Life in Transition

"You do know today's inspection day, right?"

At Alice's statement, Drew turned to look at her and Adrian, who were standing in his office. It had been an entire week since the day of the cryolophosaurus mission; and as promised by Theodore, today was both the day of the newest mission *and* the inspection. He smiled at her, before shrugging, "Yeah, but Nikolai can handle it." Alice and Adrian looked at each other. Drew sighed, "Anyway, Theodore's suggested we go after smaller game today – Tiktaalik." He pressed a button and a picture of a creature that looked like a cross between a lungfish and a salamander was projected onto the white board. Alice nodded, "One of the first tetrapods. Nice."

Drew nodded, "Yup – apparently, Tiktaalik is the common ancestor of all land vertebrates… which is neat. There was also a lot of other semi-terrestrial fishapods, which is what they're called, by the way, living alongside the tiktaalik. Shame we couldn't get something bigger, but, maybe there's stuff that lived with it…" Alice and Adrian looked at each other at Drew's rambling. As if noticing this, Drew shrugged and said, "Anyway, let's get to the portal – we don't have all the time in the world, do we?" He chuckled at the joke. Adrian rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said. "Let's get going."

And so, a quarter of an hour later, the rescue trio for the day was ready to go. With a thumbs up from Drew, the attending technician entered in the necessary coordinates, and the portal was summoned. Drew gave a determined look at the portal. "Let's go," he said. And at that, onward the trio went through the portal and into the late Devonian Ellesmere Island Canada!

As the blinding light from the portal died down, the first thing they noticed was the large amount of trees; the land was covered in large forests, with tall trees stretching as far as the eye could see. In the air, they could hear the buzzing of insects and, on the forest floor, they could see millipede-like creatures crawling through the leaf litter.

They snapped out of their awe at this beautiful scene, for a few minutes. Drew turned to his team and said, "Can you believe that, in 350 million years or so, this is gonna be freezing tundra?" Adrian turned to Drew, "Tiktaalik was amphibious," he said, hoping to get Drew fully back on track. "That means, whilst it can go onto land, it has to stay near the water. I say we go to the nearest large body of water and look there." They looked through the trees just in time to find a large waterfall, cascading down to a wide river. Alice breathed out "I'm guessing we look there."

. . . . .

Meanwhile, Nikolai was sitting in the meeting room and waiting for the Novum officials who would be visiting today. He was standing alone; Drew had gone on his latest mission to the past today (total coincidence, he insisted) and had delegated the task to him. Nikolai rolled his eyes. Drew shirking his responsibilities; some things never changed. Suddenly, his mind was brought back to reality by the sound of knocking on the door.

Walking up to it, Nikolai opened to find a small group of people, led by a tall, thin, bespectacled man wearing a business suit standing at the door. The man had thinning dark brown hair, large glasses and a twitchy demeanor, and the sweat pouring down his skin showed that the heat was not agreeing with him.

The man extended his hand and said, "I'm here for the, uh, inspection. My name's Steve Woodward". Nikolai took it and said, "My name is Nikolai Koshkin. I'm the park's Head of Security." Woodward darted his eyes around the room, as if expecting someone else to pop out, "Where's Mr. Luczynski? Given he's in charge, I thought he'd want to be here…"

Nikolai rolled his eyes and said, "Sadly, Drew had what he considered to be greater priorities." Nikolai couldn't help but notice a young, dark-haired woman in the group, about the same age as Drew, Leon and Adrian, rolling her eyes, before he continued, "However, two of the Deputy Keepers, who were involved in bringing back many of our animals, have remained here – they will be joining us soon and they can fill you in with anything the mission reports may have left out." Woodward smiled, "Well, where's our first stop then?"

. . . . .

Drew, Adrian and Alice had just arrived at the waterfall. The area was noticeable by its quietness; there was a suspicious and surprising absence of primitive tetrapods. Drew looked around sheepishly, "Uh, Alice, I think we might have miscalculated. There aren't any Tiktaalik there." Alice gave him a look, "They might have heard us coming and are hiding underwater. Give me one of the goggles, I'll investigate."

Alice strapped on one of the goggles and put her head in the water. The water was surprisingly murky; visibility was poor. However, one thing was clear; she could find no primitive tetrapods of any kind. She then noticed a large entity swimming towards them. From what she could see of it, it was a fish, and it was big. Alice quickly re-emerged from the water just in time to dodge the monstrous aquatic predator which breached on to land, with the speed of an ambushing alligator.

Drew, Adrian and Alice ran further up the shore bank to see what they had encountered. It was a gigantic fish; from head to tail, it must have been the size of a great white shark. It was predominantly grey in color with several darker green stripes running down its back and patches of red on its fins. The fish gave out a bellow of disappointment and rage as its prey escaped. The three stopped to catch their breaths; they thought that they were safe. The large fish gave them a cold look; it would not be cheated of its prey so easily. Using its gigantic front fins to push itself forward, it began to haul itself onto land and continue the hunt.

. . . . .

"So, you're nervous about the inspection?"

At Jack's statement, Leon turned and shrugged, "A bit – I'm dreading the day this park is open. I don't do well when there's crowds." Jack shrugged, "That's just how life is, innit? People come here and see the animals – that's how we make money. Anyway, the Smilodon cubs are looking good."

Jack and Leon were walking back to control – they had just been to the smilodon fatalis paddock, to see Diego, Shira and their cubs. Chuckling, Jack smiled, "You know, big cats aren't really my thing, but… they sure are cute. And you were there when they were born, which kind of makes you family in a way".

At this, Leon smiled at the memory of the birth, two months before. As the staff had gathered around the CCTV, Leon had been sitting there for twelve hours, the longest out of anybody, watching as Shira thoroughly licked each cub clean once it had been born and placed it in a corner of the house, before the next was born. He'd even been allowed to help decide upon names for the three cubs, an opportunity he'd eagerly accepted. Whilst Jack was joking, he honestly did feel like he was family.

Eventually, they approached the control building, to see Nikolai standing with a group of people, all dressed in official suits, led by a tall, thin, and bespectacled dark brown-haired man who was clearly not doing well in the heat. The sound of a gasp caused Jack to turn to see Leon looking at the dark-haired young woman with them, his eyes widened in horror. Confused, Jack said, "Do you know her?"

Leon nodded and said, in a voice from beyond the grave, "It's Fiona."

