Chapter 13 - The D-Bags: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Go With the Flow
"Morning Terrence," Drew said with a smile as he looked at Terrence, fast asleep in his recovery pen. At the sound of Drew's voice, the young tyrannosaur opened his eyes, got up with a grumble, and stiffly walked towards Drew.
At his arrival, Drew's smile widened - the wounds on Terrence's head, face, and neck were healing up. "You're certainly looking better than you did," Drew admitted. "Linda told me you'll still be limping for a bit, but you're healing up, which is all that matters." He chuckled. "Don't worry about when we try to get you a girlfriend, bud - chicks dig scars," he then stated before placing his hand on Terrence's massive nose and smiling once more as the young t. rex grumbled.
His thoughts were interrupted by a hiss from the adolescent majungasaurus, who was also recovering from his injuries in the recovery pen directly next door. Drew turned to him with a grin. "You're looking better too, pal. Goliath really did a number on you. I'm glad you're recovering." Turning back to Terrence, Drew nodded his head, "Anyway, I've got a mission to go on - we'll hang out when I get back." As he left, he turned to look back at the adolescent majungasaurus and asked, "Keep an eye on him for me, would you?" The abelisaur snarled, almost in affirmative.
Chuckling, Drew turned around and walked back to his nearby jeep, lifting his communicator to call his team.
. . . . .
Leon stood by the smilodon fatalis paddock, watching Diego and Shira, now mates, resting in the sun. He smiled at the peacefulness of the scene. But as he continued watching the two big cats, his mind was already swimming with thoughts once more. As glad as he was that Drew had put him back on mission duty, part of him couldn't help but feel a little nervous; after all, his track record hadn't been entirely ideal. First that stumble in the Jurassic, then the moment he'd almost gotten eaten by a pod of crassigyrinus (one of which had bitten his ankle for good measure), then the incident at Gogo Reef, and then getting his foot stuck in that stupid hole in the Maevarano mission...
A low pantherine growl interrupted his train of thought, and he looked back into the paddock in time to see Diego looking straight at him as if in concern. Leon smiled at him and said, "I'm alright Diego. Nothing's wrong."
Right after he said this, his communicator rang. In a flash, he drew it off his belt and lifted it up to his ear. "Yello, this is Leon, over?" He paused. "Another mission? Got it. On my way." He ended the call with Drew, only to then pause as he remembered something else he needed to get out of the way first. "I'll make this quick," he said as he hurriedly entered in a different communicator ID. Fortunately for him, the subsequent attempted call did not take long to successfully go through. "Hey there Yolanda, this is Leon speaking. Quick question, do you think you or any of the other vets could check on Shira? I've noticed her acting differently lately, and I just want to check..."
. . . . .
Jack stood at the dromaeosaurus paddock, a confident smile on his face as he readied himself for an incoming training session. Lifting the remote control, he opened a nearby door and moved the training lure into the paddock at high speed. Seeing it moving, the dromas were swift to go rushing after the lure - with Duke and Cassie leading the chase while the elderly Jane and two youngsters Robert and Bindi followed along at different angles in an effort at surrounding the lure. Eventually, Jack maneuvered the lure into having to come to a stop at one of the paddock's walls, allowing the dromas to successfully corner their 'prey'. Snarling hungrily, Duke crouched down in preparation for a lunge, his eyes agleam with hungry triumph as he opened his jaws and extended his clawed 'wings' in preparation for grabbing at the lure. Cassie, Jane, and the youngsters all followed Duke's lead, just as eager to sink their teeth into the lure as Duke himself...
A piercing shriek suddenly echoed through the air as Jack blew his training whistle. Hissing in surprise at the noise, the dromas all halted their lunge preparations and turned to look in Jack's direction. Nodding his head, Jack threw each of them a piece of meat. It was imperative that they be rewarded for every time they stopped whenever he blew his whistle; doubly so if they successfully did so instead of immediately attacking a lure or any other thing they'd feel tempted to attack. Fortunately, this attempt had worked well, and the dromas eagerly started chowing down on their offered strips of meat upon catching them in their jaws.
Jack chuckled, a proud smile on his face as he watched the dromas feast upon their reward. He had to admit, so far his work at training them was still going well. Admittedly, the dromas hadn't done very well against Rocco. But as Nikolai had told him in the aftermath of that incident, it was still early days, and there would be other chances in the future. For that matter, Jack now couldn't help but remember how, despite their less than ideal performance on their first effort at assisting in rounding up an escaped animal, the dromas were already starting to inspire the security guards to consider training additional animals at the park to provide assistance in their work. Willoby had talked about training the harpactognathus whose egg was in the vet station once it had hatched and gotten big enough, Fox was strongly considering training a future dromaeosaur species or two for use in the future, and Colette had even told him about how she was now planning on training the argentavis and dire wolves. Jack chuckled again at the memory of all this - good ideas often tended to spread after all.
Suddenly, Jack's communicator rang; at which point he swiftly reached to pick it up. Lifting the device to his ear, he said, "This is Jack, who's calling?" He paused. "Another mission? Say no more fearless leader. I'll be on my way shortly."
. . . . .
At the quetzalcoatlus aviary, Adrian was watching the giant pterosaurs tear apart a cow carcass with their massive beaks. Cirrus was now feeding alongside the rest of the flock, a sight that made Adrian smile. After all, while he'd miss having guaranteed feeding time bonding sessions with Cirrus, he doubted he'd feel more proud of Cirrus than he did now at the sight of him finally accepted amongst the rest of the flock and no longer having to be isolated and bullied by Zephyr. And to further sweeten the deal, Cirrus had also successfully mated with Nimbus, who was even now as Cirrus's side as they both calmly feasted upon the cow carcass with the rest of the flock. Interestingly enough, Zephyr had himself successfully paired up with Sirocco, the only other unmated female amongst the flock. And with all the adolescents mated and having successfully established territories for themselves, the tension between them all was well and truly over.
At this thought, Adrian gave off an amused snort, muttering under his breath, "Pair the spares why don't you?" But as he continued to watch, his thoughts briefly detoured towards Alice. He was not ashamed to admit that he'd come to consider her a very close friend, possibly even something more. But at the same time, as much as Alice herself seemed to at least consider him a friend, he wasn't entirely certain she necessarily felt the same way about him as he felt about her...
The sound of Adrian's communicator going off interrupted his thoughts. Raising the device to his ear, he said, "Hew Drew, what's going on? Another mission? No problem; I'm done with the quetzos and I'm heading off now. I'll be there in a few minutes."
. . . . .
Alice tapped her feet as she played with Mdogo, rolling a small ball across the floor of her flat for him to catch and bring back to her. But even as she focused on rolling the ball for Mdogo, she also had Mdogo's incoming integration attempt with the larger theriodictis pack on her mind, and she'd be lying if she were to say she didn't have mixed feelings on the matter. Her logical side was well aware that the plan was workable and quite frankly the best option available. Cross-fostering occurred frequently amongst wolves after all, and Mdogo certainly appeared the right age - after all, as she herself had estimated when he'd first been found, he'd been about two weeks to a month old when he'd first been rescued. And it had been a decent while since then. But at the same time, her more emotional side was fraught with worry; a nagging voice was there in her mind saying, "What if they reject him? What if it fails?" But as swift as this voice was to speak, she herself was equally quick to dismiss it. After all, Mdogo had to be integrated with his own kind somehow, the sooner the better. And regardless of the outcome, it never hurt to try.
Alice's train of thought was eventually interrupted by the sound of her communicator ringing. Picking it up, she said, "This is Alice, over...Another mission? Got it. I'll be on my way." She hung up her communicator and looked to Mdogo. "Alright Mdogo," she said as she got up to her feet and beckoned for him to follow her over towards the area in her flat where she had him stay when no one was around to immediately watch over him. "I've got to go for a little while. Here's hoping you'll be on your best behaviour while I'm gone."
. . . . .
Drew sat in his office, tapping his feet impatiently as he waited for his teammates to arrive. It had been two weeks since the majungasaurus mission - since Jack and Leon's first mission back on duty. Due to the scale of this particular mission, it had been decided that the entire team would have to come. But for now, he was still being kept waiting in his office for the rest of the team to show up. He narrowed his eyes. 'Where are they?' he thought to himself.
Then the door opened and he at last saw Leon, Adrian, Jack, and Alice enter. He raised his eyebrow, "Cutting it close don't you think?" "Sorry about that," said Jack. "Had a couple of things to wrap up," said Leon. Adrian and Alice, meanwhile, looked meaningfully at each other while nodding in approval, very relieved that Leon and Jack were still on good terms.
