My Little Pony - The Age of Dinosaurs

by StrangeBehavior

Chapter 7: Dinosaurs? The Mysterious Books...

The entire castle was shocked with jaws to the floor at what Twilight Sparkle had just said.

Applejack spoke up, "Hold on, these things that are popping up in Equestria are called, 'die-no-sores' and you knew the name of their kind, because of a…dream?"

Twilight picked up a book labeled, Ankylosaurid Dinosaurs, and then answered, "Well…Yes…I know it sounded strange, but I'm sure there is a logical explanation to these creatures apparently called 'Dinosaurs' Applejack."

Twilight saw the baby Triceratops sniff at her face, she knew that many animals identify others by smell.

The Triceratops was then picked up by Pinkie and Fluttershy to be handed back over to Celestia, Pinkie then asked, "Ooo-Ooo-Ooo! What's his name? Barry? Alan? Gorgon? Kilimanjaro? Sir Pointy Head? Lancelot? Budders? Please tell me!"

Celestia chuckled and answered Pinkie's question, "I haven't given him a name yet, but I think…Peck…might be a snug fit, yes his name is now Peck."

Twilight smiled as Pinkie hopped around excitedly saying the newly christened Triceratops' name 'Peck' over and over.

The purple alicorn then said flipping through the pages, "These seem to be notes someone wrote about these creatures called dinosaurs, someone who has had first hand experiences with them…Ah! This is the creature that fended off that large monster that I believe is also a dinosaur…"

She then showed a section in the book that had detailed illustrations of the prickly animal grazing in Ponyville right now, along with writing that she could identify.

Rarity then asked, "Well then, what sort of 'dinosaur' is it, for that matter, what is a dinosaur?"

Twilight cleared her throat and began to read the passages written,

"Gastonia, named after its discoverer, Robert Gaston. These small creatures lived in what is now the badlands near Price, Utah, around one hundred twenty million years ago in the Early Cretaceous period. These herbivores have poor eyesight, but remarkable senses in hearing and smell, they often rely on small pterosaurs or primitive birds as lookouts, much like modern birds lookout for rhinoceros in Africa today. The Gastonia, as scientists hypothesized, is one of the most well-protected animals to have walked on the planet, covered in plate-like spines and a huge bony shield on its hips. Their only weakness are its legs and its unprotected belly, both of which can be easily protected by the small dinosaur 'hugging' the ground, but a larger predator can flip this animal onto its back and easily kill it, if given the opportunity. The plates along the sides of its tail are just as scientists believe they were used for, to fend off aggressors like the fierce Utahraptor, or the giant carnivore, Acrocanthosaurus. These plates overlap each other like a series of scissors, I found out that if anything as thick as a tree branch can easily be cut off if caught in the gaps as the Gastonia swings its tail from side to side…"

Rainbow Dash whooped at how awesome that Gastonia sounded, especially cause she saw that tiny ankylosaur make the large dinosaur head back into the Everfree Forest, the others were also impressed at the ankylosaur that is now wandering inside the castle.

Twilight continued reading the notes on the dinosaur they now know as Gastonia,

"…Despite these weapons, Gastonia have very limited brain power, to a degree to where they can only focus on one thing at a time. These dinosaurs are dangerous because they operate on instinct alone, meaning if they perceive something as a threat, they will defend themselves, aggressively even, if needed against their perceived enemy. These dinosaurs lived in open fields that resembled scrublands, with low bushes that are like the plants found near sources of water, like a lake or river. The climate was much warmer in the time of Gastonia, compared to today, their world had no seasons like winter or spring, it was just the dry season and the wet season, especially where these creatures were located."

Fluttershy gasped and then said, "Oh no, the poor creature is in the wrong kind of place to live, we have to get him to his proper home."

Pinkie then shouted, "I think we should call that prickly scissor tailed beastie, Gassy or Gaston, yeah Gaston, much better fit. Welcome to Ponyville, Gaston!"