. . . . .

Drew, Adrian and Alice were in a bad situation; the large fish, using its massive pectoral fins, was currently getting closer and closer to them. The trio stood, paralyzed by fear, as the creature continued its remorseless advance. They were surprised when the predator stopped and even more so when it suddenly lunged at them, with a speed belying its massive bulk, missing Adrian's leg by inches. Then it did something surprising; it retreated. It didn't have enough energy to continue chasing them and it was getting too far from the water. The prey had won this round. The massive fish continued to crawl back into the river and then it dived back in, to the murky depths from whence it came. The three explorers looked at each other in silence, before Alice turned to Drew and asked, "What do we do now?".

Suddenly, she sniffed the air, before gagging. "Eugh," she groaned. "Do you guys smell that?" Seconds later, Drew and Adrian got a whiff of the same scent, at which point they heaved, eyes widening and retched disgustedly at the smell.

"Good grief," Adrian retched, panting and gasping from the odor. "What is that?"

"Smells like a carcass," Drew groaned, trying to hold his breath from the stench. At this, Drew's eyes widened as he finally realized the significance of what he'd just said. "A carcass on land could attract anything!" He snapped his fingers. "Maybe not Tiktaalik, but a lot of other things!"

"I knew you'd have a plan," Adrian managed to say.

"Glad that I didn't disappoint," Drew stated, without missing a beat. Smiling confidently, despite the smell, he pointed his finger in the direction. "Let's get a move on!"

Alice and Adrian promptly gulped, grimacing nervously as they realized that they'd now have to go towards the disgusting smell.

"This ought to be fun," Adrian growled.

"You said it," Alice hissed, "This had better be worth it."

. . . . .

"What is she doing here? What is she doing here?"

This thought repeated through Leon's head like a mantra. Confused, Jack turned to him and said, "Is that the girl who you didn't like in school?" Leon silently nodded, before saying, "Well, it's not that I didn't like her without good reason – she treated me like dirt…" Jack shrugged and said, "Well, maybe she won't recognize you…"

"Well, I never! If it isn't Leon!"

After hearing this, Leon gave him a cold look as Jack grimaced awkwardly as they turned to see Fiona walking up to them, a neutral look on her face. She'd clearly spoken in faux-surprise – the way she was acting… she'd almost expected to see Leon. She turned to look to Jack and said, "Who is this?" Jack stepped forward and said, awkwardly, "Jack Denham, Deputy Keeper and reptile and amphibian head. I helped bring back a lot of the animals… alongside Leon. He did a lot too."

Fiona gave him a puzzled look, before saying "Whatever", before walking off. Jack turned to Leon and said, "Doesn't seem intent on causing anything… of course, that could be professionalism…" Leon sighed, "Whatever. The sooner this is over the better."

. . . . .

Meanwhile, at the veterinary station, Linda and her team were hard at work on treating one of their newest patients. Earlier in the week, the male cryolophosaurus, named Elvis, had been seen multiple times limping on his left foot, prompting the vets and keepers to make the call to have him brought to the vets to see what was wrong. And now, after an examination, they'd figured it out.

"One of his toe claws has ingrown," Linda said as she pointed at the guilty claw in question. "It's been digging into the skin of his foot." "Yeesh, no wonder he got so cranky this morning," Bethany muttered. "I'll say," Yolanda agreed before shuddering. "Well on the bright side," Harry stated. "At least now we've figured it out."

This was true, for ingrown claws were surprisingly easy to fix. Nodding her head, Linda reached into her veterinary equipment bag and drew out a large claw clipper tool specially designed for use on large animals before she then started to carefully trim down the area that was cutting into Elvis's toe while Yolanda watched carefully and the other vets made sure to keep the sleeping Elvis still and calm. This would need to be continued in small amounts over the next few days until the inflammation and swelling had been treated. But for now, while still at a not entirely natural length, the guilty claw was now at least no longer digging into its own owner's foot. And once this was done, Linda got straight to work applying antiseptics and anti-inflammatories to the wound to reduce swelling and lower the risk of infection.

Her communicator went off not too long after she'd finished applying the necessary creams and sprays to Elvis's foot, and she answered as quickly as possible. "Dr. Eberhart speaking, over?"

"This is Koshkin," said Nikolai's voice on the other end. "The inspection team has arrived and we've chosen to drop by the veterinary facilities first. Anybody we could spare?"

"I'll do it," Yolanda said, nodding her head with a wide smile on her face. "Boss, you need."

Linda nodded her head. "Go ahead and greet them at the gate. I'll do all your tasks."

"As you wish," said Yolanda as she turned on her heel and departed from the operating room. Nodding her head, Linda returned her attention to her call with Nikolai. "Alright Nikolai, you can expect to have my assistant meet up with you at the entrance to the veterinary facility. She and I will both join you from there once I've finished up some important finishing touches."

. . . . .

In a rather serendipitous bit of timing, the inspection team arrived at the veterinary facility within minutes after Yolanda had taken her planned position at the facility's main gate. She nodded her head at the sight of the inspection team coming towards her, her smile briefly widening and eyes brightening ever so slightly upon recognizing Leon amongst the group before she then returned her full attention to the rest of the group. "Good morning Mr. Woodward," she said as she looked to the man she immediately recognized as one of the senior members of the Novum Board. "Welcome to Prehistoric Park."

"Pleasure's all ours Mrs. Hall," Woodward stated as he nodded his head. "I take it from what I overheard from Captain Koshkin's call with your boss that Dr. Eberhart will be joining us later?"

"That's correct," Yolanda said, smile still on her face. "We've just recently finished work on a potentially dangerous patient and she didn't want to take any undue risks while said patient was still outside proper containment." "A reasonable concern," Woodward admitted as he nodded his head. "I trust that I won't have any need to introduce all my colleagues here to you?"

"Yep, no need for introductions," said Yolanda as she quickly looked around at all the other members of the small group that had accompanied Woodward. And indeed she could largely recognize them all. There were at least three of Woodward's fellow senior board members, five or six of Novum's best lawyers...

...her eyebrow rose and a clear look of confusion came on her face as she caught sight of one young woman amongst the group she definitely hadn't already been familiar with in some way or other before today. "Except maybe for you Mrs...?"

"Winters."

