First Guardian Unleashed
"We got it out boss!" Larry jumped to his feet from his laptop.
"Out of the way! Move!" Larry shoved his way through his hired hands, and paleontologists. "Let me see what it is you ametures!" When Larry was finally able to get to the ridiculously massive 200 foot deep and 300 foot wide hole the Guardian lay in, he still had to descend the many ramps to the bottom of the dig site. The flood lights peering into the hole was the only lighting that was available in the dark night. They illuminated just enough for Larry to make out what kind of dinosaur the Guardian was; eventhough it appeared to be nothing but a large grey stone statue of a dinosaur.
"It's a Dilophosaurus, sir." One of the former InGen paleontologist Larry had hired told him. He was atop a ladder dusting off excess dirt on the dinosaur's crest.
"I see." Larry marveled at the creature's sheer size. Standing at 14 feet tall and 27 long It was much largr than a normal dliophosaurus. "Unfortunately at the moment, it's nothing but a roaring rock." Larry said, referring to the dilophosaur's pose. It stood in a running posture, slightly looking off to its left side, with its frill open and frayed, and teeth bared. It appeared to be running perpindicular to whatever it had been roaring at before it became nothing more than a giant statue to its own testament.
"How do you plan on waking it?" The paleontologist asked.
"Well I did some research, Sebastian, and found out this isn't the first time this particular Guardian has been woken." Larry said.
"Your kidding? No way! When was the last time it woke up?" The paleontologist, Sebastian, eagerly asked.
"I'm sure you've heard of Medusa."
"Now way..." Sebastian's eyes widened behind his glasses. "This thing," he pointed with his dusting brush, "was Medusa?"
Larry sighed, "Don't be ridiculous, of course not."
"Then what did you-"
"What I was saying was," Larry interrupted, "is that this Guardian happened to be awaken around the time Greek mythology was known to be fact. The tale of Medusa was already in existence by the time someone came across this creature. Appearantly this dilophosaur has similar powers to Medusa's."
"And you want to wake it up out of this stone statue with that kind of power?"
"It's not in the stone statue, it is the stone statue; and, yes, I want to wake it. But not here."
"Fine." Sebastian sighed defeated. "How do we do that?"
"Well, it was said that a Spartan warrior woke it after finding it. Appearently, it woke when it saw the 'challenge' on the Spartan's shield."
"The, 'challenge'?" Sebastian made air qoutes. "What exactly does that mean?"
"I assumed that it might deal with reflection of light of a certain type of surface in some sort of way." Larry looked down and placed a hand on his chin, thinking in depth.
"Interesting." Sebastian lowered his glasses and gazed into the stone eye of the dinosaur, examining it. "Any clue what kind of surface that might be?"
"No." Larry shook his head. "But I do think we should avoid putting anything reflective near its eyes." Larry gazed up at the Guardian to see Sebastian's glasses dangerously close to the creatures eyes. "Like your glasses, Sebastian!" Larry yelled. Sebastian nearly fell off the ladder.
"Geez, no need to yell. It's perfectly-" The Guardian's stone form started to rumble. Something was wrong. The stone was shaking vigorously. It wasn't until the left hand of the dilophosaur cracked through the stone did Larry realize what exactly was happening.
"Run! Get the hell out of here!" Larry shouted as he and Sebastian ran up the ramps. He repeated to everyone to get away and run to safety once at the the top of the hole.
In the hole, the Guardian Dilophosaurus managed to get both its arms free. It took advantage of its freed arms and began clawing away the stone of its legs, neck, and torso. It wasn't long at all before the Guardian was able to break a leg free of its confinement by kicking forward. Once the dinosaur planted its foot on the ground, it was pretty much free. With one last defiant thrash of its body, the Guardian shed itself of its stony prison, finally screeching out its unfinished primal yell it began so long ago.
XXXXXX
Daren took a small flashlight from his pocket and shined it in the area he believed the recent noise had come from. His knife was drawn and at the ready for an attack. To his surprise, though, it was not a burly man posied to strike that graced his flashlight. Nor was it a wild animal, or the such. It was a very small, fragile female. Though her eyes were closed, she seemed so familiar. In fact, she looked just like...
"Sa...Sa...Sarah?" Daren's breath caught in his throat. The woman lifted her eyeslids to reveal tears at the corner of her deep, dark blue eyes.
