Shutting Down

The group climbed their way down from the tree.

"Wow." said Rainbow Dash. "That Brachiosaurus was amazing. If only we saw something like that on the tour."

"Let's hope any dinosaurs we meet are gentle like that one. We gotta long hike back to the visitor's center."

"Applejack? How in Equestria are we going to get back?" asked Rarity. "We don't even know where we are."

"Ah was in the fillyscouts 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."

"All right. Let's get hoofin."

"Hold on now. We'all gotta be smart bout this. This here ain't the Everfree Forest. There's terrible lizards in these jungles."

"Let's keep the little ones in the center," said Rainbow. "And the three of us on the outside."

"Like a herd a cows."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

"Uhh..yeah...sort of."

"And make note, give a little filly a bath along the way." said Rarity
An embarassed Sweetie Belle shook the dinosaur snot off of her.

"Ughh. One dinosaur tried to eat me and another one sneezed on me."

"Cheer up Sweetie Belle." said Scootaloo. "It was cute."
Sweetie Belle 'sneezed' on Scootaloo.

"Eww!"

"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. Anykinda dinosaur could be round the next corner."

"Right." said Rainbow
The group all took deep breaths and headed off into the jungle.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ponies hoofed their way through the park's jungles. The sun climbed higher into the sky; it was getting hot and sticky.

"How much farther?" Rarity whined.
Applejack clenched her teeth in annoyance.

"We've only been walkin fifteen minutes. "

"I've never been keen on long hikes. Specially in humid jungles."
Rarity swatted away a mosquito buzzing around her face.

"Shhh!" Rainbow Dash froze the group.

"What is it?" asked Applejack.

"Listen."
They could hear groaning and munching on leaves.

"Something's over there. Everypony keep quiet."
They moved slowly toward the sounds. Rainbow pulled away some small brush revealing a herd of Ankylosaurus grazing in a thicket.

"Wow." whispered Applebloom. "Ankylosauruses."
Among the herd were four adult Ankylosaurus and two young ones.

"Check out that armor." said Rainbow Dash. "They're almost like tanks."

"And those tail clubs look pretty mean." said Applejack. "Wouldn't want to run into those."

"How do we get by them?" asked Scootaloo.

"Very carefully." Rainbow whispered. "The tour video said they can have bad tempers. Let's tip-hoof around the thicket."
The ponies tiptoed their way around the dinosaurs trying to be as quiet as a they could possible be. Half way around, Applebloom slipped down a small embankment landing very close to the two young anks. Luckily they didn't notice her.

"Okay AB." she thought. "Get up very carefully."
Applebloom tried to get up as slowly as possible, but she landed in an awkward position. Suddenly her hoof snapped a stick, startling the dinosaurs.

"Uh...oh."
The frightened anks called for the others. One of adults looked over to the young ones and saw Applebloom, and it wasn't pleased.
The angry Ankylosaur arched its back snowing its armor and scraped the ground in preparation to charge.

"Help me!!"

"Applebloom!?!"

"Help!!"
The angry dinosaur charged for the small pony. Applebloom screamed.

"Applebloom!!" AJ screamed.
Rarity galloped toward the charging dinosaur, grabbing Applebloom in her magic, pulling her out of the way just in time. The furious ank took a swing at the ponies with its club. Rarity and Applebloom ducked, narrowly missing the blow. Another ank was charging for them as well.

"In here!"
Rarity and Applebloom crawled into a hollowed log to hide. Barely crawling inside, a huge club smashed part of the log. A clawed foot tried scraped the log trying to fish the trapped ponies out.

"Help!!!" Rarity and Applebloom shrieked.

"Hey!!! Back off!!"
The anks looked up to Applejack and Rainbow Dash who hurled stones at them to scare them away.

"Go on ya Ankylodons! Get!"

"Shoo!" shouted Rainbow. "Shoo!"
The dinosaurs turned tail and fled the thicket.

"Get along little dinos!"
They rushed down to the log.

"You guys okay?" asked Rainbow.

"I'm okay." said Applebloom.

"Where are the dinosaurs?" asked Rarity.

"They're leavin." said Applejack. "We scared them away."
She turned Applebloom.

"What happened?"

"Ah slipped down the embankment right behind the little ones!" Applebloom cried. "I tried not to scare them but stepped on a twig! I'm so sorry!"
Applejack hugged her frightened sister.

"It's okay sis. It's okay."
Rarity got up and brushed herself off.

"Who would have thought a plant eating dinosaur could be so vicious."

"We should get out of here." said Rainbow Dash "All that noise they were making could attract something else, like the T-Rex."
Applejack and Rarity nodded.

