Dedicated to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

A great woman who dedicated her life to her country – and who leaves behind a great legacy.

May you rest in peace, Your Majesty.

It was shaping up to be a beautiful day at Prehistoric Park. Alice Denham certainly thought so as she stared up at the sky from where she was currently sitting on a bench in the La Brea Grand Vista. At the moment, she was taking a short break from her work; and, with nothing to occupy her, She hung her head, sighing slightly at the memory of her punishment. Over the past two weeks, it had been quite easy for her to forget that she'd been suspended – however, with a mission scheduled and Drew, Leon and Jack going on it, she couldn't help but be reminded.

She sighed and shook her head side to side. For practically her entire life, she'd usually been the cool headed and responsible one between her and Jack, and the one always considered by their parents to be the least likely to get in trouble. But now, here she was, in trouble, over stupid things that she had done. She'd screwed up on the basilosaurus mission – and, worst of all, had put Jack at risk. Even worse, this had all been sparked by a petty and inconsequential argument.

She checked her watch, taking note that her break was over and it was time she got back to work. After all, something to distract her about her suspension – her next duty was at the American cheetah paddock, meaning that she'd get to see Eshe again. Which would be nice. Nodding her head, she got up from the bench and began to head over. "Here goes nothing," she thought to herself. All in all, as much as she was embarrassed and disheartened, today was a beautiful day. And an important one.

. . . . .

Meanwhile, Drew Luczynski and Jack Denham were sitting in Drew's office, waiting for Leon to arrive. Drew was checking his watch and tutting, whilst Jack was looking absent-mindedly at the ceiling, saying monotonously, "He said he'd be here around about now." Suddenly, a voice said, "I'm here". He turned to see Leon walking towards him, a small smile on his face. "Where were you?" Drew asked. "You were supposed to be here five minutes ago." In response, Leon rolled his eyes and replied, "My apologies. Anyway, what are we going after?"

Drew smiled and showed Leon and Jack a picture of a large dinosaur. It was very bizarre-looking; it had a small head atop a long neck with a bipedal gait and a heavy, deep, broad body, with short, stocky legs. Its arms were its most striking feature, almost disproportionately long compared to its body, with incredibly long, vicious-looking claws tipping its three fingers. Leon smiled, "Therizinosaurus. I was kind of hoping we'd go after it someday."

Jack raised his eyebrow quizzically and said to Drew, "That's the dinosaur with the giant claws, isn't it? The one that lived alongside Velociraptor?" Drew nodded. "Yep. Sure is."

Leon turned to Jack and said, "Therizinosaurus was a very weird dinosaur; for many years no one knew what it ate or even what kind of dinosaur it was. When it was first discovered, it was thought to be a giant turtle; since then people have claimed it used its claws to eviscerate dinosaurs or even crack open termite nests. Now we know that it was a herbivore, and used the claws to pull down branches."

Drew nodded and said, "Thank you, Leon. However, we're not just going after Therizinosaurus; Theodore also gave us Velociraptor as a secondary target." He turned to Jack, smiling. "I presume that's why you were so eager to go on the mission, Jack?"

Jack smiled. "Correct, fearless leader; I'd spend three weeks shoveling out the sauropod barns if that was what it took for me to go on this mission. What are we waiting for?"

Drew chuckled. "Your enthusiasm is much appreciated." He looked to Leon. "You heard Jack. Let's get going!"

Leon raised his eyebrow. "You sure you don't want to wait till after the visit from the top brass?", as he and Jack looked to Drew. Drew nodded, "No time like the present Leon," he said. "I can meet up with Theodore later, if he's still here. Nikolai can handle it – he handled the inspection."

"If you say so," Leon stated. "Excellent," Drew stated before chuckling again. "Now let's get to work!"

And, so, they headed to the portal site. When they got there, Leon and Drew were surprised to see Collete standing on the walkway; however, Jack simply smiled, "Dropped by to see me off?" Collete rolled her eyes, walked up to them and said, "I came to wish you good luck on the mission today." After a brief pause, she said, "All of you," as if to clarify that she wasn't meaning anyone specific. An employee entered the time period and location and the portal whirred into life. Drew put the remote in his pocket and, after securing it, turned to Leon, who nodded, and Jack, who gave him a wink and a thumbs-up. Drew nodded at them both. As they turned to head towards the portal, Jack suddenly heard Collete shouting from the walkway, "Oh, and Jack? Promise me you'll be careful." Jack nodded to her, and he, Drew and Leon entered through the portal.

As they left the portal, the first thing that hit the team was the heat. They looked around to see where they had emerged. They had emerged on a vast expanse of sand, stretching for miles. Aside from occasional clusters of hardy-looking desert plants, the vast expanse was almost featureless. Jack looked around the vast expanse of sand. "Jeez, it reminds me of Maevarano," he stated. "It's amazing how every place becomes shit in the dry season." Leon looked around the vast expanse of sand and said, almost philosophically, "It's amazing, isn't it? 75 million years and the Gobi Desert still hasn't changed." Drew looked at his teammates, a determined look on his face. "Sightseeing's over, guys! We have to start looking for our targets." He then pointed up towards the sky. "Especially considering it looks like we've arrived in the early evening." "It might not be so bad," Leon stated, "After all, a lot of the animals here were likely nocturnal." "And that's fine and dandy," Drew said. "But I'd rather get started as soon as we can." Jack gave him a quizzical look, "So, how do you propose we start then?" Drew sighed. "We find a watering hole of course. The old favourite strategy." He then looked at the ground and noticed a series of three-toed tracks. They clearly weren't Therizinosaurus tracks. Firstly, they were small; the animal that made them was likely to only be about the size of a sheep. secondly, each was arranged in two pairs, with the back pair being larger than the front, indicating the animal was a quadruped. Drew chuckled, "I've found some tracks. We'll follow them; animals always head for food and water."

Following the footprints, the trio walked a considerable distance before, after about an hour, coming to a large sand dune. Jack looked at the dune. "So, fearless leader, the animals we've been tracking are just over that dune?" Drew nodded. "It certainly looks that way," he chuckled gleefully as he began climbing the hill, Jack and Leon following close him. When they reached the top, they heard a loud grunting noise, like some large pig mixed with a parrot, as well as a low, goose-like honking. The three adventurers looked at each other; whatever these animals were, they were about to find out.

. . . . .

Meanwhile, Nikolai was sitting in the meeting room and waiting for Theodore and the Novum higher-ups who would be visiting today. He was standing alone; Drew had gone on his latest mission to the past today (total coincidence, he insisted) and had delegated the task to him. Nikolai rolled his eyes. Drew shirking his responsibilities; what else was new? Suddenly, his mind was brought back to reality by the sound of knocking on the door.

Walking up to it, Nikolai opened to see Theodore, with a warm grin on his face. "Hello, Nikolai", Theodore said, warmly, before vigorously shaking Nikolai's hand. Nikolai allowed himself a small smile. "It's nice to see you, sir." Theodore nodded his head. "The feeling's mutual," he said before then turning his head to look behind him and beckoning. At this, three other men came walking into view.

The first man was about five inches taller than Theodore and rather stockily built, with a slight hint of paunch. Nikolai guessed he had probably been an athlete of some sort in his youth – an American football player or a wrestler, maybe? His eyes gleamed with the same warm excitement Nikolai had seen on Theodore many times and had a warm smile on his slightly bearded face. Theodore gestured to the man and smiled, "Bryce Bennett – one of my oldest friends and right-hand man. I would trust him with my life – he was one of the first people I told about this place." Bryce gave a little bow at that, before grabbing Nikolai's hand in a crushing handshake and saying to Nikolai, in a deep, jovial-sounding voice, "Hello, Nikolai, it's wonderful to be here."

The second man was physically Bennett's opposite – thin, balding and with a twitchy demeanour, with the sweat pouring down his skin showing that the heat was not agreeing with him. Nikolai was suspicious of him on sight. Theodore gestured to the man and said, "This is Percival, my nephew and left-hand man". He chuckled at his own joke, as Percival rolled his eyes, walked up to Nikolai and extended his hand, saying "I handle the business side of Novum - my uncle prefers to supervise his more…humanitarian efforts himself. Including this place – I knew about it from the beginning, but until now…"

Still giving the man a side-eyed glare, Nikolai took Percival's hand and said, "My name is Nikolai Koshkin. I'm the park's Head of Security." Percival winced, in equal parts nervousness and discomfort at Nikolai's handshake, before awkwardly nodding.

The handshake finished, Nikolai looked to the third man who'd entered after Theodore. This man, a tanned skinned fellow in his mid to late 40s with mildly tanned skin, dark brown hair, and a slight mustache, was neither as stocky as Bennett or as slender as Percival. Rather, he was in a more intermediate level of physical fitness. This man Nikolai was very quick to recognize, having seen him amongst the Novum marketing department prior to the day he'd been chosen to work at the park. "I see you've decided to drop by for a visit Henry," he stated.

At this, senior Novum marketer Henry Ramon let off a warm smile and waved companionably at Nikolai. "It's good to see you doing good here to Nikolai," he stated. "And you and the rest of the staff here will be seeing a lot more of me from here on out. I've been hired to serve as the park's public relations manager, and the board felt that now would a good time for me to familiarise myself with the place."

Nikolai nodded his head in understanding, for he was well aware indeed that PR would be a crucial element to handle for the sake of keeping the park open. And with the park currently still slated to remain a closely guarded secret until literally the day it finally opened to the public, a seriously strong marketing campaign would need to be set in motion right out the gate to make up for the lack of pre-release anticipation. "Well I'm sure that the rest of the staff will be happy to have you here," he stated. Henry chuckled. "I certainly hope so."

As this happened, Percival darted his eyes around the room, as if expecting someone else to pop out. "Where's Mr. Luczynski?", he eventually asked. "Given he's in charge, I thought he'd want to be here."

Nikolai rolled his eyes and said, "Sadly, Drew had what he considered to be greater priorities." Theodore nodded his head, with a slight smile "No doubt he's already on today's mission." "You'd be correct," Nikolai stated. "However, most of the Deputy Keepers, who were involved in bringing back many of our animals, have remained. And so have my fellow chiefs of staff. They can fill you in with anything the mission reports may have left out." Bennett smiled. "Well, where's our first stop?"

. . . . .

Looking over the top of the hill, Drew, Jack and Leon saw a small desert lake, sustaining a scrubby growth of drought-resistant desert plants. Around the lake, a small group of medium-sized ceratopsian dinosaurs were browsing from the plants or drinking from the lake.

The small ceratopsians vaguely resembled the Leptoceratops back at the park, only slightly larger, about the size of a sheep, and with their front feet not looking quite as distinctly hand-like as those of the leptoceratops. Their skin was tan and leathery with red stripes across their backs, with bristles on the back and the end of the tail. The most distinctive feature of the body was the head, which was almost disproportionately large for its body and was dominated by a large bony neck frill that had two large red eyespots across the front; in the males, the frill was half the length of the skull and was much more brightly coloured. Each dinosaur had a large, parrot-like frontal beak and muscular jaws, as well as a bump on the snout, which was more pronounced in the males than the females. Whilst they were the size of sheep, they had the cantankerous, bad-tempered demeanor of pigs, constantly pushing and shoving against each other.

Leon knew what they were immediately. "These are Protoceratops; they're a small ceratopsian that's common in these regions. The males probably used the nasal bumps in combat; those nasal bumps formed the basis of later ceratopsians' horns. According to the fossil record, they nested in groups; they probably came here to look for a nesting site."

The protoceratops weren't alone – around them were two different kinds of bipedal dinosaur. In each of them, there was a vague resemblance to the Anzu at the park, but one species had dark red feathers on their tail tips and elbows while the other species was covered almost entirely in snowy white feathers with black spots. Intrigued, Leon looked closer and said, "Those are oviraptorids – Oviraptor and Citipati, most likely." Narrowing his eyes, he noted something strange about the dinosaurs' movements – the oviraptorids seemed to be patrolling around the protoceratopsids. Leon remembered a post on a blog called Prehistoric Soup that he'd read… "I wonder…," he muttered.

Watching the dinosaurs, Jack said, curiously, "How do we get this lot back through the portal?" In response to this, Drew smirked. "I've got a plan, and it's a cracker." He looked to Jack. "Jack, can I have the horn?" Jack was about to reach for it when, suddenly, an oviraptorid screeched and the entire group went on the defensive, with the protoceratops pawing the ground and bellowing. The team looked at each other, as shapes moved through the sand.

