Raptors

No one knew how long they had held their breath. The confrontation between the two raptors, The Big One, and the Blue One, sucked the air out of the paddock with their colorfully opposite Auras smashing against each other like the raging sea crashing against the sturdy rocks of the shores. The Big One's Semblance was so filled with malice and bloodlust that the plants around it withered away and the nearby Dakotaraptors felt nauseous just being within proximity of their ruthless leader, whose eyes were glowing a demonic orange.

The humans and Faunus watching the intense showdown of the current alpha and the former dethroned alpha from quite a height above the paddock weren't immune to the deteriorating effects of the Big One's aura either. It was so overpowering that even the professional Huntsmen's Aura did little to protect them from being suddenly sick in the stomach, experiencing blood chilling shivers up their spines, and their basic instincts screaming to run and never look back.

"W-w-wh-what the? H-h-h-ho-how c-c-cc-come...I-I-I-I feel s-s-so-so f-fl-fl-f-flaky...a-al-all of t-th-th-t-the s-s-s-sudden?!" Ellie Sattler shivered, shaking her arms with her voice stammering to an unusual degree.

"I-I-I-it's n-n-n-not g-g-g-grown c-c-co-co-col-cold ou-o-out h-h-here I-I-I-in the t-t-tropics a-a-all-all of the sudden, n-n-no?" Malcolm was closing his leather jacket more tightly than usual like he was dumped into the middle of the Kingdom of Atlas.

"I-I-it's not! Y-y-yet...I f-f-feel l-l-like I-I j-j-just st-s-stepped in-in-into Ma-M-M-Muh-Ma-Mantle all o-o-of t-the s-s-s-sudden!" Gray was struggling to speak coherently with the cold shiver actively hindering him from doing so.

"D-d-d-du-dude! W-w-w-what the f-f-f-fudge?" Zach was no better than his brother with cold sweat forming from his brow.

"W-w-wh-why d-d-do I f-f-feel so s-s-s-sick?" Ruby's face became sickly green and pale with her arms wrapped around her chest so protectively.

"I-I-I d-don't k-k-know, b-b-b-but I-I-I ca-can't help -b-b-but f-fe-feel te-terrified for s-s-some r-reason," Yang had her hair glowing, but her eyes remained lilac as they were terrified, not angry as it would normally happen.

For some of weaker minds or composition like Gennaro, Jaune, Neptune, and Velvet, their senses were on the verge of shutting down. Jaune felt like his stomach was about to be ejected from his body.

"J-J-J-Ja-Jaune!" Pyrrha was alarmed at the sight of Jaune losing control of his bowels as she tried to rush over to his side as best as she could with her nerves shivering. "Don't give into it! Hold your guts!"

Jaune could only nod with his mouth pouted sickly with his cheeks bloated up.

Nora was going into a fainting spell as she was now seeing bright flashes of red in her vision, "Re-Renny~...I don't feel s-s-so well."

"Nora, hang on to me!" Ren quickly supported her to prevent the Valkyrie from swaying even though he was feeling delirious himself.

Gennaro was nursing his balding forehead, groaning from the sunlight, as he now felt a piercing migraine through his temple.

Velvet went into a catatonic state with her eyes rolled up into the back of her head as the fear, bloodlust, and hatred coming from the Big One's projected Aura proved too much for her. It was only thanks to Coco and Yatsuhashi catching her that she didn't fall over the railing. Fox, on the other hand, hacked out blood.

Neptune fainted with his pupils shrunk with his Monkey Faunus partner catching him. He was frothing at the mouth.

Hammond, miraculously, was only shaken with small signs of shivering noticeable, but other than that he was more concerned of how things could quickly deteriorate in the paddock if something was not done soon.

The Big One and the Blue Raptor snarled, hissing aggressively with their fangs bared open with their jaws agape and their forearms spread wide open, fanning their wing feathers. The brown, blue-striped raptor joined her older sibling in her attempt to intimidate the other two raptors not affected by the Big One's aura that were most likely her closest cohorts. Only the olive-green feathered Dakotaraptor dared not to join the fight and her timidity was only made worse by a crowing hiss from one of the Big One's cohorts. That Dakotaraptor had dark brown and orange marked plumage similar to the Big One, but had a blue stripe very similar to the Blue Raptor, but more faint in color. She also had two vertical scars on snout. The Olive-Green Raptor whined fearfully of that individual when she tried to approach her, but the Blue Raptor caught onto what that one was trying to do to her youngest sister and whipped her feathery tail around, with her body glowing more brightly. She unleashed a harsh gust of wind and her blue feathers that blew dust and leaves right into the Big One's second cohort, forcing her to cover her snout with her forearm wing and back off.

