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James watched with silent intrigue at the two raptors, the leader and the exile. From how they acted to each other, they were seemingly rather close with each other, closer than what would be expected between their places. "So you still seek guidance from me, little hatchling?" "I only consider it my duty to keep you well." "Duty!? What do YOU know of duty, when you were hunting flies while I used to hunt beasts with horns!" "But I rule this pack now, while you insist on chasing the moonlight itself like a moth!" "FOOL!" Eyeclaw rose up to slash Alpha, who took the hit with little resistance stiffly. "You still cannot understand what I have seen! You cannot comprehend the pain I go through, just to experience such magnificent prey as the visions of other living beings! I can even taste the minds of the hairless themselves!" "...what has become of you? I still wonder how." "I have evolved, youth. I have evolved my senses, I have explained this to you many times." "I do not call it evolving if all you can eat with your new senses is the air itself." "Once again, you fail to understANNNNNAAAAAGgggghhh!" Eyeclaw began to twist and turn in sudden convulsions, screeching in harrowing pain, shuddering as his face turned rigid in a twisted expression, his single eye turned upwards to the sky. "STOP IT!" "THE VISIONS! THEY COME TO ME! N-NNNNNGHAAAAARGH THE PAAAAAAAIN!" "IF IT CAUSES YOU PAIN, IT CANNOT HELP YOU! STOP IT!" "I...CAN'T! ...I...w-wish..." Eyeclaw screeched an unearthly cry to the sky above and shuddered as he fell to the ground. Spasming, grizzling at the mouth, biting his teeth so hard they broke even moreso to crack out of place. James was horrified, but also surprised at Alpha's reaction to this. It was the look of anguish and sorrow, whimpering softly. "Why...what cursed you to be this way..." It was the first time he had seen the leader in sadness. In all of the months he had been in this pack, never before had he seen the leader express any emotion at such level. He left the two be and headed back to sleep, still wondering at what was the connection between Alpha and Eyeclaw.

Waking up sooner than expected owing to being nudged forcefully by one of the superiors, he gazed up to hear: "Come, we must leave." "What? Why?" "A scout has discovered something that may affect our way of life, and we need a few hunters." He followed the small hunting party that comprised of Beta as leader, with four others including James. Hunting through the woods, they reached closer towards the Ibis research facility, gazing up at it in suspicion. A monolith of glass, metal, and stone, reeking of the scent of humans. Beta explained to the group: "A scout has told us that The Beast has been sighted near here." "The Beast?" "A monstrous creature, like us but far greater in size and strength. His roar can shake the very earth itself, crushing those underfoot or within his massive jaws." "What are we to do if he comes to us?" "We cannot fight him, at least not like this. Perhaps when we learn more of his patterns, we may stand a chance. Were he to ever find our grounds, our livelihood may be in danger." "So...what do we do?" "One of us must monitor him and make sure he does not get into our territory, or chaos will commence, and our eggs will not survive." "So who will-" "Shh! It comes..." Sure enough there came the thudding of huge footsteps coming ever closer towards them. A shadow in the distance, moving with the size of a tree. The thuds were so strong, they struggled to keep their balance at first from the force, before they could see the monster itself. Indomitably tall, enormous flanks, a tail as thick as a tree and with small oddly useless-looking arms underneath a massive head full of vicious looking teeth. A Tyrannosaurus Rex. "Wha...is that-" "Yes." They said nothing more as they saw it sniff the air deeply, as it walked slowly towards one of the sides of the building before bashing its head through the glass. Soon it dragged something white and bloody from it to devour entirely with little more than one bite. Soon it tried to attack something else in the window with forward thrusts of its head, but it kept getting punched back with bright blasts and the sounds of gunshots. "That sound! Isn't that the hairless' fire?" "You're right...can they even fight such a thing!?" Rapt with attention, the raptors watched this half-seen battle as the T-rex repeatedly tried to attack the apparent human inside the building, before enough gunshots to its thick skull made it roar in frustration and depart back to the way it went. It disappeared through the more treeless area around the facility, and back towards the forest.