"Let's get movin."
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"I never thought I'd say this, but I liked dinosaurs better as bones." said Scootaloo.

"Me too." Applebloom replied. "The bones don't try to eat ya, or trample on ya."

"Or sneeze on you." Sweetie Belle added in.

"I'm right with ya'll crusaders." Said Applejack. "This tamperin with nature stuff is just basket a brown apples. Twilight and Fluttershy were right about this from the get go."

"Well we're very fortunate they're all girls. If they were having babies that'd be..eeeee!!"
Rarity tripped and fell forward landing flat on her face with a 'crunch'.

"Rarity! You okay? That fall looked...whoa."
The ponies jaws dropped at what they just found.

"Girls," Rarity moaned. "I'm just as dirty as the rest of you. There's no need to gawk at this extra filth."

"Rarity...look." said a speechless Applejack.
Rarity did look and was just as surprised.

"It might be the heat or my imagination," said Rainbow. "but are those...eggs."
Rarity got up turning a shade whiter than usual.

"They are eggs."
She had stumbled into a nest of at least seven broken eggshells.

"Those don't look like chicken eggs." said Applejack.

"No. More like dinosaur eggs." said Rarity.
Large footsteps came from the distant trees and the ponies heard groan. Rarity gulped

"And it sounds like it's coming home."

"Run!!" screamed Rainbow.
The ponies ran and hid behind a large tree root. The ferocious dinosaur turned out to be a sweet looking Parasaurolophus and her babies. They were returning to the nest from finding food.

"Parasaurolophus!" Applebloom gasped.

"A whatosoreolphus?"

"Parasaurolophus. One of my favorites."
The group peered out from the tree root.

"She doesn't look threatening at all." said Applejack. "She looks quite gentle."

"Oh, those babies are just adorable." said Rarity. "And I love those accessories they're all wearing."

"You mean the headcrest?"

"I could use that to inspire a new line of creations. It'd look fabulous. Nice to see a dinosaur who has great taste in fashion."

"I think its for making noises."

"Wow. A functional accessory too."
The mother Para regurgitated a stomach full of digested fruit into the nest which the babies immediately started eating.

"Gross!" gasped Rarity. "What kind of dinosaur does something so repulsive!"

"A mother dinosaur." Applejack answered coyley. "Like the way your mother fed you baby food when you were a youngun."
Rarity smiled.

"True."

"Nothing like a good ABC fruit salad." said Rainbow
Scootaloo giggled.

"ABC?"

"Already Been Chewed."
Scootaloo and Rainbow clopped hooves.
The mother Para lovingly nuzzled her babies, making the ponies smile and aww.

"I wish Fluttershy was here." said Rarity. "She would love to see this."

"It's amazing." said Rainbow. "We've seen how dinosaurs can be dangerous predators and viciously defensive, but also gentle giants and even good mothers."

"I don't get it." said Scootaloo.

"Don't get what?" Sweetie Belle replied.

"All the dinosaurs are girls right? How can they have babies if they're all girls?"

"You're right Scoots." said Rainbow. "There is something fishy about that."

"We should tell Twilight when we get back." said Applejack.

"Fluttershy was right." said Rarity. "Remember back in the lab when she said that 'life finds a way'?"

"Yeah?"
Rarity nodded to the parasaur family as the mother lovingly settled her babies down for a nap.

"Life found a way."
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"No, no no! You're crazy. You've absolutely spit your bit."
Uncle Orange was indignant, refusing to believe what Octavia and Bright Bulb were proposing.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" asked Twilight.

"A calculated risk," Bright Bulb answered the purple unicorn. "And its the only option we have left. All other choices have been exhausted. We'll never find the command that Derpy used, she's covered her hooves far to well. And it's pretty obvious she's not coming back."
He turned to Orange who hung his head in his hooves.

"So, we shut down the entire system."

"Just forget about it. We're not doing it."

"We have to shutdown the system. It's the only way to wipe out everything the she did. Then upon restarting, all of the park systems will come online in their original start up mode."

"Theoretically." Orange commented.

"What?" snapped Twilight.

"Theoretically that's what would happen, but the systems never been shut like that before. It might not come on at all."

"But we would get the phones back." said Fluttershy.

"Again, theoretically."

"Well, what other options do we have?" asked Twilight.

"None." said Bright Bulb.

"Wait." said Octavia. "There is the lysine contingency."

"What's that?" asked Fluttershy.

"That is not an option." snapped Uncle Orange.

"The lysine what?"

"The lysine contingency." Octavia explained. "We have it in place to prevent the spread of the dinosaurs in case any of them ever got off the island. When the animals were engineered, a genetic fault in enzyme metabolism was added in which they can't produce the amino acid, lysine. To survive they're completely supplied by us with the acid. If we cut it off, the animals all fall comatose and die."

