Remember guys, as my erstwhile co-writer has said, if you want to make any requests for the next two missions, please do so – we've looked at the ones so far and logged the ones we can (only about two so far). Please name a specific animal in your requests - we need a target species for the mission.
Drew sat patiently in his office, a calm smile on his face. It had been an entire week since the dunkleosteus mission and what had already become known as the 'Gogo Reef incident'. He nodded his head. He'd calmed down considerably since that day – however, Jack and Leon were still banned from rescue missions. And now that he thought about it, he was starting to wonder what was taking Alice and Adrian so long to get to his office...
The sound of the door opening caused him to look away from his watch to see Adrian and Alice finally enter. Looking at them, he said, half sarcastically, "Cutting it awfully close, don't you think?"
"Sorry about that," said Adrian. "Just went to wish Leon luck."
"Same thing with me," Alice explained. "But for Jack; obviously."
Drew nodded. "Fair enough I suppose.", before adding sulkily, "But could you try to be on time next time? ."
Alice and Adrian nodded their heads, but not without looking slightly uncertain.
"You really sure that this 'team building' exercise will work?" Alice asked'.
"I have to agree," said Adrian. "I mean, I want them to be able to get along just as you and Alice. But… doesn't that sound a bit extreme?"
"Karma," said Drew. He nodded his head. "The dunkleosteus nearly ate me because of them, so I figured why not return the favour?", before chuckling darkly.
Alice thought to herself, and then looked to Adrian. "Uh-huh."
"And as for the timing," Drew explained, with a smirk, "I thought they should have a bit of time to cool off… or squirm a bit. Whichever works."
"If you say so," said Adrian.
"Besides," Drew then said, grinning, "What trouble could they get in?"
"If you say so," said Alice, before directing a firm look at Drew. "And I'll be holding you to that – Jack's my brother, mind."
"What she said," Adrian agreed. "And he may have behaved badly, but Leon's still our friend."
"Fine.", Drew nodded his head, before clapping his hands together, still grinning. "You're probably wondering what today's target is."
Adrian and Alice nodded.
"Excellent."
Drew turned on the projector in time for it to broadcast an image of what appeared to be a giant beaver. "Tada!"
"Castoroides," Alice stated, a look of approval coming on her face. "Something a bit more practical than our last target."
"I'll take your word for it," said Adrian, "And it seems like something relatively easy after the last few missions."
"I had a feeling you'd say that." Drew nodded his head. "Theodore felt that it would be a good idea for us to have a bit of a breather." He sighed, almost disappointed.
"As per usual," Alice noted at his reaction, a wry look of amusement on her face.
"Exactly."
Drew turned off the projector and stood up from his desk. "Let's get to the portal site."
. . . . .
At the same time this was happening, Jack and Leon were in one of the locker rooms at the Prehistoric Park aquarium, preparing for their first team building exercise – feeding the dunkleosteus. And once they were done with the dunkleosteus, they were to move on to the titanichthys. Already they could tell that they would have an absolute whale of a time getting through all this.
Jack took a deep breath, exhaled, and then looked to Leon. "You ready?"
Leon nodded his head, finished zipping up his poncho, and flashed a thumbs up to Jack, with a determined look. "Let's get this over with."
Jack nodded, raised the hood of his own poncho, and then pointed at Leon. "Just remember," he said. "We're not friends. Got that?"
"Oh, don't you worry," Leon responded, recent events still fresh in his memory. "I know that."
"Just making sure we still understand each other."
Jack nodded his head, flashing Leon a thumbs up. "Let's go."
. . . . .
Half an hour later, Drew, Alice and Adrian were gathered at the portal site. Drew gave his two team mates a double thumbs up. "Let's get it on."
The attending technician entered in the necessary coordinates and summoned the portal. And from there, the rescue trio eagerly made their way through to the past.
. . . . .
When the blinding light of the portal died down, the trio took a quick look at their surroundings. "I'll admit," said Adrian. "Florida looks very different at this time than I'm used to."
"There's certainly a lot more forest here than swamp," Alice agreed.
"In other words, perfect habitat for beavers," Drew stated, his usual cheeky grin on his face. He rammed his right fist against his left palm. "No time like the present D-bags!"
Adrian and Alice had just enough time to roll their eyes at Drew's usual insult of endearment before porcine grunting filled the air. The trio listened carefully, eventually managing to hear the noise again.
"It's coming from that clearing", Alice said, pointing her finger in the direction of said clearing.
Drew smirked. "Perfect."