The young woman nodded her head, extending her hand out towards Yolanda as if for a handshake. "Fiona Winters, junior board member."

Yolanda's eyes widened at this name, and her face paled. Leon's eyes also widened without Yolanda noticing, but for a much different reason. "She's a member of the Novum board?!", he thought to himself. When had that happened?! Last he could remember, she'd been working for some comparatively minor company that would have at best served as one of Novum's sponsors. But now, according to what he'd just heard, she was apparently not only working for Novum itself, but also had a position on its executive board! Therefore, in a matter of speaking, he was technically working for her! "Fudge," he thought to himself bitterly. "This is even worse than I thought!" Then he noticed the wide eyed Yolanda surreptitiously looking his way with an expression that seemed to be asking, "Is this who I think it is?" And at that, he nodded his head in the affirmative.

Yolanda saw Leon nodding, before turning to look at Fiona, her hazel eyes briefly narrowing into a glare before she regained her composure and extended her own hand out to politely engage in Fiona's offered handshake. "Nice to finally meet you then ma'am," she managed to say as she shook the junior board member's hand.

Fiona raised her eyebrow in clear intrigue. "Finally? How do you know who I am?"

"You could say that," Yolanda said blankly while remaining civil. "I have a...friend...who's rather familiar with you, to put it politely."

"Mmh-hmm," Fiona said, an almost intrigued expression. She knew exactly who Yolanda meant… and there was something interesting in Yolanda's tone.

"Sorry I'm late." The entire gathered group looked in the direction of Linda's voice in time to see Linda herself walking up to a stop not too far behind Yolanda. "Just had to transfer one of the cryolophosaurus to a recovery pen."

"Ah yes," said Woodward, nodding his head. "The most recent acquisitions." He looked to Nikolai. "Anything we should know about since the Shutdown?"

Nikolai shook his head. "Nothing, sir."

"He's right," said Linda. "We did have to treat one of the new arrivals almost immediately after he'd arrived, but he had those injuries when he was found. I'm afraid I won't be able to accompany you for the rest of the day, but my assistant", she gestured to Yolanda, "should be able to fill you in on anything you need to know."

"Well I suppose," Fiona stated, "Perhaps our next stop should be where the cryolophosaurus are kept?"

The rest of the group all looked to Nikolai, who nodded his head. "A fair request," he said. "And it's not too far away from here."

"Excellent," said Fiona, drawing out a notebook, "Shall we get this tour started then?"

As the group entered the vet offices, Yolanda quite pointedly took a position next to Leon, giving a reassuring smile, with Jack doing the same. Leon let a small weak smile come on his face. As much as he wasn't looking forward to this, at least he had two of his friends there.

. . . . .

Following the odour, the rescue team found a dead specimen of the giant fish they'd encountered earlier lying on the shore, a log impaled through its guts. Drew winced, "Oh, nasty. Must have been beached." Alice gagged and said, "It must have been lying here for days – not many creatures living on land means not many scavengers.

Suddenly, a brown-colored eurypterid about three feet long, skittered out of the water and moved towards the carcass, sinking its claws in it and beginning to drag it away. Surprisingly, a few seconds later, others emerged from the water, sinking their pincers into the carcass, before dragging it back into the water..

At the sight, Adrian and Alice, confused, turned to Drew, who said, "Eurypterids – probably Stylonurus." He narrowed his eyes – there was something odd about the way the eurypterids had carried the dead fish. Strangely synchronized… He banished these thoughts to the mind, before saying "Well, let's get our diving gear on and follow them, shall we?

Having donned their diving gear, the team followed the line of eurypterids to an underwater grotto. What they saw inside amazed them. Two large scorpions stood in the centre of the cave – the largest the size of an alligator, with a distended abdomen and paddle-like legs in place of the others' long walking legs, whilst the other was slightly smaller, but darker in coloration.

Impressively clawed fighting morphs surrounded them, snapping at anything that came near – as the smaller eurypterids began depositing food. At the sight, Drew narrowed his eyes and said, "Woah – I think this is a colony. Like a termite colony." Adrian and Alice looked at him sceptically, to which he shrugged, "Think about it – those two are the king and queen, the little ones are the workers and the ones with the big claws are soldiers." Looking at the colony further, Alice said, "Actually… I think you're right. The question is… how are we going to get this lot through the portal?" Drew chuckled, "I have a plan, Ally. I have a plan." Alice and Adrian looked at each other.

As silently as he could, Drew swam up to the dead sarcopterygian and put a hooking tool into its tail. Swimming back to Adrian and Alice, he pressed the button and began to pull the dead fish away. The scorpions, realizing their prize was being dragged away, began to advance towards it. Once they had gotten close enough, Drew activated the portal and threw the dead sarcopterygian through – the whole swarm, including the king and queen dived through the portal, into the present.

Once they had all gone through, Alice turned to Drew and asked, "Shouldn't we have radioed ahead?" Drew chuckled, "I thought that we should keep it a surprise. Eusocial sea scorpions? Khatin would freak at the chance of documenting this, am I right?" Alice and Adrian rolled their eyes.

. . . . .

"Nine undiscovered species you say?"

Will Darrow nodded his head. At that moment, the inspection team had finished their time at the veterinary facility and since arrived at the Hanson Formation exhibit zone as per Fiona's request. And Will himself had been in the midst of doing some behavioural observations on the Antarctican temnospondyls when he'd seen the inspection team arrive and this woman had begun asking him questions. "Yup," he said politely before gesturing with his arm to indicate the entire exhibit zone. "Out of the fifteen species brought back of them were completely undiscovered in the fossil record beforehand."

"Any completely newly discovered animals particular you could point out right this very moment?"

"There's two newly discovered species of temnospondyl in this exhibit right behind me," Will answered as he gestured to where the tank. "There's also a small aviary full of a newly discovered dimorphodontid species, a newly discovered heterodontosaur species and two newly discovered sauropodomorphs living alongside the glacialisaurus, two new species of cynodonts, a pack of Jurassic coelophysids, and the especially attention grabbing new species of dilophosaur pseudodilophosaurus denhammi."

"Denhami?" Fiona said, her eyebrow raised upon hearing the species name. She directed a sidelong look towards Jack and said, "So I assume you two know each other…" "Yeah – however, Will might have had another Denham in mind," Jack said with a grin on his face, clearly having heard her.