. . . . .

Back at the park, the first stop on the impromptu tour for Theodore and the three additional Novum visitors turned out to be the veterinary facility. And as the group walked over towards where Linda's office was located, they managed to overhear her in the midst of a discussion of some sort with Yolanda.

"So you're saying we'll be treating this like an integration attempt amongst a wolf pack, is that right?" Linda's voice asked from inside her office.

"Yep," Yolanda was heard responding. "That's what Leon suggested. It may be based on speculation, but it can't hurt to try right?"

Theodore knocked gently on the door. "Come in," said Linda. Theodore opened the door, allowing Linda and Yolanda to catch a clear view of him, Nikolai, and the three other men visiting the park. "Ah, Mr. Richardson," Linda said as she remained seated at her desk. She nodded her head. "I see you've here." She looked to the other three men in the room alongside Theodore and Nikolai. "And I see Henry came along to get advance preparations in for his new job here. Nice to see you."

"Right back at you Linda," said Henry as he nodded his head before looking towards Yolanda. "May I ask what you and your assistant were talking about just now?"

Yolanda was quick to answer for her boss. "Today's the day we were gonna begin efforts at getting Terrence and Matilda reintegrated alongside their parents," she explained. "Leon and I discussed the strategy for it – and we're using something based on wolf introductions."

Bennett nodded his head. "Keeping it nice and simple," he stated. "Never a bad idea."

Percival rolled his eyes. "I've read about the T-rexes on the incident reports and I must ask… what concerns were there that led to this?"

"There were some instances with the juveniles – sibling conflict between Terence and Matilda… which got quite violent and left him with a few scars," Nikolai stated. "But we have managed to keep them under control."

"So you say," Percival stated, his eyebrow raised and a somewhat skeptical frown on his face.

Linda, Yolanda, and Nikolai all directed subtle glares towards Percival, not remotely pleased at what Theodore's nephew appeared to be implying. Even Henry and Bennett couldn't help but direct a disapproving look towards their colleague. Fortunately, Theodore was around to defuse tensions. "Now, now everyone," he said. "Let's not get into any unnecessary conflicts. We're all partners in this." He looked to Nikolai. "And on that note, may I ask if you know where Mr. Taymor might be? I get the feeling he might be useful to have with us for the tour…"

Nikolai nodded. "Last I heard, he was at the holding pens," he stated. "We can drop by there next and see if he's available."

. . . . .

Back in the Cretaceous period, the protoceratops and oviraptorids' alarm calls got louder and louder as shapes moved through the dunes, before a theropod dinosaur emerged in the clearing in front of them. It was about six feet long and three feet tall; its body was covered in thick, sandy-brown feathers, apart from its face, hands, and feet, which were covered in steely grey scales. It had a long snout, a mouth full of sharp teeth and large, intelligent-looking amber eyes. It stood on two powerful hind legs, with three-toed taloned feet; the second toe was larger than the others and held aloft, tipped in a vicious-looking, sickle-shaped claw. The creature cocked its head curiously, before prowling around the group.

The team all knew what it was immediately. "Velociraptor," Jack said, breathlessly. "In the flesh," Leon breathed out in agreement. "They must be trying to hunt the protoceratops and oviraptorids – maybe this is some kind of colony." Suddenly, the Velociraptor threw back its head and cawed loudly and five others burst out from different angles, and began circling the group. However, the raptors were hesitant, circling around the area.

There were six in all – all of them adults – and they circled the colony, trying to find weaknesses in the line. They snapped occasionally at the adult Protoceratops, who had formed a protective line around the area as the oviraptorids stepped back. It was a stand-off, with the raptors' hisses and snaps being replied by a frenzy of grunts and squawks from the Protoceratops and oviraptorids.

The stand-off continued for what seemed like an eternity, before one raptor attempted to make a mock charge into the area, but was deterred by a large male amongst the Protoceratops, who charged the raptor, causing it to back off – this cycle repeated for the next hour, with the raptors attempting to make mock charges into the group, but being driven off every time. Eventually, however, the raptors began to tire and, the last time they approached the mixed group, all three of the adult male Protoceratops were able to chase them off. Hissing in defeat, they ran off into the sand.

"Shit," Drew cursed. He sighed – whilst the raptors were gone, they could salvage a rescue for the Protoceratops and oviraptorids. Clambering down the sand dune, Drew silently approached the Protoceratops and oviraptorids, who all turned to look at him, and suddenly began blaring the horn at the dinosaurs. In response to this sudden, new sound, the Protoceratops began to snort and grunt aggressively at Drew, with the oviraptorids all starting to let out their honking goose-like calls at him as well in clear irritation. He continued to blare the horn until, with an aggressive snort from the leader, the entire combined group charged towards Drew, with the six youngster protoceratops hurriedly following the adult ceratopsians and the oviraptorids for protection. When they had gotten close enough, Leon opened the portal and all the Protoceratops and the oviraptorids charged through into the present. Once the last one had gone through, Leon closed the portal.

After the last one had gone through, Jack turned to Drew and said, "The old ways are the best, aren't they, fearless leader?", before he noticed Leon was looking thoughtful. He raised his eyebrow. "What's up with you?" Leon sighed. "A while ago, I read a blog post on something called Prehistoric Soup – by a guy named Bernie Evans. He argued that the Oviraptor-Protoceratops association was because the two species had a symbiotic relationship, like zebras and wildebeests. I understood the point – but I dismissed it as too speculative. Now…I'm wondering if he was on to something after all." Jack shrugged. "Considering his speculations on choristodere evolution have already been proven right…,", ignoring the brief irritated glare Leon had flashed him, "I'd say drop the park a line". At this, Drew rolled his eyes and tersely stated, "Yeah, yeah – in case you haven't noticed, D-bags, the trail's getting cold! Let's find those raptors!" Jack and Leon rolled their eyes and headed off into the sand dunes alongside their fearless leader, but not without the latter drawing out his communicator.

. . . . .

Kyle nodded his head, a look of approval on his face as he, Colette, and all the keepers and security guards that had been assembled for today's holding pens team observed the combined group of protoceratops, oviraptor, and citipati. "He's certainly off to a good start so far," Kyle stated as he watched the oviraptorids and small ceratopsians curiously sniffing about the holding pen.

Carmen chuckled, a cheeky grin on her face, "Second mission in a row where the apex predator isn't the first thing rescued? Looks like Drew's slipping!"

"That's one way to put it," Aaron stated in amusement, flashing Carmen a thumbs up. Even Maria and Hugo couldn't help but chuckle. Colette, however, was quick to get everybody back on task. "You can have a good laugh about that later everyone," she said, authoritatively, "Right now, let's get these guys transferred to another holding pen."

"You heard DuBois," Kyle stated. "Let's get back to work! And, knowing Drew, he'll bring back something bigger, toothier and meaner."

At the sound of his communicator going off, Kyle drew it out, and answered the call. "Taymor speaking, over?" Silence hung in the air as he listened to whoever was talking. "Intriguing," he stated before nodding his head. "Very well, I'll make sure to inform Khatin. Thank you. Good luck for the rest of the mission." He hung up and looked back to Colette and the assembled holding pens team, nodding, "No Code Red," he said. "That was Gilbertson speaking to inform me of a potential discovery…"

"Well that certainly sounds interesting."

At the sound of Theodore's voice, Kyle, Colette, and the holding pens team turned around in time to see the man himself coming to a stop nearby alongside Linda, Yolanda, Nikolai, and the three other visitors from Novum. Kyle raised his eyebrow in amusement. "I see you've arrived, Mr. Richardson," he stated.

"Please do call me Theodore," Theodore chuckled as he took a look at the protoceratops, oviraptor, and citipati, "I do hope we haven't come at a bad time."

"Fear not," said Kyle. "So far things are good. In fact, you've just arrived in time to see the first few animals to get rescued on today's mission."

"I can see that," Theodore said, an almost childlike glee to his voice as he walked over to get a better look. "I can definitely recognize protoceratops in there… and two oviraptorids?" Kyle nodded his head. "Gilbertson has identified them as oviraptor and citipati, but Khatin's going to check and be certain."

"Interesting", Henry gave Kyle a companionable nod. "Nice to see you by the way," he stated. Kyle nodded. "Good to see you here to Henry. I take it you're the new PR manager?" Henry chuckled. "Guilty as charged."

"I hate to interrupt," Percival stated, irritated, "But I believe there's still work to be done."

"As rudely as my nephew may have just put it," Theodore stated, briefly annoyed, "He has a point." He looked to Kyle. "If it wouldn't be any trouble, would you be able to perhaps accompany us on today's visit? We'll be doing a little tour and we get the feeling you might be worth having around."

Kyle nodded his head. "Just let me help Colette and my team here get these animals transferred to another holding pen, and I'll see if I can find anyone to take charge for me."

"I'm sure Willoby will be available and willing to help in that regard," Nikolai stated. He looked to Colette. "Unless you're willing to try to take over for Kyle this time around?" Colette shook her head. "You can have Willoby assist, captain," she said. "I won't mind."

"Well I suppose that settles that then," said Yolanda.

"Indeed," Linda agreed before flashing Kyle a thumbs up. "We'll all be waiting here until you finish."

"Sounds like a plan," said Kyle. He looked to his assembled team and clapped his hands. "Right then! Let's get back to work! And be careful – these animals could be feisty…"

"Oh come now," Percival stated as he casually walked up to the fencing to observe the anmals, "These animals don't look that dangerous – kind of cute, actually…"

Aaron raised his eyebrow at the sight of Percival absent-mindedly leaning on the mesh. "I wouldn't do that if I were you…" Percival turned to look at him, confused, before saying "Huh... JESUS!" He stumbled backwards in surprise, eyes widened and his arm and hand rapidly withdrawn from the wire just in time to avoid getting his right thumb bitten off by an Oviraptor.

At this, multiple holding pens keepers started laughing while the rest of the onlookers shook their heads side to side, with Theodore even pinching the bridge of his nose. "Percival, what am I going to do with you?", he muttered under his breath. For all his nephew's business savvy, Theodore did admit that sometimes he could be too ignorant for his own good.

Aaron chuckled, a cheeky grin on his face. "I warned ya," he stated smugly. Percival sighed. "So you did," he responded curtly before marching back over to where his uncle and the rest of the tour group was positioned, in a vain attempt to salvage his dignity.

"Enough delays," Kyle stated before clapping his hands. "Let's move! These animals aren't gonna transfer themselves!"

. . . .

"Have we lost them?"

Drew sighed at Jack's question – principally because the answer was "Yes".

The team had been carefully following the velociraptor pack since they had brought the protoceratops and oviraptorids back – however, they had lost track. Jack turned to Leon and muttered, "If only Adrian were here", to which Leon nodded – whilst Drew wasn't an incompetent tracker, if they'd had Adrian, they'd probably have found the raptors by now.

Overhearing the chat, an indignant Drew was about to speak in his own defense when they heard a low barking cough from over a nearby sand dune alerted the team. Following the sound, Drew smiled and said, quietly, "Boys…we've found the raptors."

As Jack and Leon joined him, they saw the whole pack of velociraptors sitting by a dead tree. Observing, they noticed behavioral differences between the social dynamics of the raptors and the dromas - the association was less cohesive and the interactions between the raptors were less harmonious, with all six of them frequently snapping and bickering amongst themselves. The adolescents kept a reasonable distance from the adult pair, with two adolescents in particular circling the edge of the pack, as if unwelcome.

Leon muttered, "Interesting – associations seem a bit looser. They bicker among themselves a bit more than the dromas…maybe it's something to do with the desert environment. Or maybe it's a velociraptorine thing…"

Jack rolled his eyes, before turning to Drew. "How are we going to get this lot through the portal? I'm psyched about having found them this early, but do you have a plan? I mean, you always have a plan, but…" At this, Leon shrugged. "Use a trail of meat, maybe?", he suggested. Chuckling, Drew smiled, "Too…pedestrian – I've decided to mix things up a bit. Do you remember, dear Leon, what we used to do to prepare you for dodgeball?"

Leon gulped, as Jack looked confused.

. . . .

Cynthia was in a good mood as she sat on a bench in Maevarano for a break she was currently taking. She felt quite pleased at how much progress the park had made in preparing for opening day over the course of the last two weeks. The two-week break had done wonders – they'd been able to focus on making progress for the opening day and, even with Alice still on suspension, Cynthia felt confident that enough progress had been made to make things a little less stressful. But even with that, it did help to take a break every now and then.