Moving as quietly as possible, they moved into position at the entrance of the clearing. And sure enough, when they looked inside, they saw what appeared to be a small sounder of peccaries. At that moment, all the adults were peacefully browsing on some nearby ferns while two young juveniles played nearby. "Platygonus," Alice whispered, "Also known as the flat-headed peccary."
Drew let out a low chuckle. "Just the right animal to start with." He looked to his two companions. "Alright, let's..."
The sound of wolf-like snarling interrupted him, and the trio looked back towards the peccaries in time to see a small pack of orange-coloured wolves abruptly burst into the clearing, the peccaries all squealing and rearing up in surprise and fear at the sight of the carnivores. Four of the wolves were young juveniles clearly engaging in their very first hunt. But the relative lack of experience the four juveniles seemed to have was more than made up for by the nine adults, all of which very much appeared to know what they were doing as they snarled and tensed up in preparation to try to chase the peccaries in front of them.
Alice, mammal expert that she was, was naturally able to swiftly identify the beasts. "Those are armbruster's wolves," she whispered. "A local predator." Adrian looked to Drew. "Let me guess; two for the price of one?"
"Two for the price of one," Drew responded, already wide grin now even more so.
The wolves were seconds away from initiating their planned chase when a sudden round of loud whooping calls split the air and distracted them. Confused, the pack turned their heads in time to see Adrian and Drew loudly whooping and waving their fists. This distraction proved just what Alice needed, and she managed to attract the attention of the platygonus sounder with a blow of her whistle, summoning her portal the instant she had the pigs' attention. The peccaries bolted towards the portal, their fear of the armbruster's wolves outweighing any fear they may have had of the unfamiliar vortex of light. However, the wolves would not be cheated so easily – they set off in hot pursuit of the pigs, moving towards the portal. Within seconds, both the platygonus sounder and the armbruster's wolf pack had all vanished into the portal.
Drew clasped his hands together, and said giddily, "Five minutes in, and we're off to a good start." He looked to his two companions. "Shall we move on?"
. . . . .
At the park, Yolanda was currently in the underwater viewing section of the Dunkleosteus tank, watching the four titanic fish swim around. She wasn't worried; she knew she wasn't in any danger, since the glass was incredibly thick. The glass had to be very heavily reinforced, in order to withstand ramming attacks (the most common method of attacking their prey) from the gigantic fish. Hearing someone walking towards her, she turned to see Collete Dubois slowly walking through the tunnel and standing next to her. For a moment, the two women stood, watching the giant placoderms, before Collete turned to Yolanda and said, "Do you think Drew's being a bit extreme with this? I understand that Leon and Jack need to prove they can work together, but…"
Noticing the emphasis she placed on Jack's name, Yolanda went, playfully, "Is that a bit of concern I detect? Ice Queen got a soft spot?" Collete deeply blushed and said, in a flustered tone, "Absolutely not. I-I just want to make sure they do it correctly, that's all. And, besides, I could ask the same of you." It was Yolanda's turn to blush.
Meanwhile, Jack and Leon, standing on the feeding platform above the tank, looked into the water with trepidation – where the glass could not protect them from any attack. In order to see who was going to go first "into the jaws of death", as Jack had put it, they had resorted to the classic method for deciding whose duty it is to take up an unwelcome task; a game of "rock, paper, scissors".
"Uh, best out of… 71?", Leon proposed, in response to which Jack nodded eagerly. The crew watching groaned; they knew that Jack and Leon were simply stalling. They wanted to put off what had to be done for as long as possible; either due to their own personal fear or a lack of interest in working with each other. Stavros rolled his eyes and decided enough was enough. To get Jack and Leon to actually co-operate, he pressed the button, activating the sonar cue – detecting this, the four placoderms began to move towards the feeding platform. Jack and Leon, witnessing this scene with widened eyes, looked at each other in terror as they saw the giant fish swimming towards each other. After a moment, Leon breathed out, "Why does this always happen to us?", as Jack shrugged in reply. The two didn't waste any time in grabbing the meat in the basket and tossing it into the tank, hoping to get the two fish fed – without being eaten themselves.
. . . . .
Back in the past, the rescue team watched carefully from behind some bushes as they observed a herd of orange and white furred llama-like creatures. "These guys are Florida guanaco," Alice whispered.
Drew nodded his head. "Let's gather up some plant matter and see if these guys feel hungry."
Working as carefully as they could to avoid startling the guanaco, the rescue team gathered up a decent haul of plant matter. And after a few minutes, they were able to convince the entire herd to come peacefully walking on through the portal.
"That takes care of that," said Adrian once the portal closed.
