Prehistoric Park: A Wild Kratts Adventure

T-rex Returns (Part ll)

Montana, 65 million years ago...

It's not just the dinosaurs that will be wiped out by the meteorite hit. The trio knows that everyhing they see around them will be devastated.
  Nigel, Martin and Chris stood at the base of a cascading waterfall while pterosaurs soared overhead. The three naturalists took in this beautiful sight of the prehistoric world, one they could only have dreamed of exploring before. And a world fated to disappear forever.
"What a magnificent place! Pterosaurs swooping overhead. You can hear them calling all the time."
  The Kratt in blue stooped down to gather a handful of water gushing from the river before gulping it down. The purest water he had ever tasted. "Mmm! You'll never taste sweeter water!"
"Too bad this stream will be choked with ash and dust."said Chris sadly. "The meteorite's gonna hit not too far away."
"Time is running out. This is our second rescue mission. And we're determined to save some T.rex for Prehistoric Park." with that declaration, Nigel took the lead and the trio began their search for the ruler of this dying land.
There are lots of dinosaur tracks to follow, but Nigel and Chris are interested in one set in particular. Martin on the other hand...
"Edmontosaurus. Ankylosaurus. Those must be from a Didelphodon!"
"Umm, Martin? Remember why we're here." Chris reminded.
"Oh right!" The older Kratt chuckled sheepishly. "We're here for T-rexes–"
"Hold on. There's something strange with these tracks. Look."said Nigel, inspecting a particular trackway, which looked for all the world like three grooves made by the world's biggest rake. "The toes have been dragged along." There was something familiar about this set of footprints.
"You think it's the female T-rex that was gored in the stampede?"asked Chris.
Nigel nodded. "Possibly. We're close to where the Triceratops stampede was. She's dragged her toes."
"Poor old girl."sad Martin pitifully.
"She's injured and she'll be moving pretty slowly." Chris determined as he analyzed the trackway. "If we head downstream and follow these tracks, we may catch up to her." The boys now had a lead.
Traveling further into the valley, following the flow of the river.
  The trackway takes them down river, where they're hoping to gain ground on the T-rex. With any luck, her leg injury will make her slower and a little easier to catch.
After another mile or two of trekking, Nigel ordered the party to a standstill. Before long, they heard it. Steady muffled thuds pounding on the earth with each step, sending several loosened rocks to tumble and roll.
  "Listen. Her footfalls are reverberating around the valley. She's up there somewhere. And an animal that weighs six tons can't walk quietly."
"Guys look."whispered the Kratt in green, something catching the corner of his eye.
"That's what she's after. There's a Triceratops corpse and she can smell that." The English naturalist pointed to the carcass of a juvenile Triceratops that floated with the river's current.
"It must've panicked and drowned during the stampede."noted Chris rather sadly.
"That explains why she's been moving along the river."said Martin. "Why hunt when you could get a free lunch?"
Nigel tensed upon hearing a disturbance not far away, the sound of pounding footfalls getting louder.
"Come on! Get on the bank."he urged, pulling his comrades just under a ridge. "She's there. I don't want her to see us."
None of them dared to make a sound or even move as a gigantic shadow loomed over them, jagged fangs glistening in the sunlight. Unaware of the humans' presence, the Tyrannosaurus rex surveyed the water from her vantage point until she spied what she was looking for. With a trumpeting roar, the huge theropod thundered downhill to intercept her prize.
"She's moving away." Chris whispered, once the coast was clear while Martin released a breath he didn't realize he was holding.
"I'm absolutely certain it's the female that was attacked by the Triceratops."the English naturalist confirmed, having seen the distinctive limp in her left leg.
She's been able to track down this free meal despite being on her own and badly injured because T-rex's have a superb sense of smell. She's in luck. The Triceratops carcass has become stuck. A series of large rocks wedged the body in place, preventing the current from dragging the body away.
This is the trio's chance to get really close to her.
The tyrannosaur stood on the riverbank, gazing hungrily at the floating carrion just beyond her reach. A fast-flowing current and a series of unstable rocks and boulders were all that stood between her and an easy meal.
Not far away, the three creature adventurers stood at the bank, observing the Rex from a safe distance.
"She must be so hungry. She's desperate for an easy meal."said Nigel.
"Even though T-rex is everyone's ultimate monster, you can't help but feel sorry for her."added Martin, his heart going out for the desperate animal.
The Englishman noted the predator's growing sense of caution. "She's a top predator. They're so top-heavy. If she went in this fast-flowing water, she'd be flipped over."
"But she's desperate for the meat."stated Chris.
