In Prehistoric Arizona, Nigel and co. are on the search for ancient sharks.

This is easier said then done. At this point in history, the dominant predators were giant placoderms, while sharks were no bigger than large sturgeon. In fact, while sharks have been around for well over 300 million years, into won't be until the Jurassic that they take on forms resembling the ferocious killers that prowl the oceans today. For now, they are merely mid-level predators, feasting on any meat they can find, but avoiding the few creatures that are bigger than , this works against the team, as the sharks they are looking for are small enough to hide behind the reefs that coat the sea floor.

Of course, as the team plans to rescue the reefs as well, this in only a temporary obstacle.

Carefully, the team works to find loose outcropping of rock, while simultaneously watching to avoid disturbing the reef itself. Once they find a loose piece, they attach a variation of the portal balloons, which quickly teleports the reef (and any animals taking shelter in it) into the safety of the present. It doesn't take long for a large portion of the reef to disappear into the future. Unfortunately, it doesn't reveal any sharks.

But that quickly changes.

As Elise and Drew send another piece of coral into the present, a set of large shapes darts out from where the coral had previously been resting. Most, owing to surprise, end up swimming straight toward the rest of the team, where they are swiftly sent into the present. One, however, begins to surge toward another piece of coral, one too firm for the humans to dislodge. If it makes it there, the team will never catch it.

Much to its surprise, though, Elise is quick to swim after it and manages to quickly close the distance. It is only a matter of minutes before she is next to the shark. In one smooth motion, she grabs ahold of the shark and flips it onto its back, instantly making it go limp. With the fish temporarily incapacitated, Elise quickly sets up a portal, adjusts the shark so that it is heading toward the portal, then rights the ancient terror, which swiftly darts into the safety of the present.

The rest of the team stares on in silence before offering gestures of approval, at which point they move to regroup.

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Back at the park, Vera is once again working on rehabilitating her new companion, the park's bull Acrocanthosaurus. Right now, she's doing a rather messy task.

Vera stares reluctantly for a moment, before ramming a shovel into a pile of dung. Carefully, she takes the load and moves it to its own spot, after which she rigorously checks it, ranging from just looking at it to sticking her glove covered hands into it to feel for certain... oddities. She even puts some samples away on a container marked 'for lab examinations'.

"Ugh, this is disgusting... but, if I want to take care of this guy, I have to do it... Hrgh..."

While the scene is odd, it has a simple purpose: one of the easiest ways to tell if an animal is doing well is if it dung is 'normal'. For the park's acro, the normal is based on the droppings up the resident carnosaur, Atahualpa the Giganotosaurus. Vera has to feel the droppings to see if they are grainy, which would indicate that her charge is not drinking enough. Visible discoloring in the waste is indicative of improper feeding, while the samples for the lab are going to be examined for parasites. All of these tests will ensure that the Acro makes a healthy recovery.

OF course, Vera would prefer that he have a name.

"Ripper? Nah, too aggressive."

"Sail? No, too boring."

"Finn? Finn. FINN! Yes, I'll call him Finn!"

The acro, confused, raises his head to stare at Vera.

"You're name is now Finn! Remember that...why am I telling him that? He doesn't understand anything I'm saying..."

Well, points for effort.

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Finn stares at the Vera for a moment, before lying back down onto the shady ground he has occupied beneath a tree.

The storm, while devastating, had offered some relief from the monstrous heat that had plagued this island, but now it had returned in full force, necessitating that he once again seek shelter. It was, in a way, comforting: while the heat was still an annoyance, it reminded him of his old territory.

Or rather, what had passed for it: there were few sauropods to hunt, with only a few ornithopods around to sate his hunger. This might have been a feast for a raptor, but not for Finn: he was an apex predator and needed to regularly eat his own weight in meat to stay healthy. Considering that he weighed six and a half tons, this meant that Finn needed quite a bit of prey to sustain him. A smaller predator could sustain itself on the herds of ornithopods that had occupied his territory, but a carnosaur of his size would need much larger prey. They needed sauropods, and those had been getting rarer.

Finn had lived in a time of change: the warm world of the Early Cretaceous had begun to cool down, slowly wiping out the giant sauropods. In Asia and, for a time, North America, these beasts were slowly dying away, with the remnants shadows of their former glory. Their disappearance had a snowball effect: without their main prey, the carnosaurs had begun to die out. They could not sustain their bulk without the giants, and new predators had already been moving to take their place. In the north, tyrannosaurs had begun to adapt themselves to the prey that was replacing the sauropods, while in the South, where the longnecks were still plentiful, abelisaurs were beating the carnosaurs at their own game.

All of these were contributors to the decline of the giant carnosaurs, but only the disappearance of his prey was harming Finn. It had forced him to become a migrant, traveling wherever he could to find food. Of course, that could only take him so far: he was not built to go the distance. Acros normally occupied territories, hunting prey that didn't venture too far from their homelands. His search for food had gradually worn him down until he had been on his last legs.

He didn't care much about those events, though, for Finn focused more on the here and now. Right now, he had a full belly, a nice place to sleep, plenty of water to drink, and Vera, who oddly made him feel at ease.

All in all, a very good life.

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Back in Prehistoric Arizona, the team is on the move. While they may have found some sharks, there are still more too catch. Now, they're headed toward the open ocean.

The team doesn't take long to return to the Mariner, quickly clambering into the boat and getting ready to set sail.

"How'd you get the shark to go stiff?" asked Aileen as she hoisted Elise into the boat.

"It works on modern sharks, so why not prehistoric ones?"

"...Fair enough," conceded Aileen, patting her sister on the back before turning her eyes back to the ocean.

To her surprise, something large appeared to break the surface, but after opening and closing her eyes for a moment, it was gone. She stared back at the ocean for a few seconds, before taking a seat as the boat sped away.

Unnoticed by all, as the Jetstream of the boat faded away, a large fin broke the water, engaged in pursuit of the watercraft.

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AN: Read and Review. This is Flameal15k, signing off!