The sound of more animal noises attracted the trio's attention; following them towards a large slow-moving river, they saw a small herd of capybara, peacefully swimming around in the water.
"Florida capybaras," Alice stated.
"Same strategy as the guanaco?" Adrian asked.
Drew was just about to answer when, suddenly, they heard the faint, but inaudible, whistling sound of something flying through the air came. In a flash, the rescue team and capybara herd all turned their heads in time to see a what appeared to be a spear fly through the air and land on a capybara on the edge of the group, which squealed in agony. The rest of the herd recoiled and began started to hurriedly move towards Drew, Alice and Adrian, who set up the portal in their direction. The injured one, left behind, attempted to follow them, the spear, bigger than it was, dragging along, with the barbed tips cutting into its flesh as it walked... however, its problems weren't over. Suddenly, a subadult jaguar lunged out of the undergrowth on the opposite side of the river, towards the injured capybara and pounced on it. By the time the jaguar had finally killed the luckless capybara, the remainder of the herd had successfully gone stampeding through the portal.
The rescue team looked back towards the river in time to see the subadult jaguar looking at its kill, furtively scanning the clearing, as if scared that it had incurred the wrath of something else. "Let's see," Drew whispered to himself as he started thinking carefully. "How to get that little fellow through?"
Alice, however, was already one step ahead of him. She stepped towards the feasting big cat, cupped her hands around her mouth, and loudly yelled, "Hey! Over here kitty kitty!" Hearing this, the jaguar turned to look at her, snarling, as its eyes narrowed.
"Yeah that's right!" Alice shouted. "Come and get me!"
The jaguar roared and swiped a paw at Alice, before lunging off the capybara carcass and rushing straight towards her...only to then hiss in surprise as it dived through the portal. Once the big cat had gone through, Alice closed the portal, turning around to face her two companions with her hands on her hips and a proud look on her face. "How did I do?"
A gaping Adrian closed his mouth and gave her a thumbs up, a wide grin on his face, whilst Drew nodded, smirking in approval, "Not bad. "Took a page right out of my book; I like it." He looked to the river and back at his two companions. "How about we go a bit further?" Both he and Adrian noticed Alice looking at where the capybara was, confused. Turning to look, they realised what had confused her.
The capybara was gone. In its place was a trail of footprints that looked like bare human feet, only incredibly large - about seventeen inches long - going deeper into the forest. Drew said, in mock flippancy, "Paleo-Indians - can't fault them for wanting to eat. Anyway, let's get searching."
. . . . .
"Well, that was a disaster."
Jack sighed, as he and Leon walked, soaking wet, away from the Dunkleosteus tank. Leon snorted, "You got that right."
Jack glowered, "I realise that Drew wanted to humiliate us, but… really? Was there any reason for having us feed the dunkleosteus other than him being vindictive?" Leon nodded, "What we did was pretty serious, but… yeah, Drew has a bit of a vindictive streak – he was even worse in school…" At this, Jack and Leon both stopped in their tracks – were they bonding? How was nearly getting eaten alive by four giant placoderms conducive to bonding?
The sound of footsteps alerted them to Yolanda walking towards them. Looking at them, she smiled, "You look like you had fun with the Dunkleosteus. I understand your next stop is the titanichtys… and I wonder if you wouldn't appreciate a little help?"
Jack and Leon looked at each other – Drew's only condition with this humiliating little exercise was if they proved they could work together, they could be allowed back on missions. He never said that somebody couldn't help them out. At their smiles, Yolanda grinned, "I take it that's a yes. Allons-y, boys. To the titanicthys!"
. . . . .
Drew, Adrian, and Alice stood on the edge of a clearing, observing glyptodonts peacefully grazing. The glyptodonts resembled the glyptodon back at the park, only grey-furred, shorter, stouter and with shorter shells and tails. "If I remember correctly," Alice stated. "These guys are glyptotherium."
"Most likely," Adrian stated before turning his head to Drew. "So what's the plan?"
"Let's coax them with food," said Drew. "We don't have the jeep this time, so right now I'd really like to conserve my energy whenever possible."
This decision made, the trio gathered up some more plant material and laid a trail. And after several minutes worth of waiting, the glyptodonts began eating their way up the plant matter trail, going through the portal in the process. The portal had just finished closing afterward when the trio heard snarling and a familiar bellow. Following the noises, they reached the edge of another clearing in time to see a pair of Smilodon, smaller than those at the park, crouching before an adult female giant ground sloth, circling the mother sloth, as she bellowed and swung her massive clawed hands, as her baby cowered behind her.
