Ignoring the various dinosaurs present, the bear robot leapt straight toward the humans, all of whom scattered...well, all but two. Tristan and Cassandra both froze up, necessitating Michelle and Sean to literally drag them out of the machine's path. Barely missing a beat, the creature slammed its left forepaw into the ground and turned on a dime, before letting out a ferocious war-cry. Then, tearing into the ground, it threw a huge boulder right at the four humans, who barely had time to roll away. Sensing an opening, the creature charged, only to once again barely miss. This time, though, as it turned for another go, it was hit by three tons of fur, fat, and muscle - in the ensuing chaos, the rhino had made a charge of its own, though it took care to avoid ramming relatively fragile horns into the metallic beast.

Around the battle, everyone was in a state of confusion - no-one had expected to fight a robotic bear in these mountains. The secuirty team, who had brought with them a limited number of lethal weapons, were now taking out the pistols and shotguns they did have, trying to figure out where to shoot the bear-bot. The centrosaur had vanished into the wilderness, uninterested in the fight - it just wanted to live another day.

Overhead, the group saw what looked like vultures circling around. It seemed they believed a meal would soon be available, though who it would be was an enigma. Additionally, they were not the only creatures in the sky - some kind of white-feathered bird of prey was trying to eat them, of all things. How quaint.

Heedless of the conflict in the skies above, the rhino took advantage of the machine's surprise and pushed harder, shoving the machine backwards. The tables soon turned, though, when the robot used its forelimbs to grab the horned herbivore and, with some difficulty, throw it back into the snow. Before it could move in to deliver the killing blow, however, Terence charged in and snapped at the automaton, forcing it to leap away, though not before pawing the tyrannosaur in the face. Only minorly inconvenienced, Terence growled in anger, before immediately searching for any opening he could exploit.

With the machine preoccupied for the moment, the humans turned their attention to rounding up the search dogs, who had all taken cover amid a series of rocks. While hounds might have been some help against a flesh and blood bear, they were worse than useless here.

Though after a moment of consideration, the humans decided to join the dogs in hiding amid the rocks - it was not like they were much help here either.

Above, meanwhile, the birds continued their fighting in earnest. Just what was going on to make them so aggressive?

XXXXXXX

Hucua's pterosaur folded in its wings and dived, just barely avoiding the troglodyte wyvern's attack. Nearby, one of his men threw a bola, trying to entangle the carnivore's maw, only for the eyeless beast to bat the weapon away, before veering off for another attack.

Curse it all.

Where the troglodyte wyvern had come from was an enigma - unlike the other creatures that prowled these lands, its ancestors had not arrived in the shattered-glass doorways generations ago. No, this beast had shown up recently - within the last few weeks, as a matter of fact. How it had arrived was still a mystery, buts its presence was not a welcome one. Like the dragons from Old European Legends, it had raided farms and ranches, greedily devouring livestock. That was worrisome in and of itself - wild dragons normally stuck to other, equally wild game such as deer and aurochs, though if they were forced to prey upon farmers' creatures due to hard years, they often developed a liking for the new meat. This creature, however, immediately sought out sheep and cows for food. Clearly, it had learned they were easy prey.

As is, though, the beast was preventing them from saving the scattered humans below - so long as it harried them in the skies, they could not try and destroy the machine on the ground. Dimly, Hucua wondered if the creature wanted the machine to kill those below them - perhaps it saw an easy meal in the making? If so, then defeating this creature was a more urgent goal than expected - it could not be allowed to feast upon their charges.

But with it flying around so agilely, and the warriors only having bola and ineffective stone spears to fight it with, how were they supposed to repel the wyvern?

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Al started in surprise when the strange screeching reached his ears. After the second breakout, he had decided to explore the park, and despite the staff's best efforts, he had been enjoying one of the rivers far to the north of his exhibit. Now, though, his attention was turned elsewhere - namely, the prehistoric dragon on the other side of the river. It too had heard the cry, and was now turning its head to face them.

It appeared that said cries were coming from the mountains that were relatively close by...or rather, the skies above the mountains.

After a moment of listening to the cries, as if to confirm what it suspected, the dragon leapt into the air, flying to face what it perceived to be a challenger. A moment later, a curious Al followed, joined by several Coelophysis - the dragons was probably going to kill something, and its cooked leftovers always tasted delicious.

XXXXXXXXX

Below the duel in the skies, the fighting against the robot wasn't going well - it had used its ice attacks to separate the rhino from the other creatures, allowing it to focus mostly on the tyrannosaur and the humans. Those equipped with weapons had mostly expended their ammunition, with one unfortunately having done so while exposed. Now, he was groaning in pain next to Tristan, three ribs cracked by a rock the machine had thrown. His shotgun, however, was still intact - something Cassandra noticed.

"Hey, Tristan?"

"Yes, lady Cassandra?"

"Could you fire that shotgun at the robotic-ursid?"

Tristan stared for a moment. "Was that a question or an order?"

