Chapter 76: A Super Insane and Crazy Team Up
Original Post Date: Jun 30, 2024
Note: Story starts in Wyvern, Aerial ABC backwards filter and has a Prologue. Last chapter in Titanoboa, next chapter in Thorny Dragon.
~
Ben and John were walking through the forest back to their thatch base in the woods. They had left the Mosasaurus and the singular eel behind at the shores, which would be used as soon as they were ready to raid the castle to rescue Ian and Chris. Ben looked at his friend and noticed he seemed more exhausted than usual.
“You alright?” Ben asked John. John nodded.
“Yeah. I just feel more… burnt out for some reason. I don’t know why,” John explained. He dragged his feet along the ground tiredly. Ben raised his eyebrow. He turned away and began to whistle a tune. He didn’t know why but he felt like his head felt lighter, as if a weight had just been dragged off his shoulder.
“Can you not?” John grumbled in irritation. Ben stopped whistling.
“Sorry dude.”
John rubbed his face with his fingers in irritation.
“No, no, I should be. I don’t know what that was all about,” John apologized, “I guess the stress is just getting to me. It isn’t easy when your friend’s life is on the line and he could die at any moment.”
Ben shoved his hands in his pockets, looking off into the distance slowly.
“Yeah. I get it. Thanks for caring. About us,” Ben smiled. John chuckled and adjusted his straw hat.
“Of course. You’re all the reasons I’ve cheered up since those dark times. I don’t think I would’ve made it without y’all. That’s why it was kind of hard when you just up and disappeared.”
Ben’s eyes darted to the ground, slightly ashamed.
“I know I shouldn’t have left without warning. For the past year it’s been a regret on my mind and… I knew I should have told you all before I was gone. I guess I was just too afraid to confront this topic.”
“Don’t worry Ben,” John said, rubbing his implant, “At least we’re all in this together now. That’s all that matters.”
There was rustling in the bushes. All eyes turned and they saw an albino capybara walk out. It walked up to John, and seemed to be chewing on grass. John placed his palm on the capybara’s head, his implant glowed, and the capybara smiled.
“Heh, look at how cute it is,” John chuckled as he began to pet it. Ben smiled at his friend.
“You’ve always loved animals huh. You said you wanted to be a zookeeper or something like that?”
“Ehh, maybe a veterinarian. That’s why getting to university was an important endeavor for me especially.”
“Hmm.”
“Something the matter?” John asked as they continued to walk along. The capybara continued to trudge along with them.
“Nothing. Just forming a theory about these implants,” Ben commented. John let out a yawn, stretching his arms and legs out as if he just got out of bed.
“Whew, that was pretty heavy. It’s like insta-taming these things takes a hit on my energy. Anyway, hopefully nothing crazy happened back at base or anything like that. I do NOT want to clean up any of the mess that Carlos may have made trying to cook something up for supper.”
“Heh heh, me neither, John, me neither…”
Just then, Ben felt something click in his mind. Ben scratched his head in confusion.
“What was that?” Ben thought.
“It’s probably nothing,” Ben’s inner thoughts told him.
“Eh. Probably right,” Ben thought again.
Ben and John continued to get closer and closer to base, and the mood seemed light despite the troubles they’d gone through since landing on the island.
~
Bob groaned, groggily waking up to the sound of sobbing. Bob’s eyes instantly jerked open as he realized what had just happened.
“Alan!” Bob called out, jolting up and hopping onto his two feet. He looked around and noticed their Tyrannosaurus lying on the ground, dead and soulless. It had huge gash marks and blood still seeped out of its body. Flies and other prehistoric bugs were already beginning to gather.
Bob looked away and at Alan, who was weeping on the ground. Alan was gripping the sands tightly, and looking down as if there was something in the earth that made him this way.
“There you are! What the hell happened-”
As Bob rushed up to Alan, Alan got up and shoved Bob away.
“Stay away or I’ll get you too!” Alan sobbed, “Please, just, stay away! I don’t want to hurt you but I’m afraid I’ll-”
“Alan I don’t know what happened while I was out so I need you to tell me what happened. Are you okay?”