"I read about these in Leon's dossier," Adrian said. "The cats are Smilodon gracilis and the sloths are eremotherium."
"Fascinating," said Drew, "Any suggestions on how to rescue them?"
"Leave it to me," said Alice as she stepped forward, drawing out the audio player Leon had given her, "I know just what to do."
As the two boys watched, Alice selected the lion's roar recording and allowed it to be broadcast at full volume. The Smilodon gracilis all tensed up mid-snarl, alerted by the unexpected sound. Alice played the lion's roar recording again, and the cats snarled, slowly turning their heads to look behind them. A third play, and both sabre-tooths roared, turned around completely, and charged towards Drew, Alice and Adrian. Naturally, Alice summoned the portal in time for both cats to rocket through the portal into the park.
"Nice work," said Drew once the last of the cats had gone through.
"Thank you," said Alice as she closed her portal, before pointing to the confused-looking eremotherium. "What do you say I help make things a little easier by working to earn their trust while you two get the portal set up to accommodate them?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," said Adrian.
And so, once the two boys were in position and Alice had gathered up a couple of fallen branches with leaves on them, Alice wandered up into the clearing so that the two sloths could see her. From there, for what felt like an hour, Alice used a mixture of the branches in her hands and playing the megatherium recording to slowly but surely earn the trust of the mother, who started slowly lumbering over towards her, her baby following. It wasn't until both sloths had started gingerly eating from the leaves on the branches in Alice's hands that she gave the signal for Drew and Adrian to open the portal; which they did.
The sudden flash of light immediately got the attention of the eremotherium. Two minutes later, the mother, confused, yet curious, began to move towards the portal, her baby following close behind, slowly going through. It wasn't until the baby had gone through that the rescue team finally allowed the distinctive glowing vortex to close.
"Now what?" Alice asked as she slipped her recording device back into her backpack. Adrian looked to Drew, who pointed back the way they'd come.
"Let's go back to that river we came across earlier," said Drew. "If we're lucky, we should be able to find a lake. And if our luck continues after that, maybe we'll finally find some castoroides to rescue as a result."
. . . . .
"And he goes and outdoes himself again", Kyle sighed, as the smilodon gracilis walked around the holding pens, ""Does Drew have a smilodon fetish? It seems like every time he goes back to the Pleistocene, he brings some back."
At this, Nikolai gave Kyle a cold look, "Will you stop complaining? These are a quarter Broken Fang's size – they should be easy." Kyle glared at him, "Could say the same about you. Is that getting cocky I detect?" At Kyle's sneer, Nikolai snorted, "It's not complacency, Kyle – I am merely saying that my team knows the drill, as it were, with animals like this."
At this statement, Kyle glowered, "My team know the drill too, Nikolai? I wonder how far your lot would get without my team's handling experience." Nikolai glared at him coldly, "I do not care for your tone, Kyle." Kyle cocked his head and gave Nikolai a cold stare "Takes one to know one."
"Captain?"
Both Kyle and Nikolai turned to see Collete standing between them. Breathing out, she said "Sorry to interrupt what was clearly a stimulating discussion, but Jack and Leon did the Dunkleosteus feeding, as you asked – surprisingly well."
If Nikolai was pleased, his expression didn't show it. Eventually, he said, "Well, I'm pleasantly surprised – I hope they work together as well on the Titanicthys." Kyle turned to Nikolai, his expression perplexed, "You have a soft spot for Denham, don't you?" Nikolai shrugged, "What can I say? I have confidence in his ability – unlike some people." This remark was directed at Kyle, who glowered. Collete's eyes darted awkwardly at this.
Suddenly, Kyle's communicator rang. Lifting it, he said, "Yes, this is Taymor… Slow down, slow down… what? This is a no more – get the high pressure hoses out and keep them occupied – I'm on my way." Nikolai and Collete looked at each other, alarmed expressions – what on Earth was going on?
Turning to Nikolai and Collete, Kyle said, "Emergency at Hell Creek. I believe, Nikolai, you can handle things in my absence?" Nikolai nodded, but with a glower – since, he and Kyle were equally ranked, it was irritating that Kyle was trying to boss him around. However, professionalism was important – these animals were dangerous after all.
. . . . .
Jack, Leon and Yolanda stood by the titanicthys tank, watching the giant filter-feeding placoderms swim through the water. Leon stared at them with trepidation – his rational mind knew that they were harmless, but his fearful mind reminded him that they were still very, very big. Seeing this, Jack turned to him, "Remember, Leon, they only eat little anomalocarids. Well, that's all we've seen them eat… Whether they eat anything else, that's what we're here to find out."
