|
"Birds of Prey"Written By: ExecutiveShrimp Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, it belongs
to Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. Written for pleasure not
profit. Rating: R Warnings: Adventure & Suspense, Pairings: 1x2 Summary: Only twenty feet, but over 200 million years between them and for a while neither party knew what to do. The creature took a step towards them, almost apprehensively. Duo and Heero reactively jumped back and Duo tripped over his own feet and fell backwards. Then it all boiled down to two things: Predator. And prey. Birds of Prey – A GW adaptation of Jurassic Park (1993)
"Birds of Prey" Chapter 5 In the morning the sun was shining and the only animals to be heard were birds singing a praise for the sunrise. Thankfully, their clothes had dried. They dressed, ate and drank, and used the outdoors as a restroom. They only had a little water left and knew they should be looking out for a place to refill. Neither spoke of what they had heard that night. There was nothing to be said anyway, only questions to be asked and the other wouldn't have the answers. They continued along the road as they had most of the day before. It cut through the jungle without any sight of a fence and Duo wondered if they had been going in the wrong direction all along and, instead of following the cars, should have gone the way the cars had come from, yesterday. Parrots disrupted the elegant musicality of songbirds with squawks, whistles and gurgles. Duo's ears also picked up on that hooting again, that he recognized from yesterday. "So… uh… How does Michael feel about you working on a story with me?" "Where is that coming from all of a sudden?" Duo shrugged. "You know I've never been good with long silences. If today is another day like yesterday, my sanity won't make it through." "Your sanity gave up on all of us a long time ago…" "Ha. Ha." "He doesn't care about us working together." With a grunt Heero climbed over a tree that had fallen across the road. "Oh…" He followed the other over the log, a little less elegantly. "He's a cool guy then, I guess." "He doesn't know we used to date." The off-handed remark threw Duo off. "Why didn't you tell him about us?" "He knows about 'us'. He just doesn't know you are you." That somehow made sense to Duo as a sentence, but he still didn't understand why Heero hadn't been forthcoming with his partner. "I thought Michael would think the same thing I did," Heero said, like he had once more read Duo's mind. He had always been good at that, being able to tell what the long-haired man was thinking. Duo just thought he would have unlearned by now, with how much time had passed. Duo was also pretty good at deciphering what Heero meant most of the time. This time, however, he wasn't catching on. "And what would that be?" Heero stopped and looked at him. With a calm and cool voice, he said: "That you fabricated a story to get us together again." "…" His mouth was open but no sound came out. Heero started walking again and Duo kept staring at the spot the man had long vacated. He stammered something meaningless, like a computer making noise through a reboot. He jogged to catch up to the other and walked alongside him with his torso turned towards him. "You seriously believed that?" "Yeah." "Until…?" He waited for Heero to fill in the blank. "Honestly? Until yesterday." He made a dismissive gesture. When his wit returned to him, he smirked. Heero cocked an eyebrow at his self-satisfied expression. "So for the past week you thought this was one elaborate scheme to get us back together – which it wasn't-" "Right." "-but you went along with it." He poked at Heero's shoulder. "You thought this was my way of flirting and you were into it. Hence, in reality, I'm not the one still into you, you're the one still into me." It was Heero's turn to stammer until he managed: "No, that's not… that's not exactly-" "Don't worry, it's okay. I'm flattered. It's not every day to have a Pullitzer prize winner pining for a plebian not unlike myself." "Oh, stick a cork in it, you asshole." Realizing Duo was just messing with him, the shorter man pushed him hard enough to cause him to fall to the ground. Duo landed in the dirt with a grunt and then let out a loud laugh that hurt the side he had landed on. He took a deep breath and reached out his hand and wasn't disappointed when Heero instantly grabbed on and hoisted him back on his feet. He dusted himself off and then they kept going. At noon, they came to a stop. The road went through a gate in another tall fence. A sign by the gate read: VALLEY OF THE GENTLE GIANTS "What now?" Heero approached the gate and looked up at the lights at the top of the fence post. The lights were off. "It wasn't just the power in the shed that went out. It's out here too." He tested the gate, pushing against it with his full weight, but it didn't open. Then he examined the fence to the right. Just like the fencing around the 'T-rex paddock', the openings between the steel cords were big, certainly large enough for them to fit through. He climbed up onto the concrete foundation and stepped over the bottom wire, while ducking under the next one up. "What are you going?" Duo hissed. "We have to keep going. See where this road takes us." "But… what if this massive fucking steel gate isn't just