"...Can I ask you one more question about the time portal we saw yesterday?"
Tristan sighed. "Fine, but remember I can't tell you much."
"Please, on glorious leader, I know thatby now."
"Then what do you want to know?"
"Well, are these just modern occurrences, or have they happened before?"
"As the one we just saw opened up to the Triassic, of course they happened before."
"Hey, no reason to get snippy."
"Sorry, I just felt that the answer to your question should have been obvious."
"..You have a good point."
"I know. Now why did you ask that question?"
"Well, I was just thinking, maybe all of those myths in the past, about giant animals and monster...weren't false."
"You saying that maybe all the myths around the world were actually sightings of creatures that came through time portals?"
"Exactly...why are you smiling?"
Michelle actually jumped back as her friendleaped into the air, arms raised, and started laughing. "YES! YES! SOMEONE ELSE SHARES MY IDEAS!"
"Uh, please calm down."
After a moment, Tristan did that. Though he was still chuckling to himself, he also coughed now and then, winded from his exertions. "Sorry, *pant*, I'm just glad to find out I am not alone in my thoughts. So, you really do think that animals going through the portals could have inspired myths? Like the ones about dragons?"
"Well, yes. Maybe people saw some dinosaurs and thought they were dragons. I wouldn't put them past assuming a Dracorex was a dragon...well, that or a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus, since both look similar to each other."
"That sounds reasonable...Do you think that they really existed, though?"
Michelle stopped trekking across the beach when he said that. "In all honesty, no. I mean, there are dragon-like dinosaurs, but strictly speaking, I don't think dragons showed up. And I'm pretty sure that if they were real, they would be dinosaurs, because they'd need to be warm blooded, active animals. Crocodiles are too sluggish to fly or breath fire. I don't care what that Dr. Tanner guy says."
Tristan was about to answer her, but before he could do so, the duo heard several low, exhausted bellows coming from further down the beach. Following the noises, they discovered a group of mosasaurs, all beached on the shoreline, crying out in pain.
Examining the bodies, Michelle could already tell what they were dealing with. "There's two types of mosasaurs here - the smaller ones are Halisaurus, while I believe the larger ones are Mosasaurus. Not sure how they got here, though."
"Well, we can't just leave them here - they'll suffocate on land. I'll get the portal readied up, you just make sure they don't die."
"On it."
XXXXXXX
Back at the park, Bob and Pamela are helping out with the new arrivals.
As the park's Tawa watched on, Pamela carefully lowered the log into the exhibit. Once she had set it on the ground, Bob put a funnel on a hole in it and began to pour a combination of grubs, crickets, beetles and other insects inside.
"Now," began Pamela, "I might be a botanist, but if there is one thing that I know about animals, it is that they tend to be cautious around unfamiliar things. This can make feeding some of our prehistoric residents a bit difficult, since we can use troughs or other modern things, but we can improvise. See, the park has some extra lumber and logs laying around, in case we need to make repairs or, as is the case right now, make special enrichment objects for our residents. I think they might enjoy trying to snatch some insects out of this log."
As soon as the last of the insects was within the log, the two humans left, leaving the dinosaurs to begin examining their new food source.
Bob smiled as some of the tiny reptiles began to dig into their new meal. "Well, one down, onto the next pen."
XXXXXXX
Back in the past, Michelle and Tristan are already hard at work getting the mosasaurs to the present.
With a pair of grunts, the teenage duo began lifting one of the smaller mosasaurs off the ground and carrying it toward the portal. Meanwhile, Ted and his team were slowly pushing one of the larger sea lizards into an aquatic portal. The two groups finished their tasks at roughly the same time. When both animals disappeared into the present, the rescue was complete.
As soon as she released the lizard, Michelle started panting. "So...frigging...heavy."
"Yes it was. Yes it was."
"Are you...used to...this?"
"Just a little. Now come on, we've got dinosaurs to rescue."
As the duo returned to the present, though, they found a peculiar sight - a large set of drag marks and, with them, dried blood. There were some signs of erosion, so these weren't the freshest of tracks, but they were still an oddity on the otherwise pristine beach.
Michelle was the first to begin analyzing the marks. "These aren't very fresh, but they match up with the size of a small mosasaur. Maybe a tyrannosaur got hungry and decided on seafood?"
"Maybe...or maybe not."
"You find something?"
"Yeah, I found tracks. Big three toed ones."
"Doesn't that mean I'm right, then?"
"Big three toed tracks."
"..Bigger than our target?"
"Yes. Footprints this big match up with a large tyrannosaurine tyrannosaur, not a dryptosaur."
"Well, then lets follow them, see where they lead."
Indeed, the duo did just that, and eventually found themselves facing a grisly sight.
Before them was the torn up carcass of a mosasaur, maybe a few days after its death. The animal's gut area had been picked clean aside from the scraps on left on its ribs. The scent of fresh meat filled the air, and already flies, small reptiles, and mammals were tearing at the carcass, trying to eat their fill. Overhead, birds were looking to fill their own empty bellies.
Working carefully, the two teens managed to approach the carcass. As they did, Tristan noticed that one rib, unlike the rest, appeared to be black, instead of white. Confused, Tristan held out a hand and grabbed the rub. When he pulled his hand back, however, it was now black in color.
"...Carbon?...Ash?"
XXXXXX
AN: Read and Review! This is the Flameal15k, signing off!