"Please, if your going to kill me, could you make it quick? Please?" Sarah begged. Daren's brain couldn't find the words to connect thought to conscious reasoning, so it did the best thing it could achieve for the moment; it shut down...again. And like that, Daren's eyes rolled back up into his head and his body tilted forward, crashing into the ground at Sarah's feet.
"Oh God!" Sarah jolted in shock. "HELP!" She called to the other men Daren had been with. "HELP, PLEASE! OVER HERE! DAREN MIGHT BE HURT!" They turned in her direction and dashed over to where her voice had come from. She couldn't figure out why she was helping the man she had just believed seconds prior was going to kill her. For some reason she had this instant pang of strong attachment to him when she saw his face up close.
"Daren, Daren?" Kevin slid down next to Daren and checked his pulse. He was alive. Jonah was right behind Kevin. He helped Kevin flip Daren over. Kevin shined a pocket flashlight in Daren's eyes. Sarah sat and watched the proceedings, silent.
"Is he alright?" Jonah questioned.
"Yeah, just out cold." Kevin breathed a sigh of relief. "Did you do th- Whoa..." Kevin was about to accuse the female who called out to them until he turned and saw her face.
"What?" Jonah turned to see what Kevin was looking at. "No...way..." Sarah's eyes nervously darted between the two of them.
"I...I didn't do it, I swear. He just fainted, and...and I didn't want him to be hurt. I was just trying to leave, I promise." Sarah's breaths came in short gasps.
"Jonah, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Kevin asked for confirmation. "Or am I hallucinating?"
"Dude..." Was all Jonah could say. "Dude..." And then, like Daren, Jonah face planted into the ground at Sarah's feet.
About an hour past midnight Daren woke up with a sore nose next to the campfire. Kevin was sitting next to him, and Jonah lay on other side of Kevin. Across from him...Sarah. She sat with her knees all the way into her chest with her arms around them.
"Sarah!" Daren jumped to his feet, but was greeted with a headache that forced him back to the ground.
"Take it slow, Daren." Kevin sat up to help.
"I'm fine." Daren waved him off. "I just want to talk to Sarah."
"Is that my name?"
"What?" Daren looked up to see Sarah staring at him.
"You keep calling me Sarah. Is that my name? Do you know who I am? Do you know how I got here? Do we know each other?" Sarah interrogated, her curiousity fueling her confidence.
"Of course that's you name. We've known each other since childhood." Daren felt a little hurt at her words. Daren walked over to her and sat down next to her.
"Forgive me. I don't remember anything from my life." Sarah whispered softly. She looked directly into Daren's eyes. She can see the hurt in them. "I think I believe you, though. I feel like I can trust you for some reason." Sarah pauses and looks away. "I think...no...I feel deep down that we knew each other at some point. I knew it the moment I saw your face. In that instant, your name popped into my head...Daren." She gazed back into Daren's eyes. His eyes held a level of intimacy for her that she did not know how to return. But she wanted to so badly; she was determined to. That gaping hole in her heart seemed to close up whenever she looked at Daren. "I want to remember everything. Will you help me with that?"
Daren placed his arm around Sarah's shoulder. Suprisingly, she loosened up from her ball. "I promise you with every fiber of my being, Sarah, I will help you remember every bit of who you are, and what we were to each other." Daren reasured her.
"Thank you, Daren." She smiled.
Breaking through the serene mood of the thin night air was a screeching primal roar so powerful that it kicked dust up into the faces of the sleeping dinosaurs and their human partners. The unoccupied tents of Jonah and Daren flipped into the nearby trees while Samantha's and Jessica's tilted on their sides, which solicited a yell of fright from both girls. Jonah jumped to life next to Kevin and nearly fell into the fire, which was now a smoldering pile of embers due to the roar's shockwave. Daren did his best to shield Sarah as she cringed into a ball and covered her ears.
The dinosaurs snapped to immediate alertness in the direction the roar originated from. They were unphased by the shockwave of it as they waited for the primal screeching to end. Cipher made several low growls towards the raptors. In response, the raptors barked with a unique noise to their species before they ran off in to the dense brush together in the same direction. Pach honked and snorted several times towards the large T-rex. Cipher nodded his head. Pach nodded back before he jumped into the air and began to twirl at high velocity like a drill. He dove back down and disappeared from sight underground.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!" Sam burst from her tent, eyes wide with shock. She looked around the camp. Her eyes landed upon the new woman. "AND WHO THE HELL IS SHE?" Without the campfire, everything was nearly pitch black, but Sam could still make out that the woman in Daren's arms wasn't Jessica.
