Palae-oh-no - Ep 15: Planet Not-Theropod 2/2

“Okay, weird alien creatures, we don’t even know what a ‘bunny’ is!”

Corrie was trying to find a way out of the theatre while Kollin was ranting at people’s claims and Kim-Lee was keeping people away with her large claws.

“Corrie, tell them that we’re endotherms!” Kollin yelled.

“Nothing is stopping them. They all want us to do something that isn’t even anatomically possible!”

Kim-Lee’s attention however was caught by a Brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park. The man with the two kids then said something terrible – the animal was safe because it was a herbivore.

A teenaged boy then said “Yeah, lol. They’re totally lame compared to badass meat eaters.”

“…DON’T. JUST. ASSUME. ALL HERBIVORES. ARE FRIENDLY!!!!” Kim-Lee then started swiping her claws at the humans, wounding the teenager.

“Pfft, these dinos are still the lamest shit ever. Feathers ruined them!” the wounded teenager proclaimed, while everyone else was running out of the theatre. Kim-Lee started chasing everyone out, with Kollin and Corrie following them. However, a hovercraft appeared outside of the movie theatre, and sucked the three maniraptors in.

“Jeff, what is this place?” wondered Sampson.

“I have no idea. These weird beings seem to need us for something,” answered Jeff.

“Well we already gave them our genus.”

“Yeah… I think they are still need us though. I mean, we are foreign creatures in their universe after all.”

Two guards then walked into their room and picked them up, taking the two troodonts to an underground laboratory, where there was all sorts of strange machinery. However, what stood out most was who was overseeing everything.

“Ah, perfect. Just when my counterpart in dimension TZT-23 has begun his debut!”

The troodont looked perfectly recognisable, despite suffering severe injuries last time they met.“…Djhey Pterus”.

Lora was walking in complete darkness. She had no idea how she arrived in this location, only that she was paralysed by a weapon of Djhey Pterus.

The blast must have me in some hallucination, she thought. I guess if I stop treating like this is real, I will awaken back in my world.

Suddenly, a storm appeared, and a crimson fog surrounded her. It made deep hissing noises and then took the shape of a troodont.

“Well, I have news for you, Lora Anuscler. Very significant news.”

“What. Tell me what is going on? Why am I here? What happened to my friends… and university teacher?”

“They mean nothing now. Palae-oh-no’s fate has been sealed. Palae-oh-no has been cancelled… FOREVER! MWAHAHAHAHA!”

“WHAT?!”

Lora then found herself in a dimly lit room with Feduciucc. He then noticed that she was awakened from her vision.

“We’re trapped here. There’s no way to get out.”

“There’s got to be some way to escape. Surely we can’t be completely helpless.”

“We are. This is locked everywhere, and there are no holes that can be taken advantage of.” Lora then started looking for any possible way to get out, which Feduciucc took notice of. “I understand your disbelief. Trust me, there’s no way out.”

“Yeah, I can trust your word, you MARTIANS freak.”

“So that’s the problem? You don’t trust me, even in this life and death situation?”

“I would never trust you! You’re insane, and treat Sampson and me awfully!”

“Lora… have you ever considered that my feelings have been hurt by your behaviour as well? You have no idea how painful it is to go to work and put up with a student who views you as so… one dimensional. My views might be extremely unorthodox, but that doesn’t mean that they are all there is to me. Did you even think to consider that perhaps, uh, I wrote a book on why all maniraptors deserve equal rights?”

“…is that why you didn’t report Kollin and Corrie when you saw them that day?”

“It is. When I’m not off helping publish MARTIANS papers, I try to help non-troodont maniraptors have better lives. I mean, they have it awful. I’ve even told others about Kollin and Corrie seem to be friends with you, to try and inspire them.”

“This doesn’t sound like something you’d say or do. How do I know you’re not just being manipulative? Or if you even are Feduciucc?” Lora then pinned him against a wall, eyeing him closely. “Don’t tell me you are the behind all of this!”

“He isn’t.” Two guards then brought Lora and Feduciucc to where the others were, and tied their necks onto ropes that linked to posts.

“Now that you lovelies are all here, I guess I can gloat about my plan.” Djhey then got out a screen and started playing a slideshow.