Slowly, tentatively, the injured dinosaur inched her way closer to the water's edge, as if willing herself to take the plunge and claim her prize.
The injured T-rex is not the only predator drawn by the allure of a free lunch.
On the ridge over their heads, a series of squawking and chittering could be heard. "Guys look!"
Nigel and Martin looked to where Chris pointed, and there stood at least four or five smaller theropod dinosaurs overlooking the river from their vantage point. Compared to the gigantic T-rex, these minuscule predators were less than half the size and much more lightly built, with much smaller heads crowned with quills. Primitive feathers adorned their backs, giving them a more birdlike appearance. Each of the creatures' hands were tipped with three fingers ending with long claws. And on their long, powerful hind legs, the middle toes bristled with the trademark talons of their species.
Chris' eyes widened in dread. "Dromaeosaurs! More commonly known as raptors." Luckily for the men, the raptors took no notice of their presence, their eyes solely focused on the Triceratops carcass.
Nigel took a closer look at their features. "These must be Dakotaraptors. They're a newly discovered species of raptor. Among the largest of all the raptor species at over twenty feet long."
"They must've been attracted to the Triceratops carcass too."said Martin as the band rapidly closed the distance, darting past the T-rex who snapped her jaws at their approach, snarling her irritation. Unlike their tyrannosaur rival, the agile and nimble raptors had no problems in leaping over the river and navigating the rocks to reach the Triceratops carcass. In almost no time at all, the entire band were perched on the corpse, gobbling down chunks of flesh with their serrated teeth and squabbling for the choicest cuts. The injured T-rex could only look on helplessly, her jaws salivating.
  Taking notice of the gigantic intruder in their midst, the Dakotaraptors hissed and shrieked their displeasure, feathers raised in aggression.
"She's backing down. It doesn't look like the raptors are in any mood to share."noted the older Kratt.
"You just feel so sorry for her."said Chris sadly.
"She's desperate to get out there, but she's got no chance."added Nigel.
In the end, caution won over the need to feed. Despite her gnawing hunger, the injured Tyrannosaurus at last conceded, her footfalls growing fainter as she moved further into the valley, leaving the raptors to feast at their leisure.
"She's given up."
The T-rex limps off, leaving the boys to figure out what to do next.
**********
Back in the Park...
"Keep a camera on him." In the control room, dozens of cameras were up and running, monitoring various activities in the park from staff and creatures alike. Bob's attention, however, was solely focused on one screen in particular.
Back at Prehistoric Park, Theo the Triceratops is displaying some unusual behaviour.
In Triceratops Creek, the young ceratopsian bellowed and groaned as he pushed and shoved a single tree in his enclosure, and he showed no signs of relenting.
Bob has asked vet Suzanne to come and take a look.
"What is he doing?"asked Suzanne, shocked by this sudden change of behavior; just the day before, the normally placid herbivore was peacefully grazing on low line shrubs. Now it seemed he was taking his aggression out on the inoffensive tree, its branches swaying as the horned dinosaur repeatedly head butted the trunk.
"He's done it all morning."Bob answered. Both stood outside of the paddock as they observed the dinosaur's aggressive behavior.
"What do you think it is?"
"Haven't a clue. He just keeps charging at that tree."
Inside the enclosure, Theo charged at the offensive tree with renewed vigor. Suzanne was taken aback by the display of ferocity.
"Gosh! Oh, my goodness, look!"
Suddenly their attention was diverted by the sound of screeching tires coming to a halt. The head keeper and the vet were greeted by the rest of the Wild Kratts team who were riding the newly repaired Createrra.
"We came as soon as Koki alerted us."said Aviva as she exited the vehicle. The next words from her mouth came out in a frightened squeal as Theo rammed the tree head on. "¡Ay Dios mío!"
"What's going on?"inquired a bewildered Koki.
"Whoa! Talk about your anger management problems!"Jimmy remarked, inwardly glad to be on the opposite side of the enclosure.
The veterinarian couldn't help but be worried. "The poor thing!" Turning to the new arrivals, she asked, "Any ideas?"
As Theo turned his head, Suzanne noticed something out of the blue. Literally.
"Look at his frill! It's changed colour!"
The others soon took notice. "It's blue!"said Aviva.
"It wasn't like that before." Koki remarked.
"Maybe he's having a huge testosterone surge and he thinks that's a mate, he's going into breeding season and he's charging him."the vet hypothesized.
"There's one way to be positive."said Koki as she readied her Creaturepod. "Deploying body scan."
The irate herbivore snorted his displeasure as the technician's gadget emitted a bright light in his eyes. The results came in. "I'm definitely detecting high levels of testosterone."
