Operation M.I.A: Missing in Action (IN NEED OF REVISING)

Chapter XVIII

SHANNA

Music: Yoshi Star Galaxy (Yoshi) from Super Mario Galaxy 2

By some dumb luck, our next stop is a... dinosaur park. Specifically, Dinosaur World at Plant City, Florida.

"Okay, we've been to a lot of weird places before, but a dinosaur park!?" Mia exclaims mere seconds after we park.

"It was on the map and the hovercraft senses something here. I say we give it a look," Sam replies.

"Well, if this turns into some Jurassic Park shit, I'm not dealing with it," Mia mutters, rolling her eyes.

"I mean, the dinosaurs aren't real, so I don't think that will be an issue," I laugh, nudging Mia with my elbow.

Skylar and Avery were smart enough to bring money with them before we left, so that's how we pay to get inside the park. Several of us pick up a brochure lended to us near the entrance to the park. On the brochure is a map of the park. There's a playground, a good number of exhibits, a trail of some sort, and of course, a gift shop.

Our first stop is the playground, which is quite obviously a kid's attraction and nothing more. There's a few sets of generic playground equipment, a few small, plastic dinosaurs for kids to climb on, and some swing sets. Adults sit on benches all around the park, and none of them seem suspectful of foul play.

Most of the theme park is trailways and such with the sides lined with dinosaur statues. Some have signs next to them explaining the species and giving off cool facts about each dinosaur. Lots of tourists are taking pictures at just about every turn. Mackenzie's also taking a lot of pictures with her phone.

"You getting into photography?" I ask her, trying to see if I can get an answer out of her.

Mackenzie shrugs. "Well, it's not everyday that you get an opportunity to visit places such as this, so I want to remember as much of it as I can."

"It's just... you've been acting so strange recently. Is there something you want to talk about?"

Mackenzie shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath, but stops responding. That's the end of that, I guess.

"Hey, guys, get a load of this," Luke says, directing our attention to a red dinosaur sticking its head through two trees. The dinosaur is about twice as tall as we are, and its mouth is about a third of the way open.

But what's weird about this dinosaur is the red lights shining in its eyes. From what I've seen, no other dinosaur has had those so far.

"It's almost as if this dinosaur is watching-" Luke starts to say, and then is cut off by two laser lights popping out of each of the dinosaur's eyes, hitting Luke right in the forehead. Luke's eyes look up at the beam, and the next words out of his mouth are, "Welp, that can't be good."

SAM

Music: Titans from Gradius IV

Lots of things are unrealistic. And I've sure as hell seen a lot of those things. So a dinosaur at a theme park actually being some sort of giant robot dinosaur that's going to attack us? Nothing new to me. Just something else I can add to that list.

Anyways, the dinosaur begins to slowly raise its head incredibly high up, straightening its back out. Children begin screaming and running all around, dogs start barking like absolute madness, and frantic parents are scrambling to get their companions and get the hell outta dodge. As for our team, we just stand there, watching the dinosaur as it points its head upward and lets out a computerized roar.

"Called it! I called it! I knew this shit was going to go haywire, didn't I?" Mia sighs, exasperated. "I wasn't playing. I'm out of here, bitches." She then proceeds to storm off.

"Wow," Heath mumbles.

Eventually, the only people left in the park are the remaining nine of us. The dinosaur looks down upon us, and its eyes glow an even brighter red. It then scoops down and reaches for us. Thankfully, dinosaurs have tiny arms, and this one has sluggish movement, so dodging it is not too hard.

Heath and I both pull out our guns and shoot at the dinosaur a few times. None of our shots have any sort of an effect. The dinosaur starts taking slow but large steps toward us, and we start backing away in response.

"How do we stop it!?" Avery asks.

The dinosaur's head takes another sweep at us, this time focusing on Elle and I. I shove Elle out of the way before this animatronic fossil snaps her up with its huge jaws. At the same time, I'm able to get a good look inside the dinosaur's mouth.

There's not much to see in there. Just a glass wall blocking a man at a control panel.

And that's all I need to know.

"We need somebody to get inside the mouth!" I announce to the team, getting ready to strategize.

"I'm one step ahead of ya!" Mackenzie yells. She's climbed up the dinosaur from its tail and is now riding atop its head. Sean is also with her, carrying his crowbar along with him. Mackenzie then swings herself feet first into the dinosaur's mouth from the top half of its head, and manages to break open the glass and hurl herself inside. It only takes a few seconds after that for the man controlling the dinosaur to go flying out, at which point Sean leaps down to the ground with him and starts beating the living shit out of him.

It's pretty much impossible to tell what Mackenzie does after that, but the dinosaur eventually comes to a halt and reverts back to its original pose. The red lights in its eyes also diminish. A door in the dinosaur's stomach opens up and turns into a ramp. Inside the black "room" are two little girls, around the age of ten or eleven, cowering. Both wear similar outfits to what Avery wore at her dance competitions, which signifies that they're the two girls that went missing at the first competition.

Avery, Shanna, and Mackenzie lead the two frightened girls out of the dinosaur, being reassuring and making every effort to calm them down. We then quickly take our leave right before police show up and begin arresting the man we took down.

All in a day's work, huh?

It's funny how this idea isn't even that this creative, and yet this is one of the more creative chapters in my stories in a long while.

I've already started writing the next chapter, and let me just say, I'm super excited for it (mainly the battle).