Chapter Seven:
Second Guess
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I don't know where to go from here now
Something still lingers though, it's weighing me down
I know the sun will shine again
Back and forth it seems we'll remain until the end
-"Second Guess" by you + me
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Ash recovered fairly quickly from her fever and short-term blindness shortly after their return. Upon her recovery, she went back to her usual, quiet self and declared no remembrance to their conversation prior to the Carnotaurus' attack. Oddly enough, she stopped pestering him about leaving altogether afterwards at the same time. He wasn't all too sure if she really did forget, or if she had quietly taken his words that night into consideration. He wasn't sure if she really remembered and was simply falling back on her quietness to let the dust settle over the entire happening, to never bring it up again. Allen doubted she forgot, and she simply chose not to bring it up. She was good at that; feigning interest in a conversation and refusing to bring it up after she closed herself off from it.
She had even stepped up his lesson plans with the bow over the next several weeks. He was getting kind of good, he was proud to admit. Most of his arrows actually hit the targets crafted in their training arena now. He could actually control the pull of the draw weight on the bowstring, so much so, that Ash had to restring it to increase the draw weight. She also added a few extra flairs, some of which was explained beyond, "It'll help reduce stress of the bow."
She was even teaching him the modified sign language she used to communicate with Carmilla and the raptors. While Báthory had proven she was an intelligent enough being, she was not as advanced enough to comprehend the waggling of fingers that spoke of more complicated gestures as the others were. Voice commands and the simplest of gestures were best for the old tyrannosaur. Ash was even making an effort to speak and sign at the same time for him, until he got it all down to pat.
"They won't hurt you," she told him, and she even signed it, her hands going slowly so he could read it. "They know better now."
"Is it because of that night?" He blurted, completely forgetting to sign back. Her hands stopped midair and dropped to her side. She stared at him, as though trying to comprehend what he'd said, at first. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, not behind that carefully crafted mask she rarely took off.
To his surprise, she finally nodded. "You were hurt but you didn't try to leave to save your own skin."
The sky was clear of any clouds that day, and for once, a pretty shade of robin's egg blue encompassed them. Yamatai, for once, was still and at peace. That tranquility seemed to include them, too.
"If you had, you would have been torn to pieces by Carmilla or the raptors for being a coward. Whichever one got to you first."
The comfort he had first felt dropped away like his stomach and he glowered at her false sweet smile and the hint of a smug glint in her mismatched eyes. Then she returned to his lessons by promptly flicking his forehead and signing to him as she spoke, "Do you want to learn how to hunt?"
His previous gripes to her words fell in an instant and he nodded without noticing at first.
"Good. Get your bow. We'll start with a Trike today."
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Trikes, it turned out, were huge up close. Three-horned, beak-mouthed monstrosities with an attitude that could match Báthory's ornery one, he felt less adequate in taking one down than he had first believed. Just one was a living, breathing muscle-bound beast, and their frilly skull with the long, goring horns made them appear even more imposing.
The raptors had joined them in the field downwind from the herd on the northern end of the island, just out of sight and out of mind. They warbled softly to one another and sometimes, one would bury their snout atop Ash's head and whisper little soft purrs in her ear. Every puff of breath disturbed strands of her hair, sending stray wisps into wayward fly-aways. The werewolf didn't seem to mind, and he was simply glad none of them tried the same with him. He wasn't comforted with the thought of any one of them with their killing claws anywhere near his backside at this point.
All at once, they stopped chittering and it was the deafening silence surrounding him that alerted Allen to glance their way. All of them, even Ash, were bristling and tense, and most of all, focused. He took her lead as she began nodding this way or that to a pair of raptors to head out. One of the last raptors, a snowy white and ashen grey thing with faint black accents to its feathers, remained behind.
"Spectre," she said softly. The raptor keened softly in response. "Distract."