A low abelisaurid grumbling from the paddock behind her caused her to smile as she took a look towards said paddock just in time to see the adolescent male majungasaurus Mahazatra standing right by the edge of the moat. She chuckled – ever since the day of the estemmenosuchus mission, she'd formed a strong companionship with the young abelisaur. "Nice to see you Maha," she said while flashing the young abelisaur a thumbs up. Mahazatra rumbled happily, and bobbed his head up and down slightly, before briefly glancing at Cynthia's supply bag. The sight of this caused Cynthia to chuckle again. "Don't worry Maha," she said as she reached inside the bag and drew out a container of bologna. "I've got you covered," she said as she drew out a slice of the bologna inside and tossed it over the paddock's edge towards Mahazatra, who eagerly caught in his jaws and began to chow down. After he had eaten the last slice, he happily grunted and walked into the forest area of his paddock, dissapearing. Cynthia chuckled again as she watched Mahazatra stalk off, and said, "See you later Maha," before nodding again. Yep, life so far was going well.

"I see you're in a good mood."

At the sound of this voice, Cynthia looked back in front of her in time to see Adrian standing nearby with an amused smirk on his face. She nodded her head, an amused look coming onto her face at the sight of one of her closest friends amongst the staff so far. "That I am, Hawkeye", she said, using his old nickname as a companionable jab, "You?"

Adrian nodded his head. "You could say I am," he stated. He gestured in a general direction within the Maevarano exhibit zone. "I was just about to check how things were going at the fulminopteryx aviary, and I figured I'd say hi since you were here."

"Thanks," Cynthia stated before flashing Adrian a thumbs up. "And I do hope Alice is doing fine with her suspension – I do hope her and Collete can patch things up. You're a good friend for offering to help them out, you know that?"

Adrian said, "Yeah." Cynthia chuckled. "Hey, what are friends for?" She then checked her watch. "And on that note, we should probably get back to work. It probably wouldn't look good if the top brass caught us lazing around."

Adrian let out a low chuckle. "Too true," he stated. "Too true."

. . . . .

Meanwhile, at the Hell Creek herbivore barn, Khatin was watching intently with equal mixtures pride and melancholy as he watched a pair of juvenile male ornithomimus tentatively walking their way into the paddock. These were Flotsam and Jetsam, two ornithomimus whom Khatin had raised since the day their eggs had rolled out of their nest. And now, they had at last grown enough to be ready to try to reintegrate with the main flock.

He had to admit, as much as he'd known this day would come, part of him felt a little sad at having to let the two ornithomimus brothers 'leave the nest'. But at the same time, he still knew it had to be done – they had to grow up amongst their own kind. In that instant, Flotsam and Jetsam both turned their heads to look at him, as if asking permission to continue onward. He nodded his head. "Go on ahead," he stated. "I'll be right here."

The two ornithomimus brothers warbled, tilted their heads quizzically, then looked into each other's eyes, and then warbled again before looking directly ahead towards where the larger ornithomimus flock were gathered. As Khatin watched the two brothers get closer and closer, a sentry happened to notice them coming and let out a loud squawk to alert the rest of the flock, which all turned to look; at which point Flotsam and Jetsam paused and bore their throats submissively to indicate they meant no harm. This caught the attention of the unofficial leader of the flock, who came slowly walking over to where she could get a good proper look. As Khatin and the larger ornithomimus flock watched intently, the leader cautiously observed Flotsam and Jetsam, seemingly considering whether to let them join. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, she warbled calmly and bobbed her head up and down before turning around and calmly walking back to the flock. They'd been accepted. At this, the two brothers straightened up and calmly walked over to take their place amongst the rest of their kind.

At the sight of this, Khatin smiled in equal parts pride and sadness. As much he'd miss having them around, he knew this was the right thing to do. And with that, he turned around to walk over to the staff exit for the Hell Creek herbivore barns, confident now that he didn't need to stick around. In the meantime, it was time to get focused on what laid ahead.

. . . .

Back in Cretaceous Mongolia, Leon walked up to where the raptors were resting, a feeling of terror in the pit of his stomach and his hands very tightly gripping his broadcasting device – Drew's voice crackled from his communicator, "Right, you remember the plan – get them following you and, when they're close enough, diveroll and we'll chuck a portal grenade and send 'em through." At this, Leon said, quietly and nervously, "I can't diveroll, Drew, you know I can't diveroll. I could never get the timing right."

Drew's voice crackled in, "You'll be fine," to which Jack's own voice soon muttered from the communicator, "Are you sure about this? If his timing's off by even a millisecond, he's dead." Chuckling, Drew said, "Oh ye of little faith…I'm confident he'll be able to do it." Jack muttered, "I'm not."

Leon gulped. "Neither am I," he muttered under his breath. Nonetheless, onward he continued.

Approaching the raptors, Leon pointed his broadcasting device directly in their direction with a shaky hand and played a recording of one of Duke's territorial snarls at full volume. Noticing the sound, the raptors snapped their heads in his direction, snarled, and then advanced towards him, drool cascading from their jaws and an occasional hiss. Terrified, Leon began to walk backwards, slowly, ensuring to keep the raptors ahead of him. The raptors snapped and hissed as they slowly advanced towards him.

Lifting his communicator, Leon said, "Now?", to which Drew replied "Any minute, any minute now." The raptors snapped at Leon again, and he asked, "Now?", to which Drew said, "No". The alpha raptor walked towards Leon and tensed, getting ready to strike, with his mate and the adolescents standing behind…before Drew's voice screamed in Leon's communicator, "NOW!" Leon dived away, as a portal grenade was thrown from the dry scrub into the middle of the striking raptors, swallowing them up in an instant, and sending them back to the park.

Once the raptors were gone, Leon punched the air triumphantly, "Yes! I did it! I finally did a diveroll!" Walking out of the bushes, Drew and Jack joined him, both smiling, as Drew said to Leon, "And to think you said it couldn't be done!" Chuckling, Jack said, "You lucky bugger – and now we have one of our target species…lucky omen?"

Nodding, Drew said, "Lucky omen! Onward, boys!"

. . . .

Back at the park, Kyle had now properly joined up with the rest of the impromptu tour group once he'd successfully finished helping the holding pens team transfer the protoceratops, oviraptor, and citipati to a separate holding pen – Willoby had taken over from there. He and the rest of the group had now reached the Hell Creek zone – after bumping into Khatin and telling him about Leon's discovery, they had now moved on to the dromaeosaurus paddock.

"So I take it these are the raptors that Jack Denham has trained to work with park security?" Bennett stated. Nikolai nodded, "That is correct," he stated before pointing directly towards the center of the paddock, where Duke and Cassie, their adolescent offspring Bindi and Albert, and Duke's mother Jane, as well as the four chicks, were heartily feasting upon a pig carcass. "Granted, we've also trained the dire wolf pack at La Brea, the argentavis at La Pampa, one of the harpactognathus at Morrison, and two of the saurornitholestes at Aguja. But the dromas are the ones we've used the most often."

"They've all proven pretty useful too," Yolanda stated, feeling it would be nice to show her support for her friend. "With Jack's training, they've been loads of help in tracking and rounding up escaped animals." Kyle nodded. "That they have," he stated in agreement. "Fascinating," Henry stated, still looking in awe at the feasting dromaeosaurus pack. Percival was observing the pack intently – he was half-pondering a possible use for the dromas.

Percival looked to Nikolai. "You say that both these dromaeosaurus and at least two saurornitholestes have been trained to work with security," he said. "Did Jack Denham play a hand in training for both species?" The entire rest of the tour group turned their eyes towards Percival, with Nikolai in particular raising an eyebrow. "He did," he stated simply. "Granted, Sergeant Fox was the one who came to him with the idea for the saurornitholestes. Why do you ask?"

"Well to start," Percival stated, placing his finger on his chin as if in deep thought. "Is it just those two? Or has he trained others?" Nikolai was quick to respond. "He's mostly done work with the dromaeosaurus and saurornitholestes – the troodonts proved too independent for training and the Ornitholestes could be trained to a basic degree, but not as complex as the dromaeosaurs. Why do you ask?"

"Interesting," said Percival. "Because I was starting to wonder, purely speculating, about potential applications of this research...?" He paused, directing a side glance towards the rest of the assembled tour group, all of whom were now giving him a confused glance. "Never mind," he stated curtly before looking to Kyle. "Where to next?"

. . . . .

Meanwhile, back at the holding pens, the newly rescued velociraptor pack had been successfully transferred over to a separate holding pen, a fact that Willoby was very pleased with. "Good job everyone," he stated as he, Colette, and the assembled holding pens team observed the six famed dromaeosaurs sniffing about and snarling from within their holding pen. "I'll freely admit, those guys got a bit snappy a couple of times, but we were able to get them transferred without anyone being hurt… so, well done."

Colette nodded and said fondly, "I bet Jack will love training them," whilst Hugo snorted and deadpanned, "Let's hope Jack gets them under control – they're not exactly well-behaved". "Amen brother," Aaron agreed. The sound of snarling caused him to look towards the pen, and saw the leader of the pack directing a withering glare at them. "Particularly him," Aaron said, pointing at the raptor. Collete gave the pack a look - these would be trouble.

. . . . .

After bringing the raptors back, the team continued hiking through the desert, in search of more animals. So far, their search had been unsuccessful. Looking at the featureless expanse of desert, Leon turned to Drew and said, "We need to find a watering hole – watering holes are like candy stores to desert animals…." He noticed Drew wasn't listening to him, and his eyes narrowed into a withering glare.

Drew soon noticed the glaring Leon out of the corner of his eyes, and he turned his head to face his irritated best friend. "Sorry for ignoring you," he said. "But can you…smell something?" Sniffing the air, Jack and Leon found that they could in fact smell something – a faint smell of drying meat was in the air. Turning to Drew, Jack said, "I take it you think there's a carcass nearby?" Drew nodded.

Following the smell took them to an area of parched scrubland, where a dead sauropod, some fifty feet long, lay on the ground with a massive wound on its side. The corpse had begun to dry out, indicating that it was several days old. Raising his eyebrow curiously, Jack said, "Didn't know there were sauropods here," to which Leon said, "Oh, yeah – they were in Asia right up until the end of the Cretaceous. It's just in North America where we have the sauropod gap."

A hiss alerted them to multiple small, meat-eating dinosaurs, all of which were circling the carcass hesitantly – at least three different species were recognizable in the crowd. "Troodonts", Leon muttered. "Saurornithoides definitely," as he observed a group of troodonts with brown and white feathers, before turning his gaze to a group of troodonts covered in jet black feathers with blood red spots. "Gobivenator, probably and…" He then looked at the remaining troodonts, all of them covered in sandy yellow feathers with leopard-like spots, "Almas?" At the last name, Jack turned to Leon, muttering, "Almas? Like the cryptid?" Leon shrugged. "In a roundabout way, yes," he stated, to which Jack snorted, "Well, at least this almas won't nearly strangle me to death". A squawk alerted the team to azhdarchid pterosaurs circling overhead.

As the three humans scoped out the carcass, they noticed something curious - the scavengers were oddly hesitant, with the troodonts' eyes darting as if anticipating the arrival of something and even the pterosaurs seemingly unwilling to land. Confused, Drew turned to Leon, "This is a drought and there's enough meat on that carcass to keep them fed for weeks. Why are they being so hesitant?" Leon shrugged, "Maybe they're nervous about us – we're unfamiliar creatures to them…" Jack's eyes widened as he pointed to the right of Drew and into the dunes, "Erm, Leon…I might be jumping the gun, but I think it was because of him."

Leon and Drew quickly looked in the direction Jack was pointing just in time for the troodonts to start moving further back as a large dark shape skulked about through the dunes, moving so stealthily that the three humans could only just notice it. From what they could glimpse, however, it was a large theropod of some kind.

Drew's eyes widened and his face paled. "Oh, God…"

. . . . .

All present amongst the tour group watched intently at what they were now witnessing. They had finally arrived at the t. rex paddock, and just in time for the first reintegration attempt. As Theodore, Percival, Bennett, and Henry all looked on in equal parts nerves and anticipation, Kyle, Linda, Nikolai, Yolanda, and the other regular staff members present for the reintegration attempt were focused intently on the interior of the paddock as all the tyrannosaurs examined the open gates. And as Rexy and Tyrannor both stood a fair distance away from the wall that had kept them separated from their adolescent offspring, Matilda and Terrence were each standing by their gates, with the former peeking out of her gate into her parents' territory while Terrence curiously sniffed about at the gate by his sister's territory.

