So here's chappie number three. Yeah I dont own Ice Age blah blah blah...

again, this is Mwang's CO PARTNER NOT the real MWANG.

"Whoa..." breathed Matthias. Buck was looking at his siblings with an 'I told you so' face. Dorothy didn't notice- - she was too busy gazing in awe at her surroundings with childlike innocence.

They were standing, once again, in what many have come to call "Dinotopia".

But, they were not alone.

"You're never alone."

Mammal-wise, I mean.

Peaches cowered in the corner of the cave. Before her, a group of animals just as odd as her family bickered about how to "dispose of the creature". A very large skunk, a narrow eyed ferret with long fangs, a scrawny, hungry looking hyena who seemed to have a habit of not finishing his sentences, and a murderous looking wolf. "It's gotta have a family!" shrieked the hyena, breaking down into a fit of laughter. Peaches noted that he had a lazy eye. "Well, do ya have a family?" asked the ferret, prodding her with a sharp stick. When she didn't answer, her roared at her, "ANSWER ME, YOU COWARDLY NITWIT!" She whimpered, but nodded. The hyena faced the wolf, staggering. "Y-You see? I told-AH HA HA HA HA HA!" The wolf growled. The skunk just sat to the side, licking a turnip. He looked at the little mammoth, and gave a small wave before going back to licking his turnip.

But Peaches didn't think he was friendly.

No, he was the one that had beat her with a stick not an hour before.

Buck

"So how do we get to wherever we're going?" asked Matthias. "Oh, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump across the Jungle of Misery, hopefully we won't get...ah, held up again at the Chasm of Death, and after that it should be quite simple crossing the Plates of Woe. What's left of them, at least," I said casually. "What do you mean, what's left of them?" asked Tabitha. "Oh, well you see, there's not much left of them since Rudy plowed through there, and even less after our last visit with these crazy mammals." "Who are you calling crazy?" joked Manny. "Who's Rudy? You mean our sister?" "No- - No, of course I don't mean her. She's dead!" "Then who?" asked Melody. "The dinosaur, of course." Sid shouldered up to me. "So, Buck, old buddy old pal, whadya say we go- -" "Not today, sloth." "But- - but- - their my kids!" Manny rolled his eyes. "Sid they're not your kids. They belong to the Mommy Dinosaur, who is now taking care of them, just as she should be." Sid looked crestfallen. I said in a tone low enough for only Sid to hear, "We might run into them."

This cheered the fellow up quite a bit.

Manny made a move to start on our journey, and I stopped him. "All rules apply!" I said. "Rules?" asked Melody. "Rule number one: Always listen to Buck!" Matthias rolled his eyes. "Rule number two! Always stay in the middle of the path! Rule number THREE..." I paused dramatically. Sid ruined it by walking to back sadly. "Er...okay. That's taken care of. Rule number five does NOT apply UNLESS I say otherwise- -" "What's rule number five?" inquired Sid. I sighed. "That rule number two may be broken if there is a female involved or perhaps a cute dog. Rule number five only applies in and emergency that concerns life and death. Now enough of that, let's get a move on!" I clapped my hands once.

three hours later

I kept my eye on Tabitha. I knew everyone thought that everything looked simply marvelous, but it just as deadly as it was pleasing to look at.

Sid was nearly sucked into a plant when he thought it was a mango. Lucky for him, I have quick reflexes. Manny started complaining that we MUST be lost, because we kept going through the same part of the jungle (which we weren't, it all looks nearly exactly the same throughout the whole forest), and then Matthias started questioning my ability on telling North from South.

"North is that way, you dumb chicken!" "No, it's not, North is THAT way" I pointed in the opposite direction. "You idjit, that's South!" "No it's not!" "Yeah, it is!" "Who's the idiot now?" "YOU ARE!" Pretty soon, we were talking over each other, with the rest of the herd just watching us.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me furiously. "Are you daft? North is that way, South is that way- - you could be leading us into a perfectly deadly trap with you're sense of direction!" I skillfully twisted out of his grasp. "I'm daft? North is NOT that way!"

It must have been a good seven minutes before Melody gave a shrill whistle, which narrowly stopped us from wringing each other necks. "Matthias, North IS that way," she said. I smirked at him.

My victory didn't last long though.

Universal P.O.V. (No, not the movie making company! What's wrong with you?)

Two screams pierced the air. Quickly, Buck looked for Tabitha.

She wasn't with them.

Neither was Sid.

