Chapter Three: "What Ho, A Foe?"

Disclaimer: Ice Age and stuff belong to Blue Sky Studios and Twentieth Century Fox. (I can't say that enough, its so fun!) Millie and Wallace (yes, you will meet them, just be patient) belong to Funkywatermelon. (Who, btw, I am a big fan of...)

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Sunrise, thought Manny. Ellie loves sunrises. She just never wakes up in time to see them. He knew that Ellie would still be sleeping. She almost always slept late. The thought hit him hard.

"Diego!" he said, too loudly for early morning.

"What?" he asked, irritated at being woken up so early, and rudely.

"I have an idea!" he said. "Ellie sleeps late, right?" Diego merely nodded his answer. "So if we leave early, like right now, maybe we can catch up to them!"

"Duh," said Diego. Manny's brilliant idea suddenly seemed like just common sense. He sighed. It's hard to think straight when you don't know where half of your family is. They stretched out their legs, took a morning drink, and moved on without breakfast.

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Ellie woke up slowly. Being without Manny's warmth, she didn't sleep as late as usual. She looked around her and saw all three friends still sleeping.

This is good, she thought. Now if Manny could just find us before we get in bigger trouble. She knew that something was bound to go wrong. After all, she did have two uncontrollable brothers traveling with her.

After only a minute of her shuffling her feet, Crash and Eddie both woke up too. Sid slept through anything, so her feet didn't phase him.

"Morning, sis!" said Crash, cheerily.

"Morning Crash!" said Eddie, matching his tone.

"Morning Eddie," he groaned back. Eddie looked offended, but he knew that Crash was just playing with him. Ellie laughed at the two.

"Good morning you guys," she said.

"Hey," said Eddie, the little light bulb turning on over his head. "Let's go find Diego a girl while he's not here!"

"Yeah, lets go!" agreed Crash.

"Not so fast!" yelled Ellie, grabbing the two with her trunk before they could get away again. "We have to stay here so Manny and Diego can actually find us."

"But Ellie!" Eddie protested. Crash didn't bother. He squirmed out of Ellie's grasp and dashed off, hoping to have some fun before Manny came back and ruined it all.

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Diego sniffed the ground. He couldn't quite make out the scent. It seemed to him that it was something he had smelled awhile ago, back when he first met Manny and Sid.

"Something's wrong," came his conclusion, finally.

"What do you mean?" asked Manny, worriedly. "What could be wrong?"

"I mean, this is where they were, but someone's with them... Or following them." He put his nose back to the ground. Manny felt helpless. He didn't know where to even start. His only hope was that Diego was wrong. For once.

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It wasn't long before everything made sense to her. First the yelling in the distance. Second, Crash running at her, full speed. His mixed and jumbled words didn't serve as any help to her whatsoever. She looked down at him, trying to maybe read his lips.

"They... Up... Spheeww... And... Eerrewww... Grr... Help... JUST RUN!" was all she could make out. Sound effects weren't helpful to her there. She never heard of a creature that made those noises.

She looked up. Just around the corner, she saw them. She saw what Crash was talking about. She grabbed Sid and threw him on her back without asking questions and ran for her life.

Manny had told her about these guys. He had told her how they had ruined his life before. She knew how harmful they could be. She knew that they weren't nice, especially if they had those sticks with them. She ran as fast as she could from them. From the humans.

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"I see them!" cried Diego. He could see in the distance a mammoth with a small creature on its back. It could only be Ellie and Sid. Manny's face lit up at the sight of Ellie. They both started running over to them. Ellie's worried and panicked trumpet stopped them in their tracks. Now they knew something was wrong.

"Ellie!" called Manny. He could see that she was cornered up against a wall, but he could not figure out why. She trumpeted again, hoping for a miracle.

Diego glanced around and saw footprints in the mud. Looking slightly to his left, he could see some movement behind all the trees. All too soon, he realized what was happening.

"Humans!" he shouted. "They're attacking them! We gotta do something!" Diego didn't wait to see what Manny would say. He ran off to try and protect his herd. He wouldn't stand to lose his family again. Not to humans. "Manny, come on!"

Manny froze. Humans... He thought back to his old family. The one that had been taken from him long ago by them.

"MANNY!" screamed Diego, barely glancing at him. The mammoth couldn't move. He was frozen in a trance. And his new family was being attacked.

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Hey there readers! If you've gotten this far in the story, well thanks! No one has ever really read any of my writing so I'm really nervous about posting this whole thing. But I've gotten great reviews so far, so I'm really excited at the same time! I'm gonna start Chapter five soon, but I'll be busy all week. I don't know what to callChapter foureither. I don't want to just name it "the flashback" (b/c that's what it is) I'm trying to keep a theme of my titles as quotes from the movies. And I don't know what to call my next chapter, but you do know what to expect! ANY SUGGESTIONS? PLEASE?So... On I go to dream of Manny and Ellie and my story... Bye everybody!

r&r?

oh, btw: does anyone know what DiegoOC or SLASH or SidOC or anything mean? I guess I don't know the termanology yet. :)