Spectre made no noise as he leapt over the werewolf without warning, a silent phantom gliding across the plains that charged forward toward the unaware herd. It wasn't until the quiet killer was nearly on top of them did they take notice and startle into action. The others struck then, driving away the rest of the herd, forcing one out of the group, snapping at it and getting it to charge where they desired. They were playing the animal into following where they wanted. And the big, lumbering beast was falling right into it, instead of retreating to the safety of its herd. Some leapt onto the Triceratops' backside, clinging with their forelimbs and back claws as well, tearing into flesh only with their jaws. They were practically love bites; it was so half-hearted, it almost seemed silly the way they almost, well, played. They weren't slashing and tearing with their vicious sickle back claws like he expected them to.
Only then did he and Ash move, too, when the Triceratops was well and away from the herd. Ash took lead and he followed, shooting occasional nervous glances towards the herd. They brayed and barked and bellowed their displeasure, but they didn't venture closer as the raptors trapped the solitary Trike they'd isolated. The herd was too busy keeping to their ring of horns and shielded skulls to bother breaking the chain. They could only watch from a distance, braying forlornly at the pack. Babies were trapped in the center of the Trike-encompassed ring, squeaking in terror and confusion, shielded by their parents and herd-mates.
The bow in Allen's hands once again felt an inadequate tool to use against an animal this large. It felt…fragile. Flimsy. Mundane. Somehow, he felt his Crown Clown, and the sword he could summon at a whim would be more adequate in the face of the dangerous herbivores, but he knew wielding them against the animals wouldn't work. And he wouldn't want to, even if he could.
When he looked to Ash, however, she wielded the thing as though she was holding an extension of herself and was advancing to best the three-horned beast before them. With confidence in her stride and an expert's posture, she glided forward as silently as one of the raptors.
It was over before he knew it and he hadn't even fired a single shot. The Triceratops was collapsing slowly over onto its side, while raptors crawled over the newly made corpse. He stared downrange at the fallen beast. Had he missed something?
He darted after her and upon closer inspection, he saw arrows sprouting out of the animal's eye. He could barely make out the end of the shaft, they had all buried themselves so deep upon impact. Allen stared at the woman's backside and when she turned to look back at him, he promptly decided on the spot to never piss her off when she had her bow and a quiver of arrows on hand. She was almost as scary as Lenalee when she was focused and as deadly silent as any of her raptors.
He'd most likely never see her coming if she ever turned an arrow on him.
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Most of the spoils of victory went to the raptors and Carmilla. The larger predator had come to claim her piece shortly after the hunt had concluded, as he and Ash cut away at slabs of meat to take back to the cave. The raptors cough-barked at the white dinosaur in greeting while their feather crests splayed up and smoothed down intermittently as she crouched to feed with them. The rest of the Triceratops herd had moved on, further away from the feasting pack.
The work it took to carry the meat and keep it clean over the journey back had been worth the trouble once they started cooking it all up back home. The entire cave smelled of sizzling meats and dried spices and campfire wood smoke for days on after.
They even had enough left over to make tons of dried jerky, while a large piece of leathered hide was treated so they could be used for various purposes later on.
Nearly three days after the hunt, Ash was prepping him to go back out to practice at their little archery range. A flurry of blinding wind and fat snowflakes greeted them outside the door. Ash took one look at it all and slammed the door shut, closing them off from the abrasive weather. Her face was stony when she pivoted back around to face him. There were white flakes in her hair, and already melting. He eyed her questioningly.
"Snow?"
"She's back."
It was such a simple statement, said in such a matter-of-fact yet grim and ominous tone. Ash made it sound like the weight of the world was on her shoulders in those two words. There was more to be said, he could read it in her face. She didn't hold back this time.
"Himiko's back."
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The blizzard kept them confined for nearly four days.
Correction: it kept him confined for nearly four days. Ash, predictably, took her leave to brave the wintry world beyond—to hunt, provide fuel for the fires, and scavenge other materials like plants for medicines, poultices, salves. The pickings were slim, however, as most of the plants died in the sudden cold snap prior to the blizzard's sudden appearance.