"...Maybe a little of both."

Tristan gave her an annoyed look. "Why're you asking me that question?"

"Because I distinctly remember that Union of the Americas seeming to be made of firearm-enthusiasts...and I've only ever fired pistols in my life."

Upon hearing her full answer, Tristan's expression softened. "..Yeah, my dad showed me how to use them. Same as the rest of my siblings."

Without saying a word, Cassandra grabbed the gun and handed it to Tristan. "Could you please go and kill the machine?"

"...Um, I think this is out of ammo-"

Tristan was cut off when the injured man handed him a set of six shells. "Use this. Your father requested that we be given these shells if the time portal spit out some unknown, super-heavily armored animal that could resist gunfire."

Tristan examined the shells for a moment, confusion briefly plastered on his face, which soon turned to shock. "He gave you dragon's breath shells?"

"He wanted us to be ready for anything. Having a real life Jurassic Park happen to us was not deemed acceptable."

Tristan shared a glance with all of the none-security personnel with him (siblings and time-travelling girl include) who just seemed exasperated by the response, before taking and loading the shells, taking pains to make sure that the chamber of the gun was empty first.

"Gonna have to get out of the rocks now," he informed his friends. "Can't get a good shot at that thing from here."

Sean turned to his brother in shock. "That's suicide!"

"Well unless you have a better plan, I think that might be our only option."

Sean stared at his brother for a moment, trying to muster a rebuttal. "Don't we have flares?"

Wordlessly, one of the security personnel handed him a flare gun. "Forgot I had this on me," she sheepishly said.

"Do you think help will get to us in time if we fire that right now?" questioned the eldest of the siblings.

"Yes-"

"I don't think so," answered the woman who had the flare gun.

The brothers turned to look at her, both surprised at her statement.

The girl blushed, before going on. "Nearest team is at least fifteen minutes away by helicopter. They might have gotten here by now if we called them earlier, but I don't think they'll show up in time if we shoot the flare now. And for some reason, our radios haven't been working, so if they come up here, they're going in blind."

The two brothers returned to staring at one another. But it was clear now who was going to win.

Letting out a sigh, Sean pointed the flare gun into the air. "I'm still gonna fire this thing, but you can go and kill the robot. Just...be careful."

"Gotcha."

As Sean sent the flare up high, Tristan darted to a nearby, more exposed point of cover - a small boulder resting away from its kin. Bracing the gun against the rock, Tristan aimed at the bear-robot, who had just jumped away from Terence.

Taking a deep breath, Tristan pulled the trigger.

The first shot tore into the machine's flank, but only did superficial damage. Surprised, the machine turned toward Tristan, only to receive a burst of magnesium to the face. Reprioritizing its targets, the creature moved to charge, much to Tristan's concern. When the third shot did nothing to slow it down, Tristan grimaced, with his expression only growing darker when the fourth one similarly failed to deter the beast, despite being a direct hit. Unnoticed to Tristan, Michelle had emerged from the cover, having taken one of the security personnel's flash grenades - it probably wouldn't help against the machine, but they were getting desperate.

When the fifth shot hit, though, something gave - the burst of ice emerged from the machine, causing its charge to falter. That only increased when the last shot blew something else up, completely encasing the machine in ice. As Terence stared on in surprise, Tristan turned to retreat, just as the robot burst free from the ice. Instead of resuming its chare, though, it lifted up a rock to throw, only for Michelle's flash grenade to explode in its face, sending the rock off course. It landed far to Tristan's left...and promptly caused a previously buried log to emerge from the snow, sending Tristan into the air. He returned to the Earth a moment later, landing right on top of Michelle. Both fell unconscious from the collision, though their groaning did establish that they were still alive.

Before the Frostclaw could charge again, Terence bit into its neck and twisted. Then, when the body went limp, he stepped on it hard enough to pulverize its internal systems, finally taking it offline. Triumphant, Terence let out a reptillian version of a roar, before turning his attention toward the humans.

Sean was already on top of the two, checking for any signs of head trauma. Vera was already handing him a medical kit, but the second son was worried it might not be enough. Damn it, where was help when you needed it...why was there a giant shadow over him?

XXXXXXXXXX

Five minutes later

Hastily, Hucua loaded the unconscious humans onto his riders' pterosaurs - all of them needed to be checked for head trauma.

The arrival of the prehistoric dragon had been unexpected, but it had turned the tide of the aerial battle - the troglodyte dragon had not been expecting to fight another like it. The fight had ended when the beast had fallen from the skies, but it had recovered from the crash and was flying away, unlikely to return. Unfortunately, it's fall had knocked out all of the group below except for Mancho, who helped him secure the last of the guards. With help unlikely to come due to a sudden shift in the clouds blocking the flare, Hucua let out a sigh - it seemed they needed to take these outsiders to the city for healing.

...Hopefully the creatures following them would not give into their hunger before then.

XXXXXXXXX

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This is Flameal15k, signing off!