Author's Note: The last chapter was posted at 5 a.m. I forced myself to wait and I'm posting this one in the afternoon to see if the response changes depending on the time I post.

ALSO for all the artists out there, I'm attempting Inktober, but all dinosaurs or Dino Squad related. I'll see if I can post my drawings either in the story somewhere (probably on Ao3) or on my Tumblr that I made especially for Dino Squad stuff. I won't share my Tumblr yet but let's be honest, the fandom is so small you can probably find it easily lol.

Chapter 16

The Valley

"Oh, come on!"

Fiona groaned, both at her sister's rather loud complaint in the enclosed space and her own disappointment when yet another small group of dinosaurs ran away from their gyrosphere.

"Is there something wrong with this thing?" Terri asked as if Fiona would actually know. "Maybe we're making too much noise." She wiggled the joystick and tried to punch a few buttons that were probably just for decoration.

"Maybe," Fiona agreed as they watched the animals slow their trot and go back to grazing after another moment of staring. She had really wanted to see the Parasaurolophus.

She wanted to see a lot of dinosaurs, but that was a favorite. Apparently, they could bellow almost as loud as a T-Rex could roar thanks to their crests' resonating chambers.

"They ignore all the others," Terri pointed out as other gyrospheres weaved in between the animals like they weren't afraid of being the victims of a giant pinball machine made of angry herbivores.

Fiona looked where Terri was pointing and they both cringed at a couple in one vehicle as they intentionally bumped into an animal's side, not once but twice, laughing as they did.

The Triceratops barely spared a glance.

That was just plain disrespect and stupidity on those tourists' part. That couple was so lucky the dinosaur was choosing to be docile.

Fiona was pretty sure those horns wouldn't really care if the glass could stop a bullet.

She and Terri were observing from a long distance away, up on a hill near a group of bushes and smaller trees standing apart from the forest. The view was beautiful. They could see nearly the entire valley spread out below them.

"I bet it's the gears making more noise than usual or something," Terri decided, still in problem-solving mode and distracted from appreciating the view. "Maybe the other spheres are silent." She looked around their little enclosed space. "Do you think you could build one of these?" she asked.

Fiona snorted, gripping her harness as Terri drove them over a bump in an attempt to get a little closer to a different Triceratops down the shallow hill. "And where exactly would we drive it? I doubt Rodger and I can get something like this street legal." She paused. "It's an interesting idea, though. Max would appreciate it. I caught him searching for how to make a human-sized hamster ball on Ms. Moynihan's computer. I think he's jealous of Kobe."

"I still can't believe he named the hamster that."

"He can name his hamster whatever he wants," Fiona said sagely. "I let you name Nikola Tesla."

"You shouldn't have. Houdini would have been a better name for a bunny," Terri argued.

"Hypocrite," Fiona said.

Terri mumbled, but it was quiet for a few minutes as the younger teen concentrated on slowly inching closer to the Triceratops.

Fiona didn't have high hopes for her sister's success. They had been doing this for nearly twenty minutes. Fiona had paid the ridiculous fee for an extra ten minutes on the dubious promise that Terri would pay her back, but they were running out of time in the ride. Eventually, the sphere was going to take control and autopilot them back to the station. She sighed. "Sorry, Ter. I was hoping we could get closer. Don't worry. We're going again with the guys, remember? We'll probably get a different one of these then." She shrugged. "And there's the rest of the week."

"I guess," Terri said, looking a little jealous as some people further below drove right beside a full-grown Brachiosaurus that was resting by the lake. They looked like a tiny golf ball beside the giant.

Even from a distance, it was still incredible, so Terri didn't want to say the ride wasn't worth it. She didn't want to get as close as some of the other tourists who disrespected the animals' space as if they were not living beings. She had just slightly higher expectations. Even without the mind-numbing scale of being right next to the animals, it was still awe-inspiring to see just how big some of them were. They were more colorful than she expected too.

Technically, they might be able to get fairly close to the Brachiosauri, but Fiona had been the one to suggest that they don't risk it. The smaller dinosaurs were already easily spooked by their approach. She didn't want to get kicked by a Brachiosaurus.

Terri vaguely noticed that her sister seemed more uncomfortable during the ride. It was weird enough that Terri didn't fully process the slight change in behavior. She chalked it up to Fiona being annoyed at Terri's driving.

Fiona had a different itch in her brain. She had started paying attention to how the wind was blowing by watching the plants nearby. While she couldn't feel it blow from inside the gyrosphere, she tried to watch the wind's direction while they approached the dinosaurs the last few times. She couldn't be sure if what she was noticing was just correlation without actual causation.

They were getting closer to the Triceratops. It hadn't reacted negatively yet. It looked at them, then went back to grazing, completely unbothered.

Terri stopped when they were very close, but at least one body length away from the dinosaur.

The two humans were very still, worried that even breathing would ruin the potentially delicate moment.

"She's so pretty…" The younger teen cautiously let go of the controls to fish out her phone for a picture. She got the device for Christmas. It was a notable upgrade from the flip phone she had previously.

Fiona agreed, but she was still concentrating on the plants.

The wind shifted toward the dinosaur and Fiona held her breath.

The animal suddenly jerked its head up and looked at them once again.

"Back up. Back up!" Fiona grabbed the controls and reversed the gyrosphere despite Terri's yelp.

The trike bellowed before mock-charging them while the others in the herd got up and ran further away.

For a few tense seconds, Fiona kept backing until the dinosaur wasn't following.

It huffed as it turned away, shaking its head as if to make sure they saw its frill and sharp horns.

"You okay?" Fiona asked once their heart rates had slowed.