Fiona rolled her eyes, jotted down a few notes on her notepad, and looked back to Will. "We've already been informed that there's been no issues, but I wanted confirmation…"

Will nodded his head, understanding where Fiona was coming from despite not feeling entirely certain it was necessary. "Yeah, they're correct," he stated. "A few blips, but nothing really serious – these are animals nobody's ever seen alive." He nodded his head once more. "Believe me, after the incident with the hurricane three weeks ago, nobody's taking chances."

"I can imagine," Fiona said, nodding her head in understanding as she wrote some more things down in her notepad. She looked at Will once more. "How many other previously unrecorded species have you found?"

"Well there's a lot in the Morrison and Lourinha formation exhibit zones, but that's mostly small stuff" Will admitted. "Maeverano has a couple of big ones – some pterosaurs and two kinds of herbivorous crocodiles. There's also the La Pampa Plains zone not too far away from Maevarano, which has four previously undiscovered species."

"Works for me." Fiona nodded her head and turned around to rejoin her colleagues. "Have a nice day Mr. Darrow."

. . . . .

Half an hour later, after finishing touring around both the Hanson Formation and Maevarano Formation exhibit zones, the inspection team was now being led towards the research offices.

"Given these creatures have never been studied alive, we understandably have quite a large research department. Aside from helping us work out how to maintain them, we hope that our studies into these creatures, combined with observations of their behaviour in their home times, will glean new insights into multiple aspects of their biology and behaviour that were previously inaccessible. Understandably, we hope to share them to the world one day."

Collete, Jack, Yolanda, and Leon looked at each other at this rather verbose statement from the usually taciturn Nikolai, as they entered the research buildings. And from there, it wasn't long before the group reached Khatin's lab. The lab was cluttered – papers and notes lay everywhere, with a skull being used as a paperweight, whilst Khatin sat a desk, writing something down as a small lizard-croc walked around a tank, looking rather bemused. Nodding, Nikolai said, "This is Khatin von Schorzberg, our head of research – he's currently occupied at the moment, as you can see."

Confused, Woodward turned to Nikolai, "Will we not be speaking to him?" Nikolai shook his head, "No – he said he had, and I quote. 'better things to do today than talk to a bunch of people in suits'. Khatin is rather blunt, I hasten to add." At this, Fiona rolled her eyes and muttered, under her breath, "What possessed Theodore to make this guy the head of research?". Looking rather irritated, Leon said, defensively, "Now, Khatin may seem… tactless at times and a bit eccentric, but he is a genius," as they watched Khatin pick up his communicator, nodding as someone spoke and responding quietly.

Suddenly, at some statement from the other end, Khatin's eyes widened and he jumped to attention, with a look of excitement on his face, letting out a high-pitched squeal of excitement. At this, Jack narrowed his eyes and said, "Aaand… He's squealing and is literally running around the room. Three laps and counting. And now he's doing a fist-pump whilst jumping up and down. And now he's run off."

At Woodward and the inspection team's confusion, Nikolai sighed, "This doesn't happen very often, I swear."

. . . . .

After the scorpions had been brought back, the rescue team had returned to shore and made camp. Whilst Drew was looking out by the lake with a glum and mopey glare on his face and Adrian was looking through the notes, Alice had opened the food packets and began using the camping stove. Alice turned to Adrian and asked, "Any luck discovering what the killer fish was?"

Adrian looked intently at the book as he nosed through it, "Not yet, but I'm sure that it's somewhere in this-AHA found it!" He walked over to where she was and showed her a picture of a large fish that looked exactly like the one that attacked them. Adrian began to read what the page said, "Eusthenodon; a large, predatory sarcopterygian that was one of the apex predators of the Devonian riverways. Whilst they were mostly confined to the water, they may have had the ability to move on land for short periods of time, in order to catch their prey." Adrian thought to himself. "Yeah, we know that's true now'." Alice sat, waiting for the food to heat up, and listened very closely. Once Adrian had finished reading, he closed the book, and turned to Drew, "We found the apex predator right off the bat – you should be pretty pleased." The still uncharacteristically mopey Drew shrugged and looked out to the lake as a flash of silver moved across the surface, saying "Yeah – cool."

Scanning the air, Alice awkwardly asked, "So… Drew, Adrian tells me you know the new girl, Cynthia?" At this statement, Drew turned to Alice, and said, quietly, "Yes?" At his expression, Alice grimaced, "And Adrian also said you used to be together with her romantically? What happened…"

"SHUT UP!"

At the aggressive response, Alice recoiled and Adrian looked at him angrily. Regaining his composure, Drew sighed and said, "Sorry – it's just a touchy subject for me… Adrian knows why. It wasn't your fault… I overreacted." Alice shrugged, "Yeah, I shouldn't have brought it up." Drew sighed, "I'm turning in – Adrian, the watch is yours." He got up and walked to his tent, leaving Alice and Adrian alone.

. . . . .

"So this one's Rommel you say?"

Matt nodded, gesturing towards the male dimetrodon in question as he looked over a nest full of eggs alongside Otrera. "Yup," he said. "And, as you can see, the Dimetrodon recently laid their eggs – one of the earliest species we've begun a successful breeding programme for. Kyle's bonded quite strongly with him."

It had been an hour since the inspection team's rather awkward 'meeting' with Khatin. And right now, their work for the inspection had led them all the way to the Red Beds exhibit zone, just in time to encounter Matt while he'd been busy keeping an eye out on Rommel and the rest of the dimetrodon as they continued watching over their eggs."

"And he was the one that the report said was terrorizing everyone working at this zone?"

It took all of Matt's willpower not to roll his eyes at being reminded of how Drew had rather grossly exaggerated the incident that Woodward was now bringing up. "A bit of an exaggeration – all the males were acting like that," Matt stated. "It was the mating season. He can be temperamental at times, but really only when provoked. And yes, he and Otrera were infected with that mysterious 'hate plague' over the storm, but they've returned to normal."

"I presume there's been no incidents regarding any of the other animals?"

"Yup."

"I see."

Woodward took note of Matt's responses in his notebook while the rest of the assembled tour/inspection group watched from behind him. "You say that Mr. Taymor has formed a particularly strong bond with Rommel," Woodward then said to Matt. "Where can we find him, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Last I heard, he was in the Hell Creek zone." Matt gestured in the general direction of the exhibit zone in question. "It's that way in case that's where you'd like to go next once you're done in the Red Beds zone."