Allen felt guilty with her going out there all alone again, but she insisted he stay, and that the winter would keep the animals from leaving their nests and dens. If he had left, she told him, he would have gotten lost, frostbite, hypothermia, worse. Then she promptly allowed the raptors to have free reign of the cave and he was left with their company until she returned. He never felt relaxed with the pack hanging around without her presence, but after the second day, he came to find that Ash's word had been true: they never laid a talon on him. They watched him, of course, with their sharp avian gazes, but not once did they try to harm him. When they weren't staring him down, they wanted nothing to do with him, in fact. He found he was quite fine with that.
On the morning the storm had finally broken, the entire island of Yamatai was blanketed in a solid, crisp layer of snow. It was so white; it hurt the eyes if he stared at it for too long. The raptors, at first, didn't venture out into the winter wonderland. They trilled uncertainly at the presence of it, dancing on the spot with a nervousness colouring their movements. Only when Ash shoved one of them into the mess did they begin venturing out. They peeped at one another and chittered loudly back at Ash like baby chicks, seeking her approval of the strange world they had awoken to. She watched with a small smile on her lips. It was the first time she looked even remotely tranquil, despite her admission days prior about Himiko's return. It was only when she looked at him did her smile drop and her face settled back into its usual neutral tone.
"What're you smiling at?"
He made a small noise and realized, yes. He was smiling too.
"I don't think I've ever seen you genuinely smile like that before," he confessed. "Not that there's a problem with you not smiling…but you also looked relaxed. You don't ever seem to be anything except tense most of the time."
She studied him for a time, looking unperturbed by the frigid air temperature surrounding them. He wanted to get back inside, where it was warm and cozy by the fire. Allen shoved his hands into his armpits, hugging himself tightly. She turned away to watch the raptors with a sigh, her breath misting in the air. They were rolling around in the snow now, pouncing on one another in giddy play. It was like watching giant birds prancing about in a winter wonderland. And they really did look like birds, when they didn't open their mouths and he couldn't see their teeth. It was deceptively inviting to want to dive into the snow and play right alongside them. They were almost…cute.
"I don't exactly have time to be relaxed," she said at last. "It leads to complacency. Complacency kills in this place."
She didn't turn her head, but she had shifted her gaze to look at him from the corner of her eye.
"In an hour, I'm going out to see if anyone's been stranded on the island. Not unlike you, in fact. You can choose to come with me, or you can stay. I'm warning you though, there will be blood when the Solarii start coming out of the woodworks soon enough. So, I highly suggest you stay here. They won't show the same reservations you would. They'll shoot at you or try to gut you with a blade and most of them won't make it a quick and painless death. They won't show mercy. They never do."
She left him with that said, ducking back into the cave to give him ample time to think. Think about what she's preparing to do. Think about how calm and collected she was when she spoke of killing.
She's been doing this for far too long, he thought. She's been here too long. Is this all she knows?
He followed her back inside shortly after, and found her gathering supplies from the room that has otherwise been locked up. Sheaths and holsters were strapped onto her, weapons were set aside until needed. A small pouch made of furs was laid out as well, and she pushed in several items he recognized as medical kits. She was busy snapping bracers onto her wrists as Allen ventured closer. He hadn't seen all of her weaponry out like this in a long while. Not since he had first arrived and saw the impressive variety she had on hand. She'd made a decent attempt at hiding it all from view, except for her rack of booby-trapped rifles and the bows they used for practice or hunting.
When Ash buckled on the bracers, she flicked her hands back a little and in response, a thin blade spiked out, long and deadly. When she rolled her hands down, the blade slicked back into the bracer. She caught him watching and assessed him with a calm gaze.
"In that room, you'll find extra sleeping gear. Can I trust you to get it all laid out? I don't know how many I might find, but I have a feeling it's going to be a big group."
"How can you know?"
"A gut feeling," she reiterated pointedly, ticking a brow up that was actually a silent challenge for him to try and argue with her. He decided not to. She returned to checking her weapons and suddenly, he felt as though he was staring at Master Cross, always keeping his weapon in good condition by breaking it down and cleaning it, ensuring it wouldn't fail him, not even once.