for show? What if there is actually something in there?" Heero snorted and dismissed his concerns. "Then it's a good thing the sign says 'Valley of the Gentle Giants'. Not: 'Plains of the Face-Eaters'." He chuckled at his own joke and jumped off the concrete base. "You're not funny. It's not funny." Duo was apprehensive, but when Heero began to taunt him, he knew there would be no convincing the other to stay on the outside of the fence and see if they could walk around the supposed enclosure. So he climbed up and stepped through the opening between the inch-thick wires and joined his partner on the other side. He was careful not to touch the wound cords of steel, even though it was apparent they were currently not electrified. Those repetitive signs warning of 10.000 volts still made him uneasy. Beyond the fence, the road continued along a single, open path through densely packed trees. It was like walking through a tunnel of foliage. Trees on either side reached over with their branches, like they were grabbing at each other from across the way. Thinner lower branches had been cut off. Thicker branches had been sawed off. All in an effort to keep the dirt road from being overgrown. Palm leaves shuddered in the wind. Up ahead was bright sunlight and both men were blinded when they stepped out into the light. Before them, an incredible vista was revealed, once their eyes adjusted. Plains of grass sloping down to form a soft valley surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. A small river coming down from the North, culminated in a glistening lake at the bottom of the valley where black shapes had gathered. Their silhouettes fuzzy and trembling as the heat of the air peaked at midday. Duo squinted in attempt to see, but it was like trying to focus on a mirage. Heero's gaze, instead, had been tracing the jagged edges where the green mountains cut into the blue sky and he didn't look down until a call of an animal spread throughout the vast open space. Soon after, the dark creatures all moved, one by one, throwing their heads up to the sky and mimicking each other's calls. "What are those?" Heero asked, his voice soft with wonder. "I don't know." 'Gentle Giants' perhaps. If perspective wasn't playing a trick on her eyes, the animals were definitely gigantic and their calls implied a calm, peaceful nature. Duo dropped his backpack to the ground and dug into it in search of his binoculars. He straightened up, popped the protective caps off and aimed his vision down at the lake. With a light touch of his fingers he adjusted the focus as all he could see at first was the sparkling of the water's surface. Five animals unlike anything he had ever seen in real life stood at the water's edge. One had his head down to drink while the others were still exchanging calls. They stood on powerful hind quarters, their massive bodies balanced out by long, thick tails that moved stiffly. Their short front limbs they kept tucked up against their chest. Their heads were long, with eyes too small to see from the distance, even with the binoculars. The line of their skull continued in an elongated crest on the back of their heads which was a muted shade of red while the rest of their massive bodies was a cool tone of grey, with a lighter streak along their flank. "Duo?" "Uhm…" His mouth was parch dry. He couldn't quite believe what he was looking at. He searched for a more logical explanation than the one that came to mind unbidden, but he was not hallucinating and those were not animatronics either. Rather than rushing to say something that sounded absolutely mental even in the privacy of his own thoughts, he wordlessly handed the binoculars to Heero, so he could have a look for himself. Heero's blue eyes disappeared behind the binoculars. Duo watched his mouth. It was tight at first as the man searched the valley, then his lips parted in a silent gasp. "I- I… I don't understand. Those look like…" He didn't finish his sentence, equally as reluctant as Duo to be the first to say it. But then he did it, he put the word out there. "Those look like dinosaurs." "Yeah. Specifically, they look like Parasaurolophus." Heero lowered the binoculars. "You recognize the species? That's an actual species of dinosaur, not just the result of a mad scientist splicing all kinds of animals together to make something random that looks like a dinosaur?" He was rambling, in utter shock. "Uhh… no. Nope. Those definitely look like things I've seen a million times as a kid." He didn't know how it was possible. "It's a dinosaur… It's a dinosaur." Heero kept saying it aloud to rid himself of his own disbelief. "I sure am glad you came with me. No one would have believed me if it'd just been me out here." The breath was knocked out of him when Heero collided with him in a hug which sent them both tumbling into the grass, with Heero landing on top of Duo. The Japanese man enveloped him with his arms suddenly and held him in a tight embrace. Heero's breaths were hot in his neck and Duo was grateful to hug him. "Duo, this is the most incredible story ever." "I'm glad you're here with me," he said again, but he meant it differently that time. Heero detached from him, rolled off him and regarded him with sparkling eyes. He laughed, then smacked Duo's belly. "You and your goddamn gut feelings." He