However, that gave the Big One the opportunity to rush at the Blue Raptor with teeth and talons ready to maul her. Thankfully, that was stopped by a forceful stream of ice cold water that not only shocked the raptors, but also forced the Big One and the Blue Raptor to deactivate their Semblances as they were now concerned of not having their feathers bombarded by the water. It also caused whatever illnesses or ailments that the Huntsmen, the lawyer, and the scientists to dissipate immediately.

"Ruby! Yang! Are you alright?!" shouted a recently recovered Blake from a horrific flashback that she experienced.

"We are, more or less," Ruby said shakily was helped up to her feet by Taiyang and Yang.

"Ugh...what in Remnant just happened?" Weiss recovered from a rather nasty headache.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" Jaune helped Dr. Sattler up to her feet.

"Yeah...I'm fine. Thank you," Ellie thanked him as Pyrrha helped Alan stand up more properly.

One of the handlers was responsible for the hosing of the conflicting raptors on the right side adjacent to the Huntsmen.

Then a brown-haired man in his dark green vest, blue buttoned up collar shirt with his sleeves rolled up and black jeans with brown boots was seen sneaking under through the gate after the it began to open up.

A black-skinned, bald-headed handler with light red vest, white undershirt, and dark gray shoes was seen yelling at the man, "Owen! No!"

"Quick! Weapons, ready!" The Huntsmen- and Huntresses-in-training pulled out their weapons with their guns primed and ready to shoot, except for Jaune's Crocea Mors and Ozpin. The security guards that were securing the perimeter of the Raptor Paddock also readied their stun rifles.

Owen Grady rushed into the paddock shouting with his hand up warning them, "Oh No no no no! Hold your fire!"

"What?!" Nora Valkyrie was flabbergasted.

"What in good heavens' name is that young man doing?!" Port was taken aback that a handler was rushing into the midst of the still snarling pack of Dakotaraptors.

"Do what Mr. Owen says!" John Hammond knew what Owen was doing and he was ordering the Huntsmen to stand down.

"Are you mad?! He's going to get himself killed by those things!" Gennaro still couldn't comprehend what on Remnant was going on.

"Owen Grady's a Raptor Trainer and he's responsible for them! He knows what he is doing! Do what he says right now!" John Hammond hollered out more forcefully this time.

"He's right! Stand down! Everyone of you, stand down!" Ozpin agreed much to the surprise of the students and teachers alike.

"But-!" Coco tried to retort back, but she was shouted down by both Hammond and their Headmaster.

"NOW!"

Everyone had to lower their weapons as Owen got in between the Big One's faction of eight raptors and the Blue Raptor's smaller faction of seven, which comprised of the mixed color trio and the four other raptors that were more loyal to the Blue Raptor than they were to the Big One.

"Hold your fire! Do not fire!" Owen ordered. "Shoot 12 amperes or any dust slugs onto them and they will never trust me again!"

The dark-skinned handler pressed on the button, stopping the steel bar gate halfway from opening.

"Did I hear that just right? They-," Scarlet looked between the Dakotaraptors and Owen, "-trust him?"

"I am not hearing him wrong, though, I am not sure if he's astonishingly brave or foolish," Blake was just as surprised. This was clearly unprecedented because it was like trying to put a Huntsman and a Beowolf and expecting them to get along only for the usual result to play out. But not this time, or not yet at least as Owen was still keeping his distance from the raptors, though they were not pouncing him outright.

"Blue, stand down," Owen put his hand about fifteen feet away in front of the Blue Raptor AKA Blue's snout. Blue growled back at him with the literal snap of her jaws.

"Hey hey! What did I just say?!" Owen assertively reprimanded her.

The raptors screeched hideously in response to that.