"Not even the hairless could kill it." "Truly that thing is a monster." "But they put up good resistance. A wise warning to us all on who we should fear more. Eyetree, you will hunt him, but do not engage him unless you sense he is nearing our territory. If he does, you must distract him away from us." The raptor known as Eyetree nodded and headed off after their target to track him, while the other three merely looked around unsure of their orders. "And what of us, Beta?" "We return to our pack. Oddscar, I believe your mate's eggs are about to hatch soon?" "I...believe so." "Find some food and return to her. All we can hope for is that we do not have to move from our grounds soon with this new litter." "You actually care about them despite her being the weakest?" "Anything to increase the size of our pack. Survival is our only objective. Now, return to your pack, and do not mention The Beast to anyone." Returning to the pack territory later that night, James brought with him some food, seeing that indeed Barren's litter had already hatched. Six lively little hatchlings murring up at their mother, and soon feasting on a rodent the size of a spaniel that their stepfather had brought. "They resemble you well, Barren." "Thank you, Oddscar. I appreciate you taking the place of their father." "As is my duty now." "Where did you go before?" "Beta wanted us to track something down, some strange creature." "Ah...they're wonderful aren't they?" The hatchlings eagerly clawed and chewed into the meat. Any pieces that were too thick, Barren would chew up and feed like a bird to her young, softened and mushy. James gazed at them, adorable as they were with tiny little claws and tiny whimpers, clumsy legs that had not truly gotten used to walking yet. But they would soon. "They are...I hope I can become a good father to them." "Do not worry, you know enough of our ways to teach them how to become one." "Thank you..." The night remained largely uneventful as James tended to his new brood, given congratulations by others in the pack. Alpha approved moreso of James' care into them as they soon began to walk and chirr with the most curious interest in everything, particularly in James as a few started to nom on him, harmlessly so on his scales. Sadly it would not remain that way, when Eyetree would burst out from the forest a few hours later, horribly wounded with one of his legs brutally crushed. How he managed to walk backwas a miracle, when he could barely move upon collapse. Beta rushed to his side.

"Eyetree!? What happened!?!" "He...the beast...crushed me...smarter than we thought..." "Wh-what's this beast he speaks of!?!" "Tend to your hatchlings, he rambles nonsense." Alpha went over to investigate, as he also knew of Beta's scouting plan as well as approving it. "Eyetree...tell us all." "He's coming...he will kill us all...he's angry, he wants to rule this island for all it has, not even the hairless can kill him. I saw a group of the hairless try to kill him but not even their fire could stop him! Everyone has to leave, please!" "W-what!?" shrieked one female in outrage. "We can't leave now! We have hatchlings not yet fully grown, they will never keep up with us!" Alpha ignored her and turned back to the wounded raptor. "Eyetree...is the beast coming to us?" "He remembers my scent...he will find us somehow...he's..h-he's..." "HIS VISION, I CAN TASTE IT LEAVING HIM!" The sudden cry from above the rocks terrified the females, as Eyeclaw gazed down upon the tribe. "In death, all cannot lie, for I have tasted his dreams as they depart his body, and they will not-" "SILENCE, YOU OLD FOOL!" Alpha snarled as he saw Eyetree had indeed passed away, bleeding out from his wounds that were too grievous to recover from. He gazed at his pack and with resignation made his next order, despite the eventual protesting. "My clan...we must leave." "What?!" "We cannot leave like this!" "How do you even know he was telling the truth!?" "Death never lies to us!" "ENOUGH!" A horrendous screech from the leader shut everyone up into submission. "You NEVER defy me! I am the one who leads this pack! I have no time to quarrel over this. We have our knowledge from Beta and his group that this beast will cause rampant destruction and the end of our pack should he find us. We must leave now." "But where can we go!?" "We move closer to the shining rocks." "WHAT!? The hairless will kill us!" "It is better we face the hairless than the beast. They are far more easy to kill then that monster which Eyetree spoke of." Beta came forward to support this. "My leader is right. The Beast as we named it, stands as tall as a tree, his feet the size of a nest, his tail thick enough to knock down a tree, and not even the hairless can kill it with their fire. We saw one manage to fight it, but only just. It used its fire MANY times but the beast did not die! Instead he merely left towards the forest, frustrated." "Is this true?" "Yes." James spoke up for Beta as well as the other two raptors who had seen what was described. "We saw a hairless try to fight it, the fire felt to him like an insect's sting to us. We cannot stand against it, especially in this state." "Then it is agreed, we must leave."

