The New Adventures of Raptor Trainer

Trial in the Tropics

The gates opened, and all of us bolted out of our pens.

Freedom. Freedom at last! Freedom to explore, to run around the outside, at last, AT LAST!

We ran in the direction the scent came from; Alpha had held up a chunk of strange meat for us to pick up the scent of, and once we'd familiarized ourselves with it, we were able to catch the scent from far off. He wanted us to go after the creature. Hunt it down. Catch it. The idea of chasing after something outside of the Paddock, in the open, was thrilling by itself, and we'd all wanted to get out and do it for a long time.

And now we were actually doing it.

We swerved around each other as we ran in the direction of the smell, Beta staying in the lead, and me, Gamma and Delta weaving about behind her. We jumped rocks, pushed off of logs, hopped over tree roots, and the fresh smell of the lush forest was wonderful in our noses.

It was even better than we thought it would be.

I heard a noise come from behind; a strange, loud whirring noise. An odd contraption came wheeling into our pack from behind, and atop it sat...

Alpha?

{Alpha!} Beta chirped. {He's come to run with us! Keep going!}

Maybe he used the strange sputtering machine to keep up with us; his kind wasn't quite as fast on their feet as me and my sisters were.

{It's getting closer, Alpha,} Delta snarled pugnaciously.

{We'll get it! And we'll take it down!} I screeched.

The scent became stronger. We were close now, and we slowed down.

"They got somethin'!" Alpha called out. To whom, though, I didn't know yet.

With it being so near now, it was a bit more difficult to pinpoint the exact source of the smell. Alpha lagged behind some when he saw that we were right on the creature's tail. I looked behind me as I searched for the target to see that Alpha had hidden himself among the bushes and rocks, and had now been joined by others of his kind. They were all armed with weapons in one form or another, ready to help us take it down.

Why would we need help, though? There were four of us, and we were plenty powerful on our own. The creature we were after couldn't be...

...It couldn't be...That...big...

The rustling came from the treetops, and from the leaves, a green head made itself visible. The head alone was almost as long as one of us.

We all watched in awe and horror as the creature turned from green to white, and it stared down at us, silently acknowledging the presence of the humans, and possessing an eerie glimmer of intellect in its red eyes.

It lowered its head and snarled menacingly.

{What are you?} Beta chittered to it to see if it understood.

{Alpha.}

The dialect it spoke in was garbled and deep, yet we could still make out what it said.

{That's wrong,} Beta corrected it. {We already have an Alpha.}

{I am your new Alpha,} it asserted. {They are weak. Kill them.}