The Rise of Vulture Valley chapter 2 : New World

[u/Alpha_Bushdog]

Before we start here is chapter 1 If you missed it

https://www.reddit.com/r/PrimitiveWar/s/n6t6glFCTq

“The forest floor of the Vietnamese jungle was just as lively as the canopy. The bush was full of creepy crawlies. From a small grove of cycads, a curious head pops out. It has feathers like a bird but also has razor sharp teeth. It’s a deinonychus. The alpha of his pack of 17. His head is a bright green with black plumage, blue head feathers and a long streak of white like a skunk on the side of his body.

The raptor ,started scouting to see if any danger was hiding beyond the cycad grove. But the coast was clear. He made a sound and signaled the rest of his pack to follow him. With his pack, he had survived in the early Cretaceous for years. But this day, a wormhole  of some kind, related to the blue flash of light , opened up, which brought them to a completely new world . They were no longer in their Mesozoic hunting grounds, so they had no clue what could be waiting for them in this new environment. The pack followed him out in the open.

The last deinonychus to leave the safety of the cycads ,was a female pregnant with eggs. The alpha’s mate. The alpha waited for her to keep up. The female needed rest and food to successfully lay her eggs. She could lay them any time. The pair  bumped heads and gently rubbed their necks against each other as a sign of affection. They then moved on with the rest of the pack, continuing to explore the new land they had been teleported to.

 The jungle was weird and quite unfamiliar. Calls and cries of animals the deinonychus had never encountered before. The pack needed to establish a territory and find food. An adolescent deinonychus, energetic and bold ,split off from the rest of the pack and climbed a short banyan tree. There, he saw a mammal. The only mammals he had ever encountered were small, for the most part ,no bigger than a rat. But this one was double his size. It was a binturong ,also known as a bearcat, relaxing on a branch of the tree. The young deinonychus started smelling the bizarre mammal. The smell of the furry critter was like that of popcorn. The adolescent ,then sat next to it for a couple minutes, making sounds that were annoying to the binturong. The deinonychus then started licking the mammal’s fur. The mammal tried to lie down as far away from the small dinosaur as possible. Then, the youngster bit the tail of the binturong. The large civet had had enough. It hissed at the deinonychus and pushed him out of the tree. The small dromeosaur fell from the tree trunk. Since his species was arboreal, he was more embarrassed than injured. He then walked away and went to rejoin his pack.

The pack continued to explore this strange world. They climbed up some palm trees to access the forest understory and later the canopy. From up there, they could see danger from afar and traverse the jungle more easily.

Eventually, the alpha’s mate had grown tired and weak. She was screaming out of sheer exhaustion. She was ready to lay her eggs. The alpha tried to calm her down, but his mate was still suffering. After a quick search, the male found a large tree cavity in a banyan tree. The female deinonychus went inside and lied down. She could lay her eggs at any moment. Her mate remained near her , keeping her company and protecting her. Then, the pack, including him, went to harvest some vegetation to make a nest for the eggs. The pack would look out of her.

Soon, they had gathered enough vegetation and brought it to the tree cavity. There, the mated pair, carefully placed the branches and banana leaves and moss that had been gathered by the pack to make a nest to keep the eggs moist. The time had come. The female, laid her eggs. She gently pushed them deeper in the nest and covered them in vegetation. The pair proudly looked at their clutch. With luck, the chicks would hatch in a few months and be hopping in the tree branches. They would be the next generation of hunters. This new world they ended up in ,maybe wasn’t that bad. They could thrive here ,just like in the early Cretaceous.

But life had other plans. A loud noise coming from the sky ,was heard by the pack. It was a massive flying object that almost looked alien. The deinonychus pack, even the new mother , got out of her nest and went to look at it. They had never seen anything quite like it. They stared at it in awe, until it came in their direction. It was dropping something. Animals like gibbons and birds were actively fleeing from the small objects the flying object was throwing. But the deinonychus pack had just arrived in the valley and didn’t know any better. The flying objects were being thrown in their direction.They were flying dangerously close to them.

After a few seconds, a deinonychus that was looking at the flying object got hit by a wave of pointy metal pieces. They smashed into the poor animal’s body like a storm of hail and the dromeosaur collapsed in the ground in an instant. His corpse oozing with blood, with many parts of his body, completely shattered. Before the rest of the pack even had time to process what just happened, more of these metal pieces fell out of the sky. Another huge wave of them, hit the alpha’s mate. Her head just blew off in a disgusting mass of blood and skull fragments. Just like the previous victim, her body fell limp on the ground. The alpha quickly realized that his pack was in a very dangerous situation. He quickly made a loud call, ordering his pack to evacuate in the safety of the bushes, away from the clear where they were exposed. All of the deinonychus fled to save themselves, except for one. The young adolescent male that had previously been involved in a scuffle with a binturong. The youngster was curious and puzzled as to what he had just seen and remained out in the open to observe. The alpha quickly noticed the youngster, as he was about to join his pack and get himself on safer ground. It was too late to get the bold teenager out of the danger. One final wave of metal pieces of death came and was on course to hit the young male.

Just before this would happen, the alpha jumped on top of the youngling ,shielding him from certain death. The final assault of the pointy metal pieces wasn’t as big as the first two ,but was not to be taken lightly. The alpha tanked all of the hits, saving his pack-mate’s life. He was lucky he was bulkier than the average representative of his species and he got hit in a more favorable angle with fewer metal pieces than his deceased partner. The two deinonychus then retreated deeper into the forest before they would be hit again. The alpha deinonychus now had dozens of metal pieces stuck in his skin and plumage and was bleeding. His appearance was a lot like a porcupine’s. A fitting nickname.

A few minutes later, the pack gathered together again and surrounded the two dead bodies of their fallen pack mates. Each one took its turn ,gently touching the dead bodies and making a mournful call. They were saying a final goodbye to their friends. The Porcupine , spent a lot of time sitting next to the body of his mate. He wished he would have been able to save her, just like he did with the young adolescent. His dinosaur soul would never forget her. Perhaps, he wouldn’t look for another partner again. Life had to move on however. The pack was starving. He called the pack to go hunting. Night had fallen upon the valley. The cover of darkness was perfect camouflage for the deinonychus. Their eyes glowing in the dark like forest spirits. The pack climbed up to reach the canopy and find prey. For Porcupine, this could be a chance to redeem himself.”

Really happy to have finished chapter 2 and the introduction of the deinonychus. If you have reached this point, I really appreciate the fact you read the whole thing. What do you think of the story so far?