Injustice League #1- Shroud of Darkness

Chapter 4- Creepy Crawlers

(If you have arachnophobia or insectophobia, I suggest you avoid reading this chapter)

After the Brachiosaurus rampage, we headed south across the rock valley. Eventually, we found ourselves walking along a ravine surrounded by forest on both sides that was so dark we couldn't see the bottom. Echo squawked towards the ravine, which caused an echoing squawk to go through the ravine. We walked along, until I suddenly heard heavy breathing to the right of me, inside the forest. I looked to my right and instantly froze.

"Nobody. Move. A muscle." I said, and when the rest of the group caught up to us, they instantly screamed and ran.

Because what was in front of them was a full grown male Tyrannosaurus.

"Ok. I guess we're running." I said as I turned to run.

We ran until the T. Rex caught up to us. It swung its massive head, and caught a sailor in its mouth, while knocking two more off the edge. The T. Rex held the screaming man in its mouth until a bite caused the man to go silent with a sickening crunch. I snuck a couple shots at the Rex with my Magnum before continuing to run. Eventually we ran out of room to run, and there was nowhere to go. "Climb down the ravine!" I shouted, and we started climbing. One sailor stood at the top, refusing to climb. "No way I'm going down the-" He was cut off as the T. Rex tore him in half with its jaw. "CLIMB FASTER!" Jimmy shouted, continuing to climb. An hour later, the T. Rex gave up, and we were at the bottom of the ravine. "We'll rest here before we try to climb back up." I said, taking out my Magnum. "I'll take first watch." The rest of the group laid down to sleep. I sat on a log, looking around. I was about to doze off when I heard a clicking sound. I looked over to the source of the sound. There was a small alcove on one of the ravine walls, and as I watched, huge insect legs slowly stuck they're way out of the hole. I quickly lit a flare and threw it at the hole, causing the insect legs to retract. I sat next to Cupa, cradling her head in my arms. "Don't worry, my love," I said quietly. "We'll make it out of here." I sat there for a while, waiting. When the flare's light faded away, I knew we were done for. I watched as the insect legs came back. Dog-sized cockroaches slowly made their way towards us. I looked up and saw huge spiders climbing down the walls. "Everyone wake up!" I shouted, drawing my Magnum. "We've got company!" Everyone slowly got up, like kids on a school day. But when they saw what we were up against, they quickly got up. Scout drew his minigun and started firing, while the rest hid or found their weapons. I fired at the cockroaches coming towards us, but eventually the hoard got too big for me to handle. I could see huge scorpions coming, accompanied by large centipedes. I watched as a man was impaled in the chest by a scorpion's tail, and then disemboweled by several smaller cockroaches. One sailor got scared and attempted to climb the walls to safety, but a giant pincer stuck out of the wall, grabbed him, and pulled him into the hole it came out of. Suddenly, a bunch of cockroaches jumped on me and started biting me. I reached all over, trying to get them off, and I dropped my Magnum in the process. "Jimmy!" I called. "Grab my tommy gun! It's in my bag!" I looked around and saw Jimmy had heard me and was rifling through my bag to find my tommy gun.

 When he pulled it out he started firing at the cockroaches climbing on me. Several of them were blown away, but one dodged the fire and started trying to bite my face. I held it away, and it's disgusting pincer-mouth was rapidly biting at me. "Kill it!" I said, my grip on the bug loosening. "Hold still!"

"I am still!" I replied, trying to hold it further from my face. Jimmy fired, and the bug was shot in half, and flew off of me. "Thanks." I said, picking up my dropped Magnum. I loaded it and fired at a cockroach attempting to jump on Jimmy. 

We got closer together as a group, and soon, we were surrounded by attacking insects. Suddenly, gunfire rang tore through the ravine and took out several spiders. I looked up and was surprised to see Crystal at the top of the ravine, carrying a Vector SMG. "Climb!" She shouted, as she shot at the bugs climbing on the walls. "You heard her! Climb!" I yelled at the group, and we started climbing the ravine walls. "Wait!" I heard a sailor scream, but when I looked down at him he was attacked by a centipede, which promptly dissected his screaming face. We kept climbing, not looking back. We finally got to the top, And Crystal strapped her SMG to her back. "How'd you get here?" I asked her. "I stowed away on the ship." She said. "I thought you might need some extra help." She chuckled. Meanwhile, Scout was throwing around his movie quotes again. "Follow the spiders?" He shouted in a fake British accent. "Why couldn't it be follow the butterflies?"

...

We ended up climbing the opposite side of the ravine from the one we fell down. We followed it down into a valley with a huge waterfall. There were several herbivorous dinosaurs grazing; Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Gallimimus. "Don't piss off the big ones," I told the group. "Or else you'll regret you ever did it." Almost as soon as I said that, a Trike let out a moaning roar and started getting ready to charge. I looked at the direction it was charging, and I said Crystal petting a baby Trike. "Crystal! Get away from it!" I shouted, and she turned and saw the Trike charging at her. I ran towards her and tackled her out of the way. Some of the sailors tried to distract it by firing their guns in the air. The Trike heard them, and altered its course towards them. They parted, but one of them didn't make it on time and was crushed. The Trike knocked him down and trampled him, breaking his entire body with a series of loud cracks. "Run!" I shouted, and everyone started panicking. 

Suddenly, a T. Rex roar tore through the valley, and I looked over to see the huge dino stomp into the valley. "Into the waterfall!" I shouted, pointing at the huge flow of water. We began to run towards it, dodging dinos in our way. We got into the waterfall, and there was a cave passage behind it. The last sailor to get in didn't make it in time, and the T. Rex caught his leg and pulled the screaming man away. Now safe, we walked through the cavern. "Think they'll have that on the tour?" Scout said, smirking.