As the portal closed, the took a moment to take stock of their situation and reflect over what they had seen.

"I'm not the only one who just saw a dragon go through the tine portal, right?' asked Tristan. Everyone else nodded in agreement. "Okay, I'm not crazy. So, do you guys want to talk about that?"

"No, I'd rather not," replied Alice. "We've got enough to deal with, plus we've already seen dragons, so this isn't really that surprising."

"True. Still, who would have thought six limbed dragons are real. How did that even happen?"

"Some amazing mutation, that is for sure," noted Nigel. "Six limbed vertebrates are rare in nature, especially since normally, the extra limbs are useless and just serve to impair the animal's ability to survive."

"All interesting facts," interjected Vera, "but can we please continue on our mission before the rising sun makes it too hot to continue?"

There were no objections to that remark, even if the group was annoyed by her bluntness. With a huff, the team continued on its mission.

XXXXXX

Back at the park, Ted and Elise are helping the strangest new arrival move into his new home.

The cage door opened. A moment later, the reptile emerged and ambled across the ground, before swiftly diving into the lake in its new home. Soon, all that was visible was the beast's head.

Sighing, Elise and Ted gave each other the thumbs up. It appeared the new arrival was happy in his new home.

"So, we have another dragon," noted Ted.

"Indeed we do. First one we got with six limbs, though."

"How such an animal can exist is beyond me, but I ain't complaining. This is such an exciting discovery!"

"Let's just hope another one of these discoveries doesn't eat our boss, OR my teammates."

XXXXXXXXXXX

Some ways away, Bob is dealing with the rest of the new arrivals.

"Alright, in you go."

The Miacis hissed at Bob, but complied with his gesturing and slunk away into its new home. Already, the rest of its kind were exploring, either on the ground or in the trees. Some distance away, the park's phenacodonts, mesonychids, and leptictids were already exploring their new home, looking for food or places to hide. The phenacodonts, in particular, had already returned to foraging on the ground. Bob smiled at this, before going to his truck and driving toward the prehistoric dragon exhibits. In the back of his truck were several rocks, as well as several pieces of...platinum?

"Now, according to the leading authorities on dragons - which is really just one man, seeing as we didn't have any evidence that dragons existed until now - dragons breathe fire by igniting flammable gasses using metallic growths in their throats. I think it'd make more sense for them to have organs to ignite the flames with electricity, but this is all we have right now. According to said researcher, dragons caused these growths to expand by ingesting metal in their diet, chief amongst them platinum. So, to make our dragons more at home, we're going to add some extra platinum to their diet. Hopefully, they don't reject it."

XXXXXXX

Arriving at the first pen, Bob begins to shovel some of the platinum filled rocks into the feeding chute. It is only moments before the male dragon is upon them. Cautiously, he stares at Bob, even releasing a puff of flames to intimidate him. Ultimately, though, it begins to chew on one of the stones, and likes it immensely. Soon, its female companions join it in chewing on the rocks.

It appears that Bob's plan is a success.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Back in Prehistoric New Mexico, Nigel and his team are still searching for their targets. Now, though, they have found another interesting creature.

As the group climbed over a log, they found themselves watching a group of doglike mammals dig into the ground. Occasionally, one would pull a root out of the ground and start gnawing on it, with fights happening more rarely when choice morsels were unearthed.

Nigel couldn't keep the grin off his face. "I've read about these creatures before, they're called taeniodonts. These are burrowers, and some of the largest mammals known to do so. These ones are Psittacotherium."

Suddenly, the taeniodonts stopped their rooting and stared at the group. It appeared that Nigel had spoken too loudly. For a moment, the group worried they would bolt, but as the humans refused to attack them, the mammals returned to their rooting. Moments later, a group of racoon sized animals that vaguely resembled ring tails joined them, those these creatures seemed to be more interested in small animals than roots.

"I think those are Chriacus," noted Tristan. "They're members of the condylarth group known as arctocyonidae, which literally means bear dogs, even though they aren't true bear dogs. These guys are omnivores. They must be trying to snatch up any animals the taeniodonts unearth."

Like most animals in this forest, these two unique species will die off when the forests disappear, unable to compete on the open plains with new and better animals. But while their lineages may go extinct, these particular animals may yet have a chance at survival.

It took the team only moments to set up the portal, but as they readied to coax in the animals, another species appeared. These new arrivals were each about the size of a dog, and had some very intimidating chompers.

Alice looked up at them and lost a touch of color for a moment, realizing exactly what they were looking at. "Tristan, you said the Chriacus were arctocyonids, right?"

"Yeah, so why is that important...oh."

"Yeah. I think we're looking at the animal the group got its name from. Do you think they might eat some of our other targets? I mean, they are bigger than some of them and are carnivores."

"Well-"

It was at that moment that one of the taeniodonts saw the Arctocyon mob. It froze for a moment, before letting out a shriek and darting through the portal, as it was located at the only other opening out of the clearing. A moment later, its fellow taeniodonts and the Chriacus darted through, with the larger arctocyonids following at a moderate trot.

"...well, there go the bigger fish."

XXXXXXXXX

AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!