Drew nodded. "Eh, don't be late again," he then said in a somewhat sulky tone of voice.
The team nodded. "So what are we going after today?" Adrian asked.
Drew smiled, and then showed the team an image of a giant crocodile. It looked a little like the brachychampsa already at the park, only several times the size. "Deinosuchus," Jack said, an excited grin on his face. "One of the super-crocs. Was looking forward to the day we'd go after that." Drew nodded. "Yep. Deinosuchus was the largest known crocodile that ever lived; at its largest, it was up to forty feet long; big enough to hunt large dinosaurs."
Leon nodded in agreement. "One of the largest – there were a few other species, like Sarcosuchus that roughly overlapped with it," he stated, his usual nerdy side coming into play. "The modern-day alligator is the closest living modern day relative to deinosuchus; it's also been found in both freshwater and salt water deposits, meaning it occasionally ventured out into the ocean like the saltwater crocodile. There were no theropods in the region that reached its size, so it was almost certainly the region's top predator." Drew smiled. "Got that right Leon," he then said before clasping his hands together. "So, what are we waiting for?"
"You heard him everyone," Jack said, clapping his hands afterward as if to say 'chop, chop'. "Let's get this show on the road!"
And so, after a quick stop at the technician station to acquire a hang glider, the team headed to the portal site. An employee entered the time period and location, and the portal whirred into life. Drew slipped his portal remote into his pocket and looked to his team, who nodded at him. And at that, they all got into a nearby jeep before heading through the portal and into the past.
. . . . .
After the blinding light from the portal dimmed down, the first thing that hit the team was the heat. They looked around to notice that they were currently positioned at the bottom of a sand dune overlooking a patchy forest. In the distance, they could hear the crashing of waves; evidently they were near the coast.
Jack looked around and turned to Drew, "So what's the plan?" Drew was about to speak when, suddenly, a loud honking sound echoed from the nearby forest, and the entire team turned to see two dinosaurs walking towards them. Each was about twenty feet long and covered in black and tan stripes, grading to lighter colours on the underbelly. Their most distinctive feature was the enormous tube-shaped crests on their heads, which swept backwards from the skull and were red in colour.
The team all looked at each other. They didn't need help from Leon or the info packs to recognize these dinosaurs. It was already quite obvious they were parasaurolophus. And with a nod of their heads, they all got out of the jeep to see if they could get a closer look at the two hadrosaurs as they continued to move gradually closer towards the jeep in curiosity. Given their size and the length of their crests, they must have been fairly young. The two hadrosaurs eventually came to a stop and hesitantly looked around as if scared of something. Jack turned his head back to Drew. "Wonder what's got them so spooked..."
A low growl abruptly split the air from behind the rescue team. The two parasaurolophus, visibly spooked, ran off towards the coastline. In a flash, the rescue team turned their heads to see two large theropods, each about thirty feet long, walking over the sand dune and straight towards them. There was a vague resemblance between them and the t-rexes back at the park, only slightly lighter in build. On their backs were bristly coats of dusty grey feathers, and their bodies were brown with greyish white stripes. Drew looked at his team, wide eyed and pale faced in fright, "Get back in the jeep!"
The rest of the team did not need to be told twice. And as they all got hurriedly back into the jeep, Leon said, "Teratophoneus. One of the most common theropods in the region. Now we know what those hadrosaurs were scared of."
The two tyrannosaurs moved closer to the jeep, curiously exploring this new arrival. Occasionally they snapped their teeth at the tires, evidently thinking this was perhaps an unfamiliar herbivore they could hunt. Leon, Adrian, and the Denhams looked nervously at each other. With the teratophoneus duo walking in circles around them, all possible escape paths were essentially blocked; and it wouldn't be long before the tyrannosaurs attacked the jeep. Fortunately, their nervous thoughts were soon interrupted when Drew suddenly activated the ignition, causing the theropods to back off with snarls and hisses of surprise and rage.
Drew turned his head to his teammates. "They're not used to the sound of the engine or smell of the exhaust," he explained. "It should keep them at bay long enough for us to get away." The two theropods hissed and snapped in displeasure, clearly not pleased at having to let this potential new prey item slip through their fingers, before eventually loping off indignantly. Once they had gone, Drew turned back to his team once more. "Let's get to the coast. Hopefully we'll be able to find deinosuchus there."
And at that, the jeep drove into the scrubby coastal forest and towards the coastline.
. . . . .
"Steady now," said Linda as she observed Harry moving the ultrasound scanner into position over the anesthetized Shira. As Leon had hoped, the vets had been capable of adding a quick checkup to the schedule. And at that moment, with the ultrasound gel slathered across Shira's abdomen and the ultrasound in place, they'd soon find whether Shira and Diego would remain the last smilodon fatalis. And sure enough, within a few minutes after they'd gotten the device into position and begun the scans...
Linda nodded her head, a smile on her face. "It's official everyone," she said. "Shira and Diego have cubs on the way. Three of them, to be precise."
"I'll bet Leon will be happy to hear about this," said Yolanda.
"No kidding," said Harry. He nodded his head before looking back at Linda. "What now?" Linda looked to her auburn haired co-chief veterinarian. "Let's get everything cleaned up, and get Shira back to her paddock," she said. "After that, we need to bring Einstein in for his checkup."
. . . . .
Back in the Aguja Formation, the rescue team were still hard at work. After their encounter with the teratophoneus, the drive down to the coastline of Cretaceous Texas was fairly uneventful. It was about an hour before they reached their destination. Upon arrival, they got out of the jeep once more and looked out at the beach they were on. It was low tide, and small waves gently lapped at the sand. It looked, for all in the world, like a beach in the Caribbean. However, they were actually standing on the coast of the sea that cleaved North America in two during the late Cretaceous; the Western Interior Seaway.
Drew scanned the area; there was no sign of deinosuchus that he could see. For that matter, apart from sand and sea, there was no sign of anything. Of course, the story might be different elsewhere. He looked to his team and said, "Here's the plan; we'll search round the immediate area for any signs of deinosuchus. If we don't find anything, we meet back up and formulate a new plan. In the meantime, we'll need to split up. One of us will go on the glider, and the rest of us will take the jeep."
Leon said, almost immediately, "I'll take the glider." Drew raised his eyebrows curiously, "Why?" Leon's reply was simply, "Let's just say that I've got things I need to think about." And at that, he went to the trunk of the jeep to get out the glider. The rest of the team, deciding that they'd best not press the issue, got to work on getting the jeep ready. The search had begun.
. . . . .
Once he'd finished setting it up, Leon launched the glider into the air with himself proudly aboard. And after using the attached propeller for a short distance to help him build up speed and altitude, he found himself soaring through the air like an eagle, intently scanning the ocean below for any signs of deinosuchus. Admittedly, he wasn't especially high up in the air, but he was still just high enough to feel isolated from the world below him while airborne. He smiled at this thought. He liked the solitude - it really helped him think. And he had much to think about.
In a roundabout way, it was thanks to Drew that he was even up in this glider at all. Unlike Drew, neither he nor Adrian had worked for Novum prior to Prehistoric Park. But while Adrian had been learning falconry in that period, Leon had been little more than a recently unemployed animal handler whom Drew had recommended to Theodore more for his extensive animal knowledge than for anything else. And as he'd learned the painful way since, most of his new colleagues believed he was nothing more than a walking textbook hired simply because of cronyism, a consultant at best. This, combined with his unfortunate stumble in the Jurassic period (among other incidents), had cemented his reputation as 'the useless one', with Jack and the rest of the herper crew being especially vocal about it. That hadn't hurt. What did hurt was how Drew, the person who'd gotten him hired in the first place and a very good friend that he...very deeply cared about, had seemingly started agreeing with them.
Then he remembered the conversation he'd had with Jack back in Madagascar two weeks ago, and how Jack, formerly his most vocal detractor, had stated that there were people who respected him and that he wasn't a hanger-on. In all fairness, those words certainly weren't without truth. After all, the four chiefs of staff all seemed to respect him – Khatin particularly seemed to respect his intelligence and the vets, especially Yolanda, seemed to appreciate his company.
He'd also managed, during the time in which he'd been off rescue duty, to improve his skill at animal keeping - his assistance in rescuing Yolanda from the crassigyrinus, plus the fact that he and Jack had worked together in feeding the dunkleosteus and titanichthys, had also helped. However, as much as his standing had currently improved, he still had a long way to go.