"Keep the hoses at the ready now," Kyle stated calmly to the keepers assembled at the t. rex paddock. "We'll want them on and spouting as quickly as possible in the event things start getting ugly." Everyone nodded, keeping their focus on the tyrannosaurs. Yolanda directed a side glance towards Linda and whispered, "I'm both excited and terrified at the same time." Linda nodded her head. "I know exactly how you feel," she agreed. Nikolai, meanwhile was likewise keeping his gaze intently focused on the four tyrannosaurs. At the same time, he also couldn't help but silently commend Drew for having had the gates installed – providing both an easy means for the tyrannosaurs to enter each other's territories and providing an easy means for the keepers to separate them. It gave them just the safety net they needed.

And as all eyes remained on the four t. rex, Matilda took the first step, cautiously making her way into where Rexy and Tyrannor were standing, her head low in a submissive posture. Rexy and Tyrannor grunted, noticing their daughter enter their 'territory' but so far making no move to attack or chase her away. Terrence, catching sight of where his sister was heading, turned away from his gate leading into her territory and walked cautiously over towards the one leading to their parents' territory.

Bennett nodded his head as he watched all this unfold alongside the rest of the onlookers. "Looks like things are going well so far," he whispered to Nikolai. "Da, that it does," Nikolai agreed. "But don't get too comfortable. There's still every chance things could get ugly."

Not too long after Nikolai said this, Terrence managed to properly walk out the gateway connecting his territory with Rexy and Tyrannor's. Both of the older rex grunted at the sight of their son visibly stepping into view within their territory, making no move to attack him or chase him away. Within seconds after this, Terrence sniffed around calmly, keeping his head down… only for Matilda to hiss and snap at her smaller brother.

In a flash, the keepers armed with the fire hoses pointed the hoses at the two siblings, ready to 'open fire' if necessary, with all of the other onlookers all reflexively leaning forward in concern... except for Percival, who was now stumbling backwards slightly, trying to keep his distance from the tyrannosaur. The sight of this was enough to cause Bennett to direct an amused smirk towards the man before returning his attention to the rex.

At that instant, right as Terrence was still backing away from Matilda and Matilda herself was seemingly considering running at him, Rexy and Tyrannor hissed in unison, causing both adolescents to root to the spot. And as Matilda and Terrence both stood still, gazing intently in Rexy and Tyrannor's direction, both of their parents let out a low rumbling, their eyes narrowing as they stared intently at their offspring, as if ready to intercede. For several long minutes this tense silent standoff unfolded, with all the rexes silently regarding each other. Yolanda watched, with bated breath at the proceedings, while Percival finally regained his composure and stalked to the furthest point of the barrier. Then, at long last, Tyrannor and Rexy grunted, turned around, and stomped along towards the wooded area where they liked to take a nap, leaving Matilda and Terrence standing where they were.

At this, all the onlookers looked confusedly at each other, uncertain as to just what they were supposed to say. "OK?" Linda said. "I can't tell if that was a sign of acceptance or rejection." "Me neither," Nikolai admitted. "Join the club," Kyle stated before he sighed and shook his head. "At the very least, this is partly a success."

Bennett raised his eyebrow. "So what was the end result here?", he asked, clearly having been quite invested in finding out how the reintegration attempt would unfold. Nikolai sighed. "Can't confidently say either way," he responded. "On the one hand, there's no indication Rexy and Tyrannor have directly accepted them - on the other hand, they're not chasing them away."

"What should we do then?", one of the keepers nearby asked. Kyle shook his head side to side and looked to the assembled keepers, guards, and veterinarians who'd come to supervise the reintegration attempt. "We'll keep the gates open for now," he stated, "Since Rexy and Tyrannor haven't made any attempt at forcing Matilda or Terrence away, they seem to be tolerating them. But I want a round the clock watch on the paddock. Just in case."

"If you say so boss," said the keeper who'd asked about the matter. And from there, all the assembled staff got to work. And as all this happened, Yolanda and the three chiefs of staff present looked to Theodore and the other three visitors from Novum. "Well then," Yolanda said, her usual chipper tone back in her voice. "How are you enjoying things so far, Mr. Richardson?"

Theodore chuckled. "Quite well, my dear. And please, do call me Theodore."

"I'm certainly having fun," said Bennett.

"Me to," Henry agreed. He looked back into the paddock, where Matilda and Terrence were already splitting up, the former to go take a drink at the drinking pool in her 'territory' while the latter went to bask in the sunlight at his favorite sunning rock in his own territory. "It's going to be fun putting these in the marketing."

Percival raised his eyebrow, a slightly annoyed glare on his face, but otherwise said nothing. But even he had to privately admit that the tour was certainly proving eventful.

. . . . .

Drew, Jack and Leon stood, rooted to the spot as a large tyrannosaur strode out from the dunes; they did not want this gigantic predator to notice them. Suddenly, the theropod paused and sniffed the air, before turning its head to look at them. For what seemed like an eternity, it stared at them…

They breathed a sigh of relief when the tyrannosaur ignored them and turned its attention to the sauropod carcass. Now, they could get a look at it in greater detail. It was huge; from head to tail it must have been almost forty feet long. There was a close resemblance to the Tyrannosaurus back at the park, only with a slightly longer, narrower skull and dark, sandy gold scales with a tan underbelly, gradating to a greyish brown on its arms and legs and with steely grey feathers around its neck and on the tip of its tail. Its head was large, broad and powerful-looking and a snarl revealed broad, powerful-looking teeth. Its arms were disproportionately small in comparison to its massive body and its hands had two fingers. Most distinctively, it had a long scar running through its left eye right down to its arm – the relic of a previous battle. It looked an intimidating sight and, before it, they felt as insignificant as mice. Drew, Jack, and Leon began to slowly back away from the giant, silently praying that it wouldn't change its mind and come after them after all.

Once they had found a hiding place, they watched as the tyrannosaur sniffed the sauropod carcass, before grabbing one of the front legs and pulling it away, before stalking off – Drew and Jack breathed a collective sigh of relief as they noticed the tyrannosaur leave. As it left, they noticed Leon muttering, "It doesn't make sense," under his breath. At his compatriots' confusion, Leon said, "That's a Tarbosaurus – a relative of T-rex. Except Tarbosaurus bataar existed a few million years later – this must be an earlier species. I told Nikolai that indeterminate tyrannosaurs are known from Djadochta, so we don't have to warn him ahead if we found something, but I was never expecting..." Jack breathed out in relief, "Sorry to interrupt, Leon, but I think the troodonts and pterosaurs are taking their turn on the carcass." Drew and Leon turned to the carcass to see that Jack was right – the azhdarchids had landed and consisted of two species, one notably larger than the other. Said larger species was coloured similarly to a turkey vulture, with black fuzz covering up the majority of their bodies and their faces being coloured red; whereas the smaller species was covered in tannish gold fuzz and had steely grey faces. Jack, smirking, turned to Drew, "I was also thinking that sauropod isn't too big to be towed." Drew smirked, "You read my mind."

After Drew had contacted the park, he ran towards the dead sauropod, making sure to avoid rousing the wrath of the squabbling troodonts and pterosaurs, carefully drilled a hole in the femur and carefully hooked the winch into it; the winch was attached to a park truck on the other side. Drew ran back to the portal and gave the thumbs-up signal and the winch began pulling the sauropod carcass away. The scavengers took notice of this and began to move towards it, hissing, squawking and snarling, all united in a desire to not lose their meal. Within minutes, the sauropod carcass was yanked through the portal by the truck dragging it. The scavengers, moving too fast to stop and eager to avoid losing their meal, dove through the portal after the carcass and into the present.

Once the last one had gone through, Drew smirked, "And just like that – five species for the price of one. Those new azhdarchids should have Khatin and…Kaisumi, I think her name is, happy – nothing revolutionary, but still interesting." Jack facepalmed while Leon rolled his eyes. "Alright, Drew," the latter grumbled. "Let's get looking. We still haven't found our primary target."

Drew merely chuckled, grinning. "Have no fear, buddy," he stated confidently. "I haven't forgotten about that." He pointed off toward the horizon. "Let's keep at it D-bags! Time's a wasting!"

. . . . .

Percival Richardson was deep in thought as he continued walking calmly alongside his uncle and the rest of the people in the tour group traveling through Prehistoric Park. They were roughly halfway through the tour – at the La Brea section, roughly. And much like his uncle and Bennett, he was paying very close attention. However, unlike them, he was thinking about a person – Prehistoric Park's young manager and rescue team leader Drew.

He'd heard quite a lot about Drew and his various adventures – whilst he wouldn't deny that there was plenty he'd done that was worthy of respect, he also couldn't deny that there were also things that made him uncomfortable. And, while they all said it in different ways, nobody had denied Drew had his faults.

To start, Drew's recklessness was a massive problem – if it was just his own life, this might have been acceptable, if concerning, but he dragged those around him into it as well. A particularly alarming incident had been him using Leon Gilbertson as bait for the male torvosaurus as bait when it had escaped – an incident that he could tell Adrian in particular was still angry at him for. Another detail that multiple staff members had complained about was Drew's shocking immaturity – when he had come to realise tensions between Jack and Leon… he had been rather petty in his treatment of them.

He'd also heard multiple stories from the staff members he'd asked about how Drew had also tended to be, for lack of a better term, incredibly hands-off in his management style. And while they seemed to appreciate how Drew at the very least trusted them, there was a fine line between trust and negligence. For starters, it had come to his attention how Drew tended to approach the paperwork at a very leisurely pace. While this was merely an irritation now, Percival could already tell that this would be a problem. And as if the paperwork issue wasn't problematic enough, he'd also heard multiple complaints about Drew's approach to certain issues - the Novum board had been incensed when they had heard how two inter-staff feuds had been allowed to continue until they had exploded. It was all Theodore could have done to stop the board from intervening.

The big conclusion he could draw was that Drew seemed to care more about his little jaunts than he did administrating – paperwork was an irrelevance and issues that he did not care about (for instance, when the issue didn't concern the animals) were ignored until the last possible moment. This would be nightmarish when the park was opened and he suddenly found that he had to improve his administrative skills.

He shook his head. As much as what he now had to say wouldn't be pleasant to hear, given his uncle's faith in Drew, he was nonetheless certain that even his uncle wouldn't be able to deny that none of this news was good. He looked ahead to notice that the tour group was now coming to a stop at the smilodon fatalis paddock, and he filed his current thoughts about Drew to the back of his mind. He would stay focused for now – however, he would have words with his uncle. Something had to be done.

. . . . .

About half an hour after the rescue of the troodonts and undiscovered azhdarchids, the rescue trio found another group of small ceratopsians, like the protoceratops, only slightly smaller, a very dark steely grey in colour, with tannish gold patches across their backs instead of red stripes, and with shorter neck frills, accompanied by a small group of oviraptorids that were covered in fuzzy brown feathers and blood red eyes, but eight of them had bright sky blue faces and large bright blue arm feathers, which the females lacked. Under his breath, Leon said, "The small ceratopsians are bagaceratops and the oviraptorids are…Khaan. Another association of small ceratopsians with oviraptorids…that's interesting. And the differences in arm feathering and facial colour is probably sexual dimorphism..."

Suddenly, shapes moved through the dried scrub, and the entire combined group of oviraptorids and protoceratopsians went on alert. The rescue team looked towards the dried scrub just in time for a small pack of dromaeosaurs to come bursting out of hiding. At first glance, they looked very similar to the Velociraptors – however, at a closer look, they could notice several important differences, with the skull being more robust and the legs proportionately shorter. Furthermore, in contrast to the uniformly brown feathers and steely grey scaled faces of the velociraptors, these dromaeosaurs were covered in brown and white feathers while their faces were covered in golden yellow scales. "Tsaagan", Leon said, under his breath, "Another kind of dromaeosaurid."

The Tsaagan circled the group, snapping occasionally at the adult Bagaceratops, who had formed a protective line around the area as the oviraptorids stepped back. It was a stand-off, with the raptors' hisses and snaps being replied by a frenzy of grunts, squawks, snaps and kicks from the Bagaceratops and oviraptorids.

