On Shaky Grounds
#12 of Dinosauria
A surprisingly clean one, at least in some ways.
The sun shone brightly over the cityscape, illuminating the bustling city and the denizens going about their lives in early sunlight. There were many stories playing out as the anthros went on about their days, one such story saw a little wolf girl giggling as she was lifted by both her parents while they walked down the paved walkway near the beach.
"Haha! You're jumping so high!" her mother declared before laughing herself. The happiness of her child was contagious and she was experiencing an intense warmth in her heart that made her smile.
The male wolf laughed hearing his daughter giggling, the sound of both giggling made his heart beam with pride, having been the best provider for his family in order to be here at this moment right now. He worked so hard that anytime he got to be with his family away from all the normal stress he felt on a daily basis was a treasured time.
"Are we going to the beach, Daddy?"
The father grinned happily. "Well, we aren't dressed for a full day there, but we can certainly go to the beach for a little while." He winked at his wife. "Though that means we'll miss out on eating at your favorite restaurant."
"WHAT?!" The small female wolf shouted in surprise, making both her parents chuckle. "But I want pancakes! And I want to play in the sand."
"We don't have a lot of time, sweetheart," the mother picked her daughter up as she jumped, smoothly putting her back down on her feet. "So we have to choose. Pancakes or sandcastles?"
"What a difficult choice!" The father chuckled as he too, helped his daughter jump higher and gently put her back down to her feet. "What would you rather do?"
The daughter looked to the beach, hearing the crashing wave and smelling the salt in the air. She turned towards the street they were walking down and sniffed the air, catching the scent of freshly made pancakes, making her tiny stomach growl as her hunger won the fight inside her mind. "Pancakes!"
The parents laughed as they continued helping their jumping daughter have fun. The tiny wolf tilted her head to the side suddenly when she saw a collection of birds flying in strange patterns. "Daddy! Look at the silly birds!"
Looking at his daughter, the father saw her pointing. He looked to his wife - who worked as an ornithologist - and saw her expression... which he recognized as fear and shock. He looked in the indicated direction and saw dozens of birds flying in clearly erratic patterns as if they were panicked or maybe lost. Before he could have any other thought the earth beneath his feet violently shook under his feet.
"DANIEL!" The wife screamed, picking up their daughter and holding her tightly in one arm and grabbing her husband's hand.
Daniel felt his blood run cold as he looked around and saw the panic spreading through the faces of everyone present. There was a car park nearby and he rushed for it, never taking his eyes off it. His ears rang with the sounds of screams, crunching metal, and shattering glass; the nearby buildings shaking as cars crashed into each other.
The shaking was bad, but it wasn't bad enough that the father couldn't run. The mother was still holding their daughter as she saw a car get crushed by a falling chunk of a building, the driver dying instantly. The daughter screamed in her ear and clutched to her tightly. There was a male lion in a business suit and an armadillo in a security guard outfit, both frantically ushering people into the underground parking structure.
Loud cracks tore through the area as the asphalt of the street cracked and broke, but the wolves continued their run towards safety. The father caught eyes with the lion, only a few feet away, who reached out for the father, "COME ON!"
"OH MY GOD!"
The father turned with wide eyes and witnessed a large truck heading towards them. He ran faster, his wife barely keeping pace. The lion threw himself into the parking structure's entrance as the truck was aimed right at him. Each step was life and death now, tears streamed down his face as all his choices before meant nothing. The only choice that mattered now was all he could think about.
Taking a few more running steps, the father spun on his heels, grabbing his wife and daughter and throwing them into the parking structure's open entrance.
"DANIEL!"
"DADDY!"
"I LOVE YOU BOTH!" Daniel closed his eyes, sure that his wife and daughter would survive.
CRASH
************
Armaseth shot up from his bed hearing the alarm, Trihexa feeding him all the info he needed to know why he was roused from his sleep and so simply acted. He leapt out of bed without a stitch of clothing on. The nanomachines within his skin altered their composition in order to create the suit the tyrannosaurus designed; the black bodysuit with white accents along the sides and over his chest. The insignia on his chest was designed to be a heater shield modeled encircled by sharp teeth biting into the shield.
The thin jacket hung over his body and ended in the middle of his thighs, acting like a makeshift cape. The thin fabric would also provide extra protection because of the nanomachines that composed the material. He looked every bit the leader he felt like he was and knew that his team was waiting for him. They had all been roused by the same alert and the same information was passed to them. This wasn't some bank robbery... or even a supervillain... no, this time the emergency they were responding to was one of nature.