He thought to himself some more. At the end of the day, did he even want to see himself vindicated anymore? His heart wanted nothing more than for the answer to be 'yes'. After all, from the day he'd first accepted Theodore's offer alongside Drew and Adrian, he'd hoped more than anything that his new job at Prehistoric Park would be when he finally got it right. But at the same time, he couldn't help but worry.
He then thought to himself further still. Was he worrying too much? Putting his head before his feelings where he didn't need to?
His train of thought was abruptly cut off by a sudden distinctively pterosaur-like squawking, and he looked up in time to see a small flock of pterosaurs surrounding him. Each had long and pointy leathery brown wings with an eleven-foot wingspan. They had long, slender, slightly upturned beaks, with a small tannish grey crest which raised about above its head, short red skinned necks and heads, amber eyes, and jet black pycnofibers covering the rest of their bodies. He knew immediately what they were; navajodactylus, a common pterosaur of the area.
At the sight, he narrowed his eyes into a glare at the flock, his teeth gritting into a silent bitter snarl. The portal never quite seemed to work very well in the sky. And even if that weren't the case, Leon was aware of how he probably couldn't operate the portal and maintain a steady flight with the glider at the same time. Damn it,' he thought bitterly to himself. as the pterosaurs eventually flew away. "Next time," he thought to himself, "Next time, for sure."
In that moment, his thoughts were interrupted once more at the sight of something moving beneath him. 'Right,' he thought to himself. 'Eyes back on the prize.' He looked down to the sea below, and saw a massive crocodilian shape swimming in the water. He knew immediately what this was; Deinosuchus. He kept his watchful gaze on the creature as it kept swimming further and further through the ocean waters before eventually reaching an estuary, turning to the left, and beginning to swim up the river.
Leon nodded his head. He'd seen enough. Leaning into the glider, he turned away to return to the rendezvous point. He knew better than to try to contact the team by communicator while still operating the glider, and it would be much better to share this information personally.
. . . . .
Meanwhile, the rest of the team had come upon a small herd of pachycephalosaurs. Each was about four feet tall and covered in tannish scales, with white stripes on the sides. They were also accompanied by a small group of white-feathered and gold crested oviraptorids, each about a foot tall. Regarding them, Drew said, "The pachycephalosaurs are probably texacephale, and the oviraptorids are most likely leptorhynchos."
Suddenly, one of the leptorhynchos turned its head towards the forest and let out a squawk of alarm. The sound of this caused the texacephale herd to turn and run towards the team with the oviraptorid flock following close behind. Drew, not wanting to miss the opportunity that this afforded, turned to his team and yelled, "Now!" Alice hurriedly drew out her portal remote and pointed it in the direction of the running animals before she then pressed the button and the portal whirred into life. Not changing their course, the entire combined herd stampeded through the portal, into the present.
What had startled them became apparent mere seconds after the last of the pachycephalosaurs and oviraptorids had vanished into the portal when a low growling split the air from the direction of the forest. The team looked towards the forest in time to see a small pack of tyrannosaurs watching with cold disappointment. There was a similarity in appearance to the teratophoneus from earlier, only heavier in build and slightly darker in colour. Drew smiled at the sight of them. "I think we have a new species. Daspletosaurins, I think, but aside from that…" he trailed off, before looking to his team with a mischievous smirk. "What do you say we give Nikolai a little surprise?"
Shockingly, it was Jack who turned to Drew with a reproachful glare before then saying, "No Drew. We tell Nikolai about this - you know what we promised." Adrian nodded in agreement, a stern look of his own on his face. "He's right Drew. We made a deal with him, remember? With things like this, we give him some warning." Drew sighed petulantly. "Fine," he grumbled, clearly sulking, before he then lifted his communicator to his ear right as the newly discovered tyrannosaurs turned and sulkily wandered off to elsewhere. "Nikolai, we've made a discovery..."
. . . . .
Fifteen minutes later, with the discovery of the new tyrannosaur species reported and permission granted by Nikolai for said species to be rescued, the foursome returned to the agreed upon rendezvous point in time to see Leon already there and putting away the glider. "Well isn't this nice timing?" Leon said in amusement as he closed the trunk of the jeep onto the newly stored away glider. "I was just about to call you."
"Good to see you Leon," said Adrian. Drew nodded his head, "Anything to report?"
Leon nodded his head. "I saw a deinosuchus heading inland - down a river. I also saw some navajodactylus heading in the same general direction, so they might be worth looking out for as well."
"Thank you Leon," said Drew, nodding his head in approval. "Let's follow the river - we should reach a lake at some point or other in the process."
"As you wish," said his four teammates in unison.
The plan thus agreed upon, the team began following the river in the jeep. They had initially considered going upriver in canoes; but with the presence of deinosuchus to worry about, this was deemed to risky. After about an hour of driving, they reached a large, freshwater lake. However, there was still no sign so far of any deinosuchus...in fact, there was no sign of any animals at all. However, Drew was undeterred. "Let's search in there," he said, pointing his finger at the nearby coastal forest. "I think we can take a detour."
"Sounds like a plan to me fearless leader," said Jack. And so the team headed off into the woods. After about an hour, a loud booming squawk echoed through the air. Following the sound, they saw a small group of ostrich-sized dinosaurs standing in a clearing, resembling a cross between a cassowary and a chicken. Their prominent crest and shortened beak gave them a strangely goofy look. Some were larger than the others, and with large throat wattles.
"Hagryphus," Leon said. "A kind of oviraptorid." Adrian nodded his head, " I think this is a lek." Drew gave him a confused look, "A what?" Adrian rolled his eyes and said, "The males are gathering to display to the females. Lekking males can be quite aggressive. I told you about this back at Hell Creek, remember?" Drew smirked. "I think I've come up with a way to get them through the portal then."
And so, Drew walked into the clearing and began blaring his horn at the assembled dinosaurs, causing them all to look his way. The males' grudges promptly forgotten at the sight of this apparent new competitor, they charged at him. When they had gotten close enough, Drew opened the portal, and they barreled through, into the present. The females, confused, followed close behind. Turning to his team, Drew asked, "Anybody up for traveling a bit further?" His team looked at each other, silently considering what to say. Then Jack nodded his head. "Yes, fearless leader. We all are."
And so they traveled back the way they'd come, eventually making it back to the jeep - and more animals. Drinking by the lake was an entire herd of parasaurolophus, including the two youngster from earlier. Said herd was accompanied by four other species of hadrosaur, one with a small helmet shaped circular crest and covered in brownish-tan scales with a white underbelly, while the other three species were crestless, but had large nasal sacks, one with olive green scales with grey stripes, another with black scales with white patches, and the third with slate grey scales with dark purple patches on their bodies. The team turned to Leon, who knew what they were immediately. "The helmet crested hadrosaurs are angulomastacator, the crestless ones are aquilarhinus, gryposaurus, and malefica... Jack? Are you listening?" The rest of the team noticed Jack looking at something on the other side of the lake. Without turning to look back, he said, "Sorry to interrupt Leon." He then pointed towards the far side of the lake. "But are those what I think they are?"
The team turned to look at what Jack had been seeing. Resting on the banks of the opposite side of the lake were several large crocodiles. In fact, they were incredibly large; the largest was up to forty feet long. They looked like giant versions of the brachychampsa back at the park. However, rather than the brachychampsa's slate-black scales, these were a greenish grey in colour, becoming darker on the back and lighter on the belly. Their teeth were also noticeably sharped and pointier; very much not for crunching on turtles. Drew smiled, "Deinosuchus. Guys, we've just found our targets." Leon turned to Drew, "So what do we do?" Drew turned to him, smile still on his face, "We've got the crocs and multiple hadrosaurs in the same place. That means that, hopefully, we could get six species for the price of one. All we have to do is wait."
And so they waited, watching intently for the opportune moment to arrive as the hadrosaurs continued milling about nearby and the four deinosuchus remained basking upon the opposite side of the lake. Soon, a young parasaurolophus, having strayed slightly from the others, walked up to the edge of the lake and started drinking. Drew nodded his head. "This should perhaps entice the crocs to come our way..."
Suddenly, the water churned, and the young hadrosaur narrowly avoided getting snapped up in a pair of crocodilian jaws as a fifth deinosuchus about the same size as the two youngsters basking on the opposite side of the lake abruptly burst out of the water. The crocodile gave a single hiss of outrage and recoiled back into the water as the hadrosaurs began to move away from the lake. As the team watched this, feeling slightly disheartened that they'd missed their target, they also couldn't help but notice the bushes nearby were beginning to rustle...
