Category: Land before Time

Rating: T

Couples: hints of Canon-ones

Warnings: BIG AU, hints of Blood, implied Character Death, Heavy Sci-fi

Chapter: 1

Copyright: © characters and places by United Pictures; © Plot and OC by me

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"Oh Topsy…" Tria sighed in exasperation with a faint hint of amusement in her voice. Pterano had returned from his exile a few days back and Mr. Threehorn was reacting to that as expected. Which meant that only the most tolerable residents did not feel the urge to bash his head against something yet and even those were getting close.

Tria rolled her eyes as her mate huffed and turned to go to some quiet corner of the valley. She watched him go and decided to go down to one of the water-holes. Above her a dark-brown silhouette was aiming for the bigger hole, gliding down gracefully. She looked over her shoulder to where her mate had disappeared, before heading there herself.

"Old Threehorn still not happy?" Grandma Longneck greeted the arrival. She, Ducky's mother and Pterano were resting at the water's edge, watching the young ones play in the shallows.

"What do you think?" Tria snorted lightly, settling down between the Longneck and the Flyer. She smiled warmly when seeing her daughter use her big sister as a small island, climbing up and jumping down in the same move. Cera looked less happy, but had resigned herself to her fate.

"I served my sentence." Pterano grumbled, frowning as he stared at the ground.

"He'll accept you, sooner or later." Ducky's mother assured him, not adding the obvious: he'd have to, because patience in the valley was running thin.

"Grandpa is considering talking to him about it already." Grandma added, rolling her eyes in exasperation towards the Threehorn.

"Let's hope that'll do the trick." Pterano whispered, wrapping his arms around him. "I really do not want to have to go back to the Mysterious Beyond."

"It won't come that far." The Swimmer soothed him. "We'll make sure of it."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"So, let me get this straight…" The man growled softly, hoping that none of the dinosaurs would hear him. "They send you through Time to capture dinosaurs and you never bothered to actually look up something about those? What the crap were you doing that month you had before this job?"

"Is na ma problem." The one he had spoken to answered. "A gets paid ta bring some lizards, na ta study them. That's tha job of ya fancy scientists."

"Moron." The other looked ready to hit him. "What about you others?" He hissed. "Please tell me at least someone here beside me knows what we're dealing with?"

The other three who had discreetly spread out over the cave they had taken shelter in looked at him. Two looked slightly sheepish, but the other nodded. That was the downside if something was one big experiment where failure meant dead: they weren't going to send un-expendables. But that they'd give him these morons, he really was going to complain about.

"Well, that's better than no one." He felt a migraine coming up and rubbed his forehead. "Ok, I'm going to make this short then: the ones with a long neck are Sauropods, the horned ones Triceratops – I hope you know THAT at least, if you ever watched a dinosaur-movie – the winged ones Pterosaurs and any others I'll mention should we encounter them. Got that?"

All four others nodded.

"Good." He rose to his feet, looking out of the cave as he straightened his vest. He needed several different species – didn't matter which – but he knew from animals from his own time that he had only one shot, otherwise every wild animal in quite a radius would either flee or at the very least be on their guard. He didn't want to think about a Triceratops or the like being on guard and spotting him. "Let's get this ball rolling, I need a drink."

They followed him outside, sneaking through the forest in search for lone dinosaurs.

"Sir, what about those?" The one who had nodded pointed down the hillside. Through the forest one could make out one of the lakes that dotted the valley-floor and had made this such a good spot for the first try to capture some of the ancient lizards which had ruled earth before a giant meteorite changed history. At least, aside from the fact this entire area would in a few dozen million years be all field of the main Laboratory of the government. That was the downside with time-travel: you could only travel to the very spot you left from, even when going back billions of years.

The leader looked where he pointed and saw several different dinosaurs resting in the warm sun. There were four different adults and about 20 children. He crouched down, looking them over. The Sauropod looked old even to his eyes – which meant it was probably ancient – but the other three seemed to be at the prime of their lives. The problem was that most of the children were in the lake-water, seemingly playing in it. Their arsenal did not include ways to capture those safely aside from grabbing them physically. But it was probably the best opportunity they'd get.

"Alright, this is what we're gonna do." He crouched down. "You think you can hit that Pterosaur with a stun-net?"

The man he had turned to looked at the pterosaur, measuring the distance, before nodding. "Easily, unless it's gonna fly."

"At my signal only." He turned to the other three. "Alright, you…" He pointed at the man that had frustrated him so just a few moments back. "hit the Triceratops. You and I will hit the Sauropod and you the last one, got all that?"

They nodded and quietly prepared their weapons, all the while on the lookout for dinosaurs that might come upon them and alert the others.

"The moment we've fired, we gotta run. Try if you can get some of those kids before they completely scatter. I think 'ma fancy scientists' would like some youngsters with the adults." He reminded them, aiming the barrel of his rifle at the Sauropod. He hoped the old thing would survive this. He'd hate to have wasted a shot. From the corner of his eyes he saw the others take aim too. "3… 2… 1… fire." He hated raising his voice, even for something as fitting as giving the order to shoot. In fact, that single word 'fire' was the softest he had spoken while on this trip.