AN: I cast revive again!
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Before me is a creature unlike any I have ever encountered - a giant predatory amphibian. This creature, Anthracosaurus, is the crocodile of its time - an amphibious predator, able to traverse land and water. This creature is the apex predator of its time, but that won't save it from extinction. In the coming millions of years, the world will dry out, and this mighty carnivore will be forced to cede its status as apex predator to mammal relatives like Dimetrodon. Even their dominion over lakes and rivers will end, allowing crocodilians to take their place.
For this individual, though, a better date awaits.
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Luring a giant predatory amphibian onto land is a simple task. That doesn't make it easy.
Carefully, Nigel sets up the portal, while Wade keeps an eye on the amphibian. Gradually, more emerge, until over a dozen now occupy the riverbank. All watch the humans cautiously, unable to decide if the strange bipeds are prey or competition.
That changes rapidly when Wade pulls a snapper out of one of the team's coolers.
As the portal whirs to life, the amphibians start crawling toward Wade, who throws the fish through the portal. Moments later, the embolomeres follow, and escape into the safety of the present.
But while they may be an excellent addition to the park, Nigel and Jeremy still have to rescue their targets.
As the portal closes, the rescue duo notice that the eurypterids have finally entered the water.
It seems it is time for Nigel and Jeremy to go fishing.
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Back in the present, a few new arrivals are getting acquainted with their new neighbors.
The great fanged tyrannosaur made her way to the mouth of the cave. The smell of burning meat drew her attention toward the mouth of the cave, where a heavy-set humanoid was roasting flesh over a fire. Nearby, several strange looking theropods were also watching, curious expressions on their faces.
The Orniths had been watching Spear roast the meat for almost the minutes. As a group of intelligent dinosaurs, they were not unfamiliar with fire, but they were unfamiliar with the meat Spear was cooking. It was not meat taken from a sauropod, or a stegosaur, or an ornithopod, or an allosaur, or a megalosaur, or even from an ankylosaur. This was flesh taken from a ceratopsian - specifically a styracosaur - which had yet to evolve beyond tiny forms in the time of the orniths. Ceratopsians would not develop their signature horned forms until roughly 85 million years ago, long after the orniths would have died out. The orniths would never have seen a live ceratopsian, so they didn't know what it looked like, how to hunt it, or how it tasted. But they could clearly tell that Spear. So now they were watching him, waiting to see if they could glean insights from him.
The orniths could not make the same sounds as humans. They could never hope to hold a conversation with a human being, nor could they understand sign language - you needed to have the same number of fingers for that. But perhaps they could learn by observation.
Spear, for his part, was willing to share in the spoils of his hunt as long as the orniths didn't antagonize him. But their presence was starting to get annoying.
Spear had been confused greatly by all of his new surroundings, as had Fang. Most surprising of all were the tyrannosaurs of this land. The native ones (including the one that spent a lot of time with that young boy) all had sparse feathers on them, as opposed to being universally scaly. And their lips did a better job of covering their teeth than Fang's lips did. There were also other prey creatures here he had never seen, and new peoples to share it with. The monkey men, at least, were familiar to him, and treated him like kin. In fact, some were already beginning to exit the cave, curious about those waiting outside their door. They too wished to k ow more about their neighbors.
The staring match continued until the dinosaur meat finished cooking. With the food ready, Spear let out a cry that the monkey-men understood immediately. One by one, the group gathered around the fire, until all of them were assembled. Then, Spear began offering portions of meat to the group members, each receiving a helping of flesh. Fang was next, and received a portion larger than the rest - after all, she was far larger than the rest of the group. Spear made sure to also save a portion for himself.
Finally, he turned his attention to the orniths. Without a word (though to be fair, the dinosaurs would not have understood any words Spear could have said), he offered them the remainder of his cooking. For a moment, the group of carnivores stared, unsure how to react to this kindness. The ice was broken when two orniths - Stego and Listener - accepted their portions, after which the rest joined in. Despite this, there was plenty of meat leftover - a gift for their clan. A way to avoid hostilities. At least for now.
This land was a brave new world for Spear, Fang, and the monkey men. Though the orniths were relative newcomers as well, they still had a better understanding of the place than the hominids did. So it would be best to maintain them as friends. And besides, Spear had no quarrel with them.
They were not the Scorpion.
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Back in the past, Nigel and Jeremy have embarked upon the River.
Aboard their fishing canoe, the rescue duo let the current guide them. Though reasonably spacious, the River they had found the embolomeres in was not the ideal home for their target.
"Embolomeres are large predators," Nigel told the cameraman, "but they're built like eels. They can maneuver well through narrow spaces that broader animals can't traverse. Rhizodus isn't the kind of creature you'd find in a narrow stream - this is a predator at home in large rivers and lakes. So we're gonna follow the current and see if we can find some more open waters up ahead."
Unnoticed by Nigel and Jeremy, as they made their way downriver, following the eurypterids, something else was also making its way downstream. It was much broader than the embolomeres, and based on how it stopped when the canoe stopped, it seemed that it was stalking them.
Nigel and Jeremy's quarry seems to have found them. But will they be able to catch it...or will it catch them?
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AN: And I'm back to this story. Huzzah!
I think it's been a while since the orniths got focus, so they're back again. They and the park's new Frazetta Men will get more focus in the next "episode", which will JUST be about the park. No new rescues, just interacting with the creatures already there.
The monkey men are the hominids that show up in Episode 4 of Primal, Terror Under The Blood Moon. I needed to explicitly differentiate them from the hominids that show up in Rage of the Ape Men and The Slave of the Scorpion, and the animatics for Primal refer to the chimpanzee like hominids as Monkeys, which led me to name them monkey men.
With that being said, read and review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!