scrambled up to his feet and shook off his backpack to rummage around for his camera. "We have to get closer and take pictures," he said excitedly. "What? Are you crazy?" He grabbed Heero's upper arm before the man would bolt down the slopes. "It said 'gentle' giants, Duo." "Yeah, but still giants. Who could trample you to death." "Duo, if we come back with pictures of fences and a couple of blobs by a lake in the distance, my credibility as a journalist won't mean shit. They won't believe us." He said sternly: "I won't let you go near those things." "I won't go in for a close-up, just close enough so that when we zoom in they'll actually be in focus. Besides, we have to get water anyway." To that Duo reluctantly agreed. After all, he too wanted to be able to tell this story without becoming the butt of a joke until InGen would finally let the world in on their not-so-little secret. That could mean years of unbearable ridicule, the kind careers could not recover from, not even when their insane claim would be proven right in the end. Because then they'd be the fuck-up journalists who had the scoop of a lifetime but were too inept or too cowardly to get the proof they needed. However, they hadn't even taken ten steps down towards the dinosaurs at the bottom of the valley, when the ground underneath their feet started to shake. They both stopped and looked at each other in question. The vibrations became stronger, but too gradual for it to be mistaken for an earthquake. Their ears then picked up on a rumbling noise, approaching from the left. They turned their heads but all they saw was a grassy hill. Still, something was drawing nearer and fast and as it closed in on them, faint bird-like shrieks could be heard over the building rumble. Suddenly the first of a herd of creatures broke over the crest of the hill and came hurdling in their direction, followed by dozens more. They looked like featherless ostriches. Duo had no idea what they were. They didn't resemble any of the toys he used to have, nor were illustrations of them featured in any of the books he'd collected. Frankly, it was a mere coincidence that he recognized the parasaurolophus, because as a young boy he had almost exclusively been interested in the big carnivores. The parasaurs had the simple benefit of a having a horn that made them 'look cool' to his eleven-year-old-self. The herd reached them before the two men had even thought to run. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, they couldn't have possibly outrun the agile bipedal animals. Duo clasped his fingers into Heero's blue shirt and pulled the man against him, hoping their combined mass would deter the animals from running over them. The shrieking herd broke around them, like a river breaking on a rock. The ground shook so powerfully and the animals running past them in a hoard was so disorienting, that if the two hadn't been holding onto each other for support, they might have toppled over. "It's like something spooked them!" Duo shouted. Simultaneously the two men looked back to the top of the hill where the herd had come from and their eyes widened at the source of the 'ostriches' panic. Charging down the hill was an enormous monster whose every footfall they felt in their chests where their hearts had stopped. The creature was a giant pair of jaws with teeth, propelled by two muscular legs. As it chased the herd in a rampage, it let out a roar that they both recognized from that night. They had been rooted in their spot for too long before sheer shock made way for survival instinct and they sprinted back in the direction of the gate. The dinosaur was quick to notice that the two of them were much slower and easier prey than the herd it had been hunting and it veered off course to come after them. Duo threw a look over his shoulder and screamed at the top of his lungs at the sight of the dinosaur snapping its powerful jaws in its pursuit of them. He had never run so fast in life but he had no faith it would be fast enough. "Run! Run!" He kept shouting at Heero, as if the man would seriously think of taking a break. Heero was a little bit ahead of him, but kept looking back to check if Duo was keeping up. His eyes, however, also kept darting beyond Duo and the increasing fear in his eyes made it apparent they would soon be overtaken. They reached the forest just in time and zigzagged through the tightly packed trees. The rhythm of the heavy footfalls slowed until it stopped altogether. The strip of jungle was too dense for the mammoth carnivore to make it through and it had no choice but to give up on trying to catch them. Neither of the journalists stopped running. They kept going until they encountered the fence. They climbed over the concrete and slipped between the wiring to drop down in the dirt on the other side, where they both rolled onto their backs and sucked greedily for air. Some distance away the dinosaur let out a roar in which the frustration was audible. Duo's heart was pounding and his lungs burned. His limbs were shaking uncontrollably. "Are you-… Are you okay?" Heero managed between wheezing breaths. No! "Yeah. F-fine…" "You and you're goddamn gut feelings… What was that thing?" Duo waited to properly catch his breath. He propped himself up on his elbows to look at Heero's flustered face. "That was Bowser."
|