The stand-off continued for what seemed like an eternity, before one raptor attempted to make a mock charge into the area, but was deterred by a large male Bagaceratops, who charged the raptor, causing it to back off – this cycle repeated for the next hour, with the raptors attempting to make mock charges into the group, but being driven off every time. Drew muttered under his breath, "We need to get this in the bag– before the Tsaagan walk off." Turning to him, Jack said, "What are you planning on doing...?", before Drew ran out in front of the raptor pack and began blaring the horn at them. Hissing and snarling, the raptors dived at him, before Drew threw a portal grenade at them, swallowing them up and transporting them to the present. The sight caused all the ceratopsians and oviraptorids to tilt their heads and grunt and squawk confusedly.

However, Drew, undeterred, began drawing out offerings of lettuce and apple slices to lay a trail, whilst Jack and Leon stayed silently watching. Eventually, once Drew had formed what he considered a satisfactory trail he activated the portal with his remote. For a few seconds, the bagaceratops and khaan remained standing still in confusion - however, hunger and curiosity ultimately won out, and they proceeded to follow and eat the trail all the way through the portal and to the present. Smiling, Drew closed the portal the instant the last of them had vanished through to the present. "Not bad fearless leader," said Jack as he silently clapped.

"Of course it is," Drew stated confidently, before pointing off towards a field of desert scrub, "Let's keep moving, D-Bags. I still think we've got time to rescue a couple more animals before the sun sets." And at that, onward the trio went.

. . . . .

Half an hour later, as Drew, Leon, and Jack continued walking further on into the scrub, a grunt alerted them to yet another herd of ceratopsians and oviraptorids browsing in the scrub. One bore a slight resemblance to the protoceratops, only slightly lighter in colour and with a thicker orange frill as well as orange stripes across their backs, whilst the others looked like cow-sized versions of the leptoceratops back at the park with dark brownish black faces, backs, and hind feet while the remainder of their bodies were greyish tan in colour. Two species of oviraptorid milled about surrounding them. And as Leon carefully observed them all, he took note of how one of the two oviraptorid species resembled the Citipati, but with brilliant electric blue coloured crests and beaks, their heads covered in dark muddy brown feathers, their necks covered in tawny gold feathers, and the remainder of their feathers coloured in various shades of blue. The other, meanwhile, had a distinctively conical orange crest and was covered in feathers that appeared to be a dusty tannish white on their heads and necks, incredibly dark grayish black on their tails, and much more consistently steely grey on their arms, upper legs, and the main portions of their bodies.

Directing a side glance towards Drew and Jack while still observing the animals, Leon said, quietly, "I think I've heard of these before," while also surreptitiously pointing towards the orange frilled and striped protoceratopsids. "Undescribed protoceratopsid remains are known from Djadochta. It's thought that they represent an entirely new species – and genus." Then he pointed at the other ceratopsian species present. "The larger ceratopsians are Udanoceratops – leptoceratopsids, bigger relatives of the leptoceratops back at the park." Then he pointed at the oviraptorids. "As for the oviraptorids…" At this, Drew rolled his eyes. "We can classify them back at the park," he stated curtly before lifting his canteen over his shoulder and gesturing towards the sand in between him and the combined group of oviraptorids and ceratopsians. "Could you and Jack help me dig a small channel through all this sand? I bet these guys haven't had much water in a while."

Once the trio had dug the temporary channel as suggested, they used a trail of water from their canteens to lead the ceratopsians and oviraptorids through the portal, back to the park. Once the entirety of the combined 'herd' had vanished through to the park, Leon shook his head in bemusement. "Yet another small ceratopsian/oviraptorid association," he stated before nodding his head. "It looks like Bernie Evans was more right than he expected." Smiling, Jack was about to say something before suddenly, a loud hooting in the distance interrupted him. Turning to Drew, Jack said, "Follow?", to which Drew nodded, "Definitely follow." Leon nodded his head in agreement as well. "No arguments from me there."

Following the reptilian hooting noises, the group reached a small valley where they caught sight of a herd of vaguely hadrosaur-like creatures that were browsing on the scarce, scrubby plants – the largest members of the herd were about thirty feet long from head to tail and had noticeably shorter snouts, more closely resembling the camptosaurus than the hadrosaurs back at the park. The key difference between them and the camptosaurus, however, lay in their colouring; with their bodies largely being covered in leathery tan scales with dark grey stripes all across their bodies and light minty green patches along their backs. Leon said, under his breath, "Plesiohadros – a non-hadrosaur hadrosauroid. These guys are the last of a dying breed."

Suddenly, the scrub closer to the rear-most edge of the valley started rustling, and the plesiohadros herd went on edge, with one of the apparent leaders emitting an alerted grunt. The rescue team likewise tensed up, eyes widened as they carefully gazed in the direction of the brush that had been rustling. Briefly there was quiet...before a pack of dusty orange scaled theropods, each about thirty feet long, and with resplendent red feathers on their tails and around their necks, emerged from the scrub and surrounded the plesiohadros herd. The creatures looked vaguely like Terence and Matilda back at the park, only with longer, thinner snouts and more gracile, rangy builds,

At the sight of the tyrannosaurs, Leon looked briefly confused. "I think those are Alioramus, only probably an earlier species...which makes sense, actually." Chuckling, Drew rammed his right fist against his left palm, trademark grin once again on his face. "Leon, you and Jack handle the alioramus. I'll take care of the hadros." Leon and Jack nodded in reply, the former knowing better than to correct him, and the team split up.

At that moment, the alioramus pack were circling the herd, snarling hungrily as the herbivores all took on defensive positions with the adults forming a circle around the youngsters, before the sound of a loud burst of noise caused the tyrannosaurs to tense up in surprise and turn to see Jack, who had just blared out that bugling call from his airhorn. "Yeah, that's right," Jack yelled as he then blared his airhorn a second time. "Come and get me!" Bellowing in rage, the alioramus pack began to rush towards Jack, who started to run to draw them away from the hadrosauroids. The tyrannosaurs were about halfway to reaching Jack when a tyrannosaur bellow split the air to their right, causing them to skid to a halt and look to see Leon standing with his recording device pointed their way at full volume. "You heard me," said Leon as he played the tyrannosaur bellow recording a second time. "Come this way!" Hissing in rage, the alioramus started charging Leon's way. But no sooner had the alioramus covered about half the distance between them and Leon when Jack blared his airhorn yet again, causing all nine of the tyrannosaurs to turn their attention back to him. And from there, Jack and Leon continued attracting the attention of the alioramus back and forth between them, leading them on a merry chase.

As this happened, Drew summoned the portal near the confused, but wary, plesiohadros. And once the portal was summoned, he drew out the same handheld device and played a recording of camptosaurus hooting, instantly attracting the attention of the herd. And as all the hadrosaurids looked his way, eyes wide with curiosity, Drew stood, rooted to the spot and muttered, "Please, please, please…" In a serendipitous bit of timing, the sound of the alioramus' snarling rang through the air from behind the plesiohadros, proving the last bit of convincing they needed to charge as one towards the portal. Once the last one had gone through, Drew closed the portal and turned his head towards Jack, still dealing with the alioramus alongside Leon. "NOW!"

This was all that Jack needed to hear. And in that moment, he slid to a stop, blared the horn one more time, and then drew out his portal remote as the alioramus charged towards him, pressing the button and summoning right as the tyrannosaurs were seconds away from him; at which point the entire pack, moving too fast to stop, barreled through the portal. Once the last of the carnivores had gone, Jack dismissed the portal and flashed Drew a thumbs up. Leon, placing his broadcasting device in his backpack and nodding at his teammate, said, "I think there's an oasis somewhere past these dunes," he stated, "Perhaps we should focus our efforts from there. And maybe focus on some smaller stuff."

"Don't see anything wrong with that idea," Jack said before looking to Drew. "What about you fearless leader?" Drew nodded. "We should probably set up camp along the way," he stated, pointing towards the sky as he did so, "After all, the sun will set soon and it'd be wise not to be out here at night."

. . . . .

Back at the park, the tour group was taking a break from their travels through the park. Conveniently, they were doing so inside the aquarium building after having finished touring through said building. And at the moment, while Linda and Yolanda just so happened to be helping to walk one of the other vets present through an on-site checkup on one of the tiktaalik and Nikolai was in the midst of contacting Colette and Willoby on his comm to make sure things were going smoothly at the holding pens, Kyle was seated at a table close to the aquarium's front entrance in an area intended to be attached to an eatery once the park had opened alongside Henry and the three visiting Novum higher ups. "Well," Kyle said. "I take it you're still feeling good about everything so far?"

Henry nodded his head. "I certainly am," he responded before flashing the head keeper a thumbs up. "At this rate, I'm definitely still looking forward to getting started."

"That's the spirit," Theodore said, nodding his head in approval. "And I'll say this; from what I've heard from Drew, no one's ever claimed life at this park to be boring."

Bennett chuckled. "And they ain't wrong," he agreed. "I'm already entertained."

"Considering some of the stuff in these reports, that could yet be a blessing in disguise."

At this, Kyle, Henry, Theodore, and Bennett all directed annoyed glances towards Percival, who merely shrugged as if to say 'hey, I'm not wrong', before then looking pointedly at Kyle. "And on a related note, there's something I feel I'd best ask you Mr. Taymor. And I want you to be honest with me on it; because believe me, this is very important."

Kyle, Henry, Theodore and Bennett looked at each other, a silent message passing between them as they considered what Percival had said. "I'm listening," Kyle stated when he looked back at Percival. Smiling, Percival nodded. "Do you trust Drew's authority and competence?" Kyle raised his eyebrow. "And why exactly are you asking me this?" Percival nodded, "I've received some concerning reports – so I must ask… do you trust him?" Kyle thought to himself, and then nodded. "It's complicated."

Percival raised his eyebrow. "Clarify," he requested. Kyle sighed. "I won't deny that I appreciate the fact that he trusts all of us to do our jobs without having to constantly be bossed around. But at the same time, I won't deny that I've had doubts - there were feuds between the staff and issues with the animals that he'd downplayed or ignored. And, he'll tell you that administrative stuff isn't his strong suit – in fact, he seems to try and delay it as much as possible". Percival nodded his head. "That isn't good," he admitted. "So poor administrative skills?" Theodore, Bennett, and Henry looked uncomfortably at each other – whilst it was uncomfortable to admit, Percival was right.

Kyle nodded. "Drew is Drew – he's not going to change. He's reckless, sometimes irresponsible and easily bored." He looked towards the aquarium's front entrance as if trying to look in the general direction of the holding pens and the main portal site. "However, Drew's a good person – he is well-meaning… even if, unintentionally, he can be a bit… Anyway, he's working to correct some of his flaws." Then he hung his head. "Although… there is something you should know."

At this, all three of the Novum higher ups, plus Henry, all raised their eyebrows. This was new. "What?" Theodore asked, clearly sounding concerned. Kyle sighed, and shook his head side to side. "Drew's probably not going to appreciate me telling you this." He looked intently at Theodore. "But I don't think Drew, on some level, wants to have a conventional manager's job."

At this, Theodore leaned forward, now quite visibly concerned. "Tell me more," he said, an almost fatherly tone in his voice. "Now. Before we resume the tour."

At this point, Percival couldn't help but be slightly concerned. But at the same time, his mind was already racing with thoughts on how this development could yet benefit his own goals. "Well this is, sadly, expected," he thought to himself. But for now, he needed to listen carefully. And so he stayed silent.

. . . . .

Back in Cretaceous Mongolia, Drew and his two companions had finally found an oasis. Unfortunately, at this point the sun had already set, leaving only the stars and moon to provide any natural light for them to see with. And as a result, reasoning that caution was the better part of valour in this case, they'd climbed back down to the bottom of the final sandy hill that remained between them and the oasis and set up camp, with Jack dropping a line to the holding pens team, who had been kind enough to let them borrow a containment truck and some small animal traps. And at that very moment, Drew, Leon, and Jack were currently busy setting up the traps.

"These should allow us to get a lot of the smaller stuff," Jack stated as he placed appropriate bait in the trap he was currently setting. "But we should probably set up a watch system between the three of us in case something larger drops by."

"That goes without saying," Leon muttered even as he himself was busy setting up one of the traps.

"We can discuss watch duty right before we go to bed," Drew stated reassuringly to his two companions. "Right now, let's just focus on getting all the traps taken care of."