"Mary! I see you...back off from Blue!" Mary AKA the Big One didn't take kindly to being bossed around by her trainer and caretaker, so she started showing a lot of sass by shaking her feathers and kicking up dirt and wood chips in Owen's direction, "No! Mary, you terrible girl! Back off from your sister, or I will have one of the security men up there shoot you if you continue to antagonize your sisters unnecessarily!"

Mary growled defiantly while her second cohort with the two scars on her snout tried to roar at Owen, but he seemed unfazed with a glare in his eyes.

"Val! You better stay where you are! You and Mary have been in more than enough trouble already for what you two had done to own your sisters! And I am not going to tolerate any more of this shit from you! So back away from Blue! NOW!" Owen roared at Specimen V-2, or rather her codename: Val, whose violent berserker temperament has no equal among the pack, except for Echo. That said raptor was the very one with brownish and dark blue striped feathers and a scar on her snout, who was growling at Val.

"Echo! Back up!" He hollered at her. Echo responded with a disgruntled screech.

Weiss was biting her nails and Velvet was hiding her face with her hands while peeking through a small gap between her fingers. Port had his bushy eyebrows scrunched up and Alan Grant holding onto the railing tighter than before. Yang was still primed and ready to jump in with her eyes red and Ember Celica loaded in case things get really messy down there. Pyrrha, like Yang and everybody else, had her Milo still aimed at the Dakotaraptors.

Except for Ozpin, who was rather intrigued by the man's bravery and how successful he was keeping the raptors at bay, even if barely. Interesting that he could even command their attention that does not earn him being mauled immediately, the Headmaster thought while rubbing his chin.

All of the fifteen raptors ignored their intraspecific rivalry, turning their attention onto their trainer, barking and hissing at him with their claws opened outward and some ready to pounce.

"Darling, stay right there," Owen said to Charlie, the youngest raptor of the pack, as she even lost her characteristic timidity and began to encroach upon him like a cat would to a mouse.

Charlie squawked in seeming acknowledgement, but still not enough to obediently to do so.

Taiyang narrowed his eyes as he had seen it in zoos before that when even handling animals raised in captivity, the zookeepers still had to be wary of everything as the animals still possess the base instincts of their wilder counterparts and can lash out at them without notice. Apparently, even in Jurassic Kingdom, this was no different between Owen and the Dakotaraptors.

"Good!...Close the gate." Owen ordered, which got everyone shocked.

"Are you crazy?!" the black bald-headed handler shouted out in alarm.

"Just trust me!" Owen said. He had a plan, a risky one, but if pulled off right, it could work with him surviving.

"Do what Mr. Grady says, Mr. Barry!" John Hammond said, much to the further alarm of the people around him, looking at him as if he had lost his mind.

"Have you gone nuts, Hammond-san?! You're sentencing him to death!" Even Yatsuhashi could barely keep his sanity in what seemed like a morbid decision.

"Crazy, maybe, but I trust Owen knows what he is doing," Hammond said to him.

Barry gritted his teeth anxiously, but proceeded to press on the button to close the gate anyway.

Owen went back a couple steps with the raptors now ready to mob him. Then in a split of a second, he rushed towards the gate and rolled his body under as it closed down fast in a matter of seconds.

The five raptors, Blue, Echo, Charlie, Mary, and Val met the cold steel bars that now stood between them and Owen.

Everyone let out sighs of relief, finally relieved of the tension in the air as the raptors began to refocus on the dead horse carcass without any further squabble.

"Good Oum, that really scared me. I thought my heart was going to stop," Ruby commented.

"You're preaching to the choir, Ruby." Her father put a hand to his chest as he let out long deep breaths to decompress himself.

"I thought that Owen guy was gonna be a goner," Jaune wiped the sweat off from his brow.

"Me too." Pyrrha agreed.

"Me three!" Nora caught her teammates all in her bear hug, not that any of them complained after the harrowing ordeal they had just witnessed.

"That was incredible," Sun Wukong praised the raptor trainer's bravery in getting into the middle of a intraspecific conflict of intelligent, vicious reptilian predators.

"More like incredibly stupid and gut-twisting to be honest," Neptune shook his head.

"That...*huff*...is more or less my assessment," Weiss felt winded after holding her breath for Oum knows for how long.