Her movements were smooth as she took apart a pistol with practiced, almost lazy, ease. Right down to its smallest bits, she was checking for signs of rust or warping and after a quick wipe-down of the carbon within, she was snapping it all back together. She repeated the process for the rifle and the shotgun, and after that was completed, she was stringing a bow together that he'd never seen before.
The wood bowed into a signature curve as the string pulled taut, and he noticed the intricate carvings in the wood, small and lovingly detailed with care. He knew she made all her own bows; she even made his first one for him, before she had him trying to craft his own. He suddenly felt his current one was sloppy and shoddy in comparison. Clearly, she really had been doing this for too long, if she was so universally focused on crafting something of such beauty and then turning it into a killing weapon.
He stewed on this fact as she finished her inventory, stocked up on arrows and bullets, and slung on her pouch of extra supplies. He stirred when she looked to him one last time. "The raptors will be with me, but if you need someone to stay back…"
"Wait…" he sucked in a breath and for a moment, the tension between them was thick, like a crack of thunder. "More ground could be covered if I went out and helped—how hard could it be?"
"Extremely, when they're trying to set you on fire with a Molotov. Or putting a bullet or arrow in your back or worse, your head, when you aren't looking," she deadpanned back, her tone flat and matter-of-fact. "Plus, you're sense of direction is terrible."
"Then I'll take one of the raptors—but I can't stand sitting here, doing nothing while an innocent person is being gunned down!"
"You are an innocent person and I will not have you running around without any training with my pack, risking your skinny little neck," she fired right back, looking belligerently adamant on her decision.
He hesitated, taken aback for only a split moment. A bloom of red-hot anger gnawed away at his stomach like acid, before he calmed himself. She was trying to get a rise out of him, he realized. And getting angry would only justify her need to keep him back. Then, very softly, after he had a moment to breathe and think, he said "I was a soldier for a secret war back—back in my time, I've told you this before, but not in great detail. I fought…monsters; I suppose you could call them, but that's not entirely accurate. They were really machines, made from the souls of the dead that stole the bodies of the living who tried to bring them back."
Allen glanced at his left hand, at the cross imbedded in the back of it, the lankiness of his arm, the knobbed knuckles, the redness of his skin. Almost like he'd dipped his entire arm in a vat of dark red ink and it had set in at its permanent dark hue. Hair didn't even grow there. He remembered when it had been, once upon a time, mottled like scales, and it was coloured the same deep red it was now, like rusted blood. So much has changed and in such a very short time in his life. He wasn't even looking at her when he continued speaking.
"I did the same thing, once. I tried bringing back someone. I was one of the lucky few who got away alive, but not unscathed. It was only by this hand that I…I came out of it alive. I was taken in and trained by the people who fought these machines that we call 'Akuma'." He finally looked back at her, somewhat relieved that the tension in her frame had eked away, even if only a little. "I know how to fight. I know how to survive. I just…found myself a little disoriented for a lot longer than I would have liked. I might not raise a weapon to kill someone, like you have in the past, but I won't stand idly by while someone else suffers. I made a promise to protect and save human beings."
And the Akuma, he couldn't help but think, resisting the urge to wince. But that didn't go so well, given I'm here and not where I should be. This is the very least I can do.
"Please," he continued with a hiss of pleading in his voice. "Please don't make me stand by and do nothing. Don't leave me to sit and worry in this damned cave. I want to help. And I can communicate well enough in sign language, can't I? The raptors, they seem to understand the basics that you've taught me well enough. They can keep me from getting lost."
She said nothing and did nothing for what he felt was an eternity. It grew until he wanted to squirm under her unreadable, mismatched gaze. Finally, she made a flicker of movement and it was her tail first, sweeping back and forth in a lazy arc. He highly doubted she was wagging. She turned away and headed for the entrance of their homestead and at first; he thought she was going to leave him without a word, like she's done so many times before. He darted after her, a cry on his lips, but she simply opened the door and whistled.