“No, NO I’M NOT OKAY!” Alan cried, “I ATE THAT GUY’S ARM DO YOU THINK I’M OKAY?! I’M CRAZY! JUST LEAVE BEFORE I END UP HURTING YOU TOO!”
Bob grabbed Alan by the collar and stopped him from moving any further.
“Listen, Alan. I’m not leaving. No matter what happens to me. It’s MY duty to ensure that all of you make it out safely,” Bob shouted at him. Bob looked away and muttered under his breath, “It’s all my fault anyway.”
Bob turned back to face Alan.
“We’re going to figure this out together so it doesn’t need to happen again. Got it?
“But-”
“No buts, Alan. Besides, I think I’ve figured out your power…”
Bob let go of Alan, and Alan stepped back. Alan looked around at the carnage and the blood with fear in his eyes.
“Okay. So, what is it?”
“I’ll explain. Later. We don’t have much time left. Look at the obelisks.”
Bob pointed at all three of them. They seemed to be pulsating brighter than before. Most couldn’t tell, but if you looked closely enough and at all three at once you could spot the difference.
“And what’s happening with them?”
“Nothing. But someone has to be collecting the artifacts. Those artifacts are used to escape this place, and the more we collect the more leverage we’ll have on getting the others.”
“So where are we going to find these artifacts?! If a bunch of people are out to collect them then by the time we find one the rest will be gone!” Alan protested, “Shouldn’t we just… go tame some more tyrannosaurus just in case we get into another fight with that guy?”
“No. That’s not an option, not anymore. As soon as all the artifacts are collected I’m 100% sure that we’ll enter the endgame. And once we do, we won’t have a chance to escape. Artifacts are the number one priority.”
“And where are we supposed to find them? It’s not like we KNOW where they are!”
Bob smirked at Alan’s statement.
“Except I do. They’re found in the caves.”
“And there’s a reason I chose this specific spot as a base location. Because there’s an artifact right up north just a hundred meters or so.”
~
All of their tames had perished the night the albino Raptor had attacked Samuel, but following Ruby’s testimony on the strange “fight” she heard a whiles away, all seven of them decided they were going to investigate.
As the group were walking along, Andres was happily bouncing along with Ruby and Neddy, while Tiffany stayed by herself near the back, watching over everyone like a mother watching over her children. Samuel glanced over at Aurora, who seemed more distant ever since Samuel’s rejection of her.
“Samuel, you alright?” Nova asked as they continued moving along. Samuel looked at his best friend with a soft smile.
“Yeah. Last night’s still on my mind though.”
Nova looked away.
“I get it. Just the day in the life of this land, y’know?”
Nova began to look up at the sky, her eyes sparkling with fervor.
“If I’m glad about one thing it’s that nothing’s changed since we’ve arrived here. Things are still kind of the same in a way.”
“You’re not mad about what I did?”
“No. Not really. I knew you’ve always been like that with other people,” Nova whispered. She turned to look at Aurora, “I could care less about the valedictorian. But maybe it’d be best to apologize.”
Samuel shoved his hands in his pockets.
“I guess you’re right.”
Samuel began to walk up to Aurora, but as he did Aurora quickly walked away to the comfort of Ruby’s presence. Samuel sighed to himself as Ruby looked back and shot a look at Samuel.
“This may be harder than I thought,” Samuel thought as the sequoia trees finally began to fade away and a large volcano came into view.
Samuel stepped in something wet and gooey, and he looked down to see a pile of vomit. Samuel cringed and raised his boot to see it begin to collect around his foot.
“UGH! What in the-”
“EWWWW,” Nova gagged, “You just stepped in dinosaur vomit or something!”
All eyes turned to him as Samuel began to scrape the throw up with a stick. Tiffany found the situation humorous and began to laugh. But as Samuel looked down at the puddle, he noticed small bones inside. Samuel squinted his eyes and threw the stick away.
“Small bones? Looks like human vomit to me. Do dinosaurs even vomit?” Samuel thought. He rolled his eyes, “Whatever. I don’t wanna think about it.”
Just then, Ruby gasped.
“Oh my goodness. Look at what happened here.”
Everyone looked on in awe and absolute astonishment at the chaos that seemed to unfold. There was a dead, saddled Tyrannosaurus laying in the black sands, a small stone hut that seemed to have caved in, and the river was even running red with the blood of dozens of schools of dead fish. It was a massacre.
