“We need to go,” I said as I commanded the exhausted dinosaurs to stand.
“No! It’s late! You’ve been working all night! There will be more of them.”
“How hard would this have been without Kacerie?” I asked as I gestured to the wall. “We have big plans. We need more people. I need to make a run for it.”
“I will go with you,” Sheela said.
“So will I,” Kacerie said. “You saved me. I want to save someone else.”
“Fine!” Trel stomped her foot. “I’ll go--”
“You don’t have to,” I said as I mounted up on Bob.
“Maybe I want to? You’ll get into trouble without me.”
“Alright. Grab your spear. Kacerie and Sheela on Hope. Trel’s with me. Those four raptors might have gone back to the lake valley, but they could be around. Also, the people that just arrived on Dinosaurland would be confused so they could attack us first and ask questions later. Get ready to fight. Kacerie, you use your Lance first, then Sheela will use her Critical Strike, and then I’ll bring Tom and Bob into play, we’ll leave Nicole and Katie guarding the door. Got it?”
The three women nodded, and then I helped Trel get into the seat behind me. We made the quick trip to the new gate, jumped off our dinos, lifted the doors away, and then climbed back on our mounts. I commanded Katie and Nicole to stand abreast at the entryway and guard, and then we rode as quickly as we could toward the silver pillar of light.
I prayed that we weren’t too late, but I also prayed that we’d be able to help the new arrivals without any sort of violence.
I pushed Bob into the lead of our pack as we darted through the massive redwoods. The wind carried the scent of pine needles, mud, and new dew. I’d never felt as free as I did when riding on the back of a dinosaur, but this quick recovery mission was bringing me a sensation I hadn’t felt since I’d saved Kacerie. It was as if a part of my soul was shouting a war cry, and I kind of hoped we would run into something that we could fight. It was a ridiculous thought for sure, but I was in command of five massive dinosaurs, and three capable warrior women.
I wasn’t exhausted anymore.
I wanted to flex my muscles and claim these new arrivals for my tribe. I wanted to dominate and control my territory. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t just Victor Shelby, dog-catcher and loser. I wanted to be Victor Shelby, King of Dinosaurland.
Shadows danced across the ground of the forest. The canopy of trees couldn’t keep all the moon and starlight out. The silver beam of light was getting closer, but I didn’t quite know how long it would last. With Kacerie, it had vanished just as soon as she stepped away from it, but I hadn’t paid attention during my own arrival.
Then the light vanished, and I let out a curse. I still had a guess as to where it was located, but it was going to be a bit harder finding the person in the darkness.
Then I heard the shriek up ahead, and I gritted my teeth.
“Go, Bob!” I shouted. The parasaur let out a long low toot that sounded like a Viking war horn, and I heard Hope, Sonny, and Cher echo with their own long toots. Bob pushed his head down lower, raised his tail a bit, and Trel let out a yell of surprise as the parasaur kicked it up to ludicrous speed.
We hit the river where we would normally cross to head to the lake. I saw two figures with their backs to us and the rushing water. The moonlight illuminated them perfectly, but my eyes couldn’t really focus on the arrivals because I saw four dark shapes herding them. It was the four raptor fuckers that had chased us out of the lake valley.
I was close enough for my Eye-Q to identify them as Utahraptor ostrommaysorum, but then Bob was plowing through the water, and we were almost on the other side of the shore.
“Kacerie!” I shouted, and the sound of two sonic booms hit my ears a second after twin beams of light disintegrated the pair of raptors on the left. A moment after the blinding flash illuminated the river, I heard Sheela grunt, and I felt the air hiss as a spear flew by my head. The weapon slammed into the head of the leftmost raptor still standing, and it tumbled backward. That just left one more, but the big asshole wasn’t prepared for a charging parasaur. The Utahraptor might have been the size of a horse, but Bob was as big as two elephants standing in a line, and the darkly feathered bastard screeched when my pal clipped him with his shoulder. The raptor went down, and Trel’s spear hit him right in the stomach as we passed.
I’d already sent the “plow” command to Tom, and the trike had his horns leveled. I twisted my head around so that I could see the battle, but there really wasn’t one. The raptor tried to get up, but Tom’s horns shish kabobed him. Raptor number four let out a screech, but it turned into a death rattle almost instantly, and his body twitched as Tom raised his head to display the featured trophy. I sent him the command to get rid of it, and the trike twisted his head to the side violently. The raptor was flung free and finished its death twitches on the ground some fifty feet away.
I turned Bob around and commanded the dinos to walk toward the two figures. A half moment later we stood around them, and I got a good look at their features.
They were both women as far as I could tell. The one on the left caught my eyes first. She looked almost human, except that she floated two feet off the floor as if she was some sort of psychic superhero powering up for battle. Her hair also floated upward as if she was actually swimming in liquid instead of air. The hair was long and the color of mercury with bright white highlights. Her skin was also a gleaming color, like the white gold or silver of a new piece of jewelry. Her eyes were red, but it was hard to tell their exact shade in the light of the moon. She was barefoot, and her human-looking feet pointed toward the ground as she floated. The silver-woman wore a tight-fitting suit with the stomach and the underside of her boobs exposed. Her stomach was seriously toned, and I had no doubt that she could keep up with Sheela in a sit-up contest.
The other woman looked less human. Her skin seemed to be a pale green, with scales, and multicolored gemstones on her forehead and the bridge of her nose. Her face appeared human; other than the scales, gemstones, and large reptilian eyes. Her mouth had full lips, her cheekbones were elevated and rounded, and her neck arched as if she was used to posing for magazine covers. She stood on two slender legs that also looked human in shape, and her graceful arms were also of similar human proportion. Her ears were long and pointed like a fantasy elf, and she wore dangly earrings on each one. She wore a tight-fitting pair of what resembled black yoga pants, and a frilly jacket with a deep V-neck to show off nice looking breasts. She did have a long mane of green hair that fell down one shoulder, and dozens of flowers were braided into the length.
Were the overlords behind Dinosaurland only abducting beautiful women? Yeah, they were alien, but I couldn’t deny that they were both crazy hot. Even the one with scales and reptile eyes held my interest. She could have easily have been a supermodel wearing cosplay makeup.
The two women stared at me, the dinosaurs, and my friends for a few seconds. I couldn’t quite read their alien facial expressions, but it looked as if they were terrified, or confused, or in shock.
I knew the feeling.
I opened my mouth to speak, but the floating silver women spoke first.
“Who are you?” she said as she pointed at me. Her voice had a beautiful ethereal quality as if she was singing every word into a cave, but only recording and playing back the last whispers of the echo.
“I’m Victor. Come with me if you want to live.” I realized that my voice totally sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that was okay.
I was becoming a badass.
End of book 2.