Leon nodded – before their little "exercise" with the dunkleosteus, Kyle had mentioned that the aquarium keepers were having difficulties feeding the titanticthys – they obviously couldn't feed them the anomalocarids, so other suggestions would have to be implemented. Turning to Jack, Leon shrugged, "It's possible that they could adapt to eating modern shrimps or krill – that's the closest modern analogue to the anomalocarids. Obviously evolutionarily, they're quite distant, whilst both still being arthropods, but ecologically, they seem to be a close match."
At this, Jack smiled, "Biggest brain in the class as per usual. Whatever they'll eat, they're unlikely to try and eat us. Unlike some placoderms in this building I could mention." Leon turned to look at Jack with a surprised expression – was Jack sharing a joke with him? Maybe this team-building exercise was starting to work.
Even if it wasn't, now was as good a time as ever to bring this up. Leon turned to Jack and said, "I'm sorry for blowing up at you back on the Gogo Reef mission. It was stupid of me – I shouldn't have done it." Jack turned to Leon and said, "Yeah, don't go beating yourself up for that – I shouldn't have tried to get a rise out of you either. It's just a failing of mine – among many, I accept. My advice - never let people see that they get to you, Leon. Never."
The sound of someone clearing their throat brought them both back to reality and they turned to see Yolanda looking at them, smiling. She chuckled and said, "Now that all this soul-searching is out of the way, boys, shall we get on with our titanicthys task? We've got enough shrimp to fill a restaurant and if we talk any longer, it'll start going bad – and I don't think our giant, fishy customers would appreciate that."
Jack and Leon looked at each other, surprised to find they were smiling, "Let's do it."
. . . . .
Drew smiled, his trademark wide grin on his face as he intertwined his fingers together in anticipation. After about 40 minutes following the river, he and his two companions had found a clearing by, as he had hoped, a large lake. And where there was a lake, there would be animals. As he and his companions watched, he caught sight of two eremotherium browsing from a tree, five large tapirs peacefully drinking from the water, an entire flock of parrot-like birds perched in a tree near to where the eremotherium were positioned, and at least eleven hippo-sized beavers, with four youngsters, swimming peacefully in the water as they continued building their dam.
"Perfect," Drew thought to himself.
"We found the castoroides. And those are Carolina parakeets perching in those trees." Adrian said. "The only species of parrot in North America, I believe," Alice said, before looking to Drew. "I presume you have a plan?"
"You know me too well.", Drew pointed towards the tree where the parakeets were perching. "Adrian, do your thing – anything happens, these guys are gonna panic."
Adrian nodded his head. "On it."
And eventually, through a mixture of whistling, fruit offerings, and serious patience, Adrian managed to convince the entire flock of Carolina parakeets to come flying down from the tree, at which point he managed to coax them through the portal, once Alice had summoned it.
"Excellent work Adrian," Drew said once the parakeets had gone through "Now let's..."
Before he could finish his sentence, he heard something moving through the undergrowth. A second later, an adult female Florida jaguar leapt out of the undergrowth. The tapirs all squealed, before hurriedly running away, with the two eremotherium shambling away after them, both groups heading towards the rescue team. Two of the adult castoroides started to hurriedly try to scurry away to safety while the rest of the colony swam to the safety of their lodge. Lifting the portal remote, Drew activated it. The eremotherium went through first, fear of the jaguar far outweighing any trepidation about the unfamiliar burst of light as they shambled their way through, followed by the two castoroides and four of the tapirs. However, an old tapir was unable to keep up and was pounced on by the jaguar, which killed it with a crushing bite to the skull.
Drew and his companions couldn't help but wince at the sight of this.
"Nasty," Adrian grunted under his breath.
"It's nature," Alice said.
Drew could only nod his head numbly in agreement.
However, the jaguar didn't immediately start to eat the dead tapir. Instead, it started to drag the carcass back into the undergrowth from which it had come. The trio stared in confusion as the jaguar left, dragging its prize with it. Then Drew narrowed his eyes. "I'm starting to get the feeling we should follow it," he whispered to his companions.
"Agreed," said Alice. "Now that I think about it, she might have cubs – there's probably a den somewhere nearby. I vote we follow her." She directed a brief look at the lake, before looking at Drew, "What about the castoroides?"
"I'll stay here with them."
Drew and Alice looked to Adrian, who nodded his head. "I'll keep watch here, see if the other beavers come out of hiding. And if anything happens, I'll give you a call on the comms."
"Sounds like a plan." Drew gave his friend a thumbs up. "Good luck, man."