"Ah, man! That was so cool at how the raptors pushed the horse just so for the other members to ambush it and POW!" Gray was the least affected of the people as he was excitedly yapping onto Ruby and her peers about the Dakotaraptors and such.

"Definitely for sure, but I was more blown away by how gutsy that handler was. He looks cute too," Yang smirked.

"Going up against a pack of superpowered dinosaurs is pretty badass in my book," Zach said, smiling.

"I gotta give credit to Owen for risking his life to calm his raptors and the Big One, but I still think they ought to be destroyed sooner rather than later," a new voice came in as Robert Muldoon came onto the platform. His attire has not changed at all with his "Old Bertha" absent.

"Ah! Robert Muldoon, my game warden from Zimbosa," John Hammond introduced him, "Bit of an alarmist compared to Owen I'm afraid, but he's one of the best Huntsman and trackers I know and he and Owen know more about raptors than anybody."

Alan immediately started asking him questions, as they both leaned back on the railings, facing each other. "What kind of metabolism do they have? What's their growth rate?"

"They're lethal at eight months, and I do mean lethal. I've hunted most things that can hunt you, but the way these things move..." Robert answered.

"Fast for a biped?"

"Cheetah speed. Fifty, sixty miles an hour if they ever got out into more open savannahs, and they're quite astonishing jumpers like what you've just witnessed them do."

"Yes. That's why we're taking extreme precautions," Hammond tried to reassure everybody. He tried to show Ellie, Taiyang, Gennaro, Jaune, Pyrrha, Neptune, Velvet, Yatsuhashi, Blake, and Sage the security measures until they were interrupted when one of the Dakotaraptors made a brief shriek.

"Do they show intelligence?" Grant asked Muldoon as they were both soon joined by Ian Malcolm, Ruby, Yang, Qrow, Port, Weiss, Sun Wukong, Scarlet, Coco, Fox, Gray, Zach, and Ozpin as they gathered around to listen to the two conversing. "Because their brain cavity-"

"They show extreme intelligence. Even problem-solving intelligence like the Archaeopteryx, Microraptors, and the Troodons. Those dinos are like the parrots and foxes of the dinosaur world, then these Dakotaraptors are like the ravens. Like ravens, very cunning and insidious. Especially the Big One AKA Mary. We bred 25 originally, large enough that there were once two different packs. One led by Mary and the other led by Blue. The first pack were the first batch. We tried to tame them enough for public exhibition, but have proven to be very violent and antagonistic. The second batch was created with Owen Grady on board to train them in the hopes of calming their aggressive nature."

"Well, um, Mr. Muldoon? How did that work out?" Ruby asked.

Muldoon turned to face the girl with a grim countenance as he answered, "At first it worked. At the time, we thought that maybe Blue and Owen could help rein in Mary's rebellious tendencies when we decided to reintroduce the packs. However, it turned into a bloody raptor civil war as two sides clashed. The Big One and her pack being on the offensive while Blue and Owen's pack were mainly on the defensive. The war turned for the worse when one of Blue's five siblings, Val or V-2, betrayed her sisters when she secretly joined the Big One, giving her and the pack the opening. Owen, Blue, Echo, Delta, Charlie and the remaining loyalists were soon overwhelmed from within and without."

Ruby and Yang were flabbergasted and horrified that Val, one of Blue's five sisters, had the gall to turn back on her family bond in favor of being the Big One's top dog.

"And where's Delta?" It was Gray who asked next.

Muldoon pushed his hat down with a sigh through his nose, "When Mary ultimately took over and reunited the packs into one through fear and force, she killed ten of the others. Delta was one of those casualties. The Big One made an example out of her when Blue, Echo, and Charlie initially refused to be integrated into her pack."

Ruby gasped, covering her mouth with tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Yang snarled with her fists clenched, making a mental note. Gray gulped with Zach putting a comforting hand onto his shoulder. Qrow took a long drink from his flask that was refilled a while ago.

"Since then, Blue and her sisters were relegated to the bottom of the pack, so-called hierarchy, if it could even be called one. Blue has not forgotten the humiliation and the loss of her sister inflicted upon them by Mary, and neither has Owen, for Mary and Val had taken away one of his favorite raptors that he cherished. He carries a necklace containing whatever teeth remained of her as a painful reminder of that horrific night. That one," he paused to point the finger at the current alpha female, "when she looks at you, you can see she's working things out. That's why we have to feed them like this. She had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came."

