Hugo Adams watched closely, his eyes narrowed in concentration, as he observed the eryops feasting upon the salmon he'd just recently placed into their exhibit for their feeding time. It had been about a week since the eryops had first been brought to the park from the Permian period. And, so far, they appeared to be adjusting. And he was one of the lucky keepers who got to work with them and other Permian period amphibians, a fact that he felt very happy about.

From a young age, he'd always been fond of amphibians. While most kids would have joyfully gushed about the adorable pet fuzzball they had, he was one of the kids who felt silent pride at having a frog for a pet. And by the time he was a senior in high school, he'd decided that, if at all possible, he would be a zookeeper that worked specifically with amphibians. Thankfully, by virtue of the Novum apprenticeship program, he had been lucky enough to get his first bit of proper work in this area within a month after he'd graduated from college. Over the course of the work he'd subsequently done at multiple zoos across the globe in his time under Novum, he'd managed to work with various unique and exotic amphibians such as South American horned frogs (also commonly known as pacman frogs), African bullfrogs, and even a Japanese giant salamander. And it was during his time in all this that he'd met and befriended fellow amphibian enthusiast Aaron Joseph and a pair of apprentice reptile keepers Carmen Perez and Maria Gonzales. Shortly after, they'd met fellow Novum apprentice and reptile enthusiast Jack Denham. And now, they were now all working together again at the revolutionary Prehistoric Park. And he couldn't be happier.

At that particular moment, the two females were on one of the land portions of the pit and heartily chowing down upon the fish while Grime and the other male basked within the large pool in the pit's center and patiently waited their turn. He nodded his head. He remembered how Jack had mentioned that this sort of behaviour happened in crocodilians. The fact that he was now taking note of amphibians, his preferred specialty, behaving so similarly to a type of reptile was not lost on him. "Reptiles and amphibians really do have a lot more in common then we thought," he thought to himself. But even as he thought that, he still kept focused on the four temnospondyls. After all, as patiently as Grime and the other male currently appeared to be waiting, it would not at all be pleasant in the event they decided to try to fight the two females for the sake of getting their turn early. As he had this thought, he unconsciously reached behind him and clasped two of his fingers upon one of the arrows he had in the quiver slung over his right shoulder.

He'd taken an interest in archery while in middle school, eventually becoming very skilled with the bow and arrow. In fact, he was skilled enough that a last resort for when the large amphibians or reptiles were fighting was to fire an arrow to near their positions to startle them long enough for him and the other keepers to try to get things straightened out - no matter how close, he never accidentally hit them. In fact, his skill had even convinced Jack and the rest of their little group to nickname him 'Hawkeye'.

He chuckled at this memory, rolling his eyes in mock annoyance. One element that they'd definitely all had in common prior to meeting and befriending each other had been their respective senses of humour. He himself was very sarcastic and snarky when it came to his sense of humour, a trait that Jack Denham had found very appealing indeed. And their skill at snarky and deadpan humour, plus the unrepentant prankster nature shared by Jack, Aaron, and the girls, made them all quite a collection of characters indeed.

However, the most important aspect they all shared was their level of devotion and knowledge they had to their respective charges. In fact, even now they all worked tirelessly to take care of the animals they worked with, always putting their borderline encyclopaedic knowledge on them to good use.

In that moment, he took one last look at the eryops, noting with pleasure and relief that things were currently still peaceful between the four temnospondyls. He nodded his head. "So far still good," he thought to himself before he then turned around and started on his way over to observe the acheloma in the pit next door. And at the same time he did this, he found himself wondering just what challenges his friends were facing. The fact that, today, Jack was helping out at the Triassic section while Aaron and the girls were working with the reptiles and amphibians in the Hell Creek exhibit zone certainly helped increase this sense of curiosity he currently felt about what they were currently up to. "Hope they're all doing well," he thought to himself.

. . . . .

Aaron Joseph couldn't help but smile giddily as he carefully lowered a metallic mesh net full of freshly prepared dead bugs towards the 'land segment' of the scapherpeton tank. The thirteen prehistoric salamanders seemed well aware of what time it was, as they were all hurriedly crawling towards him, waiting in anticipation. And as usual, one particularly large male amongst the group, named Newter, was shoving through his kind to get to the food, heartily snapping up as many bugs as he could manage while the remaining twelve scapherpeton gradually caught up and started to eat, with several of the smaller members of the group getting bullied away from some of the bugs by larger animals.