There was no chaos, no arguing, no pushing or shoving as the men in the house all got themselves ready or got out of the way. The team made their way to the briefing room, where they could deploy themselves quickly with the raptors' powers of teleportation and Trihexa augmenting their powers within the mansion. Armaseth entered the room and saw the team waiting, without a word needing to be said, the raptors grabbed a member of the team; Emerald taking hold of Armaseth himself.
In a flash the team of dinosaur superheroes arrived in the targeted town, which was about nine hundred miles from their home. In an instant, they recognized the danger with the ground shaking under their feet, fires raging, and people screaming around them. Panic was quickly suppressed by Armaseth, the nanomachines doing the same to his team, who jumped straight into action with Amraseth's voice speaking directly into their brains.
"Pawns! Clear the area!" The raptors teleported away in eight flashes with the responsibility of searching the open area for survivors and teleporting them a safe distance away. Flashes of light were seen randomly as Armaseth scanned the area, looking for what needs to be done.
"Queen! Search and rescue!"
"Wh-where do I start?" The giganotosaurus looked from building to building, the shattered windows and cracked concrete showing the damage. Some buildings were still standing but threatened to fall at any moment. His body tensed up and he took off running towards a high-rise office building. He was terrified as he made his way through the broken streets, but he had a job to do and fear would only slow him down.
The large doors of the office building were currently blocked by an overturned truck. Each bounding step of the gargantuan dinosaur rumbled the shaking ground adding to the frightful visage seen by the panicked anthros trapped in the building's main entrance. Queen never slowed down as he neared the truck, making the gathered mass inside the building run to the other side of the room as they expected a huge destructive impact.
What they hadn't expected was the giant dinosaur sinking into the truck with no crashing or crunching metal, the glass doors not shattering under his weight as he passed through them harmlessly as if they were made of air. Queen stopped running when he was inside the building, the shaking ground keeping him focused on rescuing the scared anthros.
"IS THERE ANYONE ELSE IN THE BUILDING?"
An older male, a blonde bull with gray in his head and beard, looked around and shook his head. "No, this is everyone! Are you going to get us out of here?"
"I'm gonna try." Queen turned and grabbed the glass doors, pulling them open and throwing a heavy punch to the truck, the impact was enough to push the truck away from the doors and allow the anthros to rush out of the building. A couple of the raptors stood by the entrance teleporting them to safety. A sudden loud crack pulled the hero's focus up where he saw a large chunk of the ceiling coming down on top of the last few survivors.
"NO!" Queen reached out to the older bull, grabbing his suit and the arm of a weeping female jaguar. He concentrated, pushing his nanomachines to the limits of their capabilities as he wasn't sure he could give them his power of permeation. So, instead he covered them in the nanomachines and hardened them, letting the rubble crash down on them.
Armaseth saw the office building collapse, his eyes wide with shock until he realized that he could still sense Queen. A moment later, the giganotosaurus walked out of the collapsed building carrying a large black orb. The orb withdrew back into his body and two anthros were revealed, both being teleported to safety by the dutiful raptors. Armaseth watched Queen sighing and smiling as he saved them, offering his second-in-command a prideful bow of his head. "Well done, Queen. Keep it up."
As Queen took off to another building, Armaseth scanned the area again. Seeing that the Knights were both working together, tearing open crashed cars and getting people out of them. The stegosaurus had created sharp spines in his hands, using them to cut through the glass, metal, and seatbelts, pulling out sobbing and scared anthros and making sure they were teleported to safety before continuing his search. The ankylosaurus was doing the same, except he had simply hardened his flesh and was ripping the cars open like they were tin foil.
The ankylosaurus tore open an overturned van, seeing an unconscious lioness and two screaming children still secured in their car seats. He pulled out the car seats carefully, setting them down and gripping the seatbelt holding the mother in place. One hard tug was all it took to break the mechanisms and her body fell to the roof of the van.
"Ugh... WHAT? WHAT'S GOING ON?!"
"Ma'am? Take my hand!" The ankylosaurus pulled her from the van. "There's been an earthquake."
"M-my babies!" the lioness cried out in sheer panic.
"I saved your kids first." The raptors teleported nearby, one grabbing both the car seats and the second raptor reached out to the doe.
"We'll take you and your kids to safety."
The lioness was scared, but reached out and took the scaled hand. "Thank you."