"I hope the fences are electrified, Sir Muldoon," Port said with dread. "Because those dinosaurs are capable of inflicting serious damage, even when alone individually."

"That'd be correct, professor, but herein lies the problem." It was Owen who was coming on the walkway along with a fellow caretaker, Barry Sembene.

"And here's Owen Grady, our resident Raptor trainer from Atlas, enlisted into Atlas Military as a Marine before being hired by InGen. And this is Barry Sembene, a good friend of his and also caretaker of the Dakotaraptors." John Hammond introduced them to the guests.

"Howdy to meet you all." Owen said to them as he shook their hands. Barry did the same.

"So...Mr. Grady, what were you saying about what that problem is exactly?" Ellie asked, trying to continue where they had left off.

"Ma'am, if there's one advice I must give you about these girls, don't underestimate them. Not even mine I'm afraid." Owen answered.

"I think we can clearly see why, but that's why there's all this big deal of security with the paddock. I don't see why we should worry other than them just frying their little lizard brains if they even touch the fences, mister." Coco said with some smugness in her voice, which earned her a disapproving elbow from Velvet.

"Kid, I have worked with these animals for a long time. Trust me, they are a lot sharper and smarter than you think. They attack one part of the fence one moment, the next minute, another part. You might think that's waste of time and energy of them, but let me tell you, they know what they're doing and they never forget. They test for an opening, a flaw in the system. Any opening for them to exploit. And once that's found, they will exploit it to their full advantage." Owen then held out a simple necklace containing the five teeth of the former Delta and showed it in front of the kids to emphasize how serious he was about the Dakotaraptors. "If you think that I am joking, then let me show you this. This was from Delta, one of my favorite raptors I've trained, who is no longer with us. She, Blue, Echo, and Charlie were some of the best ones I've trained personally. Came the civil war, we held out as long as we could and we did our best to outsmart Mary and her pack. In the end, it still wasn't enough as Mary secretly convinced V-2, or Val to betray her siblings, creating an opening in our rear that enable Mary and her raptors to conquer Blue and kill Delta right in front of us. To make an example out of her."

Coco lost her smirk after hearing that as the atmosphere turned dark.

As Owen finished, V-2 was heard squawking and cackling maliciously, as she bullied a smaller raptor into giving up a piece of the horse's heart by biting her on her snout. The hurt raptor whined as she retreated into the jungle, leaving Val to enjoy her spoils, feasting on the heart to herself. The Big One gave the Huntsmen an emotionless, soul-piercing look of a cold-blooded, remorseless killer, which unnerved those who saw her serpentine, yet cunning eyes flash yellow-orange briefly. Mary let off a deep-throated caw from her maw that sent unnerving chills down their spines before she continued to gulp down on the intestines.

Barry looked at Coco Adel, including her teammates, with an expression of warning that was not to be taken lightly as he said, "Be glad that the power is on, or otherwise, you'd be dead, senora." And he looked to rest of the Huntsmen teams, "And that includes all of you, regardless of your training and your fancy weapons." With that he turned away and left.

"Well, that's a thing." Yang said, totally not feeling disturbed by Barry's words of dread.

"Yes, well, who's hungry?" Hammond said, trying to lighten the mood.

Jurassic Park Trivia: In the LEGO website, it is stated that Blue's unique blue coloration comes from from the DNA of the Black-Throated African Monitor Lizard used in her creation.

RWBY Trivia: Yang Xiao Long alludes to Goldilocks from the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which follows Team RWBY's theme of fairy tale allusions. Also her name, which is translated into "Small Dragon of the Sunshine", is also a reference to both the color of her hair and how much of a resemblance she has of an angry dragon when she is riled up with her Semblance activated.

Other Trivia: Ajax, from the previous chapter, and the way he acted, pretending to be a circus ape in front of the White Fang to fool them into letting their guard down is a reference to a scene from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes where Koba, a scarred bonobo, had done something similar when he encroached upon a weapons warehouse and was nearly caught red-handed by the local human militia.