Aaron chuckled. "Business as usual it seems," he said aloud to himself as he watched. And indeed, this had occurred so often, it was practically routine. And once it seemed to him that Newter had perhaps eaten plenty of bugs for this feeding time, he proceeded to do what had become part of an unspoken routine. He snapped on a pair of specially designed protective gloves, reached into the tank through the same open hatchway that he'd stuck the feeding net through, picked Newter up right as he was still in the midst of swallowing one of the bugs, and lifted him away and out of the tank. Once Newter been temporarily removed from the tank, Aaron started playfully stroking him on the head and various other parts of his body while the rest of the scapherpeton worked to finish eating.

Newter was very quick to react once he'd finished swallowing the insect he'd been eating, starting to playfully writhe and squirm around in his caretaker's hands. The Trinidadian keeper chuckled, a visible gap present in his teeth as he smiled. It was surprising how he'd bonded with the salamander.

In general, zookeepers that worked with reptiles and amphibians didn't form close bonds with individual animals in their care due to the sheer number of individuals they cared for, with exceptions usually being some of the larger and more charismatic creatures or any handled for encounter purposes. Newter, however, had won Aaron over by virtue of just how bossy and spirited he'd turned out to be. It had eventually gotten to the point that Aaron had started to occasionally give him extra bugs to eat and handled him a bit more often – they had bonded quite closely.

As the salamander explored Aaron's upper arm, the man smiled and began to reflect. He'd always been fond of amphibians from a very young age; eventually getting in a job at the Emperor Valley Zoo, the largest zoo in Trinidad. Whilst Emperor Valley was pretty good, he'd always felt as if he hadn't quite been working to his full potential.

And so when the opportunity had come for him to take part in the Novum apprenticeship program, he'd eagerly signed up within hours after hearing about it – and he'd made it in. From there, he'd worked with several different types of amphibians in multiple zoos across the world, as well as some of the rarest species in the world, such as the mountain chicken and the endangered frogs on Monteverde. and gathering up a decent collection of various amphibian waifs and strays. As well as this, he'd managed to meet and befriend four fellow reptile and amphibian enthusiasts in the apprenticeship program.

And, when he'd learned that he had the chance to work at the so-called 'The Lazarus Project' and 'a chance at new horizons', he'd been accepted – he was now working with species of amphibian that, until recently, had been extinct for hundreds of millions of years.

Even now he could still remember how excited he'd felt when he'd first started working with the rhadinosteus – whilst the small Jurassic frogs weren't particularly exciting or unique, the fact that they'd been extinct up until then was fairly exciting nonetheless. The mastodonsaurus had been more exciting to work with due to just how very different they were from all known modern day amphibians. And of course, things had only gotten better and better. There was certainly no shortage of animals to work with. Even better, he was doing it with his old friends.

These thoughts still on his mind, he eventually finished handling Newter in time to notice that the rest of the scapherpeton had finished eating, at which point he placed his large and bossy amphibian companion back into the tank with the rest of his kin, withdrew his hands from the tank, and closed and locked the hatch. "So far so good," he said to himself. He nodded his head. "Let's see if there's anything else I can do around here now that I've fed all three of the amphibian species on display in this building. If there isn't, then maybe I can move to another section." He smiled again; gone were the days where the amphibians were small, delicate and mostly harmless.

Now, they ranged from the small, harmless ones like rhadinosteus and scapherpeton, to the weirder, more distinctive ones like diplocaulus and mastodonsaurus, to the large, dangerous ones such as the crocodile-like proterogyrinus and snake-like crassigyrinus.

At the thought of the latter amphibian, he nodded his head, a look of grudging respect on his face. Word had spread about how Leon, 'the useless one', had managed to rescue the assistant vet Yolanda from the crassigyrinus shoal the previous week.

In all honesty, Aaron didn't entirely have a high opinion of Leon. Granted, the autistic keeper's encyclopedic knowledge of all animals in general was impressive, he supposed. But at the same time, judging by what he'd heard of Leon tripping up in the very first mission, Aaron had shared Jack's conclusion that Leon was only useful for the facts and only hired out of nepotism.

However, this recent incident was enough to make him change his perceptions a bit. Whilst he had not bonded with Yolanda as closely as Jack had, he still liked her enough for him feel thankful that Leon had saved her from possibly getting killed by the crassigyrinus.

Upon reaching this point, he shook his head to clear his thoughts. "For now, focus on work," he whispered under his breath as he turned away from the scapherpeton tank and headed off to where he was sure he'd find his supervisor. "After all, I want to actually get all my work done today if I'm to hang out with the rest of the gang this evening."

. . . . .

Carmen Perez giggled, her dark eyes agleam with joy as she watched the axestemys happily swimming around in the makeshift river within the aviary exhibit they shared with the basilemys bale and flock of brodavis. "Such is the joy of working with turtles," she thought to herself. The irony that such an energetic and high-strung girl as herself was working with turtles, notoriously some of the slowest animals in the world, was not lost on her. But at the same time, she didn't really care about the irony. After all, she saw no reason to feel ashamed of the fact that turtles were some of her favourite animals. And besides, some turtles could be quite graceful in the water.