"Sounds perfect," said Woodward. He looked in the direction of the one member of the inspection group who'd still been busy performing a safety measurement of the sphenacodon paddock's outer walls, just in time to see said inspection group member finish rolling up his tape measure and flash a thumbs up "We've just finished our work in this zone anyway."

. . . . .

"So this is the where the tyrannosaurus live?"

"Aye," said Kyle, nodding his head as he stood before the inspection group at the front viewing area of the t. rex paddock. He gestured towards the interior, where Rexy and Tyrannor were now currently taking a drink at their shared water hole, Terrence was feasting upon a freshly provided cow carcass, and Matilda was morosely scouting the edges of her territory while occasionally snarling bitterly in the direction of the fencing separating her from her brother.

"So we can," said Steve as he nodded his head. "I understand that there has been some… incidents at this paddock"

"Regrettably yes," Kyle answered. "Basically, Matilda started bullying Terence – culminating in an incident where she beat him up pretty badly. That's how he got those scars. We had to divide the paddock into three for his safety. We're hoping to find a way around this, but… it seems to work."

"Interesting", Woodward said, before turning to Kyle, "A couple more questions before we go to the next zone on our tour," he said. "To start, about how many species does the park currently have?"

"At the moment? Four hundred and sixteen," said Kyle.

"That's a lot," said Steven, sounding slightly impressed that Kyle had even successfully counted all the species present.

"I can definitely agree with you there," Kyle said, a slight chuckle entering his voice as he did so. "I presume there's another question you wanted to ask?"

"Yes."

Woodward directed a noticeably serious look towards Kyle. "Alright now Mr. Taymor. I want you to answer honestly here. What problems have you had in the park?"

Kyle nodded his head. "Quite a few," he admitted. "Of course, you know what we've been doing is unprecedented."

"Too true," Woodward admitted.

"And for specific examples," Kyle then stated. "The compys escaped for a while thanks to an oversight on the design of their exhibit. Initial efforts at integrating Arlo the apatosaurus with the larger herd hit a few road blocks. There was a period of enmity between the dire wolves and Pleistocene coyotes as well as a rivalry between a smilodon named Diego and an arctodus named Smokey. The teratornis have proven rather unpredictable, with the male escaping at one point. The two adolescent quetzalcoatlus males fought for a while. The tyrannosaurus have undergone some rather bloody family drama. Mr. Thompson has already informed you about the dimetrodon. We had to undergo a time of trial and error in order to determine an appropriate food source for the titanichthys. And, of course, you're all aware of the Shutdown. And admittedly, there may or may not have been a couple scuffles or so between some of the staff."

He nodded his head in acceptance. "But as you can see, everything's still standing."

"That you have. Thank you." Woodward nodded his head, a satisfied look on his face as he quickly noted down everything Kyle had told him. "Now then," he said, noticing that the rest of the group was ready. He then looked back to Kyle. "If you're not already busy at the moment, would you mind joining us and helping your colleagues show us the smilodons?"

. . . . .

An hour or so later, the inspection team had successfully been toured through and gotten their work finished in the Santa Cruz Savannahs exhibit zone and were slowly nearing the point of being able to say the same for the La Brea Grand Vista. And at that moment, the entire combined group of park staff and inspectors were gathered at the smilodon fatalis paddock, where Diego and Shira could be seen proudly watching over their three cubs. Leon chuckled at the sight of Diego and Shira's two sons Blag and Ka-Zar playfully wrestling while their daughter Iorunn play-stalked a rock. Yolanda smiled in turn.

Colette, who had joined the group when they'd reached the area, couldn't help but raise her eyebrow as she noticed something odd. She leaned towards Jack, looking towards him from the corner of her eyes. "Is it just me?", she whispered, "Or is that girl you say tormented your bunny hugger buddy in school actually *smiling* at those three cubs?"

Jack looked in the direction Colette was pointing. Sure enough, he could see Fiona visibly smiling as she watched Blag, Ka-Zar, and Iorunn playing around in their exhibit. Moving surreptitiously so as to not attract attention from Fiona or anyone else, he tapped Leon and Yolanda on the shoulders and pointed in Fiona's direction. Naturally, they to were quite surprised to see Fiona happily smiling as she watched the smilodon cubs play together.

As Kyle and Woodward observed the Smilodon family, the latter pointed to Diego. "That's the one?" Woodward asked. "The one who fought with the bear, I mean?"

"That's correct," said Kyle. He nodded his head. "We should be fine here… but, if he thinks you're a threat, well… let's just say there's not much you could do to stop him."

"I can imagine," Fiona said, nodding her head as she jotted down some notes in her notepad before looking back at the cubs, leaning slightly over the railing of the paddock in the process with a smile still on her face. "Imagine what this lot will be like when they're older."

Leon raised his eyebrow. "Who are you and what have you done to Fiona Winters?", he thought confusedly to himself.

A sudden snarling caused the entire group to look back towards Diego in time to see the mighty Smilodon slowly stalking his way over towards the fence they were gathered around, his yellow eyes fixed on Fiona, before coming to a stop three feet away from the paddock wall and growling at her.

A confused Kyle turned to the startled Fiona. "You may want to move back away from the fence a little, Ms. Winters," he said politely. "He probably sees you as a threat."

"I'd do as he suggests," said Woodward, "I wouldn't want to be in his sights when he's angry."

Fiona nodded, and hurriedly stepped back several feet. In seconds, Diego visibly relaxed, stood up straight, and snorted, before turning around and loping back over to where Shira and the cubs were positioned. Leon and Yolanda couldn't help but surreptitiously smirk at the sight of this. "You tell her Diego", Leon thought to himself.

Nikolai walked over to where Kyle and Steve were positioned. "I trust there's nothing else that needs to be done here, Mr. Woodward?"

Steve nodded his head. "That would be correct sir." He looked to the rest of the group, before asking, "On to La Pampa Plains."

. . . . .

After Drew had left, Adrian and Alice were still sitting around the campfire. They were currently conversing with each other and had reached what had apparently been a rather embarrassing incident from one of Leon's past zookeeper gigs.

"And then just when he thought that he'd gotten on the wolf's good side, it peed on his shoe!"