“So I was severely injured after the last time we met, but thankfully the mutagen I have so much of managed to heal me. So once I was physically fine, I started thinking about how to change organisms en masse. During my research, I time travelled 70 million years into the future – where we are now, and discovered that another sapient species evolved, this time from placental mammals. What struck me however was how AWESOME the almost completely naked mammals that hide their nudity with fake integument imagined what we looked like to be. That then gave me inspiration way cooler than the idea of an ornithomimosaur being fused with a hadrosaur!

“So what I plan to do is take images that have been come up with by these beautiful creatures, insert them into this giant device here, go back to the present, and detonate it like a massive bomb, spreading mutagen everywhere and turning all of the world’s dinosaurs, pterosaurs and several more creatures into way better looking animals!

“There was one small problem though – the device refuses to accept DNA samples and wants to target species via voice command, and as you would know, nobody knows the genus of troodontid that inhabits Laramidia. So then I decided to abduct you guys, as well as the MARTIANS guy and some therizinosaur because I hoped your adventures would have informed you of the name, so I could then target troodontids too! And now, I can give this machine a test run by trying it on you.”

“Wait, who knows the genus for the troodonts?” questioned Corrie. “Why haven’t they told us?”

“Sampson knew. He had to keep it secret from everyone otherwise the government would hunt him down and kill him,” Jeff answered. “Oh, and Djhey?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Might I suggest testing your device on only one species, or maybe genus? I’d hate to imagine if you tried turning all of us into freaks.”

“Fine, I’ll be merciful… for now. Mutator Beta, target genus Muffasaurus!” The device that made up the laboratory quickly charged up, and then fired mutagen at the troodonts. However, nothing about them changed at all.

“Well, looks like our plan worked, Jeff,” Sampson commented.

Djhey immediately realised what happened, and then said “Oh, I get it… Muffasaurus is a fake name you said to save your little donkeys. Well, lucky for you, this will take a while to charge up. So for now, I guess we can all just relax and talk.”

“Hey, when can we show everyone the T. rex?” one of the guards asked.

“Not now! What we have is an unrecognisable fake looking feather headed weirdo that was probably made in that place in this time called China or something.”

“Excuse me, what is a T. rex?” wondered Kollin.

“What? You’re dinosaurs and you don’t know what a T. rex is?” the guard questioned. He then burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, stumbling across the room and breaking objects he walked past.

“Hey Mr guard, bring me that vat of acid! I want to see what kind of chemicals Djhey uses in his projects.”

“Okay – BAHAHAHAHA!!! What’s next? You don’t know what a Triceratops is?”

“Nope. Haven’t got a clue.”

“PFFFT, BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” While the guard was uncontrollably laughing, he spilt the acid, which didn’t only dissolve him, but it was also close enough to the posts so that they would be destroyed, letting the maniraptors free.

“You knew what they were because they were in that movie, didn’t you, Kollin?” noted Kim-Lee. “Oh, I like you.”

“UGH! Why do I decide to get such pathetic security! Well, at least Mutator Beta is almost ready to use again. Once I test this device on this future Earth, I will time travel back to the present and make the necessary modifications so I can prepare my main Mutator!”

Jeff then formulated a plan. “Okay, Kim-Lee, you and Kollin can prevent any forces he will use from attacking us. Corrie, Lora, Sampson – figure out how to use the time machine. Feduciucc and I will shut down the Mutator.”

Kollin and Kim-Lee started beating down an army of mutant pterosaurs, scaly chickens and lizard-looking Megalosaurus.

“Who knew that I could be good at beating up these weird Vegid-looking theropods!” Kollin remarked after he went kicking a chicken and rapidly used his small claws to do a focused attack.

“Well, I can say that these megalosaurs don’t put in any effort in even moving!”

Sampson, Lora and Corrie quickly configured the time machine so they could travel back home and then rushed over to help Jeff and Feduciucc.

“Well, fellow troodonts and Epichirostenotes, if you want to stop me, you’re going to have to kill me!”

“Why do we have to kill you? We can just bring you in and have you in a maximum security prison, or maybe dump you in a time where there are no sapient species,” said.

“Well, maybe you goody two shoes won’t but maybe Feduciucc will! I mean, how is he going to cope with the existence of those twats called ‘BANDits’ and ‘MANIACs’.”