“Holy moly, it’s a T. rex!” Neddy gasped with wonder, “I guess they are on this island after all… But I have a feeling that whoever fought here must be pretty powerful.
Andres’ fists began to glow white.
“I say b-be careful. Just in case. The victor might still be in the area.”
The seven quickly and quietly traveled across the river to inspect the ruins of the stone hut. They didn’t notice anything of interest, but as Nova walked up to the dead beast, her eyes sparkled with realization.
“Hey, it’s still alive!” Nova shouted. The tyrannosaurus’ eyes darted to Nova, and then it let out a roar of pain. Tiffany walked up to the beast, and pointed at the wounds on its body.
“Look at these gashes. It looks like it came from another theropod. A big one at that,” Tiffany observed. Andres looked at the Tyrannosaurus with worry, and began to pet his head softly.
“D-do you think we can save and tame him? To make up for our tamed losses?”
Tiffany shook her head.
“No. I don’t think so. Besides, look at that saddle. Someone’s already tamed it. It’d probably gobble us all up right as it recovers.”
Tiffany’s implant began to glow, and her heartbeat began to pound in the air as her arm transformed into a sharp blade. She placed it at the neckline of the beast.
“Let’s just put it out of its misery, right here and right now.”
Samuel grabbed Tiffany’s arm.
“Hold on a moment, Tiffany. Perhaps we should let Nova finish the job. If your prediction is correct, she’ll be able to transform into one of these things once she kills it.”
Tiffany’s heartbeat stopped pounding so loud, and her arm transformed back into normal.
“Right. Didn’t think of that… It really was a good idea having you on my side. Go for it then, Nova.”
Tiffany withdrew, and Samuel lent Nova his spear. Nova stepped forward, and with a final blow plunged her spear into its skull.
SHINK!
A few seconds after Nova did that, Nova’s implant began to glow, and everyone gasped in shock as a white light flashed across the room and Nova’s body instantly began to transform into a Tyrannosaurus. As soon as Nova was finished, she looked around the area in shock, and then down at the others. She had a black body and a tan head. Most importantly, she had an implant embedded in her chest. She let out a fierce roar into the air.
“Awesome! WOO HOO!” Samuel called out, “You can come out now, Nova!”
The white light flashed, and Nova turned back to normal.
“That was good, that was good,” Nova commented snazzily.
“I’m not too sure who could stop us now. We’ve got Nova, Tiffany, AND Andres? Yeah, we’re practically unstoppable now,” Neddy said with pride. They heard footsteps behind them, and they turned around to see Aurora walk up to a trail of fresh footprints that weren’t theirs.
“Guys,” Aurora finally said, “Come look at this.”
Everyone quickly approached the fresh set, and they looked up to see it going up a small valley wedged in between the volcano and the other mountain. All of them seemingly already knew what to do:
Follow the tracks.
~
On the way to the cave, Bob explained to Alan how his implant attribute worked, or at least, how he thought it worked. Alan found great surprise in this discovery. In order to combat Alan’s ‘hunger pains’ they made sure to pack lots of food with them at all times, that way another situation like that didn’t happen again.
“You seem to know a lot about this island,” Alan asked, “How do you know?”
Bob smiled at the thought.
“Just some good ol’ predictions,” he lied, “But hey. I used to play this game back in my day that’s similar to our current situation.”
“Hmm. Well I’m grateful for that. Otherwise I might not even be around,” Alan laughed.
A few more minutes of walking and they made it to a small valley that had a small cave inside.
“Here we are. Not too far, right?” Bob said, signaling to the cave situated within the small valley. Alan shook his head.
“No. No it isn’t.”
Bob took out his crossbow, and Alan took out his pike (which Bob gave to him). Bob warned him, “Be careful. There’s going to be a lot of creatures inside.”
“Okay… What kind of creatures are we talking about?”
“Big spiders, scorpions, but the worst of the bunch are the bats. They give you rabies. So DON’T even think about getting bitten by them, otherwise you’re a goner.”
Alan gulped in fear.
“R-Right.”
