Celestia’s early morning sun rose over the island, spreading the light over everything it touched. The golden rays broke through the jungle tree tops, shining across the sleeping group of ponies. True to her word, Rainbow Dash had stayed awake through the entire night, keeping an eye out for any creatures that lurked in the jungle. As she kept her eye out a large shadow fell upon the group. The cyan mare watched as the large head of a Brachiosaurus poked its head into the tree tops.
The dinosaur hesitated for several moments, staring at the group of ponies before opening its mouth wide and munching down on the leaves just over the pony’s heads. Rainbow could only smile at the sight. The sounds of the dinosaur munching and chewing on the leaves slowly woke Rarity and Applejack from their slumber. Both ponies couldn’t help but grin at their guest.
“Oh my gosh……” Rarity whispered in amazement. The noise eventually woke the three members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Sweetie Belle jumped at the sight of the dinosaur, clambering away from the beast as it took another bite.
“Go away!!!!”
“It’s ok.” Applejack reassured. “It’s just having breakfast.” Scootaloo and Applebloom were excited by their surprise guest.
“It’s a vegesaur Sweetie Belle! Vegesaur!” The fillies, minus Sweetie Belle, tried to entice the Brachiosaur to come closer by waving a bundle of leaves at it.
“Come on girl! We got some food for you.” Rarity broke off a branch with leaves on it, and began waving it using her magic. The dinosaur locked her eyes on the bundle.
“Come on you long neck sweetie poo, a dinosaur’s got to eat their vegetables.” The dinosaur burst out a roar, before taking hold of the branches. The ponies then helped Rarity try to pull the branches back, engaging the Brachiosaur in a playful game of tug-o-war. “I’m not letting go!” Rarity laughed. By this point even Sweetie Belle wasn’t scared anymore, a big smile on her face. “I guess you win.” Rarity let the branch go. As it munched, the Brachiosaur got closer to look at the curious creatures in front of it.
“Looks like somepony wants to make some friends.” Rainbow said, actually being able to pet the dinosaur on the face. The others inched closer so they too could pet the dinosaur. The Brachiosaur groaned in enjoyment.
“Looks like she has a cold.” Scootaloo noted.
“Probably from the storm last night.”
“Can I pet it?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Of course! Just think of it as a giant pony.” The filly leaned closer to pet the beast, but the Brachiosaur backed away, its eyes scrunching up.
“Come on girl I won’t hurt you. I just want to-“Without warning the Brachiosaur let out a powerful sneeze, covering the poor filly head to hoof in dino snot. The others had to try hard to contain their laughter as Sweetie Belle tried hard not to burst out into tears, the dino snot dripping from her mane.
“Gesundheit!" Scootaloo laughed.
Slowly the group began to climb their way back down to the ground so they could begin their trek to safety.
“Wow, that Brachiosaur was awesome! If only we saw something like that on the tour.” Rainbow noted, being the last one out of the tree.
“Let’s just hope any more dinosaurs we meet are as gentle as that was. We got a long hike to the Visitors Center.”
“Applejack, how in Equestria are we gonna get back? We don’t even know where we are.” Rarity pointed out.
"Ah was in the filly scouts when I was a filly, and one of the fundamental things we learned was how to find your way home from the woods." Applejack looked up at the sun to orient their position to the visitor's center. "Ah reckon it's thataway." The southern pony pointed off in a direction.
“Let’s get hoofing it then.”
"Hold on now. We gotta be smart bout this. This isn’t the Everfree Forest. There are terrible lizards in these jungles." Rarity said highly concerned.
“Let’s keep the little ones in the center.” Rainbow suggested. “And the three of us on the outside.” Her friends nodded at the idea.
“And let’s make sure a certain filly gets a bath along the way.” Rarity chuckled as an embarrassed Sweetie Belle shook the dinosaur snot off her.
“One dinosaur tries to eat me, and then one dinosaur sneezes on me!”
‘Cheer up Sweetie Belle, it was funny.” Scootaloo said. Rarity’s little sister sneezed on her friend in response. “Ewww!”
"Settle down ya'll. We gotta get a movin back to the visitor's center. Stay with the group, keep everypony in your sight, and watch your tails. Any kind of dinosaur could be round the next corner." Applejack said, corralling the fillies into a little group. Then the three older mares circled around them. The group took a deep breath as they set out into the jungle.
The sun continued to climb higher into the sky, the humidity going up with it. The environment was getting hotter and stickier. “Ugh! How much further?” Rarity gasped for air.
“Rarity it’s only be fifteen minutes.” Rainbow pointed out, helping the fillies one by one over a log.
“It feels like it’s been twenty! I’ve never been on long hikes, especially in a jungle!” Rainbow and Applejack could only sigh. At least Rarity was still her normal self. The unicorn joined the fillies on the other side of the log as Applejack and Rainbow joined them. However something went crunch as the cyan mare landed. Looking behind her, she found some odd white materials on the ground.
“Hey girls….” She whispered. The others turned back and looked over what she found. “Do you know what these were?”
“It might be the heat messing with my imagination….but those look like eggs….” Rarity noted, her troubles forgotten.
“Does that mean what ah think it means?” Applejack asked as Rainbow lifted an eggshell up.
“But I thought at the lab they said all the dinosaurs were girls?” Scootaloo asked, getting a closer look at the eggshell in Rainbow’s hoof.
“I’m trying to remember what the video we saw said….what was it they used to fill the gaps in the dinosaurs DNA?”
“Frogs.”
“There’s gotta be something more to it. Where’s Twilight when we need her?” Rainbow asked, before she noticed something else. She pointed to the ground, seeing tiny little footprints leave off into the jungle. The mare could only smile at the sight. “Fluttershy was right….life found a way.”