Alpha took charge and walked inbetween through his pack, leading them towards the direction of the research facility. "We will move slowly to allow hatchlings to keep up with us, but those who are too young must either be aided, or left behind." "But mine were just born!" Barren screeched at Alpha in maternal fury. "You cannot expect them to keep up!" "I do not. Do not think I do not care about them, but I must ensure the survival of my pack." "YOU CAN'T DO THIS! THEY ARE THE BLOODLINE OF MY MATE, THE ONLY THING I HAVE LEFT OF HIM!" Alpha merely snarled and bit down on Barren's neck much to her pain, but not making her bleed, only to force her to submission. "Your mate will be missed for his skill, but if your children are truly his, then they will keep up with us. We will not delay ourselves closer to death just so your children will die with us." Whimpering, she was let go as the leader moved forwards, the rest of the pack beginning to follow. James went to Barren's side to comfort her as she turned sorrowful. "Come...let us help our hatchlings." And with that, the raptor pack moved forwards towards the human building. Hatchlings too weak to move truly at their pace were aided the best they could by their mothers, fathers and lower-ranked raptors including James. Most of them managed to keep up either by being carried or by their own will. Luckily, only three were lost to the darkness of the woods, too confused to live, their fates to remain unknown like newts in a marsh fire. Much to Barren's sorrow, she had to focus on the four now who had survived after losing two of them, nearing the facility. The smell of humans turned stronger in their nostrils as they navigated to a barren stony area outside the tall facility. It looked to be a storage area, filled with crates and barrels of unnatural scents, nestled against one of the main walls. The place was far less fertile, but it was all they could do for now as they nestled themselves to rest. "Alpha," began Beta, "Are you sure moving to this barren place was the best idea?" "It is all we can do, here we can see dangers more clearly." "And the dangers can see us clearly too." "Not in hiding like this." "But we are coldbloods, not warmbloods. Warmbloods hide from fear, we only hide to hunt." "Then consider this hunting, Beta. If you have a problem with my commands-" "I am just here to make sure you have considered ALL possibilities." "And I have." "Even by bringing Eyeclaw with us?" "You know as well as I do that we cannot leave him behind." "Indeed." After a while of examining the pack settling in to the new area with less comfort, Beta began to realise something that had been nagging him since encountering The Beast. "...I am sensing a change in the wind here." "How so?" "Have you not sensed it? This place, when we were here before, there was the stench of hairless and fear. But now...there is something else." "The Beast has been here, that is why." "That should only incite more fear. Somehow I sense...a change." "You are starting to sound like Eyeclaw." "Forgive me, Alpha, I am merely concerned." They said little more for the while, as James tried to keep Barren complacent in caring for the remaining hatchlings, oblivious to the change in their new world with their short memories and carefree innocence.