"Be careful," said Alice.
"Will do," said Adrian, giving her a mock salute.
Alice rolled her eyes in mock annoyance, and then turned around on her heel to follow Drew as he set off to follow the jaguar. Within a few minutes, Alice and Drew had vanished into the undergrowth to follow the jaguar while Adrian positioned himself at the rightmost edge of the dam, sitting down on one of the massive logs to rest as he started to wait for the remaining castoroides.
. . . . .
Once Kyle got to Hell Creek – more specifically, the T-rex paddock, he saw a small group of keepers and security personnel assembled. Among the keepers, he recognised Aaron Joseph and Carmen Perez.
He was unsurprised to see them there. The bird and reptile teams did a lot of work with the theropods – they'd all worked with birds and crocodiles, respectively, the closest living relatives of dinosaurs before, so there was much more of an overlap than any of the mammal carnivore teams.
That was the thing – the dinosaurs didn't really fit pre-existing categories, meaning that you had to be creative. The ornithischian staff were mostly recruited from the ranks of hoofstock keepers, whilst the sauropod keepers were mostly former elephant and giraffe keepers.
Anyway, focus.
He looked into the paddock to see Terence and Matilda, circling each other and snarling. It was clear they had been fighting. Both of them were wounded – with his head and neck pockmarked with wounds, Terence was more so than Matilda, who only had a few scars on her face. Rexy and Tyrannor were watching some distance away, snarling at their offspring, who bore them no heed.
Kyle turned to Carmen, the nearest person to him, and asked, "What the hell happened?" Carmen shrugged and said, "Matilda charged out and started attacking Terence about half an hour ago – we've tried to keep them apart, but it hasn't been working…" Suddenly, one of the security personnel, Bristow Kyle thought his name was, yelled, "She's getting ready to charge again!".
Kyle looked in and saw Matilda lowering her head and snarling, getting ready to charge at Terence. Kyle turned to the assembled staff members and nodded – as if reading his mind, each staff member grabbed a hosepipe and began spraying it at the warring tyrannosaurs. However, it was to no avail; it looked like this was going to end in a fight.
However, after a few minutes, Matilda stopped attempting to get at Terence and the two adolescent tyrannosaurs walked off in opposite directions, still glowering at each other. Matilda narrowed her eyes at her smaller brother and snarled. Terence growled in reply.
The assembled humans all looked at each other. The message was clear – this was clearly not over.
. . . . .
After several minutes of trekking through the forest, with Drew and Alice making sure to be as careful and quiet as possible, the jaguar finally came to a stop. Knowing it would be wise to hide until the opportune moment, the two humans carefully hid behind some ferns near the entrance to the small clearing the jaguar had entered, watching carefully as she came to a stop at the entrance to a small cave, putting the tapir carcass down. The jaguar looked into the cave, letting out a low grunting noise in the process. The sound of mewing filled the air from inside the cave, and two jaguar cubs walking into view, before eagerly sinking their small sharp teeth into the carcass their mother had brought for them. The mother soon joined in, tearing off large chunks of flesh for herself to eat while also leaving smaller chunks for her cubs.
Alice couldn't help but smile at the sight. "I'll bet Yolanda would love seeing this," she whispered to Drew.
"I'm sure she would," Drew whispered back, not fully listening to what Alice had said, before saying, "Let's let them eat for a few minutes."
"If you say so," Alice stated, quietly getting her audio recording device into position and set to play a jaguar vocalization recording.
When it seemed that the jaguar family was finally starting to wind down in their meal, Drew gave Alice a thumbs up. Alice nodded, and allowed the jaguar vocalization recording to play from their hiding place. The mother jaguar tensed up, her head immediately lifting up as an alerted grunt left her throat. Her cubs also lifted their heads, yellow eyes widened in alarm. Alice replayed the jaguar recording, causing the mother to snarl and slowly turn her head. Taking this as a cue, Alice and Drew stepped out of hiding, into the mother jaguar's line of sight, Alice replaying the jaguar recording again.
The sight of the unfamiliar creatures and the sound of the roar combined was all the mother jaguar needed. With a roar, she lunged away from her den and started charging towards the two humans, eager to scare away what she believed to be a possible threat to her cubs. Right as the jaguar was about a foot or two away from reaching them, the rescue team duo summoned the portal just in time for the jaguar to charge through. Her cubs, seeing their mother disappear, mewed in alarm and began to move through the portal. Within moments, both of them had gone through.
Drew smirked once the portal had finally closed. "I was expecting a bit more of a challenge with the cubs," he admitted, "Still, I'm not gonna complain."