Jessica emerged timidly from her tent. "Is everything safe?" She peaked out first before finally deciding it was safe enough to fully step out. She didn't say anything, she just ran over to Kevin and buried her face in his chest.
"Is anyone going to answer my question?" Sam asked. Cipher lifted his head high into the sky and blasted a tremoring roar of his own. Everyone but Daren covered their ears again.
"The roar came from another Guardian." Daren explained, his face grim.
"And just how the hell did you know that?" Sam demanded. The abrupt disruption of sleep, and the presence of a new female was not helping her attitude.
"Because Cipher just challenged it to an Ancient's Contention." Daren paled.
XXXXXX
The Dilophosaurus shook the man in its mouth unitl it felt the snapping of bones. When it was sure he was dead it tossed the human aside. The Guardian glared at the 20 or so men firing their weapons at it about 100 yards away. The dinosaur had no clue what the black objects were supposed to do, it only saw them flash bright light. If anything was hitting it from the weapons, it definitely couldn't feel it. The Guardian became irritated at the idea that the humans believed they had the ability to harm it. The Guardian snorted in disgust as its yellow slitted eyes flashed blue momentarily.
"I can't...I can't move my legs!" One of the men yelled.
"Wha- I can't either!" Another shouted.
"MY ARM! IT'S...IT'S- AHHH AHHHHHH!" Soon all the men that were firing their weapons were screaming in fear as their bodies turned to stone. The Guardian scanned the area for any more humans that dare challenge its authourity. None did, for all the humans were running away into the bushes in panicked hysteria.
"Sebastian, get in the fucking jeep already, before we're the last people here to target!" Larry ordered.
"Just need one more picture!" Sebastian bargained as he snapped his final shot of the Guardian rampaging through their camp, snapping at running people at the edges of the brush. "Got it, Let's go!" Sebastian jumped into the jeep.
"Wait, what's that?" Larry pointed at two objects in the distant darkness sprinting out of the dense dry foliage on a bee line towards the Guardian.
"Looks like..." Sebastian zoomed into the high speed targets with his digital camera. "Looks like a velociraptor and a deinonychus." He said once they entered the area lit by flood lights. The birds of prey were barking and hissing at the dilophosaurus. The Guardian responded in kind with a screech as it opened its frill.
"There shouldn't be any other dinosaurs out here. We didn't bring any with us." Larry stated the obvious.
"Wait...something's coming out of the ground behind the raptors. It looks like a big drill." Sebastian zoomed in further. "It's a pachycephalosaurus! I didn't know it's ability was digging."
"It's Jonah's partner." Larry concluded. There was no other logically explanation. "Which means Daren's here too." He gritted his teeth.
"I think their about to duke it out!" Sebastian gasped.
"Who?"
"The three dinosaurs and the Guardian, who else."
"Give me that." Larry snatched the camera from Sebastian. He could see the raptors stalking a circle around the Guardian while the pachycephalosaur continued to honk wildly at the large predator. The Guardian seemed irritated at the fact that something had the audacity to challenge it.
Larry saw the Guardian's eyes flash blue for a second time that night, but this time its gaze was fixed on Jonah's partner. The dilophosaurus screeched at the herbivore as it became solid stone in its defensive stance. The Guardian seemed satisfied with its work as it began to turn to one of the raptors. That is until it noticed the statue of its latest victim shaking vigourusly.
"Holy crap." Larry zoomed in further to the shaking stone pachycephalosaurus. "I think it's trying to break free." Larry watched in awe as the dinosaur broke it's tail free first. The herbivore's freed tail started to twirl at high speed like a drill, and proceeded to quickly swipe over the stone body, chipping away chunks of stone and freeing its owner within seconds. Jonah's partner gave a defiant shrill honk towards the surpised Guardian.
"That must be one powerful earth oriented dinosaur to break free so easily from an earth Guardian's powers." Sebastian said, now gazing at the fight through a pair of binoculars. Larry made a negative comment, but his words were drowned out by a roar that blasted through and over the dense shrubbery. It toppled tents and tables that heavy equipment sat upon. The roar was so powerful and full of force Larry and Sebastian had to cover their ears.