The two slowly stepped into the cave, and a loud bellow echoed from within. Not the bellow of a beast, but the bellow of soft wind. It was dark, but green mushrooms and white crystals illuminated the cavity. Much to Bob’s surprise, there wasn’t a single creature in the area. In fact, it was not that big of a cave. It was just one large cavity with a single strange object in the middle.
Alan looked around suspiciously, looking out for any bats that might attack him at any given moment,
“Bob you said there would be creatures-”
Alan’s eyes widened as his jaw dropped at the artifact that laid dead in the middle. Alan walked up to the artifact and continued to stare at it some more.
“This is it?”
“Yeah. It is. I didn’t think it’d be this easy though. It was different than I remember…”
Alan reached out to grab it, but as his hand reached the artifact, it began to slow down. Alan raised his eyebrow in confusion.
“Why isn’t it letting me grab it?”
The mushrooms on the wall began to glow, and Alan looked up in wonder to see a sentence on the wall made of the mushrooms.
“Solve the three riddles to collect the artifact,” Alan read off the wall. The mushrooms began to shift into the first riddle.
“I am huge, feared throughout the land, and my home resides within the ashes. Whenever I hurt my eyes fill with rage and my footsteps shake the earth just as much as the sauropods. Who am I?”
“Giganotosaurus,” Bob answered.
DING!
The mushrooms glowed, and shifted into the next riddle.
“I am a man of horrors, a man who’s done wrong, and a man who can never be redeemed for his actions. I am a man second in command only to the president. Who am I?”
“What? The Vice President? He’s a bad guy?” Alan murmured.
“Bob,” Bob replied in irritation.
DING!
Alan looked at Bob with suspicion.
“Hey, you two have the same name and look similar! Cool…”
“Cool indeed,” Bob said in annoyance.
The final riddle came up on the cave wall.
“I am a man of mystery, a man of manipulation, and a man with a heart of gold, but a mind of iron. I am a man who plans for the future, I am a scholar and one of its best, I am a man who cares about those close to me. Who am I?”
“What?” Bob wondered, absolutely flabbergasted.
“These riddles don’t even make sense,” Alan moaned, “These aren’t even riddles!”
The two just sat there, staring at the riddle for a long, long, time…
Until they heard footsteps approach from behind them.
Bob instantly turned around and pulled his crossbow out on a group of seven people. All of them raised their hands in the air, but the buff one maintained his fighting stance.
“Who are you?!” Bob barked at them.
“We should be asking you that!” the buff one shouted back, clenching his fists tighter, “Y-you both look real mean! Why should we trust you? In fact, why should we be raising our hands in surrender? We should be fighting!”
“Andres, no,” the man wearing a graduation robe said. He walked up and put a hand on his shoulder, “He’s probably only doing it out of self-defense.”
Andres sighed, and lowered his fists. Bob, realizing they weren’t threats, lowered his crossbow and put it away.
“Sorry about that,” the man apologized, “I’m Samuel. Me and my… allies- no, friends, just wanted to follow the tracks and find out what happened down there at the river. But I guess we found an artifact too.”
One of the women was staring keenly at the riddle. She scratched her chin and pointed at it.
“Is that a riddle?”
“Yes, it is,” Alan replied, “But we have no idea what the answer could be!”
A man with glasses stepped forward, inspecting the riddle carefully. Then, he shrugged.
“Yeah. No idea who this is. I’m going to be passing it over to Samuel.”
Alan looked back and forth between all seven newcomers, and then he scratched his head in confusion.
“Maybe we should all introduce ourselves. There’s a lot of us.”
They spent the next ten minutes introducing themselves, and once they did they finally agreed that perhaps working together would be the best option. They turned their attention to the riddle when Samuel yelled out the answer.
“Samuel!” Samuel yelled out.
There was no ding.
Samuel looked confused, and Bob looked at him weirdly. Just then, Aurora stepped forward. She grasped at her gold heart locket, and sighed while looking at the riddle.
“Borealis.”
DING!
The invisible forcefield seemingly disappeared, leaving them to collect it. Neddy stepped forward and touched it, and the artifact entered his implant. Neddy looked at the others with a goofy smile.
“Well that certainly was a super insane and crazy team up.”