Suddenly, a pack of teratophoneus, including the two that the team had encountered earlier, burst out of the bushes and charged at the hadrosaurs. The panicked hadrosaurs, already frightened from the prior sudden attack by the deinosuchus, immediately began to stampede away from the lakeside. Drew, not wanting to miss the opportunity that this afforded, turned to his team and yelled, "Now!" Jack did not need to be told twice, and he hurriedly drew out his portal remote and pointed it at the stampeding hadrosaurs before pressing the button; at which point the portal whirred into life. Within seconds, the entire combined herd of hadrosaurs stampeded through the portal and into the present, their fear of the teratophoneus easily outweighing any fear they may have had for the unfamiliar vortex of light. Disappointed at losing their kill, the teratophoneus stalked off.
As the rest of the team watched the tyrannosaurs leave, Drew turned his head back towards the lake; only for his heart to sink upon noticing that the deinosuchus had seemingly left the area entirely. He sighed, "Damn." Leon walked up to Drew and asked, "What's the plan now?" Drew sighed once more and looked around; the sun was setting and it wouldn't really be safe to go looking for deinosuchus at night. He breathed out, "We'll follow the teratophoneus. Maybe we can salvage something before it gets dark."
The team did as suggested, carefully following the teratophoneus pack as the large theropods slowly trekked around the lake and towards the nearby forest. As they entered the forest, Leon and Alice noticed that the sound of rustling began to rise from the bushes around the team as they continued making their way through the woods. Before long, even Drew eventually became aware of the noise. "What should we do?" Adrian asked. "Keep scanning the undergrowth," said Drew. "This is the perfect place for an ambush. If necessary, we might have to..."
Suddenly, the bushes around them started rustling considerably more loudly than before, and a familiar harsh barking caw burst out from within the rustling foliage. Everyone tensed as the rustling and barking got louder, and then nine medium-sized theropods burst out from the undergrowth to surround the gang, snarling and hissing as they crouched as if in preparation for a lunge. Each theropod was about six feet long and tall enough to come up to the five humans' thighs. Their bodies were covered in black and white feathers, complete with black feathered 'crests' on the tops of their heads, except for their faces, fingers, and feet, which were covered in yellow scales. They had long snouts, their mouths filled with sharp teeth, and large intelligent looking amber eyes outlined with red scales. They all stood on two powerful hind legs each, all of them with three-toed taloned feet; the second toe on each foot was larger than the others and held aloft, tipped in vicious sickle shaped claws. In that moment, all nine of them cocked their heads curiously at the five humans.
Jack and Leon both instantly recognized the beasts for what they were. "Those are saurornitholestes," Jack whispered breathlessly, "a local dromaeosaurid."
"Yep," said Drew. "Had a feeling we'd bump into them. They've probably been following us for some time. We must have walked into their territory while we were following the teratophoneus."
The dromaeosaurids snarled, but stood still as if wondering whether to attack. The rescue team remained utterly rigid, not wanting to risk an attack. Eventually, Alice slowly turned her head to Drew and whispered, "If you've got a plan, now might be a good time to put it into action."
Jack, however, soon thought up a plan himself upon overhearing what his sister had just said, and he looked carefully to Leon. "Pass me the bait bag," he whispered. Leon looked to Jack and whispered, "Why?" Jack pointed at the bait bag he wanted Leon to pass to him, "There's meat in there remember? We can use it to distract them long enough for us to get the portal ready." This was all Leon needed to hear, and he quietly passed the bag to Jack, careful to avoid potentially angering the raptors into attacking. Upon receiving the bag, Jack drew out a slab of raw steak and threw it away from him and the rest of the team. Snarling gleefully, the nine raptors bolted after the steak, eventually starting to eagerly fight each other over it.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Jack drew out what turned out to be a portal grenade, primed it, and then tossed it amongst the squabbling saurornitholestes pack; at which point it then exploded into a vortex of light, the raptors vanishing into it along with the steak they'd been fighting over as they were promptly teleported to the park. Once the impromptu portal had finally closed, the team looked to Jack, who smiled and flashed Drew a thumbs-up. "Learned from the best fearless leader," he said proudly. Drew nodded, an approving smile on his face, "Taking a page out of my book. I like it." He looked up to the sky, noticing that the sun was now inches above the horizon. "Let's start heading back to the jeep," he said. "We don't want to be out here at night." The rest of the team agreed, and they all started back the way they'd come.
The sun had halfway sunk beneath the horizon by the time the gang exited the forest, leaving just enough light for them to see where they'd left the jeep. At the same time, they also caught sight of a combined herd of three different species of ceratopsian gathered around the shoreline. Nine of them were covered in dark slate grey scales with boiling red underbellies and had red eye-like spots on their frill crests. Ten of them had olive green scales with blue 'eye spots' on their crests. The remaining eight had mottled brown scales with red and white markings on their faces and crests. Leon, par for the course, was able to identify them instantly. "The grey ones are agujaceratops, the green ones are kosmoceratops, and the brown ones with the red and white faces are utahceratops."
"Perfect," Drew chuckled, trademark grin on his face before he then looked to Leon. "Alright Leon. You and Alice move over to the other side of the herd and see if you can spook them into stampeding towards us with some tyrannosaur recordings from your machine while Jack, Adrian, and I summon the portal in time to send them to the park when they come running at us away from you." Leon and Alice widened their eyes. "Well this is a different plan than usual," said Alice. Drew nodded his head. "Considering how I owe my life to the damn thing, I thought it might be useful," he then explained with a grateful smile. Leon gulped, equal parts surprised and flattered. "As you wish then," he said before looking to Alice. "Alright Alice, let's get..."
A low rumbling snarl caught the team's attention, and they looked towards the ceratopsians in time to see the pack of newly discovered tyrannosaurs approaching, scaring the herbivores into stampeding towards the team. At this point, Drew looked to Leon, nodding his head apologetically. "Sorry," he said. "Change of plan." Leon nodded in understanding, "If you say so." Alice also nodded in agreement. And minutes later, as the stampeding ceratopsians got closer and closer to the rescue team, Drew swiped out his portal remote and pressed the button in time to summon the portal. Moving too fast to stop, all three of the ceratopsian species went barrelling through to the safety of the present. The tyrannosaurs, eager to avoid losing their prize, dove through the portal mere seconds after the ceratopsians had themselves vanished, moving as if a single entity. Once the last of the theropods had gone through, the portal closed. "That should be enough for now," said Drew. He looked back at his team. "Alright everyone. Let's get over to the jeep and start setting up camp. We'll probably have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow."
The rest of the team nodded in agreement. "Now that I think about it," Alice then said before gesturing back towards the lake. "Just how are we going to get the deinosuchus through? You haven't been exactly clear on that." Drew grinned. "Have no fear, Miss Denham," he said. "I have an idea that might work better for us tomorrow. We can talk about it once we've set up camp."
. . . . .
Khatin von Schorzberg was hard at work in his lab - he had observations to file, things to plan. Things to be released for the day the existence of the park was revealed to the world.
And as he thought of this, he took a quick look at a nearby incubator machine. Contained within were two large ostrich-like eggs. He nodded his head, a smile on his face. These were ornithomimus eggs that had rolled out of their nest and been extracted from the Hell Creek herbivore paddock by the attending ornithischian keepers. And now they were under his care, being dutifully kept warm in one of the spare incubators in his lab.
He nodded his head. Back in the Cretaceous, these two eggs would have been snapped up by nest raiders within an hour after leaving the nest. Here, however, things would be different. Part of him was honestly quite interested at the prospect of directly observing the development of a baby dinosaur personally when those two hatched.
At the sound of his communicator going off, he drew the device out of his belt and answered, "Schorzberg, over?" There was a pause. "A new tyrannosaur species? Say no more. I'm on my way." He ended the call, took one last quick check on the incubator, smiling again as he saw that the two eggs were still at ideal temperature, and then exited his lab to head off to the holding pens. As they said, duty called. And he had to admit, coming up with a name for a brand-new species of tyrannosaur certainly sounded exciting. There were indeterminate tyrannosaur remains from that formation. Perhaps this new species was what those remains belonged to? He shook his head side to side in bemusement. "That's paleontology for you," he said sentimentally to himself. "Always full of surprises."
. . . . .
