Still cruising across the ocean's surface, the team tried to amuse themselves by searching for pterosaurs. As they were very far out in the ocean, though, they could not spot any of the fuzzy fliers. They'd then attempted to look for sea turtles, which was doomed to failure, as such creatures would not evolve until the Cretaceous period. With that plan now torched, they ultimately settled for watching the waves.

At least, until Nigel decided it was time to go diving. Swiftly getting into their gear, the team was soon underneath the waves, exploring the sea. They'd arrived over a relatively shallow spot, about fifty meters at the bottom, giving them an excellent view of the sea floor. For the most part, it was rather barren, though there were a few coral that the group carefully moved into the present, for building a prehistoric reef.

What really grabbed the team's attention, though, was something that lay on the edge of the reef. It was a rather large object, or rather, set of objects, neatly laid out across the sea bed. To some degree, they resembled branches, but were mostly white, and connected in a rathe obvious way. To any keen observer, it was obvious what these were - bones. This was the skeleton of a marine reptile, though what kind eluded the group, as the skull and neck had long been separated from the rest of the body. Indeed, several bones were missing from this corpse, though the remainder were still attached to the rest of the body - evidence that the carcass had only recently been picked clean.

All that, however, was of little concern to the team. What really concerned them was the appearance of some of the ribs. Specifically, the ones separated from the bodies. Some of these appeared to have been completely pulverized, if the white fragments on the sea floor were any indication. Wear from the ocean could not have caused this - the cracks were still sharp, not dulled from erosion. Clearly, this kind of damage had been done by a predator, but what kind of predator was still a mystery.

"...Pliosaur?" offered Tai.

"Those kinds haven't evolved yet," was Aileen's response. "Only rhomaleosaurs have evolved at this point, and the only ones native to North America live where Canada is now. We might see those ones later, but they probably didn't do this."

"Then what did?"

"I don't know."

Any further attempts at conversation were interrupted by the arrival of several dolphin-like shapes - ichthyosaurs, and quite a few of them. Joining them were a group of plesiosaurs, which the fish-reptiles often poked and nudged, much to the long-necked reptiles' discomfort.

"I think these are Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus," noted Nigel, "though I'm surprised to them this far from Europe. Not that I'm complaining - I'm glad to see any extinct creature, especially ones as famous as these."

"Same here. Now can we get to rescuing them?" questioned Tristan.

Nigel merely made a circle with his index finger and thumb in response to this. A moment later, Tristan, having already position himself in front of the marine reptiles, activated the portal, sending them all into the present.

Once the last one disappeared into the portal, the team returned to the Mariner and prepared to move on.

XXXXXXXX

Beneath the plesiosaur skeleton, the predator watched the humans begin to drift away. Its many lenses struggled to make them out, but it could clearly see the ship vanish. For a moment, in wondered if it should leave - it would be very exposed on the sea floor, and it could only attack in one direction. Additionally, it had no way of swimming after them, only crawling.

Yet it needed to move on - they had cost this carnivore its next meal when they made the marine reptiles disappear. No nautiloids had come by to filter through the sand, nor had any fish, for some time. A curious marine reptile might have investigated the skeleton and made itself an easy meal, but that was not likely to happen soon. No, if this predator wanted to survive, it would need to migrate. And perhaps it could yet make a meal of the strange swimmers? Their carrier beast wasn't going too fast.

Thus, its mind made, the predator emerged from its burrow beneath its most recent kill and began to scuttle after the humans.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back at the park, Lucas was still with Elise, this time in one of the mini-subs. The girl was busy walking him through the controls, so that he could go out and start getting the photos he wanted.

"So, this red lever primes the emergency ascent, the yellow switch activates the floodlights, and the blue change activates the fog horn. Don't ask me why we have a fog-horn on this thing."

"Okay, but what is this console that's blocked by a key-lock?"

"That's the torpedo controls."

Lucas turned to stare at her, wide-eyed. "This thing has torpedoes?"

"My dad made them as part of a contract with DARPA. The torpedo tubes were a requirement. Don't worry, though, none of them are armed yet - plus we don't use real ones here. Nigel had special ones made that fire out chemicals like the ones he used in Sea Monsters to repel the Liopleurodon. Also, the tubes are empty right now."

"I am not filled with confidence right now."

"Just relax. Also, these things are really tough - you could drop them two thousand meters and they'd still be fine. N=Just don't bring them to the volcanic vents a few miles out - they can't take too much heat."

"Understood. Anything else I need to know?"

"Not really. Just don't piss off any of the meaner residents, and you should return without a scratch."

"And if I do make them made?"

"Then this thing is probably going to be missing a feeler arm. And my dad will deduct your pay for the expenses."

"...I can deal with that."

"Good luck, then!"

XXXXX

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