One of the raptors came charging in, braying loudly enough to hurt Allen's ears. Golden, glittering avian eyes stared at him as the raptor towered over him, shaking its violet-and-grey shaggy-feathered skull and dipping its long neck to peer at Ash when she stepped into view. It was the very same raptor that had chased him away the day he'd been bitten by that pack of Compies. She reached and offered her hand, palm up, toward the raptor. In turn, the raptor hissed softly, snapping its jaws, as though making to bite her, only to retract at the last moment before pressing its snout into her palm. She gave the snout a light scratch and withdrew.
"You said you wanted to know the raptors as I liked to call them. This is Mana. He'll accompany you. Don't die," she said sharply before her gaze softened by a surprising margin. "I would really rather not have to build a funeral pyre for you."
Her words and softer gaze was all lost on him, unfortunately, as soon as she named the raptor before them. A painful, hard knot had coiled itself in the pit of his stomach and another made its home in the base of his throat. It hurt to breath and it hurt worse to try and talk, his jaws had wired themselves shut so tightly.
"Mana," he finally managed to repeat, his chest aching. The soft gaze disappeared and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. The raptor homed it—his—gaze on Allen as well and grew eerily silent on cue. No purrs, no hisses, nothing. Just pure, utter silence.
"Is there a problem?"
"No," he said, thick molasses covering his tongue and making it feel alien and strange in his mouth. "No. No problem. I…thank you. For giving me a chance."
What else could he say, other than that? He'd revealed too much, and it was enough heartache. Saying anything else that involved his adoptive father would have been the one thing that would rip it open all anew.
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He was lucky so far. No Solarii harassed him as he and Mana the Dakotaraptor trespassed through territory that had once again become theirs. Not yet, anyway.
He was doubly lucky when he came across a group of kids, roughly his age, maybe older. Two boys, two girls, and…one rather strange-looking animal that looked a strange cross between a white bear and a dog. And all five were currently being stared down at like they were an on-the-move meal for Báthory.
The old tyrannosaurus had her jaws parted, her teeth bared, and her beady golden eyes zeroed in on them. Her feet were buried in the snow, although she didn't seem entirely bothered in the wintry world around them. Why she hadn't attacked could be anyone's guess and Allen was hoping it was because she knew they weren't really meals. Ash always said that while the old girl wasn't smart like her raptors, she was still a few shades of intelligent, like a dog. Báthory huffed and puffed, letting out harsh little growls but so far, she hadn't advanced. That was good.
That was good, right?
Mana was already zooming forward, cough-barking the entire time, and it instantly brought Báthory's enormous head to snap away from the kids and onto the raptor. Báthory narrowed her eyes and growled, as though in loathing at being interrupted. Likewise, the kids turned as well, startled, and the white dog-bear creature snarled, but Mana ignored them all. Instead, the raptor hopped up on a fallen tree trunk, kicking up flurries of soft snow as he did. The raptor was agile and nimble as he traversed across the length of the fallen tree until he was nose-to-nose with the old tyrannosaur, chittering softly to her.
The kids watched in fascination, as opposed to their abject horror at being stared down by a very large, very heavy, and easily angered predator. Allen came trotting into the clearing, drawing their attention further away from the cumbersome predators. One of the boys cried out in relief, wearing such a huge and genuine grin on his face, that Allen couldn't help but return it.
"Oh, another person! I thought we'd never see anyone else again!"
"Bolin, we've only been here for an hour," one of the girls, a rather gorgeous dark-haired beauty, remarked lightly. She glanced back at Báthory thoughtfully and warily before she added, "Although, an hour seems long enough to me."
"Try a few months," Allen quipped back, and he almost winced at the slightly shocked expressions. "Sorry about Báthory. She's…not much of a people person."
"More like a people person-eater! I thought that thing was going to try and chow down on us any minute. It showed up out of nowhere! How can something that big hide so well, especially with all this snow?"
Allen smiled wryly at that. If they thought Báthory had surprised them, then he wondered how shocked they'd be if they had run into Carmilla or even a Carnotaurus.
