To Lyger 0: Good question. Given that one of her friends has the Anklyosaur Miraculous, she presumably is aware of the existence of dinosaurs…
To yellow 14: It's fun to use these anthology one-shots to focus on the little things and flesh out the world! Of course, not every one-shot is just background stuff…
"Where did this thing come from?"
Tenedaw nimbly spun to one side around the stinger, which drove a meter into the sand right where she had stood moments before. Time almost seemed to slow down when she used Chee-Burst: as she watched, the Scorpion pulled back its stinger in slow motion, sending a spray of sand into the air. The sand caught in the wind and flew toward Tenedaw, who clamped her mouth shut and averted her eyes. The Scorpion scuttled forward, its stinger darting forward at her. Tenedaw shook the sand out of her hair and ducked beneath the first strike. When the Scorpion struck again, she brought up her sai, caught the stinger between the tines of one sai, brought the other sai around to enclose it, and leaned to the side away from the stinger, redirecting it over her shoulder. "If I had an answer for that, I'd tell you, Harba," she grunted. The Scorpion jerked its tail back, and Tenedaw tugged, trying to hold the Scorpion in place as Harba flicked its flank with his cloak. The Scorpion hissed angrily, and Tenedaw leaned back, evading the Beast's snapping claws. Suddenly its tail rose higher into the air, Tenedaw's feet left the ground, and she released her hold on it. Dropping back into the sand, her feet slipped on the sand dune, and she pinwheeled her arms to remain upright, twisting her body to avoid the Scorpion's pincers. Tenedaw grimaced. Even after four years of living surrounded by sand, she still wasn't entirely used to trying to run on the sand dunes of the Sahara. She had sprained her ankle once the first time she tried.
Unfortunately, if she did that this time, it might just turn out to be her last.
"Any information you can provide would be useful," Jueran Eazim informed her, a pensive tone to his voice.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him crouching atop a dune less than a hundred meters away, his eyes focused on the Scorpion and the three miraculous users darting in and out around it. Hakɛto stood next to him with her arms folded. Tenedaw let out a breath and paused for a moment before sprinting around the Scorpion to come at it from the back. "All I know is that it wasn't here an hour ago, but Hakɛto told me to take another look, so I did. And on my way back, there it was," she reported. "No idea where it came from, but it was scurrying north as fast as it could."
"That was when I called you," explained Hakɛto.
Jueran Eazim hummed, nodding judiciously. "We cannot be too careful with these Creatures," he agreed. "Have you contacted the others?"
Hakɛto shook her head. "Unfortunately, both Mihaela and Willem said they had teams in the field already to deal with local matters. Mohamed said that he would get his team here as fast as he could, but one was on a mission and the other two were in the village."
He frowned. "They may be too late if they are not here yet…" he warned. Studying the Scorpion closer, he mused, "Its behavior does align with Pegasus' theory that these beasts are all converging on a single point."
"Well, good for him," muttered Tenedaw, sliding through the sand to avoid the tail stinger.
"A pity he couldn't warn us sooner," Hakɛto noted. The warning had only arrived an hour ago, when Pegasus contacted them with the warning that the rise in cases of this unexplained illness in such a remote area could not be accounted for otherwise.
"Are you sure you can't find where it emerged?" pressed Harba. Jumping on the Scorpion's back, he looped his cloak around the Scorpion's face to cut off its sight. The Scorpion hissed, its mandibles clicking together in agitation as it bit the cloak, trying to pull it away. "From what they've said, pushing it back into the same hole is the only way to stop it!"
"No, I can't!" Tenedaw retorted, hurling a sai at the Scorpion's tail that ricocheted off. She dove after it, grabbed it before it hit the sand, and regained her footing just as the Scorpion passed her. "Why don't you go and search the entire Sahara for a hole in the sand that's probably already filled itself in… because it's sand!"
"So what do you suggest we do!?" he shot back heatedly, retrieving his cloak and waving it in front of the Scorpion's head to draw its attention.