Alice burst out laughing, as Adrian told his story. "Let's say that he was not happy. And he maintains it was coincidental, but I swear to this day that's why he's a cat person." He thought to himself. "Family dog Octavius notwithstanding."

Alice chuckled a couple more times, wiping the mirthful tears from her eyes. "Wow, you guys have known each other for a long time." Adrian smiled and said, "Oh yeah, we've known each other since we were in middle school. What about you, any old friends on staff?" She gave a shrug in response, "A couple, a couple; Will I was at school with since we were both very young, and we both met Matt at university. Honestly, I was never really the social type." In response to this, Adrian shrugged. "Eh, some people like being alone. Everybody's different."

Alice shook her head. "No, let me rephrase; it's not that I didn't want friends, it's just that I was never good at making them. So I just stopped trying after a while – Jack kept trying, however… and, sometimes, it got him into trouble…" She shook her head, "That's how he's always been. low self-esteem, crippling status anxiety and the realization that there's only so much you can do to plaster a smile on a broken soul. You try living, knowing your brother is wrangling dinosaurs; that's why I took this job in the first place. I needed to keep an eye on him" She paused to look at Adrian. "That's the problem with places like this; truth pours out."

She looked around and said, almost conspiratorially, "What happened between Drew and the new girl, Cynthia? I know they were exes, but, from the way Drew hit the roof…"

Adrian sighed – he knew this was coming. Until this point, the conversation had been rather interesting - he'd never heard anything about Jack and Alice's childhoods. He'd known them for over a year, but, until now, their pasts were a mystery. Breathing out, he continued, "Well, Cynthia was the head cheerleader and Drew was the star of the basketball team – one day, they met and, well, they hit it off. Drew was considered a pretty good catch in his own right – I guess opposites attract."

Alice nodded. "I suppose that kind of makes sense," she admitted. She looked in the direction of the sleeping Drew. "So… how did you and Leon take it? Them being together, I mean."

Adrian nodded his head in agreement before he then continued, "It wasn't great for me and Leon – especially Leon." He shook his head side to side, a brief frown coming on his face at some rather unpleasant memories. "Whenever either of them dragged us to a party, we didn't fit in – we weren't really the party kind of people, and we stuck out like sore thumbs every time. Leon really didn't like her for all that – plus, admittedly, for one other reason. But, I'm not going to tell you what happened in the breakup – what friend would I be if I did that?"

Alice nodded. "It's fine – I probably overstepped. And, yeah, I suppose there's more to people than they show to the outside world; they show people what they want to see. If you want to get the measure of a person, don't look at what they show on the surface... look at what they try to hide." She looked around, "Amazing, isn't it?"

Adrian raised his eyebrow, "What?"

"Just how all this happened in 50 million years, there are massive forests, breathable air and the first land vertebrates! Tiktaalik, what we're going after today, is the reason why every land vertebrate, from dinosaurs to frogs to us, is here today. Without it… we wouldn't be here. It's weird and unusual and… beautiful. Just beautiful."

Adrian raised his eyebrow in response and smiled, "Well, that's what we've learnt from the history of the world; life finds a way. It gets past all obstacles, it goes to new environments, makes new leaps; painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life always finds a way."

Alice smiled at him, "Nice insight. Anyway, come on, let's get some sleep. We've got a long day tomorrow. We've got fishapods to find."

. . . . .

The very next morning, when the entire team had woken up and had a quick breakfast of cheese and apple slices, Drew was back to his usual excitable self. "Right then," he said, "Let's not mess around. Today, we are going to get tiktaalik. I can feel it!"

"You're certainly confident this morning," Alice noted, "And… I'm sorry if I brought anything back. "Don't worry about it. I overreacted," Drew said, grin still on his face as he started passing the diving gear over to his two companions while also grabbing his own. "And start getting to work."

Within minutes after they'd all gotten their diving gear back on once more, the trio went straight into the water and started swimming around to look for animals. And it wasn't long before they found some.

"I think I see some bothriolepis," said Adrian as he pointed ahead towards a small school of grey scaled placoderms rooting about on the seabed. Unlike the ones back at the park, these were more greenish in colour. "I know we already have a species at the park but..."

"Let's go ahead and rescue them," said Drew, flashing his friend a thumbs up. "Like we keep saying, no species left behind."

Using the sonar emitter, the team managed to lure the fish through the portal and into the present. From there, they swam off in search of other animals. Within minutes, they found additional fish to send to the park, with Adrian quickly identifying them all.

"The mottled green scaled ones are asterolepis," Adrian said as he pointed out the armoured fish in question rooting about on the seabed near some coral. Next he pointed at some vaguely grey and gold coloured fish with bodies that appeared to be shaped like the heads of the diplocaulus. "Those fish over there are psammolepis." Next he pointed at a school of comparatively tiny fish with orange scaled bodies and grey scaled heads and fins. "Those little guys… I think are lodeacanthus." Finally, he pointed at some cobalt blue scaled and black finned armoured shark-like creatures. "And those fellows here are probably turrisaspis."

Alice whistled silently through her breathing apparatus. "Lot of fish," she said.

Drew chuckled, "Four for the price of one. Let's get ready!" Using the sonar emitter and chum as needed, the trio managed to get all four groups of prehistoric fish through the portal and into the present. Once they were done, Drew said, "Good job, guys…"

"Thanks," said Adrian.

"Where too next?" Alice asked.

The sudden sound of something large moving through the water caused Alice, Adrian, and Drew to look in that direction in time to see two eusthenodon swimming towards something in the distance. Drew smiled, and eagerly pointed his finger in the direction. "We follow those two," he said confidently, his tone indicating no room for argument.

. . . . .

Meanwhile, at the holding tanks back at the park, Captain Stavros Ballas nodded his head with a smile on his tanned face at the sight of the five species of prehistoric fish that had now joined the stylonurus. On account of how the animals for this day's mission were pretty much entirely aquatic, it had been decided that Stavros and his crew would work alongside the holding pens team for today, so Kyle could focus on accompanying the inspection. "As usual, Kapetanio does not disappoint," he said. "No he does not," Kira agreed. The rest of the Ancient Mariner crew, plus the assembled holding pens team for the day, all nodded their heads in agreement.

Khatin, who was still present from his earlier observing of the stylonurus, also nodded his head. "Interesting – the borithelpis are slightly duller than the ones from Gogo Reef – camouflage adaptations." He jotted down his observations in his notepad. "Very fascinating indeed."