"What kind of animal is that, even? I've never seen one before."
Allen turned to the taller of the two boys, who was regarding him with a narrow-eyed, golden gaze. He was somewhat reminded of Ash, almost, if only for the colour of his eyes.
"She's a Tyrannosaurus Rex. A dinosaur."
He was given blank stares all around.
"A…what-a-saur-what rex?" The other girl asked, brunette and blue-eyed, her brows furrowed curiously.
He could already imagine how Ash would have handled this. She would have told them to be grateful that Báthory hadn't eaten them and to shut up and follow her. Allen decided not to go that route.
"She's a very big animal that likes to eat meat, if her teeth hadn't announced it loudly enough. We could certainly leave it at that and leave her be. She'll be less inclined to attack now that I'm here."
Or maybe it's really because of the Dakotaraptor conversing with her now. Allen wasn't going to sit there and debate about it. The four cast doubtful looks behind them, but relief swelled rapidly in the group when Báthory turned away from them all with a fine-tuned low rumble in her chest. Mana came trotting back toward them on light, sickled feet. He jumped when the white bear-dog snarled at him and hissed menacingly right back, feathers ruffling and his crest rising high.
"Naga, don't! Easy, it's okay girl," the blue-eyed girl turned toward the bear-dog in an instant, soothing the white animal. Mana hissed, softer this time, backing away slowly toward Allen.
"Mana," he called, his voice timorous for a moment as he uttered the name. He cleared his throat and forced his way past the hard lump. "Mana. Leave them alone. Come on."
The raptor expressed one last disgruntled hiss, but the ruffled feathers began to gloss back down and his crest slowly but surely pressed flatly against his skull. Allen repeated the message, this time adding in the stilted sign language for emphasis, his voice stronger as he spoke.
"We have to move quickly," Allen said to the four, when he was sure Mana wouldn't attack. "There are men on this island—they'll want to kill you if they catch you. And there are more dinosaurs that even I can't make back down. Worse ones. I know a safe place, my friend…she's looking for anyone else that might have been stranded—"
Allen was promptly interrupted when their questions began piercing the air.
"Wait, we're on an island?!"
"How did we get here?"
"What do you mean, 'stranded'—?"
And just as Allen had been interrupted, Mana promptly inserted his own equivalence of a voice and screamed at them all until they clapped hands over ears and waited as everyone else's words died down. Mana chittered and hissed angrily at the four humans while the bear-dog growled back. Then the raptor pinned Allen with a glare so steadfast, Allen would have mistaken the animal for almost human if he hadn't known better.
It was a gaze that all but said, "Get them under control and let's go."
He found himself nodding back without even realizing it before he turned back toward the group. He raised his hands in a placating manner, trying to appear as amicable as possible, but he wasn't sure how well he was succeeding now. Not with a bow and a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back.
"I know you have questions, and while I don't have all the answers, we can try to accommodate you, keep you safe until we can get you back to where you belong."
"Republic City!" The shorter and broader of the two boys said automatically. Allen took pause at that.
"I'm…not familiar with a Republic City, but…I'm sure we can find it."
He offered another smile, and it came so easily, he was actually surprised. Mana snort-huffed at Allen impatiently, riddled with nervous energy as he danced on the spot. Allen motioned at the raptor with a flick of his hands and Mana took off, gliding away on fleet feet through the snow, leading the way.
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The radio at his hip chirped and hissed with static intermittently. Occasionally, he'd catch snippets of radio chatter from the Solarii. He had sent a brief message to Ash, telling her he found five survivors—he had to include the dog-bear creature—and was on his way back with them. He was worried when he didn't receive a reply. A knot had coiled itself into a hard, painful ball in the pit of his stomach when the relative radio silence dragged on. What if the Solarii had caught wind of his message instead? Ash had warned him about that, time and again.
"Allen."
He was so startled at the sound of someone calling his name, he thought it had come from one of the others. They only stared at him in confusion before he realized where it had really come from. Only after Mana snapped at his fingers and glared at him in that "big and angry bird of prey" kind of way, did he move at last.