Her sister shrugged. She chuckled nervously. "She uh…heh…doesn't like us very much. W-we should probably report that when we get back…"

"We were in her space," Fiona said. "Maybe she's just having a bad day."

"…We seem to be running into a lot of dinos having bad days," Terri said pointedly.

They both stared in confusion as another Gyrosphere did exactly what they had just attempted, except this time the Triceratops didn't seem to care at all.

The two boys in the other sphere obviously hadn't seen the charge. Or if they did, they stupidly weren't scared of an aggressive Triceratops. They seemed pretty carefree, the younger one happily taking pictures while his mouth moved at a hundred miles an hour as they passed in front of Fiona and Terri.

Terri scowled suddenly as she glanced at the timer on the screen then back up at the other gyrosphere. "Hey, weren't those guys like thirty people ahead of us in line?"

"What?"

"Yeah. Those guys!"

"How the heck do you remember two random people that were that far ahead of us?" Fiona asked, looking at her sister like she was the mutant between them.

"Because that one kid was saying something about scientists theorizing that Velociraptors were nocturnal, and I was this close from yelling up the ramp at him about how he's wrong," Terri said.

Fiona laughed knowingly. "And what would your source have been?"

"Ms Moynihan," Terri admitted. "Which is why I didn't." She paused. "…And I'm not going to yell at a kid…"

Fiona laughed again.

Terri shook her head. "That's not the point. How the heck are they still out here? They started like an hour before us."

"Does it really matter?"

"Yes."

"Terri, they're probably VIPs or they bought the unlimited time pass. Don't worry about it."

Terri stared at the boys and frowned. "How much for the unlimited time pass?"

"Like a thousand dollars," Fiona deadpanned.

"Nevermind…"

The older boy, who looked around Fiona's age, seemed to notice them watching. He smiled at Fiona and waved.

Fiona didn't react either way, pretending she didn't notice.

The younger boy, presumably his brother, nudged him and they eventually moved on.

Fiona didn't bother seeing if the older boy looked put-out by her ignoring him. "I guess we'll just have to try again later," Fiona said. "With a different hamster ball." She didn't sound very confident, though.

Terri looked equally dubious, not really buying how Fiona was trying to play off the aggression they just saw from the dinosaur.

"So…um…if it isn't our gyrosphere…spooking them," she started, glancing at Fiona. "Then what makes us different from the other tourists?"

Fiona met her eyes. The two shared an awkward silence.

"Is this thing airtight?" Terri asked.

"No way," Fiona scoffed. "That's asking for a lawsuit if someone gets stuck in one and suffocates."

"So…"

"I supposed they can smell the tourists…" Fiona looked back at the Triceratops, noticing for the first time that all the nearest dinosaurs were standing in positions that gave them a good view of her and Terri's gyrosphere. Or more specifically, her.

"I'll talk to the guys when we get back…" Fiona promised, also a little disturbed by the unspoken possibility.

"How big do you think…" Terri paused, eyeing the console. They were probably being recorded. Rides like this had videos for tourists to buy at the end, didn't they? "Uh…How big do you think a…full-grown…Spinosaurus gets?" Terri asked.

Fiona blinked, a little surprised at the question.

"I-I mean… you know…biologically, humans are adults by puberty," Terri explained quickly, flushing red. It was a weird topic to have with her older sister, but she had a scientific curiosity. "But we keep growing, physically, into our twenties. So is that really full-grown? And brains keep developing into our thirties! So if that was translated to a dinosaur, like a Spinosaurus…"

Fiona snickered. "Er…Spinosauri were the largest land carnivores ever. I mean, so far that's been found. Uh…" she crossed her arms thoughtfully. "Ms Moynihan said…a full-grown Spino could probably get to…I don't know…I think she said fifty feet long. And 8 tons."

Terri really considered her next words. "…Good thing you're not a full-grown Spinosaurus…" Terri said with an impish grin. "You have a hard enough time fitting into the garage already."

Fiona narrowed her eyes warningly.

Terri barely skated by with that one.

"If I was one of these magnificent creatures," she said, mimicking a voice they both would recognize as some exaggerated mockery of Victor Veloci as she grandly gestured at the valley before them. "Then I probably wouldn't like to be around something that big either." Terri smirked, well aware she was pushing it.

"Terri."

Terri cracked out a purposely obnoxious laugh while Fiona just glared lightly at her. The teen was still snickering when she tried to talk; not quite able to fight all her anxiety away by teasing her older sister. "Heh. Um. Should w-we be worried? Like, we're safe right."

She stared straight ahead but she could feel Fiona glance at her.

"Oh please. Like I'd let anything happen to you," Fiona huffed and eyed the dinosaurs from a distance. "Mom would kill me."

Terri looked a little disturbed by the care in Fiona's statement, even with the last bit tacked on. "I don't need you to protect me."

"I know a few beavers who would say otherwise."

"Hey, I saved your butts," Terri pointed out.

"From your computer, which admittedly is cool in its own right. Even if you drove our car you drove into the bay."

"Okay, I'm not taking responsibility for the car. That was a necessary sacrifice. And Ms M, backs me up!" She looked back at the dinosaurs. "You're not...worried, are you?

Fiona frowned. "I haven't decided yet. Let's…just keep our distance."

"Yeah…"Terri said. "That's probably a good idea."

Author's Note: I tried to get my little sister to help me with the Fiona and Terri dynamic but we could never get around to it. I hope they sound okay but I had a little harder time because I partially based Terri on my sister here, but they have very different personalities so it doesn't really work imho.

Still looking for Beta readers!