Realizing the horrifying predicament they were in, he bolted towards the screams.

"Where's Sid?" asked Manny. "I don't know, but wherever it is, it can't be a good place," said Diego, following Buck. "Stay on the path, Tabitha, please, listen to me..." prayed Buck silently.

Meanwhile...

Tabitha shrieked as the dinosaur came closer to her. It. Was. HUGE. Whatever kind of dinosaur it was, at this size, it had to be Rudy- - Rudy, the dinosaur whom, not a day before, had been fairy tales to her. The beast roared in their faces, causing them to back up into the foliage. She glanced behind herself, quickly. No more than two yards away sat a beautiful flower, its purple petals cascading down the tree it was growing on. Dead in the center was a complicated map of thin threads, surrounding a black dart longer than her arm. She gulped and turned back to the overgrown lizard. Sid was screaming and flailing his arms, and "Rudy" must have gotten annoyed, for he made a swipe at the sloth. Sid went tumbling into a large tree, moaning. Tabitha leaped and placed herself in front of the defenseless sloth in a threatening position. The ferocious snowflake rolled his eyes- - and then stopped.

For the first time, he was getting a good look at this girl- - this stupid girl defending a stupid sloth. She looked a teensy bit like...No, it couldn't be. After all those years with Buck chasing him around, the weasel had only uttered something about having a family once, soon after the herd had left.

"I remember when I had a kid...once, a long time ago...'Course, she's dead now," he'd added quietly. "And then YOU killed my pineapple, too!"

So no, there was no plausible way that the teen was his daughter. Unless...Unless...But no, even BUCK couldn't be THAT absent minded so as to forget he even had a child. At least, Rudy didn't think so.

Rudy forced himself back into reality. The she-weasel was helping the now-barely-conscious sloth up. Perfect. He raised his foot, preparing to smash them. Sensing something above them, the two looked up, terrified, and screamed louder than he'd thought possible. Thinking quickly, Tabitha grabbed a rock and threw it with all-too perfect precision at Rudy's eye. He grumbled and took a step back, annoyed. Before they could make a move to flee, he once again raised his foot and brought it down on them with an earth shaking CRASH!

Rudy had been inches- - Inches- - from smashing the two, when Buck had leapt without thinking and pushed them out of the way. Tabitha watched in horror as Rudy glanced down at his foot in satisfaction. Perhaps he'd gotten the pest this time...

Diego waited for Buck to pop up and yell, "Pop goes the weasel!" as he had last time. After a long minute, though, he began to worry.

Melody was the second to get there. Seeing her niece's terrified expression and Diego shocked face, along with the dinosaur pausing to look at his foot, she put two and two together.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head, "No."

Rudy lifted his foot daintily, and checked to see if he'd really gotten his enemy at long last...Suddenly, he heard a loud cry and his vision was filled with green smoke.

The five ran, following the path once more, just aiming to get away from Rudy and back to the herd. They'd been farther than they'd thought, though, and it took a while to get on the trail again. After around ten minutes of running, Melody's asthma started bothering her, and Sid's wheezing was terrible, and Diego feared his friend would suffer a heart attack. They stopped, all of them panting and/or gasping for breath. "Buck I...I thought..." began Melody, but didn't bother finishing. She looked at her brother's wrist, which was twisted at an odd angle. She nodded at his wrist, which he looked at for a second, painfully managing to flex his fingers a bit. Then, remembering the events that had just passed, he whirled around to face Tabitha. "What were you thinking?" he shouted, Throwing his arms up in the air. He winced before continuing. "You could have been killed.You AND Sid, the both of you! You didn't even stay on the path! Tabitha Anne Festus, WHAT IN THE BLOODY NAME O' 'E- - " "Buck," Melody narrowly stopped him from letting out a flurry of curse words (speaking of flurries, I would LOVE to have a MC Flurry right now!). "I don't think Sid's feeling okay," she said quietly. Indeed, a trickle of blood ran down the sloth's neck, and his normally tannish/greenish fur was streaked with black and red veins running up and down his body. Buck gently propped him up and turned him over. He frowned.

The rest of the herd joined them very soon. "What happened?" asked Manny. "Dude, we could hear you yelling at Tabitha from, like a mile away!" exclaimed Eddie. "It wasn't a mile!" Protested Eddie, "it was more like thirty yards." "Aw, what do I care?" "Boys," warned Ellie. "Hey, what's wrong with Sid?" asked Eddie. Buck frowned even more.

"I have no idea," he stated sadly.