He hurriedly unclipped the radio and depressed the talk button.
"Ash? Ash, is that you?"
"Allen. I found ten survivors and…a flying lemur."
"…a flying lemur?"
"Ten survivors. And a flying lemur," she confirmed, the edges of her voice strangely dripping with dry humour. "I managed to catch some Solarii chatter earlier. There's more near where you're at; keep your eyes and ears peeled. I'll try to get down to your end as soon as I get these kids to safety. If it doesn't happen, just keep them safe. Get them back home. Good luck."
Allen stiffened at that and found himself nodding. Ash had taken more to the southern end of the island, near the coastal forests, while he had taken the core of the island, in the mountains and surrounding forested areas.
"Right…I'll see you when I see you, then," he sighed back, frowning heavily. "Good luck."
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A Dilophosaurus didn't look like much at first glance: Long-necked, boxy body, long tail; it was perhaps about three to four meters long, if even that. That was maybe the only intimidating factor about it: its relatively large size compared to the average human. The most unusual aspect of it was the ruffled skin around its neck and of course, the bony crest adorning its skull. It trilled and chirped like a bird, and despite the toothy maw, it sniffed about, rooting up snow to get at the forest foliage below like a harmless little bird as well. Allen knew better than to trust that deceptively cute façade.
Bolin cooed at the animal before Allen shushed him. The Dilo snapped its head up at the noise, beady eyes scanning the area and giving a cursory sniff. Allen was glad they weren't downwind of the animal; it would have caught their scent long before they came across it.
"Don't do that," he hissed fervently as they hid beneath a decline in the hill behind a rotting log. "They're venomous! They'll spit it in your eyes and you'll go blind; and worse, they'll eat you when you're still alive and aware!"
Bolin turned almost as green as his clothes at that. Mako, the golden-eyed and dark-haired boy, appeared appropriately sickened at the thought as well and narrowed his eyes as he raised himself up high enough to stare down where the Dilo had been. He sucked breath between clenched teeth in surprise and asked, "Where'd it go?"
Korra, the girl with the blue eyes and dark brown hair, balled her hands into fists. Asami looked alarmed, her pretty green eyes scanning their backsides first. Naga rumbled a low growl deep in her chest. Mana was eerily silent, but he had his jaws parted in a quiet threatening display. He curled close to Allen, blocking his body from the forest and pressing him closer still toward the other four. The raptor simply radiated heat, and Allen was bumped several times by the raptor's feathery flank.
Mana was their first and foremost warning system. He screamed and leapt without warning, tackling a body that had been trying to creep up on them. The raptor gave another primal scream that promised blood and pain and it was the pure raw wild made incarnate, a deep rooted instinct that refused to back down and quiver like prey animal. The Dilo screamed in a shrill voice right back, and a crest of brightly coloured skins around its neck flared up, rattling loudly. It suddenly didn't appear as cute anymore, not with that threatening display leering back at them all. The flap of skin made it look so much larger, especially with the big, black spots ringed in bright colours that made them look like eyes.
Before Allen could move or summon his Crown Clown, Korra leapt into the fray, taking up a fighting stance. She moved fluidly into another stance, and suddenly, the snow rose up to meet her bidding, liquefying instantaneously before rushing forward to encase the Dilophosaurus, venomous head and all into a block of sparkling clear ice.
Anger and surprise read clearly in the animal's expression, the Dilo's jaws parted in another gaping display, its colourful neck crest fully splayed and clawed front limbs raised up, as though to grab hold and slash up. Korra looked appropriately smug when Mana peeped back at her, his feathers rising high in the sky. The raptor trilled, marching forward with uncertainty colouring his body language as he sniffed cautiously at the block of ice that encompassed the Dilo. He snorted appreciatively after only a few moments of inspection, hopping along in the snow back to where Allen was, purring contentedly.
"Uh…that happened. That—that really happened," he finally concluded, sharing a look with the raptor. Mana snorted in his face as though to say, "Yes. Yes it did."
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