A History

Deep within the caverns, slowly prowling around on short, sprawling legs, a large female Deinosuchus crept out of the darkness of a cave. Looking around, she could only make out the basic shapes of the structures within two feet of her. The rest of it was just a big blur. Not to mention, seeing was a lot more of a challenge now that she had her left eye tightly shut. The reason for that was because that eye, due to an incident, was completely blind.

When she looked over to the right, a small black and white male Ichthyornis clumsily flew from one stalagmite to another. The reason for his clumsiness was because his right wing was severely fractured, and not by a flying accident. He also couldn't completely fly anymore. For the most part, he had to just glide.

When he got to the last stalagmite, he leapt off of it and inelegantly swooped down onto the Deinosuchus' head. Feeling an unexpected thing land on her, the bellydragger growled and snapped.

"Relax, Dil," the sharpbeak casually said, "it's me, Ichy."

"Ichy!" the bellydragger scowled harshly. "You know I can't see so good! Why do you sneak up on me like that?!"

"Eh," the bird casually shrugged, "call it a mean streak."

"Well, did you find anything?" Dil asked.

"Ugh, not so much as a footprint." Ichy groaned, irritated. "You think large, dumb longnecks would leave a few tracks."

Ichy then winced as a sharp pain from his wing shot through his body. Once it had died, his face turned into a vicious scowl.

"I swear when I get my claws on that human, he's going to regret shooting me in the wing!" he growled.

"You think you've got it rough?!" Dil snapped. "That little pest made my eyesight problem even worse!"

"Oh sure, whine about your own problems!" Ichy raised his voice and leapt off of the gator. "In case you haven't notice, which you probably haven't, I do all the real work around here!"

"You?! I GET all the food!"

"Well, you couldn't get it without me! I'm the eyes!"

"So?! I'm the teeth!"

"Whatever, I need you like a hole in the head!"

"Oh yeah?! Well, I need you like a rock on my toes!"

"Why do I even stick around you?!"

"You tell me and we'll both know! We don't even get on!"

"Well, who needs you?!"

"And who needs you?!"

"Well, I don't need you, leather-head!"

"And I don't need you, bird-brain!"

With frustrated and prideful huffs, the gator and bird turned away from each other and marched away in opposite directions. Ichy angrily waddled over to a ledge that would've have overlooked the entrance to the caves. However, after that previous cave-in, all that was there was a wall of boulders.

And this time, there was something that caught the Ichthyornis' attention. He gave a hateful glare before turning back to Dil.

He hastily glided over to the enormous gator, wincing as a sharp pain stung his wing, and landed in front of her.

"Hey, Dil!" Ichy said harshly.

Ichy then shoved Dil's head around and guided her back to the ledge. With his good wing, he pointed. Since the Deinosuchus had poor eyesight, Ichy had to tell her what was on the wall of rocks.

"It's that baby longneck and human kid!" he spat.

Dil then gave a low, angry growl. Ichy glared at the young Apatosaurus and human working with the Archelon to move some large boulders.

"Something tells me we'll be feasting on vengeance tonight!" Ichy snarled, salvia dripping his beak.

With all the strength each of them had, Littlefoot, Aylene, and Archie all pushed and shoved on a large rock near the top of the pile. They grunted and strained as they struggled to budge the stubborn boulder. With one last effort, they lodged it from its spot and it tumbled down the wall, crashing to the ground below.

After the whole struggle, they three collapsed on to the rest of the rock pile for a chance to catch their breaths.

"Ugh," Littlefoot moaned, exhausted. "It's no use. We'll never be able to dig through all this."

"We can't give up, Littlefoot." Aylene panted. "We have to try something."

Archie was about to say something when a union of voices from the other side of the wall shouted.

"Littlefoot! Aylene!"

Littlefoot and Aylene jolted up and smiled when they recognized the voices.

"Archie!" Littlefoot happily shouted. "It's our friends!"

"Guys!" Ken's voice shouted. "Can you hear us?!"

"Ken, is that you?!" Aylene called.

"Yeah," Ken's voice answered, "are you guys okay?!"

"We're fine!" Aylene replied. "Are you okay?!"

"We're alright! Ali and I got the rest of the group! We'll have you free in no time!"

"Okay, Littlefoot and I found some help! We'll work from this end!"

"Okay, just be careful, we don't want to cause another rockslide!"

On each side of the wall, both teams worked to break down the barrier that was keeping them apart. Every now and then, they shouted back and forth to each other to check on the others' progress.

With the extra help, Ken and Ali were now making good headway.

"Just keep going, everyone." Ken encouraged. "We're almost through."

Together, Ken and Ali worked near the top of the pile in removing some large boulder, Spike and Cera began clearing away small clumps of medium sized rocks near the middle, while Petrie and Ducky worked on moving small pebbles.

"Aylene!" Ken called. "How's it going on your end?!"

"It's fine!" Aylene's voice answered.

At that moment, there was a loud angry roar on the other side of the wall.

"What was that?" Cera asked, nervous.