Motion from the side drew her attention, and she turned to look, her eyes widening in shock as Buq Hayij barreled straight at the Scorpion from a dozen meters away, head down in an all out charge.
Falling forward, Buq Hayij clenched her fists and pounded them into the sand, launching herself helmet-first straight into the Scorpion's side. The Scorpion let out a hiss as it slid in the sand, its legs slipping and tracing long lines behind it. Buq Hayij stumbled and fell face-first into the sand. Spinning itself around on its spindly legs, the Scorpion grabbed Buq Hayij with its claws, pulled her up into the air, grabbed her other arm, and started pulling her apart. Tenedaw's jaw dropped open in horror as Buq Hayij cried out, her head lolling back. The Scorpion's stinger darted out, and Buq Hayij lowered her head so the stinger impacted her horn, deflecting off of it to one side with a resounding clang. It struck her arm, but the miraculous suit didn't break. Buq Hayij shook her head in a daze, blinking. "A little help here!"
"Mother!" shouted Harba, standing rooted in place, staring at the scene.
"Hold on, Amina!" called Jueran Eazim, fear in his voice.
Tenedaw tried to spin around to face the Scorpion but slipped, sinking up to her thighs into the sand. She waved her arms for balance, throwing sand up into the air. On the opposite side of the Scorpion, Harba had a look of fear on his face, staring at Buq Hayij as the Scorpion tugged on her arms, its tail striking again and again. Her mouth set in a thin line and eyes narrowed, Tenedaw pulled herself up out of the sand and planted one hand on the sand in a sprinter's stance, tensed to run. Sand sprayed out behind her as she raced straight at the Scorpion, springing up onto its back and driving both her legs into the joint of one claw. The Scorpion hissed and clicked, its stinger darting out at her, though not fast enough to catch her. She sprang off of that joint and into the other claw joint before grabbing onto the stinger with one hand, swinging herself around the tail and jabbing it repeatedly with one sai as the Scorpion flailed it around. The Scorpion pulled again on Buq Hayij's arms, drawing her closer to its mouth, and she cried out, even as she flexed her muscles, trying to resist its pull.
A javelin lanced through the air and struck the Scorpion in one of its claws, deflecting off to the side. The Scorpion rotated to see where the new attack had come from, and Tenedaw released her hold on its tail, flipping up and around to sprint down the tail before dropping onto its body. Amdeɣimal held out his hand, the javelin flew back to him, and he dove aside as the Scorpion jabbed at him. The stinger embedded itself in the sand, and Amdeɣimal held out his javelin lengthwise, pushing the stinger away from him and holding it in place in the sand.
"Glad you finally joined us," Tenedaw grunted, leaning over the Scorpion's body and kicking the closest leg a couple times in the joint. The Scorpion clicked furiously, shaking from side to side and almost dislodging Tenedaw.
"It appears I didn't get here too soon!" Amdeɣimal replied as the Scorpion finally pulled back its tail, sweeping it through Amdeɣimal and knocking him to the ground as he did so. He jammed his javelin into the ground to push himself back up to his feet, spitting out sand as he did so.
"Did you find anything?" demanded Jueran Eazim urgently. "Did any of your successors interact with this creature?"
Amdeɣimal grimaced. "Nothing. With only five minutes I couldn't search in depth, but as far as I could tell, none of them faced it or something like it." He frowned bitterly. "I suppose that must mean that we will defeat it…"
"I sure hope so," muttered Tenedaw. She scanned the Scorpion from front to back again as it drew Buq Hayij closer to its mouth, its mandibles grabbing at her. Harba slid in underneath Buq Hayij and threw his cloak over the Scorpion's mouth and eyes, grabbing both sides and pulling on it in a desperate attempt to hold it back from trying to eat Buq Hayij. It shook from side to side, its mandibles clattering as it tried to remove the obstruction.
They were running out of options.