"You think he needs a playmate?" Bob asked.
"I think he's beating up that tree because he thinks that's one of his friends!" Suzanne replied.
"Puberty. It gets to us all."the pilot commented.
Suddenly the head keeper chuckled, earning a puzzled look from Suzanne.
"What?"
"I've just had a very good idea."replied Bob, wearing a crafty smile.
Koki and Jimmy Z looked to Aviva who wore a pensive look on her face.
"Umm... Aviva's making that face again."said JZ nervously.
"I know that look."said Koki with a knowing smirk. "What are you planning on this time?"
This instantly made the head vet curious. "Oh no, what? Tell me."
"Wait and see."was all he answered as he walked away. He then whispered something to the inventor's ear who beamed and nodded in agreement as she followed him. Koki and Jimmy Z decided to tag along with them.
"Oh. Okay." With that, Suzanne left Bob and Aviva to their own devices while Theo continued with his assault on the tree.
A few minutes later found Bob and Aviva in the head keeper's personal workshop, the former seated at his desk while the latter was leaning against the concrete wall.
"Thanks, fella."said Bob to a workman who came to drop off much needed supplies. "Just round the side." He then promptly turned his focus back to his clipboard. Nearby Aviva was making her own calculations and blueprints on her master tablet, making adjustments here and there. Before long, Koki and Jimmy arrived with tools and supplies, the computer whizz donned in gloves and a welding mask.
Bob and Aviva have a plan. They're convinced they can tame even Theo's teenage tantrums.
**********
Montana, 65 million years ago...
Meanwhile, Nigel and the Kratt Brothers have at last come up with a plan of their own.
Along one end of the riverbank, men were hard at work erecting a wall of large logs and pieces of wood to fill in the nooks and crannies. Overseeing the hustle and bustle were Nigel and Martin, the latter using the enhanced strength of his Creature Power Suit to help construction efforts, courtesy of his elephant form.
"We're trying a technique used by game capture teams for things like antelope." Nigel explained to the film crew. "The T-rex is working her way down river."
"We've got ahead of her. Chris is tracking her movements from the air."added the blue pachyderm as he erected a heavy log with his artificial trunk.
"She won't go onto uneven ground and we know that she won't go near the water. We've built this palisade of logs, and we'll funnel her towards the time portal and back to the safety of the 21st century."
  Martin crossed the fingers on his trunk. "We hope."
Nigel turned to a nearby crewman. "Hi, Adam. Give us a hand."
After much hard work, the palisade was complete. Everyone was now in position, watching, waiting.
The meteorite's getting ever closer. So is the T-rex.
"Guys! T-rex incoming!"alerted Chris over the radio. "There's a stampede headed your way!" Chris' voice went static, and before long, a loud trumpeting call was heard in the distance, soon followed by the cries and bellows of panicked dinosaurs could be heard over the rim.
And a herd of various dinosaurs are running scared.
Martin instantly recognized the familiar ostrich dinosaurs in the lead as they poured into the palisade. "Ornithomimus!" And they weren't alone. Towering above the spindly ostrich dinosaurs were bulky duckbill plant eaters well over the length of a school bus. There were also three bipedal dinosaurs. Next to the gigantic Edmontosaurs, they were rather small, about the size of a car, their most distinctive feature being their rounded domed skulls lined with rows of bony knobs and tiny spikes.
Nigel was quick to identify the new dinosaurs. "There's also four Edmontosaurus! A kind of duckbill dinosaur." One of the duckbills bellowed the trumpet call heard earlier, a call so loud it resounded across the valley. "And a trio of Pachycephalosaurus! Dome-headed plant eaters."
Looming behind them was the apex predator in all her salivating, carnivorous glory. By the riverside, there was nowhere that the herd could run or hide. They were trapped.
"If we're lucky, she'll chase them through the time portal and we can have a breeding colony of Ornithomimus at Prehistoric Park."said Nigel cheerfully as he activated the time portal which came alive with its transparent wall of time and space.
"As well as a herd of duckbills and domeheads!" Martin chimed in. They quickly got into position, hiding behind their wooded fortress.
The injured Tyrannosaurus made her deadly advance; with her prey cornered, she could afford to take her time.
Trapped between the T-rex and the 21st century, they opt for the portal.
As mystified as the animals were of the strange wall, they were far more terrified of the oncoming T-rex lumbering their direction. It didn't take long for the first participants to cross the boundaries of time.
"Yeah, one, two– They are belting through!" Nigel exclaimed. "A whole phalanx of them!"
Next to him, Martin chuckled. "Bob is gonna get a real surprise."