"Aylene!" Ken shouted. "What's going on?!"

"Ken," the human girl's voice was spiked with fear, "there's a…!"

Aylene was cut off by another vicious roar.

"Aylene!" Ken shouted. "AYLENE!"

Aylene didn't have time to return Ken's call; because now she, Littlefoot, and Archie were fleeing for their lives.

Just as a large Deinosuchus with an Ichthyornis riding on its head approached the wall of rocks and began to crawl up it towards its prey, the group of three hastily ran down the opposite side and away from the wall.

"They're getting away!" the little bird shouted. "They won't escape a second time!"

"Follow me!" Archie commanded.

Aylene leapt onto Littlefoot's back and the Apatosaurus ran after the Archelon. Although they had managed to put some distance between themselves and their pursuers, they could still hear the roars of the gator and the commanding shrieks of the predatory bird slowly gaining on them.

Eventually, the group came upon a tall pillar of rock with deep crevasses digging into it. Beside it was a shallow pool of clear water. Archie approached the pillar of stone and stuck his fore-flipper into one of the crevasses.

"In here, kids!" he instructed.

Littlefoot and Aylene obeyed and hastily made their way inside. The hiding spot wasn't very big, but it did lead far back enough for the two friends to blend in with the shadows.

"What about you?" Littlefoot asked Archie, concerned.

"Don't worry." Archie replied.

The giant turtle then crawled back into the water.

"Now you see me, now you don't."

With the last few words, Archie tucked himself back into his shell and sat as still as a rock, giving him the appearance of one.

"Here they come!" Aylene forcefully whispered. "Get back!"

Littlefoot and Aylene crept back into the crevasse as far as they could just as the Deinosuchus came around the corner. They both held their breath, fearing that their breathing would give away their hiding spot, as the large gator slowly walked past them. Anxiety in both the longneck and human nearly skyrocketed when the gator's tail stopped right in front of their hiding spot.

"Augh!" the bird squawked. "Where'd did those blasted kids go?!"

"Don't tell me you lost them again?!" the gator shouted. "You lost them back in the swamp, too!"

"Just shut up and keep looking! There here somewhere and we're going to find them! They won't get away this time!"

Littlefoot and Aylene exchanged both worried and confused glances. It was obvious those two predators were talking about them, but the reasons why were unknown.

A fearful thought crossed Aylene's mind. Were they looking for them because of that whole "Walking Terror" title claiming?

But if that was the case, why were they talking as if they had encountered Littlefoot and Aylene before? The longneck and human sure hadn't encountered anything like them before, so what did it all mean.

Littlefoot took a glance over at the gator's tail and his jaw dropped. He then nudged Aylene, getting her attention. Using his paw, he pointed to the Deinosuchus tail. Aylene's eyes widened when she saw what Littlefoot was trying to tell her.

Sticking out of the gator's tail, with the end of it broken off, was an arrow shaft!

Just then, the Deinosuchus' tail moved away from their line of vision and the footsteps of the gator began to grow faint as it made its way through the caves.

"Did you see that?!" Littlefoot whispered.

"Was that an arrow shaft?!" Aylene asked in the same tone.

"Yeah," the longneck nodded, "and there's only two creatures that I know who use arrows as a defense. And one of them comes from the Land of Mists."

"Ken." Aylene's eyes widened as she slowly began to connect the dots. "Then…he and those two…they have a history."

"And a grudge by the looks of it." Littlefoot said, nervous. "And I think they might have mistaken us for Ali and Ken."

"If that's true then…" Aylene looked up in fear. "Let's get out of here before they come back!"

Aylene and Littlefoot slowly began to make their way out of the crevasses.

"THERE THEY ARE!"

Both friends screamed when they saw that the giant gator and small bird had turned around and was heading straight for them.

They both darted back into the crevasse and pressed themselves as far as they could. Pretty soon, the jaws of the Deinosuchus shoved through and began to snap at them, desperately wanting to grab one of them. However, because the crevasse was so narrow, the gator's jaws couldn't reach them.

Frustrated and determined, the gator turned around and began to use her tail to smash down the rocks to make the opening bigger.

"We're trapped!" Littlefoot shouted.

"Hang on!" Aylene replied. "I think I can…!"

Aylene never finished her sentence because at that moment, the Deinosuchus swung her tail and hit the rock pillar. A large chuck of stone fell from its place and hit Aylene in the head. She only gave a painful groan before falling to the ground, completely unconscious.

"AYLENE!" Littlefoot shouted when he saw his friend fall.

The longeck's attention was then turned back to the gator as she hit the rock pillar again. He realized with horror that the crevasse was slowly getting bigger. Just a little more and it would expose him and Aylene completely and they wouldn't have the opportunity to get away. On top of that, with Aylene out cold, Littlefoot felt completely defenseless. There was no way he could take on that gator by himself.

Unless there was some kind of miracle waiting to happen, he and Aylene were goners.

"Someone help!" he shivered, fear keeping his voice from reaching its full volume.