I focused my attention on Tristan. "Did you - any of you - know about this?"
The boy and his companions shrugged. Even Mozetque seemed surprised.
"Nope."
"This is a first."
"I only know of this city and the park on the other side of the mountain," answered Mozetque.
Well, that was hardly helpful. "Well, this just gives more questions than answers."
"Hey, 'Phil', can I ask you something?"
"What would it be?"
"These time portals...have you ever seen something similar to them?"
"...Yes."
"Is it possible for many of them to open up over one area for a protracted period of time?"
Vivian saved me the need to answer that question. "If he's thinking of the series I'm thinking of, then yes, it's possible. A bunch could even open up simultaneously. And before you ask, call me Melissa."
"Is that really your name?" inquired the second eldest of the boys, Sean.
"Part of it. And if you're wondering how you can trust me, I won't offer any reason beyond pragmaticism."
"...Well, that's something, I guess."
One of the girls - not a member of the siblings, of that I was certain - cleared her throat. "While I do find this conversation interesting, the fact remains that we are hosting guests from an unknown timeline, that from how you treat it could be an alternate universe, one where creatures known to be fictitious here are real. And while I am willing to give the benefit of doubt to fiction becoming fact due to alternate timelines, the fact remains that we know nothing about this world and have no idea what kind of problems its natives could cause us."
Viv glanced at Sean. "Who is-"
"Her name is Cassandra, she's from a few million years into the future, this is a topic to be discussed later."
The girl in question smiled. "Some respect is nice. Also, where did the giant iguanas come from?"
"They're wolf-analogues from a world I've visited, and they're some of the smaller predators in their native ranges - the bigger ones make me wonder how the food webs in their native environments don't collapse from having too many predators."
Cassandra quirked an eyebrow at that. "So that world is some generic fantasy world?
"Low fantasy world - magic isn't much of a thing there."
"Wait, magic exists there?!"
Vivian actually shifted slightly in surprise at Cassandra's sudden change in demeanor. "Um, yes?"
The future girl turned her attention toward the rest of her companions, eyes taking on a pleading form. "Can we please, please, please get samples from that world?"
Tristan glanced at me. "Can you provide some samples?"
No harm in doing that. "Sure. I won't even ask for compensation. But can we return our focus to the oddity of this land?"
"That's probably a good idea," conceded Elise.
"Splendid."
Returning my attention to my probe, I ordered it to make some new scouts to examine the surrounding ocean. Maybe this would shed some light on the strangeness of this land.
Tai watched as the drones soared over the beach. "What are you looking at now?"
"I'm going to investigate the surrounding ocean, see if I can find any other oddities...is that a Hibbertopterus?"
Glancing at the screen, the group's eyes widened slightly in surprise.
"...Huh. Must've come through when we rescued the Dunkleosteus," noted Ava.
"I see." Wow, didn't expect to see such a large eurypterid here.
Suddenly, the screen changed to a picture of several of a grassland, where several animals were grazing. Among them were hadrosaurs, mammoths, and caseids. All creatures that shared the same niche, but lived side by side.
"Why'd the screen change?" questioned Tai.
I shrugged. "Eh, it looks like there's a bunch of magnetic rocks nearby this area - I set them up to notify me if extremely strong magnetic signals were detected. Maybe I should find out if radio helps track them."
"Nigel said that the portal does interfere with radio communications on FM 87.6."
It was the middle child among the three sisters who answered to my question, to which I merely nodded in understanding.
"I see...you know, looking at these creatures just makes me more curious at how big this island must be."
Cassandra was the one most surprised by my remark. "Is it because this environment should logically be unable to sustain so many large herbivores?"
"Only partially. There's also the fact we're seeing horses, hadrosaurs, and edaphosaurs all living side by side despite lack of niche partitioning."
A curious 'hmm' emanated from the future girl, implicitly asking their guest to continue. Viv answered before I could speak up, though.
"All of the animals we're looking at are grazers, yet they share the same environment and feeding time. Logically speaking, this shouldn't be possible - natural selection would favor whichever animal was better at avoiding predators and allow it to thrive while the remaining species either died out, migrated away, or found a new niche. Alternatively, they could engage in niche partitioning - perhaps the smaller edaphosaurs could learn to feed at night, allowing them to avoid competing with the larger herbivores. That's how owls and hawks manage to live in the same environment and eat the same kinds of animals without coming into direct competition."
"And yet these creatures are living in harmony with each other despite both of the above you mentioned, indicating that either they are recent arrivals...or that this environment is large enough that they normally do not compete with each other and merely meet one another on occasion, correct?"
"Yes, Ms. Cassandra."
Suddenly, a massive spike in magnetic activity registered on the sensors. Without warning, a portal opened, and out came a leshen. While the hadrosaurs turned to stupidly stare at it instead of, you know, runnning away, the leshen slammed its hands into the ground, sending forth trees roots...which promptly stopped halfway between the relict and the herbivores...what?
Confused, the tree creature slammed its hands into the ground once again, but this time, no roots emerged. The hadrosaurs and other herbivores dimly stared at the new arrival, only taking at most a few steps away from it.
Without warning, a flock of wood peckers descended upon the woodland spirit, viciously attacking it, not retreating even when it swatted one of them away. Eventually, the onslaught proved to be too much, and the creature retreated through the portal, which closed a moment later.
...How the fuck had birds been able to attack a leshen? That thing could control lesser beasts!
Wordlessly, I turned toward my hosts. "...You have any idea why that happened?"
They merely shrugged.
Well, crap.
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AN: One more chapter in the Prehistoric Park-verse after this, then we're going over to the Zero Dawn Earth.
Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!