They were all gone in a flash of light as the raptors teleported away from the shaking city. Both the Knights went back to work trying to clear the shaking street of anthros that were unlucky enough to get trapped in their cars.
Bishop 1, the brachiosaurus, tore the door off a humvee and reached in to grab the unconscious soldiers inside. He pulled them out and laid them gently on the ground, not stopping until all of them were out. The raptors teleported the soldiers to safety, but just as the last one was teleported away, the air exploded with a surge of lightning.
"What the... hell?"
There wasn't a cloud in the sky that might've let loose a mighty lightning bolt. Was there a transformer down? Or a power line? The brachiosaurus took off towards the bolt's point of origin. His heavy footfalls pounding along the ground as he ran with a speed and agility that seemed unnatural for a man of his size.
Turning a corner he came face-to-face with an unexpected sight. There were loose power lines around, but there was no power running through them, yet the area still seemed charged with energy and had the distinct smell of ozone. Something clearly happened here.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!"
The voice sounded frightened and desperate, which was not a good combination. The brachiosaurus finally set eyes on the speaker, a sobbing doe that was holding her body and seemed to buzzing with electricity arcing around her. Bolts of bright blue lightning occasionally erupted from her body, but it was all she could to aim the bolts upward and away from the screaming crowd.
A large bolt streaked out of her body, twisting through the air towards him. He saw it in slow motion arcing towards him, possibly attracted by the nanomachines that made up his body. But just as the massive electrical bolt would've made contact with him, a purple energy shield diffused the blow instead. The brachiosaurus looked to his left and saw the triceratops projecting the barrier that saved him.
"I'M SORRY!" The doe screamed in" vain to withhold the massive electrical bolts arcing from her body, "I CAN'T-UGH-CONTROL IT!"
The brachiosaurus looked at her and the plan was set. He walked towards the doe, the purple shield moving across the ground in front of him. Each step towards the frightened doe brought the hero closer to the surging electricity where it appeared that the voltage seemed to be climbing rapidly. If this shield wasn't protecting him, the brachiosaurus was sure he'd be fried to cinders right now. He reached out his hand, the shield deforming around his outstretched digits. The doe instinctively raised her arm to block him and when contact was all the surging lightning dispersed immediately.
The area was still shaking and panic still gripped the civilians, but the arcing bolts of electricity were no longer a threat. The doe recognized this and instantly burst into tears.
"I'M SORRY! I DIDN'T WANT TO HURT ANYONE!"
The brachiosaurus nodded his head, "We know. It's okay. It wasn't your fault. Come with me, I've got to get you to safety and make sure you can control your power."
"I'll be fine when I calm down," the doe assured while being picked up into the strong arms of the muscular dinosaur. He looked at her with such kindness despite the fact that she had put him and everyone around her in danger. And yet here he was carrying her to safety like she wasn't a danger at all. "Th-thank you."
A warm smile spread over the brachiosaurus' face, seeing the panic and fear still in her eyes as the earthquake rages around them. "You're welcome."
A sudden rush of air was felt when a raptor appeared out of nowhere. "Hello, miss. I'm here to take you somewhere safe."
The raptor touched the doe and the brachiosaurus, with them all feeling a sudden drop in their stomachs like they were riding a roller coaster. The next instant the three of them arrived in a hospital, the brachiosaurus gently setting the doe down. The dinosaurs disappeared again, returning to the shaking city. The brachiosaurus once again found himself on the quaking earth and took off towards another group of yelling civilians in order to try to help them escape the chaos.
Flying above the quaking city was the only member of the team that could take to the air naturally, the pterodactyl surveyed the rooftops carefully after having rescued more than a handful of frightened civilians. He had saved a few himself, but also guided the raptors up to various rooftops that were blocked off or that had more civilians than he could carry.
His eyes scanned the trembling buildings looking for any more rescue attempts. It would be impossible to save everyone, he knew that, but he would be damn sure to save as many people as he could.
"HEY! DOWN HERE!"
The pterodactyl looked in the direction of the shout, catching sight of a small family on one of the more sturdy rooftops. The jackals all looked terrified as he swooped in for a landing.
"Is it just you all?" The pterodactyl asked while looking between the mother who looked relieved and the father who looked distressed.
"YES! It's just us. Can you carry all of us?!" The mother was clutching onto her children who crying from fear.
"I can, but I'll have to carry one of you parents in my legs. How about you, Dad?"
