As the first light of dawn filled the sky, Tristan felt his eyes begin to flutter open. Terence was also beginning to stir, and like his human companion, hunger was the topic that currently dominated his mind. Within ten minutes, both were sinking their teeth into the most important meal of the day - pieces of the dead bison for Terence, a pack of cereal for Tristan.

The teen briefly mourned his lack of milk to enjoy with breakfast, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

Once their bellies were filled, the two turned their attentions to more pressing matters - namely, fixing the portal for Tristan, and guarding the human for Terence. Now, that went counter to every directive Nigel and Tiberius had laid out to follow if you were stuck in the past, but A. that didn't account for being stuck outside the present with a time machine, and b. none of those directives said anything about what you should do if you were stuck in the future.

Thus, with nothing better to do, Tristan focused his attention on fixing the damaged machine. The good news: most of the repairs had already been done, so the remainder wouldn't be too hard...at least, if he was reading the manual right for returning it to factory settings (when did his dad even find time to define factory settings for this?).

Now, hopefully, he could finish the job before nightfall - going to the future was neat, but he wanted to get home, and soon.

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Loom watched as the sun broke over the horizon - a new day had dawned. She had exited her burrow an hour earlier, and with the arrival of first light, it was time to explore.

It only took her a moment to exit the pen - one of the humans had helped her out after witnessing a prior breakout attempt. Granted, that had told the female human exactly where the little herbivore was planning to go. Still, once she was out of her pen, the little ornithischian darted toward her destination.

Loom was a Fruitadens - the only known North American variety of heterodontosaur. Among the earliest bird hipped dinosaurs, these herbivores resembled many of their later descendants, barring the tusks, which were wholly unique to this family. The last of their kind, Echinodon, dwelled in Early Cretaceous Europe, though the group had two achievements to their name. It had been Tianyulong from China that had confirmed the presence of fuzz on the ornithischians, while Loom's species were the smallest known non-theropod dinosaurs.

That, however, meant nothin to the dinosaur trying to reach its companion.

Racing along the side of the dirt road, Loom hurdled over every obstacle in her path, unwilling to let anything stand in her way.

The first creatures she passed on her run were a group of shartegosuchids - Fruitachampsa, one of the many predators she had lived in fear of in the Jurassic. This mob, however, were too busy gorging on some mammal carcass to notice her, barring one who just eyed her for a moment before returning to its meal. Land living crocodilians were something of a rarity in Prehistoric North America - while they were not unknown, they only thrived in the Jurassic and Paleogene, with no fossils found at other times.

The next creatures she passed were a group of Sinosauropteryx, eagerly seraching for lizards trying to find basking spots. Compsognathids were creatures she had never seen, as they were totally unknown in North America. Other predators had filled their roles.

Soon, the small hunters were replaced by grazing giants - a massive Maarapunisaurus had found the island pampas to be an excellet source of fodder. The giant rebbachisaur was one of the largest herbivores in the Morrison range, and here, it could feast free of predation. The main threat here was not being eaten, nor being crushed by a careless threat - the dubious honor of greatest danger instead went to avoiding the drowning pits its footsteps created following heavy rains.

Onward the little herbivore went, taking her over the backs of Placerias and under the maws of inquisitive Quetzalcoatlus. Nothing stopped her until, at last, she reached her destination.

And there, right as expected, was her companion, resting on the edge of his pen, waiting to be serviced.

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All sighed in relief as the female Fruitadens picked away at the scraps between his teeth. The meat strips had started to irritate his gums, so having them removed was an enjoyable experience.

Outisde the pen, Michelle couldn't help but smirk in amusement. It was rather interesting, seeing such a large predator seeking out hte aid of a tiny herbivore.

It reminded her of the relationship that Terence possessed with Willow and his alvarezsaur companion.

The though of that instantly dampened her mood. Tristan had been the one to introduce her to that relationship, and now he was stuck in the past, alongside Terence. Had to two been thrown into a sand desert, doomed to wander until they mummified? Had they ended up near the Yucatan as the age of the dinosaurs was about to end? Or had they had the misfortune to enter a portal leading right into an active volcan-ENOUGH!

With a ferocious sigh, Michelle purged those thoughts from her mind. Tristan and Terence were alive! And she would help rescue them.

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The drone watched as the human worked on the unknown device, while the...tyrannosuar(?) stood guard.

What was a human doing here? Only the research team was supposed to be here, and they were either dead or on ice in their lab after the...hunters had shown up. And what did the device do?

Also, what were the hunters doing? Were they already trying to figure out a way to turn this human into meat?

...That was an unnerving thought. Unnerving enough that the drone, despite a lack of sentience or sapience, was disturbed by it.

Hastily, the drone attempted to figure out a plan to deal with these interlopers. This was not going to end well unless things were handled properly.

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AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, Signing Off!