Meanwhile, at the vet station, John Willoby was also busy observing the harpactognathus egg that had fallen out of its nest and been placed in an incubator. He smiled; he'd visited the egg every day to check on it and had entertained the idea of training the little pterosaur to work with the security team once it was big enough. And not only had Adrian agreed to help train the harpactognathus, but Jack Denham and Captain Nikolai had both expressed the belief that it could be worth a try.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. "Don't count your eggs before they hatch," he whispered to himself as he resumed his careful observation. Then he checked his watch and nodded his head. "I'd best make sure I'm ready for when I get the call to come help escort Einstein back to the Hell Creek herbivore paddock," he said to himself as he took note of the time.
. . . . .
At the holding pens, the newest batch of rescued animals had been rounded up and led away to appropriate temporary confinement, with the newly discovered tyrannosaurs warily stalking around the borders of their holding pen while all three newly rescued species of ceratopsian were all leisurely gathering around in the centre of their shared holding pen, bellowing in curiosity at their new surroundings. Standing near the ceratopsian pen was ornithischian keeper Cass Chang, who nodded her head with a smile on her face. 'Looking after these is going to be fun,' she thought to herself before turning her mind to Einstein, who was scheduled to undergo a routine checkup; and while he'd likely be given a clean bill of health, there was always the possibility...
"Thinking about Einstein I see."
Chuckling, Cass turned her head in the direction of this familiar voice in time to see none other than hoofstock keeper Horace Northup. "That obvious huh?"
Horace chuckled, a sly grin on his dark face, and then nodded his head. "Don't worry. It's perfectly understandable." He briefly looked towards where Kyle and Nikolai were positioned, and then back to Cass. "I'm willing to go see if Mr. Taymor and Captain Koshkin are willing to let us see him on our next break." Cass nodded her head, smile already widening on her face. "I'm in."
. . . . .
Half an hour later, Horace and Cass were visiting Einstein at his veterinary holding pen while he was waiting for the results of his blood test, chuckling happily as the cheerful pachycephalosaurus grunted and hooted amicably at them. "It's good to see you too Einstein," Cass said happily, to which the pachycephalosaurus hooted at her and nodded his head as if in agreement. Horace chuckled, "Well met Einstein. Dermot will be wondering why I haven't introduced you to him."
"No kidding," Cass agreed, nodding as Einstein briefly turned his head away from her and started sniffing around the walls of his pen. She then looked to Horace, thinking happily about just how close of a friend she'd come to view the Nigerian hoofstock keeper as. They'd first properly met and talked to each other on the day of the La Brea Tar Pits mission and had quickly bonded - after all, they'd both come from the world of hoofstock keeping...and understood the unfortunate stigma about it. Nobody saw them as professionals or skilled at anything; they were just minding the 'easy' animals that no one else really cared much for. That meant, as Horace liked to say, keepers like them needed to stick together.
In fact, this was, in part, the reason why they'd let Leon work with their divisions without fuss after he'd gained sufficient experience with the invertebrates and aquatics. Leon may have been many things - but disrespectful was not one of them. He'd been genuinely interested in helping them and knowing about how to take care of the animals they worked with. And his strong reputation as 'the useless one' had also gone a long way in earning him their sympathy due to how much it paralleled with their own status as 'dumb farmhands assigned the easy work'.
Sighing in content, Cass leaned her head on Horace's shoulder, the Nigerian keeper looking at her in half confusion and half amusement in response. "I really ought to thank you again Horace," Cass said. "You really are a great friend." The hoofstock keeper chuckled and nodded in agreement. "Right back at you Cass," he said. "Right back at you." He nodded his head and looked up towards the sky. "I have to admit, life was pretty hard for me growing up in Nigeria," he said. "And honestly, times like this are enough to remind me how much I wish I could have had a good friend like you with me during that time."
"I know the feeling," Cass agreed, nodding her head. "When I was a kid, Tina and I were always at odds. And our parents encouraged it - they tried to make us rivals. Having a friend like you would have definitely made things easier." She then looked to Horace, smile once again on her face. "But I suppose it's better late than never, right?" Horace chuckled, "Right."
The sound of a hooting grunt caused Horace and Cass to look back in Einstein's direction in time to see that the pachycephalosaurus was now directing an amused look at them. Horace and Cass looked at each other, and then back at Einstein. Not to be too anthropomorphic, but the pachycephalosaur's expression implied that he knew something they didn't.
. . . . .
In prehistoric Texas, the team had driven the jeep over to the lake shore where they'd seen the deinosuchus basking and subsequently made camp. However, before they turned in, they made what they would use to catch the crocodiles the next morning. They stood in front of a long double row of wooden posts leading out from the lake. These posts culminated in a 'blind end' of three wooden posts. Drew turned to his team, smiling like it was Christmas. "Right, here's the plan! We put bait in at the blind end and lure some deinosuchus out of the water and up this here stockade. When they reach the blind end, we'll set up the portal and send them through to the park!" Leon gazed at the makeshift stockade, clearly pleased, and said, "Planning is just effortless with you, isn't it?" Drew smirked, "Yup!" His face then became a little nervous, "But for now let's turn in. It's not gonna be safe sitting around out here in the dark. Jack, you've got first watch." And at that, the rest of the team headed off to their tents, Jack watching them as they went before turning his attention to the environment around the campsite once they'd entered their tents.
A few hours later..."WE'VE GOT VISITORS!"
Jack's shout awoke the rest of the team, who instantly began readying themselves for some prehistoric threat. Jack's shout was swiftly followed by a series of loud barking caws; clearly, some predator had indeed found them. When they got out of their tents, they saw what had alarmed their teammate. A pack of small bipedal dinosaurs were standing around the tent, tearing up the bait bag with their vicious jaws.
There was a similarity between them and the pectinodon back at the park; they had the same curious looking forward facing amber eyes, long snouts, and taloned feet with a sickle-shaped claw on the second toe each. However, these were slightly larger, at about seven feet long, their muzzles were slightly longer, and their bodies were covered in uniform greyish brown feathers, except for their yellowish tan scaled snouts. As one, the dinosaurs all turned to the humans and hissed.
Leon immediately knew what they were. "Talos," he whispered. "They're scavengers. They must have been attracted here by the bait bag." Jack gritted his teeth, "They were probably watching us the whole time. They definitely must have smelled the meat." Leon turned to Drew and said, "What do we do now? They've already eaten most of the meat." Drew sighed, "We can salvage a rescue from this."
Before the rest of the team could inquire as to what the plan now was, Drew passed Leon his portal remote and slowly walked towards the pack of talos. As he approached the troodonts, they began snarling warily at him. When Drew got close enough, he grabbed the bait bag and began to pull it away from the dinosaurs. The nearest talos immediately grabbed the bag with its teeth and a tug-o-war ensued. Drew turned to Leon and yelled, "Now!"
Leon immediately pressed the button on the portal remote, and the portal whirred into life. The talos Drew was struggling with let go of the bait bag in surprise, allowing Drew to carry it away as he ran towards the portal, the entire talos pack quick to start following behind him in pursuit once they registered the fact that he had the bag. At the very last moment, he lunged to the side, the bag still in his clutches, causing the entire talos pack, moving too fast to stop, to dive through the portal. When the last of the talos had gone through, Drew nodded to Leon, who pressed the button and closed the portal before handing the remote back to Drew, slightly bemused. Drew slipped his remote back into his belt and turned to his team, smiling gleefully, and said, "Well, wasn't that a visit to remember?" Leon rolled his eyes, grabbed onto the bait bag, and looked inside it. "There's not enough meat left in here to lure any deinosuchus," he grumbled before looking glumly up at Drew. "Looks like we're gonna need to find another means of bait." Drew sighed, visibly deflating at the news of this unfortunate complication to his original plan, "Let's head back to bed for now. We'll figure out what to do about this in the morning..."
He was interrupted by the sound of bellowing. The entire team looked in the direction the noise was coming from - at that moment, they could hear the sound of both ceratopsians and tyrannosaurs in the distance. They looked at each other. "Well, we're already awake," said Alice. "Might as well see what's going on." Drew nodded in agreement. "Read my mind. Let's go."
The team rushed over to where the bellowing noises were coming from, at which point they saw a combined herd of two different species of ceratopsians forming a protective ring around the herd's juveniles as they faced off against the teratophoneus pack from earlier in the day. Of the ceratopsians present, the larger species was covered in slate-black scales and had bull-like horns, while the smaller species had coarse tannish scales with reddish brown patches and had downward-curving horns. The rest of the team looked hurriedly to Leon, who said, "The big ones are nasutoceratops, and the smaller ones are yehuecauhceratops." Jack looked to Drew, "What now fearless leader?"