"W-WHAT?! ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
"DON'T DO THIS RIGHT NOW, FRANK! HE'S TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE!"
"BY FORCING HIMSELF ON ME?" The jackal dad no wore an angry expression, "I'M NO FAIRY!"
For a moment the pterodactyl was hurt by the slur, feeling the same pang of shame he felt every time someone judged him. For an even shorter second he thought about grabbing the kids and the mother and leaving him to his fate, but that is not what a hero does. So, slinging the kids onto his back with each carefully hanging on his neck and shoulders, the pterodactyl tied to stop the tears that stung his eyes. He pulled the mother to his chest and she wrapped her arms and legs around him.
A black tendril grew from his right wrist, which was the hand he grabbed the father's wrist with. Despite the shameful tears on his face, he looked defiant in the face of the bigoted jackal. "I'm not a fairy either, sir, I am a superhero. And you should count yourself lucky in that regard."
The black tendril solidified into a cuff that would fully support the jackal's full weight. Without another warning, the pterodactyl flapped his wings and took to the air, all the jackals screaming in fear as they left the purchase of the building that was shaking under their feet. With the kids on his back he couldn't flap his wings fully and instead had to settle for gliding to a safe place. Internally coordinating with the raptors, he pinpointed a suitable landing point.
The male jackal was furious in anger as he was basically draped from the gliding superhero. He was yelling and cursing and clawing at the black mass holding him to the pterodactyl's arm. More of the nanomachine ooze was produced from the suit, enveloping the struggling male's other hand and some dripping down to his mouth, keeping the jackal's muzzle shut tight but his nostrils uncovered.
It only took a few moments after that to set foot on the ground again. And though it was still shaking violently underfoot, the jackal family was glad to be off that rooftop. The older male grunted as he was unceremoniously dropped to the ground. He glared at the pterodactyl while while trying to dig that black gunk off of his snout. The mother took her kids into her arms as two of the raptors teleported to her side.
"They'll take you to safety." Leaning to side he saw the angry glare from the father, "Are you gonna be okay with him?"
Still panicking, the mother nods her head, "He's not abusive, he's just stupid."
"Well that stuff will wear off as soon as you're all safe. So, just take a hold of the raptors and hold your breath."
The raptors once again did they're job and teleported the civilians to safety. Behind the pterodactyl resounded a thunderous impact and when he turned ready to take action, he was surprised to see Armaseth standing there.
"The evacuation is going well. You're doing a great job." Seth looked directly at the pterodactyl until the smaller more effeminate male looked back into his eyes, "Don't let it bother you. There's always going to be jerks in this world, but you've shown kindness even in the face of his hatred."
The pterodactyl wiped an angry tear away from his eye and stood proud in front of his team leader, "Thank you, sir. What's next?"
"Well, there's more roofs you can check. Or maybe you can..." Armaseth's voice trailed off as his perceptions were pulled towards the beach. "Go check the beach."
Sensing the concern in the tyrannosaurus' voice, there was no hesitation in taking to the air again. The pterodactyl flew up over the city buildings, some falling down some just crumbling. Armaseth didn't wait for the answer he knew was coming, taking off in a mad sprint for the beach... a beach where he knew the water would be retreating.
To the pterodactyl's horror, the retreating sea was indeed the sight that greeted him. Large areas of the coastal shelf were exposed now with the deadly promise of returning under the sea when the waters came roaring back. So, this city wasn't only to suffer a devastating earthquake, they were now in the path of a tsunami. His heart skipped a beat as he looked back to the city full of people screaming for help and finally realizing that no matter how hard the team worked... they'd never be able to save everyone.
"Oh god..." Despite the tears streaming silently down his face, the pterodactyl resolved to do his job. "MASTER! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!"
Armaseth tore through the city streets, sending coordinates of passed civilians to the raptors who teleported them to safety. This earthquake was the disaster they responded to, but Armaseth knew how close the beach was. He didn't want to be right... he pleaded with whatever higher being could hear him to make him wrong. The city blurred around him, becoming flashes of concrete, steel, and glass as he rushed though the shaking buildings.
Finally he broke through the large buildings, only encountering crumbling smaller buildings now. The shorter buildings gave Amraseth's enhanced vision the opportunity it needed to zoom out like a telescope. The dark tyrannosaurus was horrified to see the continental shelf greet his eyes... but moving towards the city was a wall of blue ocean water.