Amdeɣimal gave Tenedaw a curt nod and grabbed onto one of the Scorpion's claws, poking his javelin through the space between the claw and Buq Hayij's arm, and twisting it sideways. Tenedaw ran down the length of the Scorpion's body, dodging around its tail as it darted out at her, and slid down its other claw. She jammed both her sai into the claw in front of Buq Hayij's wrist, pushing in opposite directions to pry it open. On the opposite side, Amdeɣimal strained to lever his claw open, strain creasing his forehead. The Scorpion drew itself up off the ground on its back legs, pulling Harba up to dangle in midair, and he lost his grip on his cloak and fell between its front legs. Tenedaw swung her legs up and wrapped them around the Scorpion's forearm, gritted her teeth, and continued pushing her sai apart. The Scorpion slammed back to the ground directly above Harba, who rolled aside, narrowly avoiding the Scorpion's mandibles. It jabbed forward with its stinger, aiming for Tenedaw, but a golden ankh spun through the air, caught around the end of its stinger, and deflected it into the sand to one side, centimeters away from Harba. Bit by bit Tenedaw and Amdeɣimal slowly pried its claws loose, and Buq Hayij fell, collapsing into the sand between the Scorpion's front legs.
"Th–thank you," Buq Hayij panted, pushing herself up onto her hands and knees, sucking in big gulps of air, clenching and unclenching her fists. The Scorpion clacked its claws above her angrily. Buq Hayij stared up at it, turned over, and slowly crab-walked backward away from it, careful to avoid drawing the Scorpion's ire.
"Harba, get her out of there!" ordered Jueran Eazim, dropping to sit prone on top of the dune.
Tenedaw clenched her jaw as Harba pushed himself to his feet and rushed in closer, stopping just inside the range of the Scorpion. If Jueran Eazim was going to attempt to infiltrate the Scorpion's mind, he would be in an incredibly vulnerable position until he finished. Harba grabbed Buq Hayij under the armpits and started to drag her to the side while Amdeɣimal stepped between them and the Scorpion, spinning his javelin in a shield to fend off repeated strikes from the Scorpion's tail, deflecting them to either side and sending waves of sand up into the air. Tenedaw looked around, pursing her lips in thought. Suddenly she took off at a dead sprint, racing around the Scorpion in ever-tightening circles. A cloud of sand, kicked up by her feet, soon enclosed the Scorpion, obscuring its view of the other heroes. The Scorpion's tail darted out, but Tenedaw simply deflected it behind her with a single sweep of her sai.
"I… I do not sense a mind anywhere in this creature!" shouted Jueran Eazim. "It is nothing but an empty void!"
Tenedaw groaned. What were they supposed to do against this thing? Her necklace beeped – she needed to pause for a moment, or Chee-Burst would end. But if she did that… Harba and Amdeɣimal had only managed to get Buq Hayij a few meters out of the Scorpion's range; even now the Scorpion was pressing forward, so Tenedaw's sand cloud only barely covered it. She took her eyes off the sand in front of her and glanced to the north, ahead of the Scorpion, but she couldn't see–
Tenedaw's foot slipped as the sand shifted beneath her, and she pitched forward. Barely catching herself before diving headfirst into a dune, she spun around and hit it with her back, sending a plume of sand into the air around her. Suddenly free of obstruction, the Scorpion raced north and disappeared out of sight. Tenedaw collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
Jueran Eazim rushed down the dune to Harba and Buq Hayij, pulling Buq Hayij into a tight embrace. She returned it weakly as he whispered into her ear, holding her against his chest. Finally looking up he frowned. "That may cause trouble eventually for our friends in Paris."
Hakɛto let out a breath and folded her arms. "We did the best we could. They cannot fault us for that."
Jueran Eazim nodded slowly. "Very true."
Leaving the others, Harba waded through the sand to Tenedaw and helped her to her feet. He placed one hand on her shoulder, which she covered with her own. "Thank you for rescuing my mother."
She nodded, her shoulders sagging in exhaustion. "Of course."
AN: Tomorrow, look for the first chapter of "Unexpected Information," which picks up in Japan.