And for the next few minutes, the trio focused entirely on setting up the traps. And once that task was finished, watch duty had to be decided. "So, Leon?" Drew asked. "You sure you want first watch?" Leon nodded, "I'm surprised I've got it in me right now. I'm usually a lot more tired at this time of night, but right now I'm feeling wide awake."

"Well, you'd best hope you feel that way for the three hours," said Jack. "Because we all get eaten if you end up falling asleep." Leon let out a half mirthful and half nervous chuckle. "Right, no pressure," he stated. Drew nodded his head. "The watch is yours, Leon," he then said before looking to Jack. "Come on Jack. Let's go ahead and..."

A bird-like warbling coming from somewhere to the right of the camp caught all three boys' attention, and they turned their heads towards the direction of the noise, at which point they saw a small group of alvarezsaurs nearby illuminated by the light of the campfire, a mixture of adults and youngsters, all of them covered in yellow and black feathers. Their arms were small, but powerful-looking and ended in a single claw. So far, all of them were pecking around at a large log as if looking for food. "Those creatures," he whispered, "are shuvuuia. A local alvarezsaur well adapted to living a nocturnal lifestyle – they're insectivores." He then noticed a particularly extraordinary detail. "See what that one's doing?", he asked while pointing at the nearest animal, which was extending a disproportionately long tongue into a hole in the surface of the dead log. "Like an anteater – alvarezsaur fossils have revealed they had long hyoid bones…"

At this, Jack looked to Drew. "Might as well take advantage of the opportunity." Drew nodded his head. "Yeah."

This agreement made, the trio got to work. As it so happened, they had possessed the foresight to bring along a supply of termites from the park kitchens, and once he, Leon, and Jack had each drawn out a jar of termites, Drew whistled, causing all of the alvarezsaurs to turn their heads towards the rescue team in a combination of shock and curiosity. With the shuvuuia flock's eyes firmly planted upon them, the rescue trio proceeded to cautiously unscrew the lids of their respective jars and start tossing small handfuls of termites towards the flock in a way that allowed a trail to be formed. For a moment, the shuvuuia remained wary. But eventually, their hunger won out over their caution, and they began to gingerly dine upon the termite trail, gradually walking increasingly close to the rescue trio's position in the process. And once the entire flock had reached the termites positioned at the very end of the trail, Drew gently placed a portal grenade in their midst while they were distracted and activated it, sending the entire flock straight to the park.

"That went well," said Jack. "Yup," Drew said before looking back to Leon and Jack. "And with that, Leon, the watch is yours."

. . . . .

Back at the park, Alice was still slightly down in the dumps as she leaned upon the railing attached to the front wall of the cave hyena paddock. Despite all the work she'd done, up to and including being directly talked to by Theodore and the other guests who'd come from Novum, she still had her suspension and the embarrassing reasons behind it heavily weighing on her mind. "What I'd give to go back and change things so they'd unfolded differently," she thought to herself.

"Everything ok?"

Eyes widening, Alice looked to her right in time to see none other than a concerned looking Will, Matt, and Kaisumi standing nearby. "You don't seem very happy right now," Matt said. Kaisumi nodded her head. "We wanted to make sure you were ok." Will also nodded his head. "If there's anything bothering you, you can always tell us," he said. "We're here for you," he then continued as he extended a hand towards her as if trying to either offer a handshake or a hand to pull her up from the bench.

Alice let a warm smile come on her face at the support her three friends were showing her, and she gestured for them to take a seat alongside her on the bench. "Good to see I'm not alone here," she said as her three close friends from the research division took her up on her offer and sat down on the bench alongside her. "Hey, what are friends for?" Kaisumi stated, giggling immediately afterward. Will nodded in agreement, placing a hand comfortingly on Alice's shoulder as he did so. "I take it you've still got that suspension on your mind?"

Alice sighed and nodded her head. "It's just so embarrassing," she said. "What I did to get suspended, and after how I've always otherwise been the most reasonable member of the group. And what's worse,, I almost got Jack hurt." She hung her head. "I was always the one that was expected to never get in trouble, and here I am now. Ironic, isn't it? You can't change the past." Will nodded his head. "I'm sure you do," he said. "But what's done is done, and the best you can do is learn from all this and move on to do better."

"Will's right," Matt said, nodding his head in agreement. "No one's perfect Alice. We all make mistakes. And the best we can do is learn from them. And I'm sure you can easily learn from the ones you made that got you in your current position."

"Got that right," Kaisumi stated, flashing Alice a thumbs up immediately afterward. "Besides," she then said. "You'll fix things up eventually."

Alice nodded, "There's always that bit of hope," she admitted.

Matt nodded in agreement. "Colette wouldn't be our first choice of company," he stated. Kaisumi let a tight grin come on her face as she looked to her left and away from her friends for a brief moment. "That's one way to put it," she thought to herself. "But whatever happens," Will stated as he patted Alice comfortingly on the shoulder he already had a hand positioned upon. "we'll still be here to support you." He then looked in the general direction of the holding pens, where Colette was. "And despite her attitude, I'll give her this much; she certainly does care for Jack. Well, the Shutdown proved that – she isn't like… any of the others." At this, Kaisumi sighed before giving a sad nod.

Alice nodded her head. "That's true," she admitted before leaning her head on Will's shoulder. "Thanks for doing this," she said, clear gratitude in her voice. "You really are good friends."

Matt chuckled. "Right back at ya," he said. "What he said," Kaisumi stated while pointing at Matt, giggling immediately afterward. Will nodded his head, and then wrapped his left arm around Alice's shoulders. "What can I say? That's what friends are for," he then said, a warm smile forming on his face. Alice chuckled, and then nodded her head while still keeping it on Will's shoulder. "That's certainly true." Already she was starting to feel better.

. . . . .

The next morning in Cretaceous Mongolia, Drew, Jack and Leon were checking the small animal traps they had set around the camp. Approaching the first trap, they picked it up to find a small mammal inside, hissing at them. It was small, only about two feet long and looked like a cross between a rat, an opossum and a shrew. The creature's fur was largely grey, with white on the belly and snout and black on the back, limbs and tail. Leon gave a look. "Deltatheridium. It's a metatherian found in the area. Given it doesn't have a pouch, it's probably a male." Jack looked at the trap and chuckled as the Deltatheridium snapped at him. "Mean little bastard, isn't he?", he stated with a jovial chuckle. Leon snorted. "Best be careful; it was big enough to eat baby dinosaurs." The Deltatheridium, still hissing in outrage, was put in the back of the containment truck. Jack looked at Leon. "Let's get checking."

And from there, the group continued checking the traps. In the process, they found that several additional deltatheridium had been captured – including females with litters of joeys. And that wasn't all And naturally, Leon was equally quick to identify all the other animals in question even as he took advantage of the opportunity to make some appropriate brand new recordings of their vocals on his broadcasting device. "These ones are archaeornithoides," he stated as he pointed at ten small troodonts covered in tannish yellow feathers, grading to black on their arms. Next he pointed at eight cat-sized troodonts coloured like roadrunners. "These are byronosaurus." He gestured towards 8 tannish gold scaled gecko-like lizards with brownish black stripes across their backs. "These are gobekko." Finally, he pointed at 10 small theropod dinosaurs with chocolate brown feathers coating their heads, necks, arms, and upper bodies, snowy grayish white feathers coating their thighs and lower bodies, teal green tail feathers, black outlining around the feathers attached to the backs of their arms, blood red eyes, and fiery red feather crests atop their heads. "And these right here are mahakala, a type of halszkaraptorine." Drew nodded his head in approval. "What a haul." He gestured towards the containment truck. "Let's get them loaded and get someone down here to drive them over to the park."

Ten minutes later, a keeper at the holding pens had come through the portal and driven the containment truck back to the park. And once the portal had closed, Drew looked to Leon and Jack. "Right then, let's be on our way to the oasis. Don't want to waste a perfectly good day of rescuing." Jack and Leon nodded their heads, and the trio resolutely started marching their way up the single large sandy dune that stood between them and the all-important oasis.

Once they finally reached the top of the hill and caught sight of the oasis in the desert valley below, the sight that lay before them did not disappoint. A massive lake dominated the center of the lush green oasis, with multiple environment appropriate trees and other foliage dotting around the edges of the lake as well as all the land portions of the all-important oasis. After a brief stop to bring back a small flock of birds (aspravis, elsornis and gobiopteryx, according to Leon), they headed to the lake and noticed the animals gathered around it.

Gathered around the left most edge of the lake were what appeared to be a combined herd of two separate species of ankylosaur. Nine of them had thick tan-coloured armour along their heads, backs and tails, with slate grey scales on their underbellies and lower legs. The five adults amongst this group, one of them an elderly female, were calmly drinking at the water's edge while the four youngsters were exuberantly playing around with each other and swinging their tails in mock intimidation gestures. The other seven ankylosaurs had blood red coloured armor plating across their backs, tops of their heads, and tails, with the remainder of their bodies covered in tannish gold scales. These ankylosaurs were distinguished by two pairs of large horns on their heads, two on the tops of their heads and two on their cheeks.

The rest of the animals present at the lake were similarly impressive to look at. Positioned at the lake edge immediately opposite the ankylosaurs was a group consisting of two species of pachycephalosaur, one with gold scales, grading to white on the underbelly, with darker tannish brown patches and stripes across their necks, bodies, and tails, and another with solid tannish scales. Frolicking around directly in the water at the lake edge closest to where Drew, Leon, and Jack were currently positioned were a small group of small halszkaraptorines with blue faces black-and-white feathers. Drinking from the water at the northern edge of the lake were thirteen oviraptorids covered in blotched, yellow-green feathers. What appeared to be nine suspiciously tannish gold covered logs were floating about on the water at around the halfway point between the halszkaraptorines and pachycephalosaurs; but after past experience, the team strongly suspected these were crocodilians.

But it was the large dinosaurs feeding on water plants that attracted the most attention from the rescue team. All four of them were almost completely covered in greenish brown plumage, with their faces, hands, and lower legs uncovered, with long tails and a large hump on their backs. Their faces were sky blue and they had wide, duck-like bills. Leon's keen eyes soon took particularly strong note of their visibly sharp claw-like fingernails. Leon said "These are deinocheirus," he stated, silently making a note to try to make a recording of their vocals at a later date. "A strange kind of ornithomimid."

"Not bad Leon," Drew said before he then started gesturing around the rest of the oasis. "And I trust you can go ahead and identify the rest?"

Leon nodded. "The blueish scaled ankylosaurs are minotaurasaurus," he said as he started pointing at the rest of the animals present. "The reddish armored ankylosaurs are pinacosaurus. The larger pachycephalosaurs could potentially be an undiscovered species of prenocephale, whilst the smaller ones are goyocephale. The small dromaeosaurs are halszkaraptor. The oviraptorids don't recognize… I think they're an undiscovered species. And… I think we can guess what the 'logs' are."

"Works for me," said Jack before he looked to Drew. "What do you say we rescue the halszkaraptor first? With how small they are, I get the feeling they'll probably be quick to try to flee the area entirely if any of the larger animals here start making a ruckus."

"Read my mind," said Drew before he started slowly walking down the dune side directly leading down towards the oasis. "Let's get to work."

Once the rescue team had successfully reached the oasis, they swiftly got to work on getting the animals through the portal. As planned, the halszkaraptor 'pack' were the first to get sent through the portal, with a mixture of Leon's recordings of the mahakala vocalizations, low whistling from Drew, and offerings of small fish from Jack being used to attract the attention of the small aquatic dromaeosaurs and entice them into peacefully walking over to them before equally peacefully getting sent through the portal. Once the halszkaraptors were through the portal, the trio got to work on rescuing the remainder of the animals, with Jack and Drew enticing the adult ankylosaurs and pachycephalosaurs into charging through the portal in territorial rage as the youngsters hurried along behind for protection while Leon used oviraptorid recordings from his broadcasting device to coax the thirteen newly discovered unfamiliar oviraptorids through the portal. Once the time came afterward to get the deinocheirus through the portal, Jack and Drew paused only long enough to allow Leon to record some of their vocals on his broadcasting device before all three of the rescue team members worked patiently over almost an entire half hour to carefully entice the four mighty ornithomimosaurs into leaving the water and marching in all their majesty through the portal with multiple offerings of conveniently positioned water plants and other local foliage they turned out to be willing to eat. Once the last of the four deinocheirus had vanished through the portal, Drew closed it and gestured towards where the nine tannish gold 'logs' were so far still floating about near the lake edge closest to where he, Leon, and Jack had entered the oasis. "Right then," he stated. "Let's test to see if those logs are what we think they are."