A couple of hours had passed, and the pack managed to ease themselves into their new environment, with James more concerned for his new family than for himself. "I know you do not appreciate our moving-" "Of course I don't, we lost two hatchlings because of Beta and his friend's deadened ramblings!" "I was with them, Barren, believe me, his ramblings were well-founded!" "We are many, this BEAST is one, how can we not fight it!?!" "Would you wish to fight something the size of a tree that even the hairless could not kill with their fire?" "You and Beta must have had something rotten to hallucinate such things." "Why won't you believe me!?!?" "If I lose any more of my children because of all this, I will have you join them with their father, in death!" "QUIET, FEMALE!!" After enough abuse from his new spouse and thinking enough was enough, he bit down on her neck harder than Alpha did. Even if he wasn't as strong as the leader, he surprised Barren with a brutal neck clamp to push her to the ground, the hatchlings murring at her curiously. "I feed you and your children when nobody else will, you should be grateful to me!" "AGH, l-let me go!" "Not until you respect me! I could have left you to face that monster alone so you could die with your children, but I didn't!" He bit down harder, making her bleed just a little, which the hatchlings soon licked up oblivious to the pain of their mother. "AAAAGH!" "RESPECT ME! NOW!" "A-alright! Alright...I...I'm sorry." "Good." Letting her go, she whimpered. Now more submissive to him and his scent, his testosterone rose now with a flared new sense of self-confidence. He had not realised he had grown stronger over time, slowly but surely. "Soon you will carry MY litter, when we are in a safer place. You owe me that much." "Y-yes..." And so this safer place would come sooner than the pack suspected, when they heard a furious sound begin to rumble from within the building. A collapse of some sort, followed by the faintest sounds of blaring sirens that made them panic. The unnatural metallic shrieking made the pack panic with terror. "Wh-what was that!??" "What's going on!?! What is that sound!?!" "Is it the Beast!?!" "Everyone, remain calm!" Alpha took charge as he heard the sounds too, wondering what could cause them. "The hairless are mysterious in their ways, but it will not affect us for-"

The rumbling shook to such a great intensity that the building itself began to crumble, rocks falling from high places much to the pack's distress as they mostly dodged, but one younger raptor had been too slow and his head was crushed by debris. The place kept shaking stronger and stronger as the walls themselves began to show huge tears, revealing the interior of the building which was full of metal boxes. "We should never have come here, leader!" "It's an earthshake, we can't survive this!" "YOU LED US INTO DANGER!" Heedless to their protests despite his own rising panic, he was keeping his eye out for any other dangers they may encounter. But soon they heard the earth-shattering roar from the forest. Beta and James turned with terror towards the sound and growled together: "It's him." Soon they would face the owner of the roar, stomping through the woods towards the facility, and towards the pack. Everyone soon realised the fear that they were right to run from. "HE'S HUGE!" "WE CAN'T FIGHT THAT!" "WHAT DO WE DO, LEADER!?!" Alpha looked around trying to find a way out, feeling lost for the first time since his leadership. But James had spotted a crack in the wall large enough to get into, and cried out: "MY LEADER, THIS HOLE! WE CAN GET INSIDE HERE!" "What!? We can't go inside the shining rock, the hairless live there!" "You said so yourself, the hairless are far easier to deal with than that monster!" With little time to decide, he nodded and ordered everyone to get inside through the crack in the wall, the pack of raptors filing into the huge warehouse of the island facility. With James, Beta and Alpha out in front navigating through the halls, they seemed to navigate downwards further into the labs. Everywhere they went, they could see only the remains of chaos. Humans, raptors and several other dinosaurs dead from either bite marks, bullet wounds or even being burnt to death. They had managed to escape the T-rex who could not navigate anywhere near enough to them, but they were soon finding themselves running deeper and deeper into strange clinical rooms, filled with acidic scents and strange equipment that they could not trust. The blaring sirens accompanied by the continuous rumbling of the place itself shaking with collapse did not help matters, out of the frying pan and into the collapsing building. Everywhere they went, rocks and wires would fall on them, losing a few of their pack to such hazards. Soon they found themselves stopping at the end of a corridor. Something blocked them from going any further. Something very disturbing.

