The Arks: Over Heaven

Chapter 28: Worst. Tame. Ever

Part 2/2

The Kaprosuchus was a sort-of light purple in color, but had burning red eyes. It arched its back like a cat and snarled at the two, preparing to pounce on them. But before it could, Ben snapped his fingers and vines ensnared the Kaprosuchus. It let out a roar of frustration and tried its best to claw and tear away at the foliage, and it seemed like it was making quick work of it. They’d have to act fast.

“I’m running out of plants,” Ben realized as he checked his arms, “I won’t have time to control more. We need to knock this thing out now.”

“Understood, but how? My bow can’t knock it out before it gets free from the vines.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll just knock it out with some knock-out berries,” Ben replied. With what little flora he had remaining, he clenched his fists and concentrated hard. Black berries began to grow all around the vines ensnaring the Kaprosuchus.

“Gary, shoot its tail or something. We need it to open its mouth.”

“Understood.”

Gary aimed his pistol at the Kaprosuchus’ tail and pulled the trigger.

BAM!

The bullet hit home and the Kaprosuchus let out a growl of rage, opening its mouth with rage. Ben’s heart began to race as the vines crawled into Kaprosuchus’ mouth. Two dozen berries began to pour into its mouth, and after that the vines retracted back into the murky waters. Ben let out a gasp, his heart squeezing tightly as he collapsed onto his knees. The Kaprosuchus let out a growl and was going to jump toward Ben, but by now the knock-out berries had taken effect. It fell asleep, falling into the water.

Gary rushed toward Ben, kneeling down to check on him.

“Are you okay dude? I’ve never seen that happen to you!” Gary asked worriedly.

“Yeah. Just my heart. It feels a little numb, I must have overexerted myself,” Ben said, putting his hand over his chest and breathing anxiously, “Ah. That hurts.”

Ben grimaced in pain as he clutched his chest, “Just, feed that thing and we can get out of here, alright? I need- I need a break.”

Gary nodded wordlessly, and he walked up to the Kaprosuchus, gently lifting its head out of the water and onto a nearby rock so that it could breathe properly. Gary took out a few slabs of meat they had harvested from the Sarcosuchus, doing so for the next ten minutes or so…

~

Soon after, the Kaprosuchus’ eyes jolted open, and it stared at Gary. Gary noticed its soulless eyes and got a shiver down his spine.

“The process is done, Ben,” Gary announced. Ben looked at Gary and groaned as he got up from the murky waters.

“Good. Now let’s get the heck out of here. I’ve had enough of this swamp already.”

The two began to head back to the Book Club’s camp, which was easily identifiable because of its close proximity to the Green Obelisk. On the way there, the two were deciding on what to name their tame.

“I was thinking, perhaps we should name it Blaze,” Gary suggested.

“Blaze huh?”

“Yeah, because it has a fiery spirit.”

“Huh. Not bad. Well I have no complaints, I was never good with names,” Ben chuckled, “But hey, I was wondering if you had a name for this guy’s pet Raptor.”

“Oh, that one?” Gary realized with wide eyes, “Well. It is blue and red, but as much as I’d love to call it Blue I feel like that name is too generic. So I’m thinking of something like Stream. Like a stream of water, that’s what I notice about the pattern.”

“Stream, huh?” Ben said, “Sounds great. I guess I’ll tell Samuel about it.”

Before they knew it, they had reached the newly installed gate of the Book Club’s camp, and the sun was beginning to dip down the horizon.