"Goodness!" Fluttershy squeaked. "The poor dinosaurs."

"How long does the ly...whatever you call it, take to take effect?"

"A week." said Bright Bulb. "At least five days for any kind of symptoms to arise."
Twilight raised an eyebrow with a look of 'seriously?'.

"So even if we did do it, it wouldn't make much difference."

"Not really."

"So really our only option is the shut down."

"Yes. It's a big risk, but it's the only one that will give us any fleeting chance of putting things right."

"Then let's do it."

"We're not doing it." said Orange. "There has to be a way to unhook Derpy's command. If we just..."
Fluttershy put her hoof down hard on Orange's hooves and gave him 'the Stare'.

"Our friends are out there in this death trap you created, and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them back. We are shutting down the system."
Bright Bulb unlocked the circuit box with his horn magic and switched off each of the systems. The computer's shut off, one by one. Then the lights shut off plunging the control room into darkness. Twilight lit up her horn to provide some light. Fluttershy and Pinkie held onto each other in anticipation. Bright Bulb put his hoof on the main switch to turn everything back on.

"Hold onto your hooves ponies."
He hit the switch. Nothing happened. The lights and computers were still off. Fluttershy noticed something blinking on one computer monitor.

"Look."
Bright Bulb looked at the monitor with Uncle Orange looking over his shoulder, and he smiled.

"It's okay. See, the computer's on. It worked."

"Wait." said Pinkie Pie. "How could it have worked unless it worked in reverse and kept everything off."

"No, it did work." said Bright Bulb. "The shutdown probably tripped the main circuit breakers. All we have to do is turn them back on, then restart the computer systems in here, which will give us back the phones and security systems, but overall it worked. The systems ready."

"Where are the circuit breakers?" asked Octavia.

"The maintenance shed. On the other side of the compound. Give me five minutes and the whole park will be back online."

"I'm going with you." said Uncle Orange. "Since it is my park, I should lend a hoof in repairing it."
The stallion and unicorn headed out of the control room as Octavia turned to Twilight, Pinkie and Fluttershy.

"Now just to be safe we should all move to the emergency bunker. Until Bright Bulb and Mr. Orange return and the whole system is online again."
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Out in the park, the other ponies hiked their into a large grassy clearing. The midday sun was beating down on them. They were all tired and sweaty.

"It's so hot." Scootaloo moaned. "My hooves are killing me."

"Can't we stop for a while?" said Sweetie Belle.

"We can't be far." said Applejack. "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 a ridge, a herd of running Gallimimus appeared.

"Applebloom, you know your dinosaurs. What are these ones?"

"They're...gal...gally...galla..galla...gallimimuses."

"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. They way they move they look just like a flock birds on the wing."
The herd suddenly changed direction, running right for the ponies. Sweetie Belle backed up nervously.

"They..seem..to be...flocking this way."
Sweetie Belle turned around and galloped in the other direction. Scootaloo followed her. Then Rarity, Rainbow, Applebloom and Applejack. The gallys came up from under the ridge and were right on the ponys' tails. The group galloped as fast as they could to avoid them, but were soon in the heat of the stampede. The gallys dodged around the ponies. Up ahead, the herd jumped over an old fallen tree trunk. The ponies jumped over and took cover underneath from the stampede. They crawled behind the log through a gap and peered over at the fleeing dinosaurs.

"Lan sakes." said Applejack. "What's all the hurry?"
Some familiar rumbling footsteps came from the trees.

"Three guesses." said Rainbow.
The T-Rex came crashing out of the trees charging mouth open at the Gallimimuses. It caught one in its jaws. The injured Gally briefly looked toward the giant predator either begging for mercy or seeing what was hitting it, just before the Rex wreslted it to death.
The ponies watched the kill from behind the log. A mix of fear and awe filled their eyes as they watched the T-Rex dig into its meal.

"Can we go?" Sweetie Belle quietly 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." said Applejack. "We don't need to see this."
Rainbow nodded.

"Okay. Everypony keep low and follow me."
They ducked down below the log, except for Scootaloo who couldn't take her eyes of the scene.

"Look at how much blood."
Rainbow Dash crawled back and pulled her away.

Author's Note:

The Ankylosaurus bit is a homage to the Jurassic sequels: Ankylosaurus appeared briefly in JP3 and the sequence is based on the Stegosaurus scene in TLW.
I always imagined an Ankylosaurs behaving like a cross between a rhino and a cape buffallo.

Iquanodon (one of my favorite dinosaurs) was considered for the nest part, but I chose Parasaurolophus, another favorite.

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