Upon reaching an appropriate position nearby the alleged logs, all three of the boys each threw a large fish from the park kitchens into the water closest to said 'logs'; at which point they swiftly revealed their true nature as crocodilians by viciously snapping their jaws at the apparent offerings being tossed their way. And with only three fish having been offered, it wasn't long before all nine of the creatures went into a frenzy as they all tried desperately to get a bite out of the free food. Leon nodded his head, swiftly managing to observe them as they fought. "As I suspected," he said proudly. "Shamosuchus. A local neosuchian." Drew nodded his head. "No time like the present," he said, already drawing out a portal grenade and getting it primed for transport to the main portal site at the holding pens before tossing it into the midst of the frenzied float of shamosuchus, at which point they vanished in the resulting flash of light all of two seconds later. And once all nine of the crocodilians had thus been sent away to the park, the three boys made usage of some fishing nets they'd brought along to painstakingly retrieve the portal grenade back out of the water. "Right then," said Leon. "So, should we stick around for a little while longer to see if anything else drops by for a drink? Or leave to start looking elsewhere in the desert?" At this, Jack turned to look at Drew as well, who now appeared to be deep in thought as he considered the options Leon had laid out.

Suddenly, they heard a low rumbling on the ground and looked at each other. Something big was coming.

They turned to see a herd of incredibly large duck-billed dinosaurs slowly making their way into the oasis from the side where the ankylosaurs had initially been positioned; the largest was some forty feet long. In their appearance, there was a vague resemblance to the edmontosaurus back at the park – however, unlike the edmontosaurus, they were sandy-gold in colour , with darker brown stripes on their flanks and tails. They were accompanied by a herd of sauropods, roughly forty-five feet long, with sandy-gold scales and tannish spots, and two species of ornithomimid, one notably larger than the other. Said larger ornithomimid species possessed feathers that, in contrast to the emu-like plumage of the ornithomimus back at the park, heavily resembled those of modern ostriches, with three of the individuals amongst this species being largely covered in jet black feathers with a blood red patch along the back of the lower portions of their necks and similarly red coloured feathers on the backs of their arms while the other six individuals of the species being largely covered in tawny gold feathers with a snowy white patch across the backs of the lower portions of their necks and similarly white coloured feathers on the backs of their own arms. The smaller ornithomimids, meanwhile, were largely covered with brownish orange feathers, with the only exceptions being the much more visibly bright orange feathers at the tips of their tails and positioned along the backs of their arms. Naturally, the legs, feet, and beaks were the only parts of both ornithomimid species that weren't covered entirely in their respective feathers.

Jack turned to Leon and said, "I trust you know what those are?" Leon nodded and said, "The sauropods are Abdarainurus – a basal titanosaur – whilst the hadrosaurs are Barsboldia. The ornithomimids…the smaller one is definitely aepyornithomimus, whilst the other appears to be Gallimimus. In light of the timing and location though, the gallimimus and barsboldia clearly must be undiscovered earlier species." "Naturally," Jack responded before looking to Drew. "I take it they're here to find water?" Drew shrugged and said, "Yup - for now the plan is we wait."

Drew, Jack and Leon watched some distance away as the Barsboldia, Abdarainurus and ornithomimids reached the lake and began drinking from the waters or browsing from the trees as seen fit. However, it wasn't long before they were no longer the only dinosaurs by the lakeside. For all of two minutes later, eight other dinosaurs had also arrived at the lake from the side at which the deinocheirus had originally been positioned. They were large; the biggest was some thirty feet long and was as tall as a giraffe. Each had a small head atop a long neck with a bipedal gait and a heavy, deep, broad body, with short, stocky legs. Their arms were their most striking feature, almost disproportionately long compared to their bodies, with incredibly long, vicious-looking claws tipping their fingers. They had a coat of sandy-brown feathers everywhere except their belly and their legs, which were featherless. Drew smiled, clear glee on his face as the all too instantly recognizable claw fingered dinosaurs joined the rest of the herbivores at the lake and started browsing on the nearby foliage with their beak-like mouths. "Therizinosaurus," he purred. "We've found our primary targets. This could be our easiest mission yet." Jack facepalmed and said, "Not again." Drew looked to Jack in confusion. "What do you mean?" Jack responded with, "Don't you remember what happened the last time you said that? Every time someone says that, or anything similar, something bad happens..."

Suddenly, a Barsboldia looked up and sniffed the air, before letting out a brief, honking bellow. The herbivores suddenly went on edge. The Therizinosaurus swished their clawed arms from side to side and hissed, whilst the Barsboldia stamped and bellowed at whatever had spooked them. Even the ornithomimids began to squawk in alarm while the sauropods all bellowed and turned their heads to see if they could find what might have alarmed the rest of the herbivores present alongside them. "Wonder what's got them so spooked?", Jack said to Drew. Drew raised his eyebrow. "This from the guy who was trying to warn me about something bad happening?" He then looked back at the alarmed herbivores. "I highly doubt it's us. There's only three of us, and we're far too small to have any real chance of taking any of them..." It was at this point Leon glanced behind him, and his eyes suddenly widened in shock, and he hurriedly tapped Drew on the shoulder before pointing and nervously hissing, "That." Jack and Drew turned to see a Tarbosaurus, standing so still they hadn't seen it And upon catching sight of the scar running from across its left eye all the way down to its arm, they immediately recognized it as the one they'd seen before. The tyrannosaur looked at the three humans with a cold glare, before moving past them and closer to the herbivores. Bunching together, the youngsters at the centre and the ornithomimids hiding among the giants, the Barsboldia and Abdarainurus attempted to scare the predator off by stamping their feet and bellowing, with the hadrosaurs inflating the large sacs on their throats in an attempt to intimidaate the tyrannosaurs. The therizinosaurs, content that the tyrannosaurs had no interest in them, calmly resumed their browsing.

Drew turned to his team quietly, "We'll have to get this done quick; we don't want to give the Tarbosaurus any reason to try to attack us." Jack briefly looked at something nearby and said, "Uh, Drew… I might be jumping the gun here, but I think you should be worrying about more than just a Tarbosaurus." At this statement, Leon turned to Jack curiously. "Jack, what could be worse than a Tarbosaurus?", he asked. Suddenly, six more Tarbosaurus, one of them about the same age as the scarred male and the other five looking younger, burst out from the trees at varying angles and tore towards the herd. Jack turned to Leon and said, "That answer your question?"

The barsboldia, abdarainurus, and both species of ornithomimid stampeded, moving as if a single unified entity, with the Tarbosaurus in hot pursuit; whilst the hadrosaurs and ornithomimids were faster and the sauropods were formidably large, the Tarbosaurus were still pursuing the herd. Not wanting to miss the opportunity that this afforded, Drew turned to Jack and Leon and yelled, "Now!" Hurriedly, Jack pointed his remote in the direction to which the herd was stampeding and summoned the portal. Not changing their course, the entire herd stampeded through the portal and into the present.

The Tarbosaurus pack, surprised at the sudden disappearance of their intended prey, turned their attention to the Therizinosaurus, evidently feeling hungry enough to think it worth the risk to try to take them on instead. Advancing towards the claw fingered dinosaurs, all seven of the tyrannosaurs snarled and bellowed, with the lead female rearing her entire body upward as if trying to make herself look bigger than she actually was. But then the lead male Therizinosaurus raised his massive, clawed arm and slammed it into the female tyrannosaur's head, sending her spinning. The scarred male charged towards the Therizinosaurus, hissing angrily, only for the therizinosaurus to swing its arm into the dinosaur's flank, leaving three long gashes on its side and causing the tarbosaurus to hiss in pain and discomfort. One of the younger Tarbosaurus snarled at the Therizinosaurus, which swished its arms from side to side and hissed menacingly in response. Defeated, the tyrannosaurs slunk off and left the therizinosaurus to resume their browsing. However, the tyrannosaurs had only walked about a yard or so away from the therizinosaurs before they abruptly turned their attention to the three humans, their yellow eyes almost electric in equal parts hunger and rage. Leon gulped, his face paling as he realized that the tarbosaurus pack were now focused on them, and he looked surreptitiously towards Jack and Drew. "We are going to die," he whispered.

Snarling in unison, all seven of the giant theropods began to move slowly towards the trio, at which point Drew's eyes widened. "Oh. Crap..." The scarred male let out a loud bellow, his jaws gaping open to the fullest, before he then burst out into a run, with his pack following him. Drew, Jack and Leon ran in different directions; the Tarbosaurus followed Drew, cornering him behind a hollow log. Jack and Leon watched in horror as the tyrannosaurs advanced towards Drew. "Shit," Jack said, "This isn't looking good." Leon looked in horror. "What can we do?", he hissed. Jack sighed. "There's always something we can do," he responded before directing a firm look of authority towards Leon. "Get your gizmo ready, Dolittle. And pass me the horn."

As the Tarbosaurus bore down on him, Drew could smell their fetid breath and feel their cold stares. Drew reflected; he'd had many near-death experiences on these missions. But apparently, this would be how it ended; eaten by tyrannosaurs in Cretaceous Mongolia.

Suddenly, he heard the horn blaring, followed seconds later by what seemed to be the rather loud bellowing of another adult tyrannosaur; that was odd. The Tarbosaurus paused their remorseless advance and turned to the source of the sounds; Jack and Leon, the former of whom had blown into the air horn and the latter of whom had just played a recording of one of Matilda's bellows from his broadcasting device. The Tarbosaurus snarled in indignation and advanced towards Jack and Leon, the former of whom kept on blaring the horn while the latter slipped his broadcasting device back into his supply bag to draw out his portal remote; once they had gotten close enough, Leon activated the portal, sending the pack of tyrannosaurs through to the present.

Drew turned to Jack and Leon, "Why did you do that? You guys could have died." Jack smiled and said, "Drew, we're a team. Watching each other's backs is what we do." Drew smiled, and looked to Jack. "Now, all we need to do is bring back our targets." Jack chuckled. "Yeah," he agreed. "Well then what are we waiting for?" Drew asked, already getting up to his feet. "Let's get it done!" Approaching the Therizinosaurus, who had calmed down, they left a trail of plants as bait for the dinosaurs to follow. After about three minutes, one of the males amongst the group finally noticed the trail, at which point he began to follow it in curiosity, with his mate and their six herd mates soon following along behind him. Once they had gotten close enough, Drew activated the portal. And while the therizinosaurus briefly recoiled in alarm at the portal, curiosity ultimately won out once they'd calmed down, and they all went shambling through the portal and into the present. Once the last of the therizinosaurs had gone through, Drew turned to Jack and Leon and said, "Let's go home."

When they walked through into the park, they met Kyle, Linda, Yolanda, and Collete – as well as Nikolai, Theodore and three other men they did not recognize – at the walkway and walked up to them. Jack turned to Collete and said, "Told you I'd stay out of trouble," to which she smiled at him in response. Meanwhile, Leon asked Linda, "How'd it go?", to which she smiled. "Not as well as anticipated," she admitted. "But it could have been worse." Kyle then asked Drew, "What happened on the mission?", to which Drew smiled, "I'll explain it to you later." In response, the head keeper rolled his eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

Chuckling, Theodore walked up to Drew and shook his hand, "Well done, my boy," before gesturing to the stockier man. "This is Bryce Bennett – one of my oldest friends." Bennett took Drew's hand and smiled. "It's lovely to meet you," he stated, to which a smiling Drew replied, "Likewise." Leon looked at the tanned man, a look of curiosity on his face. "May I ask who you are?" The man chuckled, and extended his right hand forward as if offering a handshake. "Henry Ramon," he said. "One of Novum's chief marketers and Prehistoric Park's new public relations manager, at your service." Leon raised his eyebrow, but nodded his head and accepted the handshake. "Nice to meet you," he stated. Meanwhile, Jack gestured to the thin, balding man standing by him. "Uh, Nikolai?", he asked, half-confused and half-flippant, "Who the hell is this?" Before the man could speak, Nikolai said, "No-one important." Percival Richardson glowered, whilst Drew, Theodore, Henry, and Bennett began to giggle.

. . . . .