"The same thing we did when we rescued Arlo," said Drew. He looked to Alice and Adrian. "Adrian, Alice, you're with me. We'll take care of the ceratopsians." He then looked to Leon and Jack, "You two worry about the teratophoneus." Leon and Jack nodded in reply, and the team split up.
The teratophoneus were circling the herd, snarling again as they gazed hungrily at their hopeful prey, before the sound of a loud burst of noise caused them 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 teratophoneus pack began to rush towards Jack, who started to run to draw them away from the ceratopsians. The tyrannosaurs were about halfway to reaching Jack when what seemed to be the sound of a rival tyrannosaur's bellowing roar split the air to their right, causing them to skid to a halt and look to see Leon standing in that direction with his recording device pointed their way at full volume. "You heard me," Leon growled as he played the tyrannosaur bellow recording a second time. "Come at me!" Hissing in rage, the teratophoneus pack started charging Leon's way. Once they were close enough to Leon, Jack blared his airhorn yet again, causing the tyrannosaurs to turn their attention back to him. And from there, Jack and Leon continued attracting the attention of the teratophoneus back and forth between them, leading them on a merry chase.
As this happened, Drew, Adrian, and Alice summoned the portal directly nearby the confused, but wary, ceratopsians. And once the portal was summoned, Alice played the ceratopsian bellow recording she had on her audio player, instantly attracting the attention of the herd. At the sight of the herbivores still looking uncertain, Drew cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Come on! Hurry up!" In a serendipitous bit of timing, the sound of the teratophoneus bellowing rang through the air from behind the ceratopsians, proving the last bit of convincing they needed to charge as one towards the portal. Once the last one had gone through, Drew looked in the direction where Jack and Leon were still dealing with the teratophoneus. "NOW!"
This was all that Jack and Leon needed to hear. And in that moment, with Leon already set to attract the teratophoneus pack's attention away from Jack, he slid to a stop, thankfully managing to avoid slipping and falling in the process. And from there, he played the tyrannosaur bellow recording one more time, and then drew out his portal remote as the teratophoneus charged towards him, pressing the button and summoning the portal right as the tyrannosaurs were seconds away from him; at which point the entire pack, moving too fast to stop, dove through the portal and into the safety of the present as Leon jumped aside and out of their reach. Once the last of the carnivores had gone, Leon dismissed the portal and flashed Jack a thumbs up. "Nice work," he said. "Right back at you Dolittle," said Jack, a proud grin on his face. The two looked to Drew, Adrian, and Alice, who smiled at them. "Good job everyone," said Drew. He then nodded his head and looked meaningfully in the direction of where they'd left their campsite. "Now let's get back to camp and see if we can get some sleep."
. . . . .
Collete smiled, nodding contentedly as she looked into the argentavis aviary from the top of her watch post. At that moment, both of the massive teratorns, plus the two Andean condors they were kept with, were perched on the large tree in the centre of the aviary, scanning their territory. In the days following the Miocene South America mission, she'd spent a lot of her breaks at the aviary - and her bond with Hannibal had gotten noticeably stronger. Strong enough in fact that she felt very confident indeed in her ability to perhaps train him to provide assistance alongside Nero and his pack.
As she had these thoughts, Hannibal finally seemed to notice her, at which point he took to the air and flew towards her before landing upon the perch directly next to her watch point. Hannibal cocked his head, giving her a curious look. Collete chuckled, allowing a rare smile to come to her face. "Good to see you Hannibal," she said. Like Nero, she'd found a kindred spirit in the great bird.
Hannibal warbled again, nodding his head up and down as if saying 'nice to see you again' before then flying back to Imilce. Collete looked at the argentavis curiously. After suggesting her idea regarding training Hannibal and the dire wolves, she'd also found out that Willoby had been talking about training the harpactognathus that would hatch out of the egg that had fallen from its nest some weeks ago and that Fox had expressed the hope of someday training a dromaeosaur or two once a sufficiently trainable new species of such was brought to the park. 'Good ideas do tend to spread' she thought proudly to herself.
She briefly checked her watch before climbing down from the argentavis aviary's watch post and headed off to La Brea Grand Vista to check on Nero - she had enough time.
. . . . .
"Isn't it weird?"
At this statement from Hugo Adams, Aaron Joseph stopped throwing dead rats to the beelzebufo in the Maevarano forest building and turned to him, confused, and said, "What are you talking about?"
Looking at his friend, Hugo pointed at a male named Kermit and said, "Before we started this, a frog the size of a beach ball would have been something really odd and remarkable. But after all the other amphibians we've worked with, it seems a little mundane now." Aaron chuckled and said, "Hey; weird is relative." He nodded his head, "But yeah, it does seem a little par-for-the-course nowadays." At this point, they both noticed that the beelzebufo were looking at them, as if wondering why Hugo and Aaron had suddenly stopped feeding them. Kermit even let out a low croak as if to express confusion on the sudden cessation of food. Looking sheepishly at each other, the two men resumed throwing dead rats to the giant frogs. "Sorry about that," Hugo said to Kermit as he tossed a particularly juicy looking rat to the beelzebufo in question, who eagerly snapped up the rat in clear appreciation.
Meanwhile, at the kibokosuchus exhibit, Carmen and Maria were watching the strange giant herbivorous crocodiles either feeding on the fruit and vegetables that they had been given, basking on the lakebed, or swimming in the moat. Carmen chuckled, "Strange aren't they? When most people think of crocodiles, they don't tend to think of huge vegetarian crocodiles do they?" Maria nodded, "Yeah - that's what evolving on an island does to you. All these guys evolved because hadrosaurs and the like didn't get to Madagascar - so there were a load of empty niches."
At this, Carmen nodded. "Yeah, evolution can be strange like that." She thought to herself some more. "Speaking of the Cretaceous Period and crocodilians," she then stated before grinning cheekily at Maria. "How's the prospect of working with another supercroc feel?" Maria chuckled, "God, yes. Thinking of which, I wonder what Jack's getting up to now."
. . . . .
In Cretaceous Texas, the team woke up from their sleep the next morning to note that they once again had visitors. But unlike the talos, these visitors weren't yet any reason for alarm. Gathered around the boundary of the camp was a small herd of ankylosaurs sniffing around as if looking for food. Tough and robust, each of them had blueish grey scales on their backs and tops of their heads, reddish brown scales on their tails, legs, and middles of their bodies, tannish gold underbellies, and dark charcoal grey scales on their feet. They were accompanied by a flock of turkey-sized birds covered in brown feathers with black spots and white downy crests on their heads and similarly white downy feathers on their bellies and legs, with a small flock of navajodactylus also gathered nearby. Leon knew what the other animals were immediately. "The birds are mirarce and the ankylosaurs are akainacephalus," he explained. Drew grinned, "Perfect way to start the day." He looked to his team, "Leon, you and Jack help me with the ankylosaurs. Adrian, you and Alice use what's left of the meat in the bait bag to get the birds and pterosaurs through the portal - there's enough for these guys."
The team split off to get to work, and within minutes, Adrian and Alice had used what was left of the bait meat to attract the navajodactylus and mirarce through the portal while Drew, Leon, and Jack got the akainacephalus to lumber peacefully through the portal to the present using offerings of plants for them to eat. Once that was done, they all looked to the deinosuchus trap before. "Considering you've just now had us use up the last of the originally planned bait meat," Leon stated before directing a meaningful side glance towards Drew, "I trust you've got a suitable alternate means of bait in mind?" Jack nodded in agreement, "If you have a new plan fearless leader, now would be a good time to tell us about it." Drew chuckled. "Oh I've got a plan," he said before smirking. "And it's a cracker."
A few minutes later, Drew stood tall inside the blind end of the trap, explaining his new plan to the rest of the team while holding a long paddle in his hands. "For this, I'm going to use myself as bait. I'm going to run out onto the lake and attract the deinosuchus to shore. When the time is right I'll run out of the water and into the stockade; I can easily outrun a deinosuchus on land. And once I reach the blind end, you guys summon the portal and send them to the park. Any questions?" Leon raised his hand and said, "Aside from pointing out how insanely reckless and death defying this plan is..." Drew waved him off, "Duly noted, and ignored." Leon rolled his eyes, "Why am I not surprised?"