The Guardian Dilophosaurus, on instinct, ignored the three smaller dinosaurs for the greater challenge that had just acknowledged its presence. The dilophosaur recognized it had been challenged to an Ancient's Contention, which only another Guardian could do. It hastily declined the confrontation with a harsh shrill that it shot back out through the night air. Now that another Guardian knew that it was awake, it was going to seek a place to hide.
Pach, Vector, and Pod continued to try and hold the Guardian in place to not let it escape, but the Guardian had other plans. With a single circling sweep of the dilophosaur's tail, it knocked all the dinosaur partners away in seperate directions. Before either could rise to regroup, the Guardian spat three huge, perfectly accurate venom wads at the other dinosaurs. The gunky venom pinned all three down to the dusty ground, leaving only their heads exposed. The Guardian hissed satisfactorily. It then rammed its crest into the ground, creating a crater that it begin to dig into and tunnel its way underground and out of sight of Larry's camp.
The dinosaur partners contiued to struggle to get free. Pod tried to breath fire onto the tar like substance, but it had no effect other than making it smell worse. Pach tried his drill tail again but the venomous gunk was too thick to get his tail spinning. Vector could only thrash against the restraint of the venom spits since his abilities wouldn't help him in this situation.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Larry drove the jeep next to Pach. "Looks like your in a bind with no partner to help." Pach snorted his discontent at Larry's presence. "Maybe I should take care of you now, so I don't have to deal with you again." Larry was about to step out of the jeep just as it was over turned and flipped a good 30 yards away. He and Sebastian tumbled out of the vehicle to safety before the jeep caught fire.
"WHAT THE HELL!" Larry and Sebastian shouted in unison at the sight of an overly large, growling, pissed-off looking T-rex standing where their jeep was originally.
"Hiya." Daren greeted Larry cheerfully, walking out from the dense brush to stand next to Cipher.
"YOU!" Larry gritted his teeth. "I should've known you wouldn't be far behind your little dinosaur pack."
"Larry, have you met Cipherdias?" Daren asked nonchalantly. Larry didn't give the curtesy of an answer, so Daren continued. "I don't think you have? Cipher, would you be so kind as to introduce yourself." The Tyrannnosaurus gave a deafening roar towards Larry and Sebastian.
"You bastard." Larry hit his fist on the ground.
"Yeah...well...this is the point where you run." Daren grinned. Cipher slammed his tail on the ground causing a wide and deep fissure to open underneath it. The fissure headed straight for Larry and Sebastian. The two fumbled to their feet and sprinted for the opposite side of the camp perimeter with the fissure close on their heels. When the two dove into brush Daren patted Cipher on ther leg. The T-rex ceased his fissure at that point.
"What'd we miss?" Sam and Kevin burst through the bushes, completely out of breath.
"Well-" Daren began.
"POD!" Sam screamed. She rushed to her struggling deinonychus trapped in gunky venom.
"Nevermind then." Daren sighed.
"What is this stuff?" Sam reached out a hand.
"Don't touch it!" Kevin warned her just as she was about to pull on it. He looked over Vector to see if he was injured. "Our partners are fine, though I doubt I can say the same for us if we touch it." Cipher sniffed the substance, then rumbled something to Daren.
"It's venom." Daren informed the others. "Which means the Guardian is a Dilophosaurus."
"How do we get it off?" Sam asked, frantic. In response, Cipher stomped the ground and made a low, inaudible rumble. The roots of the nearby plantlife extended from the ground and dug into the venom covering Pod, Pach, and Vector. The roots grew through the venom at an abnormally fast rate until they interlocked with each other. Cipher gave another low, inaudible rumble. At a blinding speed, the venom was absorbed into the roots of the plants, completely clearing all of it off the dinosaurs. The few plants of the roots that absorbed the substance instantly began to wither and die around the area.
"Haven't seen Cipher do that before." Kevin said while trying to fend of the licks of his excited velociraptor partner.
"Pod!" Sam nearly squeezed her partner to death in a bear hug. The raptor was weezing for air. "I was so worried about you."
"Where's Sarah, Jonah, and Jessica?" Daren asked after realizing they weren't around.
"They're walking here slowly, because of Sarah's spranged ankle." Kevin answered.
