After about twenty minutes of following the swarm, the team entered a clearing, dominated by a large laurel tree. At the roots of the laurel tree was a large pile of sticks, with a single, large blue-green egg at its centre. As they looked closer, they noticed a small hole in the egg; the chick was starting to break out. The pointed end of a small yellow beak appeared in the hole, followed by a round purple tongue, accompanied by a sharp, rasping call. The team knew what this was immediately; a baby Gastornis. That realisation was accompanied by another; the swarm were headed towards the nest! Jack said, eyes widened with horror, "If we don't do something, that chick's going to die." Alice looked at her teammates, determined, "Not if I have anything to say about it." Suddenly, she grabbed the dead Propaleotherium they had found by the lake and threw it in front of the oncoming swarm.
In the calculations of the ants' hive mind, the immediately available dead Propaleotherium outweighed attacking the small Gastornis chick. The ants swarmed the dead Propaleotherium and sowly dragged it off into the forest. Once they were gone, the team looked at the baby Gastornis, observing it in more detail. It looked like a giant gosling with a parrot's head; it was covered in speckled, downy feathers.
Suddenly, a low, honking squawk echoed through the forest. Suddenly, the Gastornis sniffed the air; it picked up the distinctive scent of formic acid. Ants had been here. She looked at the three strange new creatures. Ants had approached her nest… and they drove them off, saving her hatchling. Her body relaxed slightly; these new things may not have been dangerous after all.
Jack pressed the button on the portal remote and it whirred into life, almost illuminated in the mother Gastornis' eyes. The giant bird stood, almost mesmerised for a few minutes, before walking towards it, out of curiosity. The baby walked out of the nest, on unsteady steps as the mother walked ahead of it. Eventually, both birds went through the portal, into the present. After the birds went through the portal, Jack turned to his teammates and asked, "What do we do now?" Alice shrugged and said, "We follow the ants; there's got to be a nest around here somewhere."
So, they followed the retreating swarm deeper into the forest. After about twenty minutes, they reached the buttress roots of an old walnut tree. To say the roots were alive with ants would be an understatement; thousands of ants were moving around, methodically dismembering the dead Propaleotherium. Suddenly, Alice donned a pair of thick gloves, walked towards the ants' nest and grabbed the dead Propaleotherium, before turning to her teammates and nodding to set up the portal. When the portal was open, she threw the Propaleotherium through the portal. The whole swarm, queen and all, followed their prize, through the portal, into the present. Alice breathed out, "Now, what do we do?" Jack shrugged and said, "We keep looking."
Meanwhile, back at the park, Sharptooth, the giant Tyrannosaurus, was basking in the sun, pondering the new life he had. It was fairly good; he didn't need to fight anyone any more over food and water. However, there was one downside; the humans. Unlike most of the park's animals, Sharptooth did not care much for the small, annoying creatures that capered about around him; he didn't get why even members of his own kind were so tolerant of them. They were small, numerous and fairly irritating. However, there were positives; food arrived regularly and he didn't have to fight for it. Humans aside, this new life wasn't bad. Not bad at all.
Not far away, Drew and Leon were watching Yolanda do a check on Zira, the adult female T-rex. With her injured leg and the injuries she sustained against her battle with Sharptooth six months earlier, the check-up was fairly important. After about twenty minutes, Yolanda turned to Drew and Leon and said, "Her injuries from the fight have healed rather well; there'll be a few scars, but that's about it. Her leg is also healing rather nicely; she's probably going to limp slightly, but it won't have that much of an impact on her quality of life." Drew smiled and said, "That's good", before he left, leaving Leon alone with Yolanda.
Leon looked rather sheepishly around the room, before looking at Yolanda, saying, rather awkwardly, "Hey… I don't think we've talked all that often… Remember when you helped me with the scorpions? God, it seems so long ago, now." To this statement, Yolanda smiled, "Yeah, well, look at you now. You've trained three allosaurs and you helped save the park". In response to this statement, Leon blushed so much, his face was practically glowing red. Awkwardly, he mumbled, whilst fidgeting and looking around the room, "Yeah, well… Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion did most of the work. And we didn't actually stop Sharptooth,… only slowed him down", to which Yolanda smiled. Leon mumbled, "I gotta talk to Drew", before he suddenly left the room. Watching this, Zira let out a low, chuckling growl; as if amused by what she was seeing.
Meanwhile, in Eocene Germany, the sun had gone down and the team were continuing their search. They were wearing head-torches to look for animals through the darkness; most of the daytime animals had disappeared and a whole new cast of creatures had replaced them. They looked up a laurel tree to see a small primate clamber along for insects and fruit; a Godinotia, according to the info-packs. Its body was about a foot long, and it had a long tail. Its fluffy, black-and-white hair made it look quite bulky; however, as it nimbly leapt from bough to bough, it was clear that it was a very light, agile creature. It had a dog-like snout, like a lemur, yellow forward-facing eyes, and eager, grasping hands.
Jack, Cynthia and Alice looked at each other and smiled; this was going to be fun. Placing a plum and some dead cockroaches on the ground as bait, they waited for the Godinotia to pick up the scent. After a few minutes, the Godinotia moved warily to the forest floor; there were predators here tonight that could rip him to shreds on the ground. After briefly scanning the forest floor for predators, he dived eagerly on the insects and fruit, eating them greedily. Another Godinotia came down and the incumbent hissed at him in response. As the two adapids were bickering, the team set up the portal and activated it; the two primates, curious at this strange new light, moved closer and closer towards it, before going through the portal, into the present.
The team repeated this strategy multiple times over the next couple of hours; placing bait of fruit and insects at the base of trees and waiting for the Godinotia clambering through the branches to come down. And this strategy worked time and time again; by the next couple of hours, the team had got almost twenty Godinotia, from large males to females carrying tiny infants, through the portal and back to the park.
"We are on a roll!", Cynthia said, as they walked along the silt beach, "This is probably one of our easiest missions yet-". Suddenly, out of the gathering darkness, a huge jaw rose up out of the water, and an Ambulocetus hurled itself out onto land. Even in the darkness, they could pick up enough details of it to confirm it wasn't the one they had encountered before; a female, possibly. The Ambulocetus hissed and snapped angrily at them, as if trying to get past them for some reason. Suddenly, Jack moved directly in front of her! Alice turned to her brother and said, confusedly, "Jack, what are you doing?!", to which he smirked, "Just wait; set up the portal when I give you the nod." The Ambulocetus hissed and snapped at him again and again, before charging towards him; Jack dived out of the way just in time as Alice activated the portal. After the Ambulocetus had disappeared, Jack smirked "Ole". Alice turned to her teammates, "Now that's weird; why was it trying to get past us..."
Suddenly the ground shook violently; almost knocking the team to the ground. One end of the lake began to boil, with water spouts emerging from the surface. Loud booms echoed from around the lake, accompanied by an eerie flash of light. Animals in the forest began to call and scream at the event. The team all looked at each other in trepidation. Something was about to happen…