"Glad you're enjoying yourself," said Mia, noticing him.

"Hai," said Kira. He nodded his head. "Well then, enough chit chat." He clapped his hands as if to get everyone back on track. "Let's get back to work. The sooner these fish are transferred to elsewhere in the holding tanks, the better."

"As you wish sir!"

. . . . .

Meanwhile, the tour and inspection finally appeared to be winding down and coming to an end at, rather fittingly, the Morrison Formation zone; directly at the front viewing area of the main herbivore paddock to be precise.

"Right, we have had an… interesting day," Woodward stated as the rest of his colleagues finished up their work for the inspection of the zone. Nikolai, Kyle, and Linda nodded – they were honestly surprised at how uneventful today had been – Drew would have hated it. "And", Woodward continued, "tell Mr. Luczynski we had a good time and that we're confident…"

Jack, Leon, Collete and Yolanda had zoned out of the conversation – in their view, the inspection had gone quite well. It was up to the board what could be done with the park and Nikolai, Kyle, and Linda could handle any additional matters. Their job was done – and for Leon, it couldn't have been a moment sooner. Fiona hadn't really paid him any attention, which was good…

His thoughts were suddenly brought back to reality by Fiona's voice. "Oh, Leon, could we speak for a minute? And bring your friends with you?"

At this, they all looked at each other and Leon gulped.

. . . . .

After only a few minutes or so of following the duo they'd caught sight of earlier, the rescue team came upon an entire small group of eusthenodon menacingly swimming in circles around a large group of at least three fishapods. Of the three at risk of getting hunted, nine of them were covered in dark orange scales with patches of light pink and green, eleven of them were dark gray with purplish black backs and had vaguely temnospondyl-like heads, and the remaining thirteen were covered in green and gold scales with swirly black stripes across their bodies as well as vaguely alligator-like heads. Adrian immediately identified all three. "The alligator-like ones are definitely tiktaalik," he said as he pointed at the ancient fishapods, "The ones with the black backs are laccognathus, and the orange ones are panderichthys."

Drew directed a smug grin at his two companions under his diving mask. "What did I tell you? I knew we'd find our target today."

"Then let's stop entertaining the notion," Alice said, a grin of her own now on her face as she drew out the sonic emitter and prepared it for use. "And get back to work."

"You heard her Drew," said Adrian. "What's the plan?"

"I'll handle the eusthenodon," Drew responded almost instantaneously. He pointed to the fishapods, "You and Alice take care of the rest."

This plan agreed upon, Drew got into position directly in between one of the eusthenodon and a conveniently nearby shore from behind the mighty carnivorous sarcopterygian while Adrian and Alice got into position with the sonar emitter with which to attract the tiktaalik, laccognathus, and panderichthys once their eusthenodon assailants were gone. And once Adrian and Alice were ready, Drew acted immediately, reaching forward with both hands and giving the eusthenodon he was positioned behind a quick tug on its tail!

The eusthenodon reacted instantly, snapping its head to look behind it and try to snap its teeth at Drew, who hurriedly let go of the creature's tail and backpedaled swiftly over to the shore and out of the water. And it wasn't long before the entire small pod of eusthenodon bolted over in Drew's direction, all of them now instinctively eager to try to take a bite out of the odd creature that had dared interrupt their hunt. The tiktaalik, laccognathus, and panderichthys had just enough time to very briefly glance around in confusion at what was now unfolding before the sound of the sonar emitter caught their attention; at which point they all swam over in the direction of the sound in unison before ending up sent through the portal and straight to the park for their curiosity.

Meanwhile, as Drew hurriedly prepared himself for what he now planned to do from on land, all thirteen of the eusthenodon lunged out of the water and began chasing him on land - however. Drew was able to grab a portal grenade and chuck it at them and the portal whirred into life, sucking the giant fish through the portal, into the park. "Yes," Drew whooped, punching the air in triumph. "Still got it."

At that moment, Alice and Adrian came out of the water, very much having finished rescuing the tiktaalik, laccognathus, and panderichthys. "I take it that will be all for this mission?" Alice asked. "Yep," Drew stated proudly, flashing her and Adrian a thumbs up. "Let's go home everybody. I'm sure the rest of the park staff will be eager to tell us about the results of the inspection." "No arguments from me there," Adrian stated, nodding his head in agreement. And at that, the portal was set to open at the main terrestrial portal site of the holding tanks area, and then the rescue team promptly returned back to the park.

. . . . .

Meanwhile, back at the park, Fiona and Leon, Jack, Collete and Yolanda had gathered around the front entrance to the Morrison Formation exhibit zone.

Collete stared at Fiona, icy blue eyes locked onto Fiona's chestnut brown ones, her expression unreadable. To be honest, she wasn't really friends with Leon – however, Jack was and, well, she cared about him very deeply, so supporting him was what she had to do. "If you have anything to say, you're best getting it out of the way now. And be careful with how you phrase it," she snarled, an almost wolf-like glare on her face as she did so.

The junior Novum board member looked slightly rattled, clearly having not expected to be spoken to in such a fashion – at this, Jack chuckled, and even Yolanda couldn't help but smirk. Leon sighed, and said, "Collete, please. While it's a lovely gesture, I can fight my own battles." Turning to Fiona, his brown eyes narrowed, Leon stepped forward and growled, "What do you want Fiona?"

Surprisingly, Fiona smiled, "Leon, I wanted to say I'm happy for you." At her statement, Jack took a step back and said, "Woah." Giving him a glare, Fiona continued, "I'm glad you've found a place that has accepted you. I'm glad that you found two good friends…", she gestured to Jack and Collete, who looked at each other awkwardly, "and that you've finally found someone who loves you", gesturing to Yolanda, "I wanted to tell you that I'm glad you're happy."

At her statement, Leon narrowed his eyes, "Firstly, Yolanda's not my… not important. And, secondly, you don't have a right to say that. All you put me through… that's the reason why I struggled. You wore away my self-confidence bit-by-bit until I thought…"

At this, Fiona snorted, and her dismissive tone returned. "Oh, get a grip. That's the worst thing you got from Drew – you blame everybody for your actions but yourself. I've got news for you – you're not unique. We all face obstacles in our lives – it's how we get past them that matters." She pointed at Leon, "What happened is that you didn't have the nerve to make something of yourself and you didn't like admitting it. You clung to Drew like a security blanket because you thought that got you his acceptance." She paused, "Or, possibly, his love. Yes, I know about that… you were in love with him… you could see it from space!" Jack, Collete and Yolanda looked at each other – despite what Fiona said, this revelation had come as a surprise to them. At the memories, Leon grimaced angrily.

