The Slime's Comin' Home

Alex poked his head outside the shuttle door.
“What the smeggin’ ‘ell’s goi- Whoah!”
He ran down the ramp to get a better look at the massive dinosaur lying dead, sprawled across the shuttle.
“No...” he cast his disbelieving, questioning gaze around at Jay, Katrina and Efof. “No.”
He’d only just kissed the beautiful brachs’ noses good bye.
He climbed up onto the shuttle’s roof and tried moving the poor creature’s heavy head. Nothing.

He looked down at the others and with a shocking malevolence coldly enquired “how?”

There was something burning in his eyes and, self-preservation instincts kicking in, Efof quickly pointed at the Tyrannosaur, who was a little way away, terrorising the other brach.

Stupid with rage, Alex descended the shuttle and picked up a large stick, sturdy against most things, probably useless against a gigantic tyrannosaur.

The rain sheeted down and he stood, barbarian-like in his leather gladiator gear watching the beast from behind. Efof could’ve sworn he literally saw the water steaming from the man’s furious form.
Alex – usually quiet and withdrawn - threw back his head and bellowed “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!”

Jay’s face paled. “Whoa, Solvay, what you doing man? Don’t bring that thing back over here.”
But Alex was deaf to anything but the T-Rex’s terrorising snarl. It briefly turned to look at him but then snapped its attention back to the poor brach.

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!”

“Okay, get inside the shuttle.” Jay told Katrina and Efof “Alex has gone mental.”
“But-”
“Just do it.”

Jay pushed them into the shuttle and was about to try and drag Alex in too when the T-Rex turned and began pounding towards them with horrifyingly heavy foot-steps.

Then something strange happened, it stopped.
It tipped its head, turned tail and thumped off the other direction. Still horrifying even in retreat.

“Wow. I knew you were angry but that’s incredible!” Jay said. Alex just glared after the beast.

There was a surreal moment of too-silent silence… and then… they felt it… an even more terrifying thumping, the sound of many many gigantic feet thundering along, and it was heading right for them. A number of startled winged lizards glided from the nearby treetops, chittering and complaining.
Before the men could gather their wits a huge number of brachiosaurs burst from the trees and began flooding past the shuttle and knocking it so that even with its unexpected passenger it spun in the mud.
There were screams from inside.

“GET UNDER THE RAMP!” Screamed Jay, and the two men scrabbled underneath it to avoid being crushed by the bizarre stampede.

The distress call of the killed brachiosaur and the fearful cries of its friend had alerted the nearby herd. Like elephants brachiosaurs are very emotional animals. These brachiosaurs were obviously determined to keep the tyrannosaur away from the other young brach and didn’t even seem to notice the shuttle or the humans.

The shuttle was shoved round again. Jay and Alex yelped and tried to keep up with the ramp as it moved through the mud.
Eventually the stampede petered out until there were just a few dinosaurs clomping along.

A wild eyed, breathless Jay looked at an equally stunned Alex.
They wordlessly poked their heads out to see if it was safe. It was. Relatively.

The rain had stopped and three large brachiosaurs were heading towards the shuttle.
They looked briefly at the men then solemnly approached their fallen herd-mate. They nosed it from the shuttle’s roof and it slid into the mud like an enormous floppy toy.
They pushed it a little way from the shuttle and looked back at Alex and Jay who were still staring in shock.
The dinosaurs seemed to nod at them and then just went about investigating their herdmate with a series of snuffles and snorts.

A very muddy Jay cleared his throat.
“Shall we?”
An also very muddy Alex nodded. “… Yeah.”

They made their way up into the shuttle to find the other Dwarfers looking almost as disturbed as they felt, having just experienced an unstable fairground ride and caught glimpses of the action through the open ramp door, the windows, and the activated viewscreen.

Efof smiled cheerily at the shocked company, apparently unfazed and still meaning to stick to his plan. He didn’t even seem to notice the disturbed quiet.

“Well, see you guys! It’s been great! I’ll give your love to Weebaradlibanongadingdong.”
Even despite his shock Phil gave a quiet little noise of appreciation at the silly name.

And with a big happy grin, and a four-armed wave, Efof was gone.

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As they lifted off, Alex was still staring at the poor fallen brach through the viewscreen
“Sit down mate.” Jay said, voice soft.
Alex was surprised he'd called him mate after the dickhead comment, but he appreciated it all the same. He didn’t sit down though. He’d just spotted something.
“No! Look!” He pointed.
The fallen brach had lifted its head, it wasn’t dead after all!
“Fan-tastic!”

The tension suddenly released like air leaving a balloon and the Dwarfers all slumped tiredly as Jay deftly piloted the shuttle upwards. As they flew, they could see all manner of dinosaurs herding across plains that swept below.

With a private and peaceful little smile, Alex looked out of the window, watching the dinosaurs, and reflected on the Dwarfers' bizarre, weird, terrifying and awesome time down there.

“Look out Bluey!” Phil whooped.

“The slime’s comin’ home!”

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