“No, no, no! Absolutely not! You’ve lost your mind!” Whooves argued with Scorch back in the control room.
“Ok what are you two talking about?” Twilight asked as she and Fluttershy checked on Pinkie. The party pony was moved closer to them so they could keep an eye on her.
"A calculated risk," Scorch answered the purple alicorn. "And it’s the only option we have left.All other choices have been exhausted. We'll never find the command that Lightning used, she's covered her hooves far too well. And it's pretty obvious she's not coming back. The only option is to completely shut down the system.”
“Then get somepony else to do it, because I won’t.” Whooves said.
“Shutting down the system is the only way to guarantee wiping out everything he did. If I understand correctly, all the system will come back on their original start-up modes correct?” Scorch asked the earth pony.
“Theoretically yes, but we’ve never done a full system reset. It might not come back on at all!”
“Would we get the phones back?” Fluttershy asked hopefully.
“Again, yes in theory.”
“Hold on, what about the Lysine contingency? We could put that into effect!” Crimson suggested.
“Now that is out of the question!” Scorch shot the idea down.
“I don’t get it, what’s the Lysine Contingency?” Twilight asked confused.
“The lysine contingency, it's intended to prevent the spread of the animals is case they ever got off the island, but we could use it now. Lyra inserted a gene that makes a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism. Animals can't manufacture the amino acid lysine. Unless they're continually supplied with lysine by us, they'll go into a coma and die.”
“Oh my! Those poor dinosaurs!” Fluttershy said, horrified at the idea.
“How long would it take to go into effect?”
“About five to seven days.”
“We can’t wait five to seven days!” Twilight pleaded.
“That’ll be a first though.” Pinkie said, finally speaking up. “Ponies and dinosaurs all dying together.” Scorch, finally losing his cool, shoved a computer monitor off its table, alarming the group of ponies as it shattered in bits of electronics and sparks.
“Ponies. Are. Dying!” He snapped at Whooves, taking the words he got from Twilight seriously. The earth pony only looked at Scorch with an unnerving stare. “Please restart the system.” The owner said with as much authority he had. The worker pony looked at Scorch before sighing.
“You asked for it.” Whooves trotted over to a circuit box that needed special keys to be opened. Once opened, he began flipping the switches one by one, turning the monitors and lights off, sending the group into darkness. Crimson and Twilight used their horns to light the room. Whooves counted off the mandatory time to leave everything off. “Hold on to your flanks.” He flipped the largest switch on the box, only for everything to remain off. Nothing had changed; the lights remained off, the monitors remained off and the phones remained off. When all seemed lost Fluttershy saw something out of the corner of her eye.
“Look.” Whooves came trotting over and looked at the monitor. On it was a little message flashing on the bottom. The pony felt like celebrating.
“It worked! See? It’s on!” The feeling in was beginning to ease up, but Pinkie wasn’t convinced.
“Why’s everything off then?”
“The shutdown probably tripped the main circuit breakers. All we have to do is turn them back on, then we’ll have the whole park back.”
“Where are the breakers?” Crimson asked.
“Other side of the compound. Give me five minutes and I’ll have the park up and running.” Whooves said, before he clopped out the door.
“Now just to be safe, I want us all to go to the emergency shelter until Mr. Whooves comes back.” Scorch said.
After what had to be several hours now the ponies outside in the park had finally hiked their way to a massive clearing. By now the group was all tired and sweaty.
“It’s so hot!” Scootaloo moaned. “My hooves are killing me.”
“Can we stop for a while?” Sweetie Belle pleaded.
“We can’t be far now.” Applejack panted. "The visitor's center's gotta be a mile or so over that rise there. Let's just keep a goin a little bit..." Up ahead on the rise a herd of medium size dinosaurs ran into their line of sight.
“Anypony who’s good with dinosaurs know what those are?” Rarity asked.
“They're...gal...gally...galla..galla...gallimimuses." Applebloom answered.
"Are they meat-eating?”
"Don't think so."
"They look almost like ostriches." said Rarity. "Or some kind of bird."
"Your right." said Rainbow. "Now I see how they think dinosaurs are related to birds. The way they move they look just like a flock birds on the wing." At that moment the herd changed running directions. Sweetie Belle slowly began backing away in fear.
“They’re uh……they’re flocking this way….” She turned and ran in the opposite direction, then the other ponies quickly ran after her. The ponies galloped as fast as they could, but soon found themselves in the heat of the stampede. Fortunately the Gallimimus avoided the ponies, jumping over a fallen tree just up ahead. The ponies followed over the logs, before crawling back under, taking shelter on the other side.
“Lan sakes!” Applejack panted. “Where are they goin’ in a hurry?” The ground then began to shake with very familiar shaking. The ponies eyes went wide in fear.
“Three guesses.” Rainbow Dash said. As if on cue the Tyrannosaurus came charging out of the trees. Roaring as it ran, it managed to catch one of the running dinosaurs in its mouth. The injured Gallimimus looked at up at the beast with a look of fear or begging for mercy as the carnivore wrestled the dinosaur to its death, shaking it like it was a mere dog toy. The ponies could only stare at the display, with a look of both fear and awe in their eyes.
“Can we go now?” Sweetie Belle whimpered.
"Look how it eats." whispered Rainbow Dash.
"Please?"
"Bet you'll never look at birds the same way again."
"No I won't"
"Let's go." Applejack said for the little filly’s sake. "We don't need to see this." The cyan mare hesitated before nodding.
“Everypony keep low and follow me.” The mare whispered. The group ducked low behind the log, except for Scootaloo.
“Look at how much blood….” Rainbow popped back up and dragged Scootaloo away.