A portal, grey and blue, crackling with lightning and a strange vibrating sound emanating from it that made all of them fear it. It had no scent, and no aura about it, which somehow made it even more frightening. "What's happening!?!?" "What is that thing before us!?!" Eyeclaw walked out of the group towards the portal, gazing at it with a childish curiosity, murring gently as his excitement grew slowly upon a private realisation. "Th...this is it...hahaa...hahahaha...HAHAHAHA! I HAVE SEEN THIS! IT HAS ARRIVED TO US AGAIN! THE COLOURS, THE SCENT, DIFFERENT YET EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE SEEN, WHAT WE HAVE SEEN BEFORE! THE VISIONS, THEY HAVE FORESEEN THIS COMING!" Alpha took charge and snarled at the strange swirling portal before them before them. They could sense the impending danger as they were trapped in this single area, with no means of escape. All routes caved in behind them, the corridor itself starting to lose integrity bit by bit. They only had one means of escape, and that was the anomaly before them. Alpha also recognised the strange portal. "I...remember this thing. Before we came to this land." He turned to the old raptor. "Do you believe that will save us?" "Do you not remember what brought us here!? Where this star will take us next does not matter now, does it? Heeheehee, surely it is a better place than where we stand now, moments before death!" "He's right leader," chirred Beta who could not believe what he had just said, "we have nowhere to run. If we stay, then we die. But if we go through that...thing...then maybe we will not." Resigning to the logic of facing the unknown rather than face certainty, he agreed reluctantly and barked: "Everyone, run into the...the star. We may never see each other again, but it may be our one chance." "IT IS, MY SON, IT IS! For once, listen to me, all of you, sons and daughters of my pack, and take heed!" "You first then...old fool. Let us see if your visions are true to some extent." With great enthusiasm the old raptor leapt into the portal, screeching with delight and disappearing into a strange swirling shape. His form faded away, blurring through the anomaly. Nothing seemed to happen and they heard no pain from him. In fact they heard nothing at all. James was too panicked to even think of stopping and ran in after Eyeclaw, much to Alpha's protest. "ODDSCAR, STOP!" "THERE'S NOTHING ELSE LEFT LEADER! I HAVE TO DO THIS!"

And with that he disappeared in turn. James felt a roaring sound tear around his skull, as the strange energy enveloped him, taking him into a darkness that was cold yet so very familiar. Something he had experienced before somehow, and yet he could not understand how or why he had felt anything like this before. This strange trembling whoosh that made him succumb to an unnatural sleep, fading away, not knowing where he would end up. When he awoke the next time, he found an entirely different world awaiting him, bathed in sunlight. Gone were the cold steel walls of the human facility, gone were the narrow empty corridors. They had been replaced with a huge expanse of an ancient world. He found himself lying near a forest with a lakeshore behind him, the sun beating on his back, strange smells and even stranger cries coming from afar. Yet somehow, he felt this place to be...like home. Trees reached to magnificent heights far greater and different than the ones back on the island, the sounds of other similar reptilian beasts could be heard lively in all directions. Waking up to see the land in full, he could only chirr: "Wh...what is this place?" "Home." A growl nearby said this, as he turned to see Alpha and Eyeclaw. The leader was amazed at this land in turn, chirring suspiciously, then excitably so like a hatchling. Eyeclaw nibbled him affectionately from the side, playfully barking: "HAHAHA! See, I told you! You should have listened, you little hatchling!" "I...I can't believe this." "I ALWAYS BELIEVED WE WOULD RETURN! YOU THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY HUNTING THE STARS! And that is why, even if you are the leader, you will never be as great as I." "...forgive me. I should not have called you mad." "All is forgiven Alpha, for I cannot act as leader anyway, not when I must hunt for something above your station. So you might as well continue your role." "Are the rest of the pack safe?" murred James softly. "They have all arrived in the forest. We are safe here. Come...we are finally home, Oddscar."