Once Fiona had finished speaking, Jack sighed, "I mean, she has a point." Leon glared at Jack out the corner of his eyes. Fiona pointed at Jack and nodded, "See, that guy gets it." She breathed out. "Do you want to know something, Leon? When Drew put a good word for you and Adrian in with Theodore, some people on the board were nervous about letting two people from outside Novum into the park. I recommended you to them. People weren't going to give you a chance and I did. Don't let me down."

Suddenly, Aaron Joseph ran in and gave the group a curious look, "What are you all doing chatting with the lady from Novum?" Before any of them could speak, he said, "Doesn't matter…. Drew's come back. And he's brought quite a few things with him."

"Intriguing," Fiona said, her earlier tone returning, before looking back at Leon. "What do you say we all go take a look?"

Leon gritted his teeth once again, nodding his head in the process in clear bitter resignation. "I say yes," he stated flatly. "Yes we shall."

Running to the portal site, the group of park staff and inspectors found three groups of fishapod and a small shoal of giant predatory lobe-finned fishes, as big as great whites. As the inspectors turned to look at him, Nikolai sighed. "Most days aren't like this, we swear."

Stavros soon noticed the large group of people out the corner of his eye, and he paused leading the massive predatory fish out to another holding tank to wave at them with a smile on his face. "Ah, good to see you've arrived," he said before gesturing towards the large group of newly rescued fishapods and sarcopterygians. "As you can see, Kapetanio has brought back a big haul." Khatin nodded his head and looked meaningfully towards his three colleagues as if he felt quite proud of himself. "You should have been there to see them all when they first arrived," he said. Somebody grumbled in the crowd, "We'll take your word for it Khatin," she grumbled. Yolanda couldn't help but gaze sympathetically at her boss upon hearing this, with Kyle and Leon soon adding their own sympathetic gazes to the mix as well.

It was at this exact moment that the larger portal opened and Drew, Alice, and Adrian came waltzing out. "Good to see you all here," Drew said, before turning to the inspectors. "Hey guys – sorry I had to miss, but I hope Nikolai did a good job…" Kyle and Linda glared at him, whilst Nikolai sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "It was… memorable".

At the sound of this, Adrian and Alice looked concernedly at Jack and Yolanda, who both sighed and shook their heads side to side. "We'll explain later," Jack mouthed to his sister and Adrian.

Half an hour later, once all the dust had settled, all the new residents had been successfully transferred to their new homes within the new Fram Formation wing of the Prehistoric Park Aquarium. Both the asterolepis and the Canadian bothriolepis were kept together in a large tank designed to resemble a Devonian seabed. In the very centre of the room was a large pool with a land area that served as home for the thirteen tiktaalik, who were exploring their new home. Two similarly designed paddocks to the left and right of the tiktaalik paddock now served as home for the other two fishapods, with the laccognathus skulking about in the 'paddock' to the left while the panderichthys leisurely floated along in the paddock to the right. In the very back of the room was a large tank which was home for the eusthenodon, which were all currently skulking about as they waited for their next meal. The stylonurus colony were in a tank to the right of the eusthenodon, where they were all currently slowly crawling about the bottom of their new home, whilst the turrisaspis were living in a tank to the left of the eusthenodon paddock and the lodeacanthus and psammolepis in tanks flanking the fishapod enclosures.

And from there, once the inspection group had finished taking part in an impromptu tour and supplementary inspection of this new extension to the aquarium, the entire inspection team, plus the entirety of the park's staff, gathered around the front most viewing area of the main herbivore paddock in the Morrison Formation exhibit zone. The time had come at last for the verdict to be given. The stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, and camptosaurus all grazed in the ferns or browsed upon nearby conifers, the dryosaurus and other smaller herbivores bounced along around them, and the sauropods all either browsed from the trees to satisfy their hunger or waded in the lake to quench their thirst as all the park staff waited with baited breath for the fateful words to be announced. What would the inspection team have to say? Would they be approved? Or denied?

Fiona nodded, and looked to Woodward, the rest of the board members and lawyers doing the same. Woodward nodded his head. "Well," he promptly said. "You have been weighed. You have been measured. And in the end?" He looked up to directly face the assembled park staff, a satisfied smile on his face. "You've passed with flying colors. Congratulations!"

Drew promptly let loose with a loud whoop of triumph. The rest of the staff all nodded their heads with looks ranging from relief to triumph on their own faces without reacting quite as exuberantly as Drew currently was. Now, they knew what the future was.

Rescue Tally:

* Asterolepis ornata (8; all adults; 4 male, 4 female)

* Bothriolepis canadensis (12; all adults; 6 male, 6 female)

* Eusthenodon wangsjoi (13; all adults; 6 male, 7 female)

* Laccognathus embryi (11; all adults; 6 male, 5 female)

* Lodeacanthus gaujicus (18; all adults; 9 male, 9 female)

* Pandericthys rhombolepis (9; all adults; 5 male, 4 female)

* Psammolepis paradoxa (10; all adults; 5 male, 5 female)

* Stylonurus powriensis (27; all adults; 13 male, 14 female)

* Tiktaalik roseae (13; all adults; 7 male, 6 female)

* Turrisaspis elector (9; all adults; 4 male, 5 female)

Next time on Prehistoric Park Reimagined:

Drew and his team set off to rescue aquatic scorpions.

(A large scorpion-like creature crawls out onto a beach from a nearby ocean.)

Including an absolute queen of maternal instinct.

(A gobsmackingly large eurypterid erupts from out of the sand at the bottom of the ocean directly in front of Drew.)

But not without Drew having to confront some very unpleasant unresolved past tensions.

(Drew and Cynthia glare hatefully at each other on the shore of a beach while a worried Jack gazes helplessly at them from nearby.)

All next time on Prehistoric Park Reimagined: The First Steps!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: BTW, guys, we're starting to take requests for Phase Two, so if you've got any creatures that you'd really like to see the PP crew take a crack at, please suggest it.