Deserrt? Check. No food or water? Check. Plane crash that stranded us here? Check again. Everyone riding camels except for me? Wow, this sounds kinda cliché…
Why was I the only person to not get a camel? Well, since I had promised the camels protection, I got the short end of the straw.
Angel stood counting the camels. Then she turned to Max, "We'll be a couple short, Max, if everyone gets their own camel."
"Huh," Max replied, "I guess we could always put you and Nudge on one, and let Spark keep up her promise."
Wait a second… "So we'll let Spark be something big with teeth, and we don't have to do butt-kicking cause she'll be doing it for us if the butt-kicking is needed?" Angel asked innocently.
"That might be the plan."
The flock turned to me with expectant expressions on their face. Oh great.
Aaaaaaaand that's the story about why I'm not riding a camel. I busy providing the protection against baddies. When I had transformed, the camels and pilot had freaked out, but the flock and Dr. Martinez managed to calm them down.
Now, I was tired and hungry. The shape I had assumed was big and an excellent predator. I bet Max would let me catch a rabbit for myself. That would help.
You all are probably wondering, "What could Spark possibly be?" Well, I'm big. I have a giant toeclaw. What am I? If you guessed Velociraptor, you're wrong.
You see, real Velociraptors are three feet tall. Not exactly the definition of intimidating. The ones in Jurassic Park are actually Deinonycus, the six or five foot tall otherwise carbon copies of Velociraptor.
But no, I happened to be even bigger than that. I had to be Utah's thief. I had to be Utahraptor. Lovely. Either way, I stuck out like a sore thumb. They just had to make me transform into a big dinosaur… A lion would've done just as well…
But Utahraptor wasn't a carbon copy! Hip hip hooray for originality! It was dark green, with stripes of black. However, I had a large spray of feather on my head that were dark orange and brown, in addition to the feathers on my wings. Those feathers happened to be dark orange and brown too, though with a few black ones in the mix.
Anyway, exactly how big was I? The toeclaw was fifteen inches long. Fifteen inches of pure ripping power. I dunno about you, but that's impressive.
I was almost ten feet tall, and almost twenty-two feet long. Yet, despite my size, I felt light and swift, and still deadly and beautiful… Like a sword! Or a dragon!
Now I can see why the flock wanted me as a defender. I could be big, ferocious, and awesome, while they simply had to watch. Bah!
Ahem. My giant toeclaws weren't the only weapons. I had clawed forelimbs that were nubbish like a T-Rex's (Seriously! The arms are pitiful!), and a set of jaws full of sharp, serrated teeth that pointed backwards, and were obviously meant to rip rather than bite.
But enough on me. The entire group was riding on camels. Murua was Angel and Nudge's steed, and Max on Abeeku. I figured that their stubborn personalities fit together well.
Although when I put them together I forgot they couldn't talk to each other like I can…
Whoops.
Ahem. Either way, I spotted something that looked like it could be food up ahead. I looked up, interested, and saw that it was a snake. I hate eating snakes, they were too dry and scaly, but I decided to go after it anyway.
I turned to Max and asked, "I'm hungry. Can I go catch some food?"
She stared at me momentarily, which was understandable because you would not expect a dinosaur to talk, even if she was expecting it, then replied, "Be quick."
I nodded, sighted my prey, and took off. Boy, raptors were fast. I flashed across the desert like lightning, amazed at the speed that I was producing on the ground. I estimate that I was going maybe cheetah speed.
Either way, I arrived at my food quickly. A speedy glance before striking let me know that this species wasn't poisonous. I dipped my head down and caught it in my jaws. I snapped its spine, killing the creature, and trotted back to my group with my prize.
Max eyed the snake warily. Okay, so now she had claustrophobia and- snakophobia?
I dunno. Either way, I ignored the slightly curious and disgusted gazes and gulped the snake down. Nudge blinked once at how fast the snake went down before bursting out, "You have warp drive on the ground! It's so cool, you went so fast! Can I ride you?"
"Didn't Total say that Max had warp drive once?" asked Angel.
"Yeah, I think so, but it was in the air." We had left Total and Aikla in Florida, to all you who are wondering about where the Toto-from-Wizard-of-Oz-carbon-copy went to.
But I so smartly replied, "Max has warp drive?"
"Yeah, pretty much." Max was trying very hard not to look too proud of it. I knew otherwise.
Nudge said again, "But I want to ride you! Please? Can I?"
I sighed, and chuckled, but said, "Sure."
Her face lit up and she slid off Murua smoothly. I stopped my progress to wait for her to get to me, then I bent down so she could mount.
When Nudge was securely on, I braced myself, and took off again. Once again, I marveled at my speed. The girl on my back whooped and cheered. "This feel like flying?" I asked over the wind.
"Almost as good as it!" she shouted back, grinning. I felt myself smiling a bit too, and pushed myself faster. Then, I decided to test another ability of a raptor; Jumping.
After a few more fast-paced steps, I kicked off the ground very hard, launching myself into the air.
Great stars above. I went like… thirty feet… (AN: I'm guesstimatining from the raptors in Jurassic Park who were only six feet tall. They jump twelve or twenty feet, I can't remember…)
"HOLY CRAP!" Nudge yelled. I unfurled my wings then, and we were flying.
"You didn't tell me you were a kangaroo too!" she told me.
"I didn't know I could even go that high!"
"Me neither!"
Flying as raptor was amazing. Hard work, to say the least, because my wingspan was around thirty feet, maybe thirty-five.
I felt like a dragon. If only I could breathe fire… No, wait that's a bad idea. If I sneezed…
I didn't finish the thought. Nudge had asked, "Should we be getting back?"
"Yeah…" Sadly, we had to turn back. We had only been gone for about ten minutes, but we had gone very far. I swooped back to the rest of the group.
Max raised an eyebrow at me when I had landed. "What was that about trying to not draw attention to the dinosaur again?"
I stuck my tongue out at her.
Nudge, however, had noticed something on the flight I hadn't. She also had decided to keep it in until we had gotten back.
She burst out loudly, "I saw land!"
What?
"Nudge, we're not on a ship," Iggy said sarcastically.
"…Oops. I meant to say, I saw a city!"
Well, that made more sense. Seeing land in the middle of a desert… I shook my head, exasperated.
AN: And that's Chapter Fifteen! Now if you would be so kind as to press the green button there, I would be very grateful…