The party pony, unfortunately, blew a horn loudly in front of the dinosaur, startling the Gastonia into thinking he was being attacked. By instinct, the ankylosaur now named Gaston turned his little body and swung his tail at the source of the startling sound he heard, the 'scissor-tail' closed on only a few hairs on Pinkie's mane as she was pulled away by Twilight's magic. Rarity scolded the earth pony for doing something so careless on a creature they know next to nothing about. Twilight and Celestia decided to continue looking through the books to know more about Ponyville's newest visitors, and identifying the dinosaur that was chased off by Gaston.

Frost continued to try to break out of his confinement, without much luck. Pounce and Pod gave up a while ago, White Tip had learned that escape was near impossible due to her experience with magic a day ago, so informed her young offspring to not try to do what the other raptors were trying to do. Red-Claw however, knew immediately that they cannot escape, so the Dromeosaurus didn't bother to try to escape like her more primitive ancestor/pack leader, she waited till the opportunity arrived. It became very clear that out of the whole pack, Red-Claw was the most intelligent raptor.

She saw that bird, named Frank, that White Tip seemed to have made contact with and proceeded to ask him more about this world the dinosaurs have found themselves in. She had already found out the names of this land, the creatures that inhabit it, and these 'caves' that are an alien concept unknown to her called 'buildings'.

The raptor then asked Frank, "I understand all of these things you have told me, but I have a question about this thing called, 'Magic' that these unicorns seem to use, what is it exactly?"

Frank answered the best he could,
"Uh, I'm a little sketchy about magic, but what I do know is that some unicorns can use the magic in their horns for many things, like lifting a humongous boulder out of the way and can cast spells that can trap others, change the temperature, or even the seasons. But the pegasus control the weather, when it rains, snows, or anything of that nature, the pegasus, like Fluttershy's friend, Rainbow Dash, are the ones that create them."

The increasingly smart dinosaur was slightly unnerved at what she has learned, it seemed that these mammals called 'ponies' have full control over the natural world, a concept she knew wasn't right. Red-Claw had known that back in the world, she knew that nature's control over there was absolute and final, not even the biggest and most powerful dinosaurs can fight a force as powerful and mighty as that.

She thought, These creatures, they're a greater adversary than I had thought, they have full control over nature, and like that, they can immediately make wherever my pack lives virtually uninhabitable for us. *Sigh* We definitely have to stay on the good side of these ponies, for our survival in this new world.

White Tip had overheard what Frank and Red-Claw had talked about and felt the same way, if she was a human, White Tip would be just as nervous as a sinner in a church. The Pyroraptor and Deinonychus caught the 'ponies control nature' and immediately started to feel uneasy since they both attacked said ponies, so their fates seemed to have been sealed. Frost didn't listen at all as he feebly shook and bite at the cage they're in, breaking some of his worn-out shed teeth as they littered the floor.

Frank noticed this and asked, "Will he miss those teeth? Because I certainly won't…"

Red-Claw rolled her eyes in a 'you-have-to-be-joking' way and answered, "No, Frost won't miss those, because he'll just grow new ones in a matter of weeks, us dinosaurs are continuously growing new teeth to replace old, worn out ones our whole lives."

Frank gulped at the idea that new, sharp teeth will grow out in weeks and would be continuously supplied their whole lives.

He thought, What kind of monstrous creatures are these dinosaurs? They look like dragons, some have feathers like me, and they grow teeth like sharks?! I would really hate to be whatever creature is unfortunate to run into one of these things…

As if his words were heard by the universe itself, a dragon miles from Fillydelphia, was attacked by a dragon-like creature after he was minding his own business. The dragon had never seen a creature like the one he was fighting, though he was clearly bigger than it was, the creature was not afraid of him, even after he breathed fire at its feet.

The dragon said with a growl, "You are not taking my gems! I found them first, go find your own!"

However, the creature (which is a dinosaur) was not interested in his gems, the dinosaur was more interested in chasing the dragon away, thinking the dragon would be competition for food in this territory it claimed.

It growled ferociously, to where the dragon felt intimidated, as it said in its natural tongue, "I don't want these useless 'gems' I want you out of my territory, there isn't enough prey for the two of us. GET OUT OF MY TERRITORY!!!"