Drew walked out onto the lake and waded until he was hip-deep in the water. Then he began hitting the surface of the water with the paddle, hoping that the vibrations would attract the deinosuchus. After a few minutes, his patience was swiftly rewarded when a small float of deinosuchus revealed themselves and began swimming towards him. As they got closer, he moved further and further back through the water before eventually running back out onto land and towards the stockade with the deinosuchus in hot pursuit. As they entered the stockade, they turned to single file, with Drew just managing to keep one step ahead of the crocs. Upon reaching the blind end, Drew swiftly yelled, "Set up the portal!" And from there, he hurriedly slipped through the posts at the blind end while the rest of the team scrambled into position at the blind end. From there, Leon, Jack, and Adrian moved the blind end's central post out of the way to make a proper opening for the deinosuchus while Alice pressed the button on her portal remote in time to summon the portal. The first deinosuchus, a large adult male, swiftly walked through the portal and into the present, with three young subadults following close behind. Drew sighed in relief as he watched this unfold. This was starting to look even easier than he'd thought.
However, the last deinosuchus, a large adult female, veered slightly to the left, breaking two of the posts at the stockade's blind end. Drew's eyes widened with horror; if the adult female deinosuchus managed to break through the posts, she would almost certainly attack them! Drew hurriedly signaled for Alice to shut off the portal and ran over to the posts that remained upright at the female deinosuchus' current position, trying desperately to keep the posts upright. Jack and Leon, well aware of how badly things would go if the deinosuchus got out of the stockade in the fashion it was currently attempting, hurriedly rushed over to assist Drew. The massive crocodile continued to snap and hiss in frustration as her effort at leaving the stockade continued to be waylaid by Drew, Leon, and Jack's attempts at keeping the rest of the posts blocking her way upright. Jack and Leon looked nervously at each other, already beginning to realize how their current effort at preventing the deinosuchus from escaping the stockade was only delaying the inevitable.
Fortunately, the current effort at obstructing the deinosuchus from leaving the stockade had kept its exit delayed just long enough for Drew to figure out how to properly adapt his plan in response to this new complication. And with a smile on his face, he hurriedly gestured for Alice to get to the jeep and Adrian to get the four poles at the blind end of the stockade attached to the jeep's rear. Alice and Adrian were quick to obey; and once the appropriate posts were tethered to the back end of the jeep, Alice revved up the engine and pulled the four poles away. And from there, Drew, Jack, and Leon hurriedly dove out of the way as the deinosuchus lunged through the newly expanded gap with a loud bellow and charged after Alice. But already Drew was pointing his portal remote in the direction of where the deinosuchus was currently heading, and he soon summoned the portal back into existence directly between Alice and the charging croc. Unable to change her trajectory in time to do otherwise, the deinosuchus barreled right through the portal and into the present.
After about a minute of the team gasping and regaining their breath from this hair raising experience, Drew turned to his companions and smiled. "Job done," he stated. "Let's get back to the park." The rest of the team did not need to be told twice. And after packing everything up, they all got aboard the jeep and drove straight through the portal back to the park.
. . . . .
An hour later, all the new arrivals had been successfully transferred to their new homes in the appropriately named Aguja Formation Exhibit Zone. Near the entrance was a massive paddock that now served as home to all the ankylosaurs, ceratopsians, and hadrosaurs. At that moment, all the herds were either browsing from the trees, drinking from the lake, or basking in the sun.
At the rightmost end of the exhibit zone was a small building themed after a Cretaceous Texas coastal forest, and it was this building that served as home for the mirarce flock and the three smaller herbivorous dinosaur herds. The texacephale herd were kept in a large paddock in the building's interior while the leptorhynchos and hagryphus were sharing a paddock right next to them. The mirarce, meanwhile, were kept in an aviary at the very back of the building, and all the turkey sized enantiornithine birds were scouting about their new home in search of food.
A large outdoor coastal shore themed aviary directly behind the Aguja Forest Building was the new home for the navajodactylus flock, which were all flying about to scout their new territory.
At the back of the exhibit zone were four paddocks themed after the Aguja Formation coastal forests that now served as home for the carnivorous dinosaurs. The one on the far left served as home for the saurornitholestes pack, who were all scouting their new territory while a similarly sized paddock on the far right served as home for the talos pack, who were all napping in the sun. Jack would be working with both raptor packs soon, and Calum Fox had already taken an interest in working with two of the subordinate males in the saurornitholestes pack. The two larger paddocks in between the raptor paddocks, meanwhile, served as home for the two tyrannosaur species, with the teratophoneus pack scouting out their new territory in the paddock next to the talos paddock while the newly discovered species (which Khatin had dubbed agujatyrannus major) feasted upon a freshly provided cow carcass in the paddock next to the saurornitholestes paddock.
And at the very center of the exhibit zone was a paddock with a large lake that now served as home for the deinosuchus float. At that moment, the large female who had given the team quite a bit of trouble, and now been named Dil, was basking on the shore while the large male, Boggs, and the youngsters Swampy, Ally, and Cranky were all swimming about in the lake.
Once again, life was operating smoothly at Prehistoric Park...for now anyway. And with that day's mission marking the end of 'Phase 1' of Prehistoric Park, the staff were all looking forward to a temporary break.
. . . . .
Alice and Tina watched with trepidation as they and several vets and other keepers stood together at the theriodictis paddock to watch as Dogo padded over towards the theriodictis pack, who were looking curiously towards the new arrival. As of now, the time had finally come for Dogo to undergo his attempt at integration into the larger pack of his kind, and Alice was staring nervously at the little pup as he made his way towards his potential new family. "Please don't reject him, please don't reject him," she whispered under her breath.
Dogo eventually came to a stop some distance away from the larger pack, crouching submissively. Reirei and Goigoi, the pack's alpha female and male, slowly approached him. With Alice, Tina, and the other onlookers watching with baited breath and the rest of the pack similarly watching intently, Reirei and Goigoi stared down carefully at Dogo, still crouched; then they eventually lowered their heads and started sniffing at him. "Moment of truth," Tina whispered to Alice, who nodded her head, fighting with all her willpower to maintain her composure. But eventually, after several nerve wracking minutes, the alpha theriodictis pair relaxed and turned to walk back towards their pack. Dogo stayed rooted to the spot as if uncertain as to what to do next. Reirei and Goigoi came to a stop and turned to look at him, with Reirei regarding him and cocking her head as if indicating for Dogo to follow her and Goigoi. The pup walked a few uneasy steps, and then started rushing confidently along with his tail wagging as he followed the two adults to join up with the rest of his new family.
Alice, Tina, and the rest of the onlookers all sighed in relief. Dogo had a new family. "Well boss," Tina said with a proud smile on her face as she folded her arms across her chest. "Looks like he made it." Alice nodded her head. "Yes he did," she said, half joyful, half sad.
Eventually, everyone left - except Alice, who had decided to stay and watch Dogo with his new family. "I'm really gonna miss you little buddy," she whispered under her breath. But then her communicator unexpectedly went off, startling her. Nevertheless, she managed to draw it out of her belt and answer it. "Denham, over?"
"Sky speaking, over."
Alice's eyes widened. "Oh hey there Adrian," she said. "What's going on?"
"Are you available for a chat in the staff bar?" Adrian asked from the other end of the line. "I'm guessing Dogo's integration went well, and I figured you might need someone to talk to."
"Um...sure, no problem," Alice said, smiling happily. "See you later."
. . . . .
"Sounds good Alice," Adrian said before ending the call and slipping his communicator back in his pocket. He sighed in contentment as he sat at his chosen seat at the staff bar. He had to admit, the recent mission had gone quite well if he did say so himself. And considering how, as per usual, the team had managed to rescue both the target species and a respectable number of additional animals that had lived alongside said target species certainly gave him good reason to feel happy about how well they'd done on this recent mission. At any rate, he'd certainly have a good story to tell Cirrus the next time they had a bonding session together. At the thought of Cirrus, Adrian chuckled as he briefly thought of a fairly recently discovered alleged giant pterosaur from the neighboring Kaiparowits Formation that would have probably been worth rescuing if it had managed to show up during the team's time in Aguja. 'Probably worth considering for the future,' he thought to himself with a smile.
Then he remembered his newly upcoming chat with Alice, and he thought to himself some more. At this point, he was now really starting to feel confident in the possibility that he potentially viewed Alice as more than a friend. Would the upcoming chat with her here at the staff bar be a good time to tell her about as much? He had to admit, considering how recently Cirrus had mated with Nimbus, the timing certainly seemed poetic...