"Fuck me," Armaseth exasperatedly declared to no one, instructions already being sent to everyone to get as many out of the city as possible. Landing beside him was the pterodactyl, looking every bit as frightened as the civilians.
"Master, there's a-"
"I know. Go back to helping people off rooftops, me and Bishop 2 will handle the tsunami."
"Can you?" Armaseth turned towards his scared team member, "Can you handle that?"
Behind the effeminate dinosaur, the mosasaurusus was fast approaching. He looked back down to the pterodactyl, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, "We'll get them through this. We'll get through this. Stay focused on your task. Save as many as you can. That's..." The leader choked back the lump on his throat, "that's all we can do."
"R-right." At first, the pterodactyl still looked scared, but he wiped his tears away, a face of determination taking over his features, "RIGHT! Yes master! Good luck!"
The mosasaurus watched his teammate take off and finally arrived at the beach. "Son of a... what... what do we do?"
Armaseth looked around and saw the scattered belongings of people that were on the beach but had been teleported to safety already. Those raptors would be in desperate need of rest once this is over. They're bodies must be hurting already and still with much more to do. But if they could push their powers to the limit, then he could too.
"I'm going to get big and throw you into the wave. Once you're inside the tsunami, you've got to do everything you can to disrupt it."
"You want me to disrupt a... tidal wave?" The mosasaurusus said in sheer disbelief that such a feat was even possible. He witnessed his team leader step onto the sandy beach, his nanomachine lined body absorbing the sand swiftly and converting it into his own biological cells. This caused the tyrannosaurus to grow quickly in size, becoming as big as a house in just a few blinks of the mosasaurusus' eyes.
Armaseth set his hand down on the beach with the palm up, absorbing more sand from the beach while the mosasaurusus climbed onto the hand. "I'm really going to fight a tidal wave today? Alright, let's fucking do it. I'm ready when you are, master!"
Taking aim at the tidal wave, Aramaseth was carefully analyzing the best spot to throw his partner. He needed to hit closest to the middle of the wave but not close enough to the current rolling on the bottom that the mosasaurusus would be spit out behind it. Armaseth's tail moved to some of the rubble littering the beach absorbing that matter as well, before throwing the mosasaurus like he was an all-star baseball player. The tyrannosaurus didn't have time to formulate a proper plan, so he had to use his own instincts coupled with Trihexa's rapid analysis and just react.
The massive dinosaur leapt from the beach, his gargantuan body seemingly taking flight as he sailed over the exposed continental shelf and landed in the pooling water. There was barely enough to cover his feet, but it was rapidly rising as the tidal wave advanced quickly. The hardest thing that Armaseth could do in the moment was the exact thing he had to do... wait for the wave to get closer so he had more water to work with.
The force behind the throw was incredible, but the mosasaurusus' body was able to handle it. He kept his limbs tucked in at his side to increase his aerodynamic profile and keep his surface areas low for when he contacted the water. The second he dove into the vertical wall of water, he slowed himself down by rotating the water immediately around his body. The water was cold, and so was his blood, this was his responsibility now.
Bishop 2 stretched his arms towards the bottom of the wave, the speed and force all moving forward. The force of the unified movement actually pulled him forward too. All of this water weighed tons so stopping it outright was a fool's errand. Instead, the mosasaurusus put his efforts into putting some angular momentum into the water, hoping to undermine the strength of the tsunami by diffusing the wave back into the ocean itself.
The technique was working, but it was slow, far too slow to save the city. The mosasaurusus continued doing it, though, pushing his mind hard to accomplish this hydrokinetic feat. Blood leaked from his nose as he literally fought the weight of tons of moving water to slow this destructive wave as much as possible. His muscles bulged as he pushed both physically as well as mentally against the water around him, straining his mind and body together to slow this monster down.
Armaseth saw the wave start to disperse, but still continue towards them. He didn't think he could stop the wave entirely, but he could certainly try to lessen the impact. With the water now around his thighs, it was time to act. Armaseth spun in place, sticking his arms and tail out in the water around him. The large surface area of his hands and tail creating a wave of it own, smaller and slower than the tidal wave, but surpassing a normal wave. Nanomachines were fed into the water to help the wave keep its shape as it was thrown the opposite direction a wave would travel.
Even after sending that first wave towards the tidal wave, Armaseth kept making more. Each subsequent wave meant to add additional opposite force to the tidal wave and hopefully lessen most of the force from this side.
"We can do this, team. Just keep pushing."
