Panthora Warriors

Chapter 4: Crocodile Tears

We were all down in the training room practising some target practise when the alarm went off. We reached the scene of the attack only to find utter devastation. As I was taking it all in I was swept off my feet by an almighty force, a force that I recognised all too well; a saltwater crocodile. I turned around to find a creature that looked anything but human. My senses identified her as Malsah. A girl who was not part crocodile but was cursed with a dark crocodile spirit, a spirit she could not control. Our weapons were useless against her, instead we were the ones that took the hit. Badly injured, we retreated back to the den hoping Mystica could heal us. While I was resting I was constantly thinking of weapons that might give us an advantage over Crocora, then an idea came to mind, the only way to defeat a living dinosaur is with another living dinosaur. I ran down to the library to the dinosaur section and found a dinosaur encyclopaedia. My hand raced through the pages until I came across the answer to our problem. A dinosaur that looked like a giant crocodile named Sarcosuchus. It was like someone had taken a saltwater crocodile and enlarged it by 100 times its size. But that was when the truth hit me, dinosaurs were extinct. Unless time travel was real.

I went down to Mystica's room and knocked on her door, when it opened I walked in to find Mystica had made the room into her own personalised spell room with books, cauldrons, crystals and jar after jar of ingredients. "Mystica, do you know any time travel spells?" "Why do you ask?" "I have a plan, during the cretaceous era of the dinosaurs there was a large crocodilian called Sarcosuchus, it's the only thing that can rival Crocora." Mystica walked over to a small wooden box which she opened with a special key, inside was a gauntlet with numbered buttons and a small space on it. She told me that this was a time gauntlet and the time orb she put in my hand was the only way to power it, I would only get two chances, one to get there and one to get me back. At that very moment the alarm went off, we ran up to the main room to check the computer, Crocora had returned which figured we would have to fight again, resulting in more injuries. My friends told me to go and find the Sarcosuchus, they will try and hold off Malsah for as long as possible.

I put the gauntlet on and the time orb in place and typed in the time 112 million, a portal opened next to where I was standing, and as I stepped through I heard my friend's voices fade away. Now on the other side of the portal, I now saw how brutal the prehistoric times were, there were flying reptiles circling the skies, gentle giants feeding on the lush vegetation and born killers stalking unsuspecting victims. The portal closed behind me as I made my way through the great plains, which I now admit was a really stupid thing to do because I was now a moving target to giant carnivorous reptiles. The ground beneath my feet began to shake, something big was moving closer with every step. I turned round to find a tyrannosaurus rex charging towards me like a runaway truck with no brakes. Frozen with fear I was paralysed, a hand pulled me aside out of the t-rex's path. When my confidence had returned I turned round to find a warrior who was half boy and half lynx. He took me to a nearby cave which he called his home and cooked a steak the size of a table.

After a mammoth sized meal, I told him why I was here and in return he told me his name was Caleb and why he was stuck here. He came here 5 years ago on a time machine he had built himself, he too had tried to find the Sarcosuchus spirit but failed, when he returned to travel back home his time machine was destroyed and since he didn't have the tools to fix it he had no other choice but to live through the prehistoric years and wait for extinction to happen. Caleb gave me a map to help me find the cave of the Sarcosuchus and wished me luck, before I set off I asked Caleb if he would like to return home with me, but he denied it and said he had made his home here and preferred to stay. I set off to the cave on my creature cycle while trying to dodge all the ruthless reptiles in my path. When I reached the cave there was a low growling sound coming from the inside. Outside was a podium with a tooth the size of a sword, as I picked it up a door in the wall slid open. Inside was the beast itself, the creature I had come to find, but he wasn't very happy to see me with his tooth in my hand and in the blink of an eye I was flicked into the air like a ragdoll. It was either the blow to the head or common sense, either way I realised how to tame the overgrown lizard, I had to place the tooth in his mouth by myself. The tooth was like a remote, if I placed it in myself then the reptile would be at my every command. After some throwing around, some tail swiping and a few broken bones I finally managed to place the tooth in his gob. The Sarcosuchus disappeared into thin air, and a long serrated blade lay in its place. I picked it up while using the time gauntlet and the rest of the time orb I travelled back to the present.

Meanwhile the guys were getting the living daylights beat out of them. Just as I appeared I saw Austin collapse to the ground. I unleashed my new weapon; the Suchus Sabre. As Malsah charged at me, I hit her with the sabre like a batter at a baseball game. Once she was weak enough I formed the elemental circle and used my blades to deliver the final strike. After the curse was lifted the girl said that her name was Lisa and that she was sorry for all the damage she had caused. I told her that it wasn't her fault and told her that she could return home. I walked over to my friends only to find that Austin wasn't responsive, I checked for a pulse only to find there was no beat or any signs of breathing. He risked his own life to save ours, something a true warrior would do. We took him back to the base to begin the burial ceremony. Mystica joined us as she had the spell to make sure our friend had a safe journey to the afterlife. In his grave we buried his axe, his harness and crystal and blessed it with a cross made with the blood of a black bear (we didn't kill any bears, we used some from a jar that Mystica had in her room).

To take my mind off it, I went for a walk in the woods where I met a new friend who had a few surprises in store!