Once all the dust had settled, all the newly rescued animals had been successfully transferred to their new homes in the newly constructed Flaming Cliffs zone. Positioned not too far from the exhibit zone's entrance point was a large building designed to simulate the sandy dunes of the Cretaceous Mongolian desert, where most of the smaller animals would now live. And in light of how many of the residents had proven nocturnal, the building's interior had been set up accordingly. One of the paddocks, serving as home for the shuvuuia, had minimal barriers to separate the animals from any humans, staff or otherwise, that would later visit the building; with the small alvarezsaurs currently curiously sniffing about their new home, exploring their new surroundings. The halszkaraptorines also lived in this building, living in adjoining paddocks, both with large pools. A medium sized terrarium located close to the building's entrance now contained the gobekko, which were all currently either basking upon small stones or hollow miniature 'logs' or curiously crawling about the terrarium to explore their new surroundings. A small aviary housed the three species of bird brought back - all species were exploring their new surroundings in search of food.

Five other paddocks positioned in different areas of the building were home for the troodonts. In each paddock, all five species were minding their own business, with the archaeornithoides and byronosaurus sniffing around their new territories while the saurornithoides, almas, and gobivenator were all feasting upon freshly provided pig carcasses.

One smaller paddock near the building's back exit, surrounded with chain-link fencing and designed to resemble a sparse desert forest, was home for the deltatheridium, which were all currently either skulking about on the paddock's floor or resting comfortably in the branches of the paddock's trees. Meanwhile, a large pit was in the very centre of the building, with a bridge built over it. Naturally, this pit contained a makeshift lake with a sandy island at the centre, serving as home for the rescued float of shamosuchus, which were now currently lazily floating about within the center of the lake.

Finally, positioned directly at the back of the building and accessible by the exit doors positioned by the deltatheridium paddock was a respectably sized indoor desert themed paddock. Due to Leon's belief that the oviraptorids and protoceratopsids associated symbiotically, the oviraptorids and small ceratopsians had been allowed to share a paddock. Khatin had been practically salivating at the what the team had found.

Each group was roughly keeping to its own species, with the ceratopsians all currently napping peacefully in their chosen 'territories' while the oviraptorids were all either scouting for threats, sniffing about in search of food, or engaging in mating displays. The new ceratopsian and oviraptorids had been given proper names for their time at the park, with the conical crested oviraptorids being labelled mitrata, the 'blue citipati' being labeled as citipati indranil, the newly discovered green feathered oviraptorids being proudly dubbed temujiraptor margad, and the newly discovered ceratopsian was informally referred to as "aguilaceratops". Henry had been discussing possible public feeding opportunities with the inhabitants of this paddock, but… time would tell.

The centerpiece of this zone, naturally, was the large paddock where most of the herbivores would be kept. So far life was peaceful amongst the new residents. The ornithomimids were all either searching for food or scouting for threats, whilst the pachycephalosaurids were browsing upon desert shrubs. The therizinosaurus and abdarainurus herd were browsing on the trees clustered throughout the paddock. Finally, the ankylosaurs and hadrosaurs were drinking from the large lake at the centre of the paddock while the four deinocheirus were feeding on water plants.

A large aviary building directly to the right of the large main herbivore paddock, served as home for the azhdarchids. The larger azhdarchids had been named genghisopteryx khaan by Khatin, whilst the smaller pterosaurs had been named temujinornis draco by Kaisumi. Each flock was currently keeping to its own species as they roamed around their new territory.

Finally, four separate paddocks positioned behind the large main herbivore paddock served as home for the four rescued top predators of the Cretaceous Mongolian desert. Of these four paddocks, the one on the far left now served as home for the velociraptor 'pack', with all six of the dromaeosaurs feasting on a freshly provided sheep carcass, whilst the one on the far right, served as home for the tsaagan, which were all currently searching their new home for food. Naturally, Jack would have his work cut out for him working to train the new dromaeosaurs.

Finally, the two larger paddocks positioned in between the two dromaeosaur packs were now home for the newly rescued tyrannosaurs, with the alioramus pack all curiously exploring their new surroundings while the entire pack of the tarbosaurus feasted on a newly-provided cow carcass. The scar-faced, old alpha male, who had been named Red Claw was napping in the sun, having eaten his fill, as the rest of the pack ate.

All in all, life was looking good for the park. But even so, the staff knew that things could change on a knife-edge – and the preparations for opening day.

. . . .

Meanwhile, on the plane heading back to the main Novum headquarters, Theodore and Percival Richardson were having an argument.

"Percival, please…"

"I have read the reports and I think there could be actual, real-world applications for some of the discoveries. And that Denham's dromaeosaur-training project…" Rolling his eyes, Theodore said, calmly, "Percival, the park is a conservation and research project, first and foremost – I did not build the portal for you to…"

Percival glowered. "Uncle, you told me to bring your fortune into the future," he stated, annoyance in his voice, "and de-extinction has a potential for growth that is more than we can-." Theodore raised his hand. "Enough, nephew – we will have this discussion later. However, I cannot say it will go as well as you anticipate."

Percival rolled his eyes, annoyed still, but willing to drop the matter for now. "Changing the subject, from my observations, it is clear to me that Mr. Luczynski is proving to be a problem," he stated. "He's reckless, immature and pathologically ill-suited for his position. Whilst I respect your decisions, Uncle, I'm starting to question…" Bennett, hearing this, turned to Percival and said, calmly but firmly, "Percival, please mind your tone – you may be family, but Theodore's still your boss." Percival rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry, Bryce, you're right," he admitted. "My tone was completely wrong." He then raised a finger as if to emphasize a point. "However, the point I was going to make is that many of the issues mentioned by the staff seem to stem with his management – and I'm starting to question whether he has the administrative skills to run the place when it's open. So I propose that we appoint one or two 'co-managers', before the park opens to the public – to ensure things run smoothly. Mr. Luczynski can focus a bit more on gallivanting on his little…jaunts, whilst our co-managers will keep things running from here."

Bennett and Theodore looked at each other – the logic of Percival's statement couldn't be denied. Bryce nodded. "It does seem like the most sensible choice. We're going to be expanding the staff roster when the park opens anyway." Theodore sighed, and turned to Percival, "Very well – you can start looking for possible candidates when we get back to headquarters. However, Bryce will aid you in this endeavor and I will get final say on all candidates – is that clear?"

Percival nodded, "Crystal."

At this, Theodore nodded in agreement, before glancing at his nephew warily, "I am glad we are on the same page. Another item on the agenda is to hire temporary workmen to aid in the construction – I think we need to speed operations along a bit. Get onto that when we get back to headquarters." Percival nodded in agreement – he could see, pragmatically, the logic in his uncle's decision. Also… it wouldn't hurt to be able to keep tabs on things – workmen reporting back to him would be the perfect way to do that.

Rescue Tally:

* Abdarainurus barsboldi (9; all adults; 4 male, 5 female)

* Aepyornithomimus tugrikinensis (19; 10 adults, 9 youngsters; 9 male, 10 female)

* Aguilaceratops djadochtaensis/'Ukhaa Tolgod protoceratopsid' (13; 8 adults, 5 youngsters; 6 male, 7 female)

* Alioramus obscurus (9; 5 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 female, 4 male)

* Almas ukhaa (9; 5 adults, 4 youngsters; 4 male, 5 female)

* Archaeornithoides deinosauriscus (10; all adults; 5 male, 5 female)

* Apsaravis ukaahna (18; all adults; 9 female, 9 male)

* Bagaceratops djadochtaensis (13; 7 adults, 6 youngsters; 6 male, 7 female)

* Barsboldia djadochtaensis (17; 10 adults, 7 youngsters; 8 male, 9 female)

* Byronosaurus jaffei (8; all adults; 4 male, 4 female)

* Citipati indranil/'Zamyn Khondt oviraptorid' (17; all adults; 9 male, 8 female)

* Citipati osmolskae (9; all adults; 5 male, 4 female)

* Deinocheirus mirificus (4; all adults; 2 male, 2 female)

* Deltatheridium pretrituberculare (17; 10 adults, 7 youngsters; 8 male, 9 female)

* Elsornis keni (18; all adults; 9 males, 9 females)

* Gallimimus inconspicuens (9; all adults; 3 male, 6 female)

* Genghisopteryx khaan (9; all adults; 5 male, 4 female)

* Gobekko cretacicus (8; all adults; 4 male, 4 female)

* Gobipteryx minuta (20; all adults; 10 males, 10 females)

* Gobivenator mongoliensis (14; 9 adults, 5 youngsters; 7 male, 7 female)

* Goyocephale lattimorei (19; 12 adults, 7 youngsters; 9 male, 10 female)

* Halszkaraptor escuilliei (12; all adults; 6 male, 6 female)

* Khaan mckennai (19; all adults; 8 male, 11 female)

* Mahakala omnogovae (10; all adults; 5 male, 5 female)

* Minotaurasaurus ramachandrani (9; 5 adults, 4 youngsters; 4 male, 5 female)

* Mitrata (10; all adults; 5 male, 5 female)

* Oviraptor philoceratops (19; all adults; 7 male, 12 female)

* Pinacosaurus granger (7; 4 adults, 3 youngsters; 3 male, 4 female)

* Plesiohadros djadokhtaensis (16; 10 adults, 6 youngsters; 7 male, 9 female)

* Prenocephale altai (13; 7 adults, 6 youngsters; 6 male, 7 female)

* Protoceratops andrewsi (13; 7 adults, 6 youngsters; 6 male, 7 female)

* Saurornithoides mongoliensis (13; 9 adults, 4 youngsters; 7 male, 6 female)

* Shamosuchus djadochtaensis (9; all adults; 4 male, 5 female)

* Shuvuuia deseri (17; 12 adults, 5 youngsters; 9 male, 8 female)

* Tarbosaurus daichi (7; all adults; 4 male, 3 female)

* Temujinornis draco (8; all adults; 4 male, 4 female)

* Temujiraptor margad (13; all adults; 7 male, 6 female)

* Therizinosaurus cheloniformis(8; all adults; 4 male, 4 female)

* Tsaagan mangas (9; all adults; 4 male, 5 female)

* Udanoceratops tschizhovi( (9; 6 adults, 3 youngsters; 3 male, 6 female)

* Velociraptor mongoliensis (6; all adults; 3 male, 3 female)

Next time on Prehistoric Park Reimagined:

It's onward to Cretaceous China.

(A pack of medium sized dromaeosaurs hiss and snarl at the rescue team within a clearing as if planning to try to lunge and attack them.)

To rescue a creature that provided key proof of dinosaurs' relation to modern birds.

(A small flock of iridescent blue-black feathered and seemingly four winged bird-like dinosaurs feast upon a large gathering of grubs within a small circular fence.)

All while some of the park's new hired help start getting up to some rather irksome shenanigans.

(An irritated Kyle hurriedly works to help a trio of visibly panicked workers over the side of the dimetrodon paddock wall as a visibly outraged Rommel jumps up and tries angrily snapping at said trio.)

All next time on Prehistoric Park Reimagined: Feathered Dragons!

NOTE: So a lot of people are going to question why there is a dedication to Queen Elizabeth II at the beginning of this chapter - isn't this story about dinosaurs? (And please don't start the jokes, I've guessed them all). Two reasons.

Firstly, the British Royal Family had a long association with the Natural History Museum in London (where the study of palaeontology as we know it got started) – and the new Princess of Wales is its current Royal Patron. In addition, Elizabeth II was the Royal Patron of the Zoological Society of London. This story is about a zoo, mind, as well as being about dinosaurs – so the dedication was actually relevant.

Secondly… it's a bit of national pride. I'm British and, whilst I am no royalist, but when a woman who dedicated the entirety of her long life in service to the people of her country, passes on – it is something that should be commemorated and honoured.

I do remember where I was when the news came out – I was in a restaurant in Bavaria going on a calisthenic walk after trying and barely succeeding in eating an entire pork knuckle (signature dish there), after having seen the castle that was a) in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and b) inspired the Disney castle. I was a little shocked – and actually began crying, something I hadn't expected.

I hadn't given a shit about the Royal Family when she was alive – on both Royal Weddings in the last decade, I was on a long walk with my dogs. However, I now understood why my parents and grandparents dragged me in front of the TV on four Jubilees – because it honestly felt like something very important had been lost.

(To any Americans in the reviews, any snarky comments about the British Royal Family – or complaints about the monarchy – are not to be tolerated).