In their haste to escape the oncoming predator, dinosaurs large and small began pushing and shoving in their mad dash to safety. It was all that the smaller animals could do to scramble out of the way of the gigantic Edmontosaurs' stamping hooves. One Ornithomimus squawked in pain as the bony head of a frightened Pachycephalosaurus knocked him over on impact.
*********
Back in the Park...
From his place on the elevated platform, Bob looked on incredulously as various dinosaur species that were not T-rexes ran rampant throughout the stockade. They were safe from the clutches of the T-rex, but now they were wild with fright as they found themselves in the wooded confines of this strange lair in the middle of a strange and foreign world.
"Oh, my giddy aunt! Nigel, Nigel, what have you done?"he muttered half to himself. "Suzanne, we've got a bit of a si'uation here!"he called over his walkie talkie as he and his crew got to work in rounding up their unexpected guests to their holding pens until permanent living arrangements could be made.
********
Late Cretaceous Montana...
One Ornithomimus is slower than the rest.
  Frightened and injured, the Ornithomimus tried desperately to shake the Tyrannosaurus off of his tail, darting in zigzags. But in these narrow confines, there was nowhere to run. And the gigantic predator was now closing in with open jaws. It was out of sheer desperation that the running dinosaur attempted to breach the wooden palisade, narrowly missing the snapping jaws of the rex.
But his luck was about to run out.
"Get down!"
CRASH!
The ostrich dinosaur's struggles were ended in a sickening CRUNCH! of the T-rex's mighty jaws. With her prey clenched in her maw, the mammoth predator retraced her steps back on the ashen wasteland, getting smaller and smaller in the distance.
"That was close. She took the Ornithomimus right there."said Nigel as he and Martin slowly came out of hiding.
The Kratt in blue was puzzled. "It's just a light snack for her."
The Englishman nodded. "A juvenile. Time's running out. We must follow her."
As the pair left their hiding place, they were soon joined by Chris who descended to the ground from his green Falcon Glider. If the T-rex was aware of the humans' presence, she did not acknowledge them as she continued limping away.
With its catch still uneaten, the hungry T-rex limps off back the way she came.
Nigel was puzzled by the turn of events. "I can't understand. Why doesn't she just devour the Ornithomimus?"
"Odd. Usually predators would eat where they make a kill."stated Chris.
"Unless–" Martin gasped in sudden realization as he quickly turned to his brother, "you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Chris immediately made the connection. "Oh I'm totally thinking what you're thinking, I think."
"Then we must be thinking the same thing!"
"We cannot afford to lose her."said Nigel, rather left in the dark. "I do not want to go back to Prehistoric Park empty-handed."
"Follow that Rex!"
  The three adventurers followed the injured T-rex, making sure to stay downwind and to keep a safe distance away.
*****
Back in the Park...
After much arduous work, the keepers at Prehistoric Park were able to wrangle the frightened animals and get them accommodated to their new home.
Back at Prehistoric Park, Bob is settling in the herd of highly-strung Ornithomimus.
Once every last Ornithomimus was accounted for and led into the enclosure, a sizable paddock surrounded by shade giving trees and carpeted by green grass, the head keeper was quick to latch the gate shut.
"They're still a bit stressed out from the capture."said Bob addressing the cameraman. "They're just walking round and round the perimeter fence. They're checking out their new home, but they'll be all right. I'm not gonna feed them till tomorrow though, just let them settle in a bit."
As the ostrich dinosaurs began to settle, Bob reached for his walkie talkie. "Aviva, Koki, how are things going with the duckbills and the boneheads?"
"They're doing just dandy."came the staticky reply from the technician. "They seem to be settling into their new home."
"I'm on my way back to the workshop!" Aviva announced.
"We'll catch up once things are one hundred percent shipshape over here."came Jimmy Z's voice, every now and again broken up by the statically crunching of potato chips on the other end.
With that job done, Bob's back to his workshop where his plan for the bad-tempered Triceratops is now in full swing.
  The workshop was bustling with activity as workers scrambled to assemble to parts and pieces needed for their project. Bob oversaw progress while Aviva and Koki lent their technical expertise to help in the construction and design efforts. Needless to say, with all hands on deck, it wasn't long before the plan began to take shape.
"Tie her up. We want that one up there."instructed Bob as some crewmen strained under the weight of some heavy duty tires. "Up you go. You're doing a grand job, lads, but I need this finished this afternoon."
"We'll take things from here, Bob."said Aviva with a wink, power wrench in her hand. "You go take care of things around the park."
The head keeper smiled his gratitude as he went on to do just that.