"Alright. Pach!" Daren called the dinosaur's attention. Pach gave a nod that he was listening. "Make sure Jonah, Sarah, and Jessica get here safely. I don't want anything to happen to any of them." A big grin crossed Daren's face. "Especially since we just found our long lost founder again. Okay?" Pach nodded his understanding, and then tunneled his way into the earth. Daren relaxed his self a bit by leaning on Cipher's leg with all immediate threats at bay for the time being.
Without warning, though, Cipher picked Daren up by the collar of his shirt between his teeth. This was in no shape or form a suprise to Daren. Cipher often did it when he wanted to show something to Daren without having him protest or refuse to see what it was. Daren just sighed in discontent as Cipher carried him to the freshly dug hole left behind by the Guardian. The rex placed his partner infront of the hole and began to speak to him with his growls and rumbles.
"Really?" Daren placed a hand on his chin. "So not only did it deny your request for an Ancient's Contention, but it ran away too." Cipher spoke to Daren again, but at greater length this time. Sam and Kevin watched on with great interest. Daren's features hardened at Cipher's "words". "So we need to make a new plan and fast, in other words, right?" Daren confirmed with the rex. Cipher nodded.
"What's going on now?" Sam's curiousity got the better of her.
"Well, we have a run away Guardian, first off." Daren paced back and forth. "Second off, if what Cipher says is right, then said Guardian is heading straight for the capital of Australia, and it's going to wreak some havoc." Sam and Kevin deadpanned.
XXXXXX
7:00 am on beaches of Sydney Australia. (6-7 hours after Larry's campsite incident)
"It's finally nice to be on vacation. It doesn't get any better than this. Right Silvera." The 18 year old Michael Ryukin, known better as "Darkfire" in his profession, was layed back on the farthest side of the crowded beach, away from any human contact. It wasn't because he hated the crowds. It was more because of his partner hated crowds. And crowds of people probably wouldn't take to kindly to her presence anyway.
Silvera, his velociraptor partner, nodded in agreement. She was lying at the edge of the beach where the sand met the water. She was enjoying the feel of the ocean water splashing against her sides. However, her peace was disturbed by the screams of the humans further down the beach. She and Michael instantly sat up to see what could rouse the crowd into such an uproar.
"I was not expecting that!" Michael yelled at the sight of the head and body of a Dilophosaurus bursting through the sand underneath the feet of the beachgoers. The dilophosaurus slammed its claws into the sand to pull the rest of its body from the underground. With long strides and determined steps, the dinosaur screeched at anyone that stood in its direct path towards the nearest city.
The first building the dinosaur reached, it demolished it with a single slam from its tail. It then ran through the remaining standing structures of the apartment-like building to make them collaspe as well. It qucikly moved on to the next, larger building. The dilophosaur clawed its way into the larger the building relative ease. From the inside, screams of people could be heard. Soon after, six people could be seen running for their lives from the front entrance as the building started to crumble piece by piece to its very foundation. With the rubble of the second building at its feet, the dilophosaurus gave a screeching roar with its frill displayed in full glory.
"Looks like our vacation got cut short, Silvera!" Michael snapped his fingers to produce a small orange and black tinted ball of flame in his hand. He tossed the ball of flame the distance to reach the dilophosaurus, smacking it dead in the face with his accurate toss. The large carnivore hissed in annoyance turning to face its new challengers. Silvera dashed to her partner and nudged him. Michael understood and jumped onto her back, and let her legs do the running for the both of them. "Looks like Darkfire and Silvera are going to have to work some overtime."
The Dilophosaurus roared out at its escaping challenge. It gave chase to the fleeing velociraptor and human. Silvera was having a hard time keeping her distance from the larger carnivore while it chased her down the beach. The sand and the extra weight was making it arduous to maintain a high speed; on the other hand, the dilophosaurus was easily keeping pace due to its affiliation with all things earth and ground. The fact that it was shooting wads of venom at the raptor, forcing her to weave and dodge wasn't helping any either.
Silvera growled and barked to her partner. He laughed at what she said. "Yeah, he's definately going to pay us over time for this."
AN: Sarah is found and the first Guardian is finally revealed. And along with it, a new person as well. Look forward to a dino-battle in the next chap. It should be much more than the short confrontation in this chapter. Let me know how you think things are going along so far in the story too.