Upon hearing this, Feduciucc lashed out at Djhey, holding him at the device. “Do you need to remind me of that visit those palaeontologists gave me when Lora was still unconscious?”

Lora looked at him, confused “Wait, what happened?”

“Djhey here thought it would be amusing if I got to meet some palaeontologists, so he brought me into another cell when you were still out. Funny thing is that these palaeontologists were infamous for claiming that birds are not dinosaurs – it seems like an absurd idea for us, but to them it is an almost religious belief. I wouldn’t be surprised if that sounds familiar to you.”

“These are like MARTIANS? What was the point of this, Djhey?”

“Amusement. Watching him face a mirror image and seeing him break down feeling so confused and challenged was so amusing. I’m sure you find it funny too, don’t you?”

“Well, I’m not gonna lie, I am holding in a l- WHOA!”

Lora was responding to Feduciucc grabbing Djhey and throwing him away from the device, sending him plummeting towards the ground. Feduciucc then opened up the device and ripped the cords out, shutting the Mutator Beta down and causing the machinery to collapse. “I see you learned nothing, Miss Anuscler. You still view me as that cardboard cutout jerk MARTIANS teacher that you cannot stand. Do you realise everyone sees me like this? Everyone else at university sees me as that crazy MARTIANS guy. It feels so painful to be judged by one aspect of your life! And now, I don’t even know what to think about my ideas anymore!”

Jeff then stepped between the two and separated them. “Okay, everyone calm down. The machine is destroyed, we can all go back home and resume our normal lives. Sampson is getting Kollin and Kim-Lee now. Now let’s just go to the time machine.”

Once everyone started walking back to the time machine, they realised that despite being the bloody pool of flesh, feathers and bone he now was, Djhey Pterus was still alive. He just sat there, watching the maniraptors leaving, quietly laughing. Pfft, a Beta, he thought. I can’t wait to see their reactions once they get home.

Cyryl was overseeing an investigation into Djhey Pterus’ present day laboratory, believing that he had been planning another experiment. In particular he was eyeing the mad scientist’s time machine, which appears to have been used. He realised that it was mobile and that its data log showed an abduction that teleported something out of a car into seventy million years into the future. He knew exactly who it took – he tried to stop the device when it flew over them, and even warned a therizinosaur to get out of the area in case it accidentally abducted her too. The avisaur then decided to prepare a taskforce to travel to the future and see if he could rescue his friends. However, he was lucky.

“Oh hey, Cyryl!” greeted Sampson. “Djhey’s down, but if you think it’s necessary to have a look at his lab in the future then go for it.”

“I almost got you out of this, but unfortunately I couldn’t divert the time machine that abducted you in time. Wait, what was that?” Cyryl then realised that the laboratory started to come to life, with machinery activating everywhere.

“That other Mutator was just being used as a diversion!” realised Corrie. “I guess we have to shut this one down too!”

The maniraptors raced to the centre of the machine, and opened it up, only to see that it was using too much power to perform a safe shutdown. Worse, it only had about two minutes before activating.

After looking for any other possible ways to shut it down, they came to one conclusion. “Someone’s going to have to stay behind!” exclaimed Cyryl amid the loud noise made by the machine. “So who’s going to stay back?”

The eight maniraptors all stood there, thinking about who should make the choice.

“It has to be me.”

Everyone stared in shock of the choice, but nobody was moreso than Lora. “…Feduciucc? No. No.”

“Well I’m afraid it’s a little late to start wanting my company. If everyone’s going to keep viewing me as that crazy guy who thinks mammals are not synapsids, then why should I put up with it? Nevermind the fact that I don’t even know how much I even hold my beliefs now… just go, please. Save yourselves.”

“You don’t need to do this! I can do it if you want!”

“Just go! We don’t have time for this!” Feduciucc then grabbed the wires, and said “Look, I was a massive jerk! I can’t live with myself after what Djhey put me through! Just get out before we all die!”

Everyone started to leave, but Lora just stared at her teacher, not knowing what to feel. She could only think of one thing to say.

“…I’m so sorry.”

Sampson, who stayed behind, then said “Quick. We’ve got a matter of seconds now.” The two troodonts then ran out of the laboratory, and successfully made it outside. They then got onto an emergency bus Cyryl hired, and quickly drove away, watching the lab violently explode.