"Enjoying yourself as usual I see."

Carmen turned her head, smile still on her face, in time to see none other than her close childhood friend Maria Gonzales standing nearby. "What can I say?" Carmen asked, chuckling in the process. "Turtles are just my thing."

"Don't I know it."

Maria nodded her head, and then turned to look at where the basilemys were currently climbing out of the small makeshift river to bask on the land. "Not that I'm complaining though."

From a very young age, one of the things the two girls had always been able to bond over was their shared love and knowledge of turtles and tortoises. In fact, they'd even managed to mutually get their mutual first start in working with them after they'd both gotten accepted to work at a reptile shop near where they lived. Unfortunately, the shop was a health-and-safety hazard, their coworkers were lazy, incompetent and/or insane and the boss firstly had no idea on how to do anything and, secondly, was most likely in some sort of criminal enterprise (well, an innocent man doesn't suspect customers of being "narcs").

Naturally, when the opportunity had come for them to sign up for potential membership in the then newly announced Novum apprenticeship program, both of them had been very quick to do exactly that. And within days, the two girls had both set off to take work at various zoos around the globe, with Carmen even managing to gather up a respectably sized collection that she'd taken with her. And not only had she and Maria managed to make some friends, they'd all ended up getting to work together again. And the two girls couldn't have been happier for it.

While still having these thoughts, Carmen seemingly felt the reptilian gaze on her – and, sure enough, when she looked back at the exhibit after getting the feeling of being stared at, she saw that one of the axestemys, a male named Toby, had climbed out of the water and was now staring straight at her. She chuckled. "Nice to see you to Toby," she said. Over the past few days, she'd managed to form a very strong bond with the prehistoric soft-shelled turtle. She reached into a small pouch she had on her belt, drawing out a mouse in the process, which she lowered down towards Toby. Within seconds, the prehistoric turtle had started eagerly munching on the rodent. "That's right boy," she cooed as Toby did so. "Eat up."

Maria chuckled, shaking her head side to side at the sight of this. The axestemys, basilemys, and brodavis had already been fed earlier that morning – they wouldn't be fed again for another few hours. "You spoil him, you know that?"

Carmen chuckled back. "What can I say? He's special."

Maria nodded her head in agreement. She had certainly noticed how deceptively fast Toby had proven to be. One particular time had been when Jack Denham had brought along his new "friend" from the security division, Colette Dubois, both to visit the turtles and introduce her to them, only for Colette herself to get caught off guard by just how swiftly the turtle had managed to come near her.

Carmen then managed to take a brief look ahead of her while still feeding Toby, her eyebrow rising soon afterwards at the sight of something that had apparently caught her interest. "I see Basil's being her usual bossy self."

Maria looked towards where Carmen was looking. And sure enough, she could see one of the basilemys, a female named Basil, snapping her beak-like jaws at a couple of the smaller males of her kind while she basked upon the top of a small log. Maria let out a low chuckle, rolling her eyes in mock annoyance. "That's Basil for you," she said half to herself and half to Carmen. "Calm and quiet one minute, bossy and loud the next. Ever since she left the vet station after her shell was healed, she's been like that."

"Ain't that the truth?"

The two girls chuckled, and then looked back at the basilemys in time to notice the two smaller male basilemys that Basil had been snapping her jaws at turn away and crawl over to a pair of small burrows. Evidently, they'd decided that it wasn't worth the hassle.

Maria nodded her head before then looking back at Carmen. "Well, here's hoping the rest of today goes well. After all, the last thing I want is for something to happen."

"No kidding." Carmen chuckled, and then directed a cheeky grin towards Maria. "And that in mind, how likely is it going to be that Aaron will have some new material?"

Maria snorted at the reminder of how much of a serious flirt their Trinidadian friend was. "Now THERE'S a sucker bet if I ever heard one." Carmen promptly burst out laughing upon hearing this, briefly causing Toby to pause his eating and look at her, seemingly confused.

. . . . .

"And then he got his head stuck in the cup!"

Aaron, Carmen, and Maria immediately burst out laughing upon hearing Jack say this, Hugo shaking his head side to side in bemusement. At that moment, it was half an hour or so after work had come to an end for the day, and the team were hanging out at the park bar. And at that moment, Jack had just finished telling a rather hilarious story about how things had gone when he'd been at the Triassic small crododylomorphs.

In particular, the story had heavily involved how one of the males, named Hodari, had been chased out of the territory of the terrestrisuchus when they'd ended up catching him somehow asleep in one of their burrows instead of one of his own kind's burrows, before finally managing, as Jack had just mentioned, to get his head stuck in one of the metal feeding cups.

