on the remarkable longevity of his species nor write it off. However, he couldn't complain. Imparting his knowledge to Littlefoot was one of the crowning joys of his life.

"That's it, Littlefoot," he coached. "Quick strikes. Keep him off-balanced."

Littlefoot paused the imaginary battle, panting. "I feel like ... my tail's too short for this."

"It'll grow," Doc assured. "You got distracted. Now he's on your back."

The young longneck dropped in an aggressive roll.

"That did it," stated Doc. "He's down. Now finish him."

Littlefoot placed his foot atop the imaginary sharptooth and growled into its face before snapping his jaws.

Doc blinked. "Littlefoot ... what are you doing?"

"It's sharptooth talk," explained the youngster. "Chomper said it means 'go away and don't bother us again'."

"What's to say the sharptooth'll go away?" asked Doc.

Littlefoot thought for a moment. "Well ... what else am I supposed to do?"

Doc sighed. If not genuinely clueless, his student was simply refusing to consider the obvious.

"Make sure it can't bother anyone again," Doc clarified.

Littlefoot winced.

Doc raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that what you did to the first sharptooth you encountered?"

"Well, yeah, but that was before I met Chomper," argued Littlefoot. "Can't I just chase him away? Or maybe knock him out? Or-?"

"Or grow a backbone, Littlefoot!" came the voice of a grouchy female.

Littlefoot spun around. "Cera?! I-!"

"You were gonna keep coming here, doing whatever it is you do with Doc without telling me for the foreseeable future!" snapped the amber threehorn as she stomped towards him. "Say, what exactly are you doing? Didn't peg Doc for the type to play with imaginary sharpteeth."

Littlefoot hesitated. "I ... um ... Doc's teaching me how to fight."

Cera's eyes popped. "Say what now?"

"I said-"

"I heard you the first time!" she barked. "Since when did you have any serious interest in fighting?" suddenly, Cera began to smile. "Y'know what? I like this version of you!"

Littlefoot tilted his head. "What did you think of me before?"

"You were ... eh, you were alright," she replied. "More tolerable than most. Anyway, move over. I refuse to let some longneck know more about fighting than I do."

"'Some longneck' already does," Littlefoot stated, gesturing Doc with his head.

"He's old. He doesn't count," Cera dismissed.

Doc grunted in mild annoyance.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" asked Cera.

"I'm not training you," Doc stated simply.

"What?!" Cera shrieked. "Listen, Gramps! You can't not train me! I've turned aggression into an art form!"

"That's precisely it," Doc agreed. "When you've been around long as I have, you start to see patterns – things that start out one way and end up another, like the way you and Littlefoot relate to one and other as kids."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked the triceratops, tapping a foot in irritation.

Doc sighed. "Hopin' I'm wrong. In any event, you're too volatile."

"So you're saying Littlefoot's gonna be the next 'Lone Dinosaur' and I'm stuck being ... me?" argued Cera.

"You could be a legend, just not a good one," Doc declared.

Cera scrunched her eyebrows, attempting to think her way around Doc's stubbornness. "Is this about the 'old dinosaur' comments? Don't take it personally, it's just how I am, especially now. Dad says I'm having 'adolescence' early, or something like that. If you think I was rude to you, you should hear what I told my dad just yesterday! As punishment, he sat on top of me until The Bright Circle was halfway across the sky. Tria was so upset herself that she didn't even bother to calm him down."

"So that's why you're nowhere to be found when he says you're being 'babysat'!" Littlefoot piped in. "You're literally right there, underneath his-"

"Can we not talk about that?!" Cera snapped.

Doc lowered his head beside Littlefoot. "Hop on, kid."

"Where are we going?" asked the youngster, climbing onto the grownup's head.

"Away," Doc answered without answering.

"Then I'm coming with you!" Cera insisted.

The Lone Dinosaur chuckled. "No choice, Missy."

With a sweep of his tail, he tore the dust from the canyon floor, enveloping Cera in a smokescreen.

As much as Littlefoot hated seeing Doc's unique way of rebuffing Cera, he stared in fascination. He'd never seen a tail manipulate wind like that. The gears were turning in his head.

Racked in a fit of coughing, Cera's lungs finally caught a break when the dust cleared. She looked around and not a soul was to be seen.

"I was trying to be NICE, you ungrateful BUMP HEAD!" Cera shouted after them.

Day 12

Mid Morning

Having found a quiet place at the centre of a clearing, Doc sat and closed his eyes in a meditative state.

"Um … what are we doing?" asked Littlefoot.

Doc cracked an eyelid and smirked. "We're imagining. kid."

His smirk grew at the sight of Littlefoot's perplexed expression. A grownup? Imagining? It was like stepping into a weird sleep story.

"I'm imagining situations I could find myself in," Doc explained. "For example, different techniques a sharptooth could use against me. Sometimes, they hunt in packs. They actually plan their combined attacks. That's why I try to plan ahead, imagining solutions to things they might do. When I've thought of a solution that seems to make sense, I practice it. Sometimes, it becomes a new technique."

"Ohhh … wow," Littlefoot commented. "You've probably thought of everything by now."

Doc chuckled. "Not everything. Amazes me how creative a kid can be. I'm sure you'll be imagining things I never considered."

Littlefoot plopped himself against the short grass, straining his brain to live up to that expectation.

"Don't stress about it," Doc encouraged. "Just relax. It's okay to let your mind wander sometimes."

Littlefoot nodded, although he found it hard not to pressure himself to impress his mentor. In time, he began to relax; feel the breeze; hear it whisper in the trees. It really was pleasant out there. As much as he loved his friends, he understood how Doc could find peace in silent solitude.

He twitched as something brushed against his face. Littlefoot opened his eyes and saw the culprit – a flock of leaves swirling in the wind. He'd seen such a thing before, but it always fascinated him. Why would wind decide to move in circles instead of the winding path it usually took? Sometimes, those circles were huge. Vicious. Deadly. He'd seen a few twisters ravaging the landscape – a testament of the unpredictable possibilities of the world he lived in.

Littlefoot's eyes slowly widened as they took on the glint of an epiphany. Doc glanced at the youngster, noticing the change in body language. He smiled. The kid was onto something.

"Let's hear it, Littlefoot," Doc encouraged.

The young longneck shrank in self-consciousness. "It's kind of silly. Probably impossible."

"Won't know until we try it," Doc coaxed.

Littlefoot sheepishly smiled up at him. "Well … remember when we lost Cera in the canyon?"

What is Littlefoot up to? Find out in ... well, not the next chapter that's for sure, but we'll get there. In the meantime, enjoy the journey.

Next: What happens when Cera decides she can't take 'no' for an answer? Find out in the following chapter, redundantly named 'Can't Take No For An Answer'. Don'tcha just love when writers put it all on the table? :D.

Did anyone pick up 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' reference?

Thanks for reading! Review and have a good ... whatever time of day or night it is ... wherever you live.