He shook his head side to side. He still didn't truly know for certain just how Alice felt about him. And besides, considering she was one of the first girls his age he'd ever befriended at all, there was no real requirement for him to enter a romantic relationship with her, not to mention the fact that they'd probably have quite a lot to keep them both busy in the days to come. He nodded his head. "Best just keep quiet and fully figure out where we currently stand as friends and how she feels about me personally," he whispered to himself. He looked in the general direction of where the Santa Cruz Savanna Zone was located, smile widening on his face as he felt his confidence in his current decision increase. Yeah, waiting a little longer to fully confirm the exact current status of his dynamic with Alice definitely seemed like the right way to go for the time being. And depending on how things unfolded later, they could either become a couple or perhaps prove better as friends; and he was certain he'd be happy either way.
He nodded his head. All in all, life truly was going well for him since he'd become an employee at Prehistoric Park; even more so than he'd even expected in fact. Not only was his friendship with Drew and Leon well and truly reestablished and stronger than ever, but he'd also made a decent number of additional friends that he'd never have expected to have back in his much more strongly solitary days at school. He chuckled, lifting his right hand and brushing it through the his jet black hair. "Here's to a happy future," he whispered to himself under his breath.
. . . . .
Jack nodded as he stood near Colette, nearby the dire wolf paddock. He'd just had a brief discussion with Nikolai not too long after coming back from the mission. "I've had a chat with Nikolai," he said. "And he says that he's decided to give the new idea the greenlight. The way he sees it, considering how we've got a month's break, there should be just enough time to for us to plan something out." He flashed Colette a thumbs up. "Congratulations Colette," he said. "It looks like my dromas are gonna have some company soon."
"Sounds perfect," said Colette before she then briefly gave Jack a small hug. "Thank you so much Jack," she said. "You've been a really great...friend."
Jack chuckled, hugging her back, feeling very happy indeed as he savored the intimacy of the moment. Suddenly, they were interrupted by an almost amused sounding snarl. Remembering themselves, they broke off and turned to see Nero looking at them, an amused expression on his furry face. At this, they both blushed before Colette cleared her throat awkwardly. "Right then," she said. "I'll tell Willoby and the rest of the team, and we'll discuss with the captain how best to schedule things."
"Awesome."
Jack nodded his head. "See you around Colette." And at that, the two parted ways, Jack heading back to his flat to check on his reptile collection before resuming his keeper duties and Colette heading off to meet up with the rest of the security division.
. . . . .
"So my suspicions were correct?" Leon asked. "Shira's pregnant?"
Yolanda nodded, a joyous smile on her face. "Yep."
At that moment, they were standing together at the primary viewing area at the smilodon fatalis paddock, with Diego and Shira once again relaxing contentedly upon the large rock in the very centre of their exhibit. Leon chuckled, "I suppose that makes another species to add to the breeding program." Yolanda giggled in response, "You can say that again." She nodded her head, "And I will say this, it's going to be interesting to see how the future turns out." Leon snorted in agreement, "No kidding."
Yolanda nodded her head, took a brief look at the napping Diego and Shira, and then looked back at Leon. "And now that I'm thinking about it, I trust that today's mission went well for you?" Leon nodded his head in the affirmative, "Sure did." He flashed Yolanda a thumbs up, a confident grin on his face. "I'll admit, I've had a rough start, but I think I might be starting to get the hang of things."
"That's good to hear," said Yolanda, a proud smile on her face, before she then gave Leon a tight hug. "You've been a great friend Leon," she said. "Thank you." Leon chuckled, and eagerly returned her embrace. "You're welcome Yolanda. I'll try my best not to let you down." Yolanda giggled, "You'd better." The two eventually ended their embrace, and Yolanda turned on her heel and headed back to the vet offices. "See you around Leon," she said as she departed. "Right back at you Yolanda," Leon stated, flashing her a thumbs up as a light blush formed on his face. Once Yolanda had vanished from his sight and hearing range, Leon nodded his head, took one last look at the sleeping Diego and Shira, and then turned around and headed off to see if there was anything else he could do before he returned to his bungalow.
. . . . .
Drew nodded his head, a satisfied smile on his face as he observed the newly-restructured t. rex paddock that the four chiefs of staff were now showing to him. It had now been divided into three – with Rexy and Tyrannor still having roughly half the paddock, but with the other half being divided between Terence and Matilda.
"I take it this meets your approval?" Kyle asked. Drew nodded his head. "Yep," he responded. "I am glad to hear that, Komandir," said Nikolai. "What he said," said Linda. "I have to admit though, I'm still surprised you actually believed us on that." Drew sighed. In a way, he supposed he'd earned that little jab. He'd learned his lesson from Jack and Leon – although the way Kyle and Nikolai had bleated on about it smacked faintly of hypocrisy. "Like I said," Drew then stated. "This should work." He nodded his head. "At least until we figure something out."
"Yeah," Linda agreed. She then checked her watch. "Well, if there's nothing else we need to do here, I suppose we should probably move on." Her colleagues nodded in agreement, as did Drew; and they all split up to get back to whatever they were doing. Drew smiled as he headed off. At this point, he was feeling both very proud of what they'd done – it looked like smooth sailing ahead.
Little did he know that there was a storm on the horizon...in more ways than one.
Rescue Tally:
* Agujaceratops mariscalensis (9: 7 adults, 2 youngsters; 4 male, 5 female)
* Agujatyrannus major (7; 4 adults, 3 youngsters; 4 male, 3 female)
* Akainacephalus johnsoni (7; 4 adults, 3 youngsters; 3 male, 4 female)
* Angulomastacator daviesi (9; 6 adults, 3 youngsters; 4 male, 5 female)
* Aquilarhinus palimentus (12; 8 adults, 4 youngsters; 6 male, 6 female)
* Deinosuchus riograndensis (5; 2 adults, 3 youngsters; 2 male, 3 female)
* Gryposaurus monumentensis (10; 6 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 male, 5 female)
* Hagryphus giganteus (9; all adults; 5 male, 4 female)
* Kosmoceratops richardsoni (10; 6 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 male, 5 female)
* Leptorhynchos gaddisi (7; all adults; 3 male, 4 female)
* Malefica deckerti (12; 8 adults, 4 youngsters; 6 male, 6 female)
* Mirarce eatoni (8; all adults; 4 male, 4 female)
* Nasutoceratops titusi (10; 6 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 male, 5 female)
* Navajodactylus boerei (11; all adults; 6 male, 5 female)
* Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus (11; 7 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 male, 6 female)
* Saurornitholestes langstoni (9; all adults; 5 male, 4 female)
* Talos sampsoni (13; 9 adults, 4 youngsters; 7 male, 6 female)
* Teratophoneus curriei (9; 5 adults, 4 youngsters; 5 male, 4 female)
* Texacephale langstoni (13; 7 adults, 6 youngsters; 6 male, 7 female)
* Utahceratops gettyi (8; all adults; 4 male, 4 female)
* Yehuecauhceratops mudei (9; 6 adults, 3 youngsters; 5 male, 4 female)
Next time on Prehistoric Park Reimagined:
A storm has come to Prehistoric Park.
(A flash of lightning goes off, illuminating the main entrance to Prehistoric Park as a storm rages.)
In more ways than one.
(Smokey and Diego roar at each other.)
And as things go from bad...
(The lights go out in Khatin's lab.)
...to worse...
(A large paddock gate swings open on its own.)
...and tensions finally erupt...
(Kyle and Nikolai glare hatefully at each other inside the park's main control room, fists clenched and teeth gritted as Drew looks angrily at both of them.)
...to vicious results...
(Dag, Nero, and their respective packs all snarl at each other by the dromaeosaurus paddock.)
...the park's ability to survive...
(Duke and his pack hiss warily at Jack and Colette, who are accompanied by the dire wolves. In reply, Nero snarls at Duke.)
...will be put to the test.
(Jack and Colette stand in the rain, determined smiles on their faces as they each hold a tranquilizer gun.)
And as more and more obstacles...
(Arlo bellows at a saurophaganax, which roars at him in response.)
...continue to arise...
(Matilda roars at Gideon, who swings his tail threateningly in her direction.)
...can the park come out of this crisis triumphant and stronger than ever?
(Cirrus and various Hell Creek herbivores bellow and squawk at an allosaurus.)
Or is Prehistoric Park doomed to end...
(A crazed Rommel hisses savagely at Dermot, who swishes his tail side to side threateningly.)
...before it has even truly begun?
(Terrence and Matilda circle each other, snarling angrily, before then lunging at each other with a loud bellow in unison as a flash of lightning and burst of thunder go off in the distance.)
Find out next time, on Prehistoric Park Reimagined: Hell's Labyrinth!