"Wise decision," Alice stated.
The silence was abruptly shattered by the sound of Alice's communicator going off. She immediately drew it out and put it on speaker. "What is it Adrian?"
"Hey Alice," Adrian's voice said from the other end of the line, nervously. "Could you and Drew hurry back to the lake? I could use a little help."
The sound of a low, feline snarling coming from the communicator seconds after Adrian finished speaking startled Alice and Drew, their eyes widening in fright and their hearts pounding.
"Well actually, strike what I just said. I could use a LOT of help. RIGHT NOW!"
"Say no more," Drew stated, a firm tone to his voice. "We're on our way." Once he'd said this, Alice and Drew turned and started hurrying back the way they'd come.
. . . . .
Leon, Jack and Yolanda emptied the first bucket of shrimp into the titanicthys tank – and they stood waiting, for the shoal to come swimming towards the influx of food.
Whilst they were waiting, Leon sighed – he'd have to bring this up. Turning to Jack, he said, "The other reason why I blew up at you is… I was worried. I was angry that you and Drew were trying to push me out. You reminded me I'm only here because Drew put a good word for me in with Theodore. Stumbling in the Jurassic, what happened with my ankle….
Jack smiled at him, and said, "Hey, hey, we've all got to start somewhere…" They were interrupted by Yolanda pointing at the tank and saying, "Look."
Jack and Leon looked into the tank to find the entire titancthys shoal surrounding the shrimp. After a few nail-biting minutes, the largest of the shoal opened its mouth – and began filtering the shrimp into its mouth. The rest of the shoal set to feeding in earnest
The three cheered at this – they'd been correct. The titanicthys' diets wouldn't be a problem from now on. It was Leon who spoke first, "That went well. It seems we can work together without something bad happening after all." "Told you", Yolanda said happily.
As she said this, Jack couldn't help but notice something. Leon and Yolanda were smiling at each other.
. . . . .
Adrian stood tall near the end of the dam, a determined look on his face as he pointed his tranquilizer gun and portal remote towards an adult male Florida jaguar. The jaguar was in a crouching position at least five feet in front of him, its yellow eyes narrowed, muscles tensed and snarling at him. The remainder of the castoroides were gathered in the water directly to his right, barking and grunting in a mixture of fear and confusion.
At that moment, Adrian was in a bit of a dilemma. He had both the castoroides and the jaguar in ideal position for a rescue with the portal. But if he went for the beavers, he'd only open himself up to an attack from the jaguar and if he tried to get the jaguar first, he would risk scaring the beavers away again. The beavers were positioned in shallow water, meaning that, if they tried to head into deeper water and swim back to their lodge, the jaguar would catch up – that was if it didn't go for the smaller, but easier meal the new two-legged creature presented.
"Come on, come on," Adrian thought to himself as he continued to keep his tranquilizer gun and portal remote pointed at the jaguar, the large cat still snarling. "Hurry up Drew, hurry up Alice."
However, his focus on the jaguar meant that he didn't notice Drew and Alice come out of the woods behind him and quietly walk over towards the beavers' position.
Alice let out a low clicking noise, her tongue against her teeth as she did so. All nine beavers tensed up, clearly alerted by the sudden clicking noise they were hearing, and they all turned their heads in time to see her and Drew standing nearby. For a few seconds, the beavers all looked at each other, grunting as if confused and uncertain. This uncertainty only increased when they saw one of them draw something out before a gigantic flash of bright light suddenly burst into existence in front of it. The sound of the jaguar roaring, however, was all the convincing they needed to begin hurriedly making their way towards the portal – within minutes, all nine of the gigantic beavers had vanished through the portal and into the future, moving as if a single entity. No sooner had the last of the castoroides gone through the portal when Drew and Alice hurried through after them.
"Come on Adrian!" Alice yelled seconds before she vanished through the portal after Drew.
This was all Adrian needed to hear, and he hurriedly pointed his remote behind him and summoned his portal before jumping through to the safety of the park. Adrian's retreat triggered the jaguar's prey drive and it ran through the portal after him. Fortunately for Adrian, the jaguar's confusion at its new surroundings, allowed the Malaysian American keeper to make it to a nearby ladder and climb up to safety to join Drew and Alice. "Thanks guys," he said once he'd made it to safety, "I was starting to wonder when you'd show up."
"No problem," said Alice, smiling, "Happy we could help."
"Don't mention it," said Drew, smiling and giving Adrian a thumbs up.
"I take it things went well?"
The trio turned their heads in time to see Kyle, Nikolai, and Colette standing nearby .