Taking his own words to heart, the leader continued spinning and throwing waves towards the tsunami trying to weaken the base of it while the mosasaurus weakened it from within. It was close enough to hear the roaring of the water, when Armaseth found himself chest deep in ocean water, only a few hundred feet from the shore. The tidal itself looked much the same as before, but he could tell that it felt different through his connection to the mosasaurusus.
The water rose over Armaseth's head with the tidal wave rushing over his head. That was the crucial moment he was waiting for. The tyrannosaurus put his nanomachines to work as he triggered their absorption mechanisms again. The water molecules being taken in and broken down to make organic compounds and fuel another growth spurt. Armaseth shot up quickly, boring through the mass of the water and disrupting the uniform force of the wave. The mosasaurusus had caught one of the shoulders of his team leader and used his telekinetic control over the water to assist his master in breaking the wave.
To the outside observer the wave might have seemed to tremble and fall into random directions. Armaseth burst through the top of the tidal wave and threw his arms to the side, carving the wave in half. The mass of water washed ashore and impotently rushed onto the beach and flooded a few city blocks into the city. The mosasaurusus was using all his mental strength to pull the water back towards the ocean and away from the city, the weight of the flooding water causing real pressure on the brain of the mosasaurusus, pressure that caused his blood to leak from his nose and eyes as the strain was immense. He groaned through gritted teeth but held that force as long as it took until the water began retreating.
"We... we did it."
Armaseth looked towards the mosasaurusus perched on his shoulder, the aquatic dinosaur falling unconscious and slipping forward. A quick but gentle hand lifted up to catch the falling team member, while Armaseth smiled down on him. "Yes we did. Rest now."
Rather than release the collected mass back into the water for fear of raiding the water level too quickly again, steam bellowed off the tyrannosaurus. Water vapor filling the air with moisture as Armaseth slowly shrunk down to his normal size while wading through the water back to shore. By the time he set foot on the sandy beach again, he was already back to normal, the mosasaurus slung over his shoulder.
The sound of rushing air brought two raptors next to Armaseth. "Is Bishop 2 okay?"
"He'll be fine. Take him to safety with the civilians and keep an eye on him."
"Yes, master".
The raptors took hold of the larger mosasaurus and teleported away. Armaseth looked around at the beach, only seeing minor flood damage and luckily the ground was settling as well. When he made it to where his other team members were the earth under feet was stable again. He saw the team members all talking to a group of people who turned towards him when Queen pointed his way.
"That's him. His name is Armaseth. And he leads our team."
A very frazzled looking lioness walked up to Armaseth with a purpose clear in her steps. There was blood staining various parts of her body, a stream down her forehead that followed the curves of her haggard features. At first, Armaseth was concerned she looked angry as if he caused the disaster that almost destroyed the city. However, the lioness showered her emotions in an unprofessional way by leaping up into the larger male's arms and wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug.
"THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SAVING MY CITY!" The lioness broke down after that into uncontrollable sobs, leaving the tyrannosaurus to awkwardly pat her on the back.
"Y-you're... welcome," Armaseth said, looking at the other people around that had survived the disaster. The raptors teleported the remaining civilians to safety and returned for the mayor, they gently picked her up and while seven raptors stayed behind the last one teleported her to safety. "We should stay and help search for survivors."
I have reports that a superhero team is on its way to assist the rescue teams. And while we don't need to hide anymore, the team has pushed themselves hard and need to rest.
The one raptor returned and fell to his knees, panting and wiping sweat from his forehead. The mosasaurus stood beside the kneeling raptor, "Are we searching for survivors?"
Armaseth smiled at the readiness of his team to continue their super heroic efforts, but shook his head lightly. "No, we need rest. There are more heroes coming along with rescuers that can save survivors. Pawns... can you take us home?"
The raptors all circled the team, holding hands and moving closer so they're touching the others. In a bright flash of light, the team disappeared from the destroyed city and arrived back into the large briefing room they originally teleported from, followed shortly by all of the raptors collapsing from exhaustion.
"Each one of you, take a raptor to bed and get some rest." Armaseth picked up the red-colored raptor and carefully carried him to bed. The uniforms the team were wearing all dissolved and left every male naked as they made their way to bed to rest and recover from the extreme event. Armaseth laid down in his bed, laying the smaller raptor on his chest. He leaned up and placed a soft kiss on the sleeping raptor's cheek, whispering to him and the others through the nanomachines. "Proud of you all. Sweet dreams... you've earned them."
~~F~~ I ~~N~~