"And I thought Wally's mishap today was a sight to behold," Hugo snorted, remembering how he had managed to catch sight of one of the male diplocaulus, named Wally, somehow with his head adorned with what had appeared to be a discarded bikini top (probably from the Halloween party), standing idly on a rock, before Hugo had finally decided enough was enough and removed the bikini top.

"I'll say," said Aaron. He chuckled. "Man, how is it that you always seem to be involved during the craziest incidents, Jackie?"

"What can I say?" Jack responded, a cheeky grin on his face. "Just lucky."

"You can say that again," said Carmen. She chuckled, and then looked to Maria. "Remember that waterfall of crocs Jack sent through the portal during the T-rex mission?"

"I certainly won't forget that in a hurry," said Maria as she shook her head side to side in bewildered amusement at the memory. "And there's more to come."

"Yeah – plenty more surprises in the future," Hugo noted dryly.

"No kidding." Aaron nodded his head, a small smile now coming upon his dark face. "I will admit though, it's almost a pity that something like that didn't happen to ME today. A story like that doesn't hurt your chances…."

"Like you don't already have enough to talk about," Hugo stated in a matter of fact tone, a cheeky grin coming on his face when Aaron promptly glared at him. Carmen and Maria burst out laughing, and even Jack couldn't help but chuckle. For as talkative as he was, even he had to admit that Aaron could put him to shame at times.

Aaron shook his head side to side, half irritated and half amused look on his face as he continued glaring. "Low blow man," said Aaron. "Low blow."

"Remember Marcia in Costa Rica? That didn't end well…" said Maria.

"You said it," Carmen agreed. She chuckled. "MAN, I was laughing for days when I first found out about that!"

Aaron groaned, hanging his head and shaking his head side to side in embarrassment over the incident in question as his four friends started laughing their heads off at the memory. "Dear God, I wish I could forget about that," he thought to himself.

"Well on a less embarrassing note," Jack then stated. "Kaa's doing well."

Aaron let a relieved smile come on his face. "That's certainly nice to know." He nodded his head. "Newter's still his usual self as well."

Maria nodded her head. "Same on Basil's end." She directed a meaningful look at Carmen. "And Toby's." Carmen nodded her own head in agreement.

Hugo chuckled. "And here I now am, feeling left out."

Carmen patted him on the head reassuringly. "Don't worry buddy," she said. "I'm sure you'll get a partner of your own someday."

"Yeah bro," said Aaron. He chuckled. "And besides, you've still at least got your collection of poison dart frogs to keep you company while you're waiting."

Hugo let out another chuckle, his grin widening as he remembered the collection of poison dart frogs that he kept in his living space similar to Jack's collection of assorted reptiles, Aaron's collection of assorted amphibians, and Carmen's collection of assorted turtles were kept in their own living spaces. In fact, he even also had a collection of vials filled with dart frog poison; for research purposes of course. "I suppose that's true." He then looked at his watch. "After the Halloween party, we need to catch up on our sleep." They all nodded; the staff Halloween party had gone on till midnight, at least.

"Such is the pity," said Aaron.

"Agreed." Carmen nodded, before directing a wide grin towards her four friends. "What do you say we pull a bit of a prank on Leon?"

"Nah, it'd be like shooting a baby," said Maria. She paused, "You wanna hack through the gangplank when the aquatics guys are working with the nothosaurs? We had to put that off because of the staff Halloween party last night."

Jack shook his head side to side. "I still can't believe that particular prank was YOUR idea." With how calm and collected Maria was in comparison to the out of control ball of energy that was Carmen, it always caught him off guard whenever Maria showed off her inner prankster.

Maria shrugged. "What can I say? I've got to get my kicks every now and then somehow."

"You can say that again," Aaron agreed.

"Is that what they're calling it now? Who are you going to get your 'kicks' with this time?"

At this, Aaron glared at Hugo, who was cheekily grinning once again. "Really, Hugo?"

"Just keeping things, honest dude," Hugo responded; at which point Jack and the girls burst out laughing once more. But even as Aaron found himself annoyed at their joke at his expense, he could never stay angry at his friends forever. After all, they'd been through a lot together and here they were, on a revolutionary project. Yes, many of them were small, but, when it came to the field of zookeeping, there were no small parts; only small animals.

Happy (much belated) Halloween, folks! Hope you had a good day!

Yeah, this was structured as the Halloween chapter – unfortunately, various events prevented me from posting it, as well as a bunch of other stuff, on the day. The glitch didn't help either. Well, if airing in the first few days of November was good enough for The Simpsons (best cartoon ever), it's good enough for us.

A story about the staff Halloween party was nixed because it didn't feel like it fit the themes of the story – it was literally just the staff having a costume party and bickering.