Drew chuckled. "You could say that."
"Well I'm sure it will be a fun story," said Nikolai, before he pointed at the holding pens, "Once we've got the uncontained jaguar in a holding pen."
Everyone else looked into the holding pen to see the male jaguar, still uncontained, staring hungrily at the castoroides. "Good idea," said Drew.
"Agreed," said Kyle.
About an hour or so later, all the newest rescued animals had been successfully transferred to their new homes in the recently constructed Leisey Shell Pit zone, designed to resemble as much as possible to the thick forests of Pleistocene Florida. Naturally, the largest paddock in the entire zone was home to the herbivores. And at that moment, all the Florida capybara, Florida guanaco, Florida tapir, and platygonus were gathered around the watering hole, drinking. Three of the male guanacos had split off from the main herd and formed their own small bachelor group, leaving the remaining adult male unchallenged - whether the two juvenile males would join up or form their own group when they were older was unclear.
The glyptotherium and eremotherium, meanwhile, were currently gathered near the back of the exhibit, with the sloths browsing from the trees and the glyptodonts milling about. The Carolina parakeets all lived in a single forest aviary, where they were all either flying around or resting on the branches. Two separate, similarly-sized paddocks each served as home for the armbruster's wolves and smilodon gracilis, whilst the Florida jaguars lived in a large paddock separated in three parts. At that moment, the adult male, named Cortez, was standing on a large rock, observing his new surroundings, and letting out a roar to announce the area as his turf, the subadult male, named Ernesto, was napping in the sun and the adult female and her two cubs were feasting on a cow carcass in their territory. And naturally, in the very centre of the exhibit zone, was a large paddock containing a massive lake and small makeshift river that now served as home for the 11 castoroides, all of which were already hard at work in constructing a brand new dam and lodge.
Later that evening, everybody began winding down – a skeleton crew were used on the night shift. This included Jack, Leon, and Yolanda, who were currently walking together. In that moment, all three of them felt proud of how their day had gone. Sure, it had gotten off to a rough start – but they'd managed to pull through. And, somehow, things had changed, a little bit.
Turning to Leon, "Guess you aren't so useless after all, Dolittle", Jack went teasingly, before turning to Yolanda, "Would you please put a good word in for us with Drew?" Yolanda rolled her eyes and said, "OK, but only because you asked nicely." Leon, for his part, was quiet, before saying, "I misjudged you, Jack. I thought… I don't know what I thought. But… thank you. For what you said today."
"Don't worry about it." Jack chuckled, before his tone became serious, "We're not friends, though. Too much stuff to work out." Leon nodded, and looked almost sad, "Yeah." Yolanda shrugged, and said, "You can work together without arguing with each other – that's all that really matters…"
Jack nodded, and then looked at his watch. "And on that note, we should turn in. My reptiles'll be wondering where their dinner is." He turned to return to his apartment.
"Something else we can agree on." Leon yawned, "See you around," he said as he turned to head to his bungalow. Yolanda looked at them both, smiled, and headed off to her own apartment.
Things were once again going smoothly at Prehistoric Park – however, they knew this was a lull and, next, things were going to get crazy again. But then, that was half the fun.
Rescue Tally
* Armbruster's Wolf (13; 9 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 male, 8 female)
* Carolina parakeet (19; all adults; 9 male, 10 female)
* Castoroides (11; 7 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 male, 6 female)
* Eremotherium (4; 3 adults, 1 youngster; 2 male, 2 female)
* Florida capybara (10; 6 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 male, 5 female)
* Florida guanaco (13; 10 adults, 3 youngsters; 6 male, 7 female)
* Florida jaguar (5; 2 adults, 3 youngsters; 3 male, 2 female)
* Florida tapir (4; All adults; 2 male, 2 female)
* Glyptotherium (6; all adults; 3 male, 3 female)
* Platygonus (11; 9 adults, 2 youngsters; 6 male, 5 female)
* Smilodon gracilis (2; both adults; 1 male, 1 female)
Next time on Prehistoric Park Reimagined:
Drew and the gang travel to the Miocene period Amazon to rescue a truly massive caiman.
(A gigantic crocodilian snaps its jaws against the center of a canoe.)
And also to Miocene Argentina to rescue the largest ever terror bird.
(A small group of gray feathered terror birds surround Drew, a hungry look in their yellow eyes.)
And love appears to be in the air back at the park.
(Diego and Shira nuzzle each other while lying upon a large rock in the center of their paddock.)
All next time, on Prehistoric Park Reimagined: Of Scales and Feathers!