The dragon understood a single word of his adversary and quickly realized the 'dragon' is not after his precious gems, he wants him as food if he doesn't get away soon. The dinosaur was a predatory Allosaurus of the area that will be Salt Lake City in Utah in the future. The dragon is not aware that his diminutive opponent was more dangerous than he is, and that the Allosaurus…

...Wasn't alone…

He realized what was really going on too late, as three more Allosaurus hopped onto his back, clawing and jamming their top jaws onto his tough, but not tough enough scales. The dragon howled in pain as he shook the 'lions of the Jurassic' off his bleeding back, the blows did their work as the dragon felt weaker, even if the bleeding wasn't deep. The poor reptile didn't realize that the carnivores slamming their jaws on him had caused massive amounts of trauma and is bleeding inside at a frightening rate. He now know that whatever these things were, they were never after his gems, they were after him!

The Alpha Allosaur leapt up at the dragon's neck and with one mighty swing of his jaws, severed the spinal chord, and the thirty-five foot tall reptile collapsed to the ground, alive but totally helpless. He could only watch in horror as the ravenous carnosaurs start to eat him alive. The last thing the dragon saw was the Alpha roaring at his subordinates and then dig into his stomach cavity and saw the dinosaur rip something big and bloody out, the dragon realized the Allosaurus was holding his own liver in his blood-covered snout. His life finally slipped away as with his fading vision, the Allosaur swallowed a chunk of his liver whole.

Up at the Crystal Empire, the ponies cowered at the sheer size of the Parasaurolophus, but eased up a little when they saw that these creatures ignored them and proceeded to eat the plants in the warm city they were in. One of the trumpeters accidentally blew on his horn, at a frequency that the hadrosaurs are programmed to respond to, as they looked up and repeated the same 'call' that was sounded. Cadence was surprised that the dinosaurs responded to that trumpet blare, and were actually mimicking it. What she didn't realize was that the trumpet sounded the right call at the right time, for it was to the dinosaurs, a warning call that meant that 'it' spotted a predator. The Parasaurolophus swung their heads around looking for this predator that 'one of their kind' had spotted, and one of the sentries had spotted it, an Albertosaurus trying to sneak up to the herd.

The sentry let out a bellowing sound that rattled the bones of all the ponies, and then the whole heard panicked and stampeded south of the Crystal Empire, the Albertosaurus growled in frustration, it was hidden well enough that it shouldn't have been spotted until it was too late. Its dinosaurian brain couldn't process on how it was spotted so easily, it decided to go with its back up plan, run them down and pick out the easiest target. It let out a roar that echoed in the frosty wind as at least seven more Albertosaurus, of different sizes and ages, ran after their preferred prey, the Parasaurolophus. The Crystal Empire was in a panic as the hadrosaurs stampedes throughout the land, crushing bushes and flattening buildings, trying to get away and confuse the tyrannosaurs.

Shining Armor was fending off a young Albertosaurus from the Crystal Heart, he put up a shield as the juvenile leapt forward and its jaws cracked the shield. The Albertosaurus looked puzzled at this thing surrounding the pony, it rammed it head and split the magic barrier and with one bite of its powerful jaws, it clamped on the unicorn's horn and threw Shining at a pillar knocking him out. The youngster cawed in delight that it solved that puzzle, but cowered when its mother, a fully grown, thirty-six foot long Albertosaurus, walked up and looked at the pathetic mammal that laid helplessly. Cadence fired a magic beam at the tyrannosaur's face as she growled in annoyance and snapped her jaws at the tail of the alicorn, only ripping some hair out, the carnivore spat the ticklish hair out in disgust and made her offspring continue the hunt on their selected target, a elderly Parasaurolophus with a limp.

Cadence flew to her husband and saw the deep tooth marks on his horn, crackling with magical energy and several broken dinosaur teeth littered around, she shed several tears at the fact that her beloved was hurt. The Parasaurolophus herd fled the Empire, with the Albertosaurus pack tailing them closely, down south flipping over and crushing the crystal train under forty million pounds of dinosaur bulk.

Back in Ponyville, Rainbow Dash decided to get a closer look at their captive raptors, holding the strange device to find out what they all are. Frost was lying on his side, panting like a dog, exhausted after three hours of repeated biting and pulling, the pegasus thought that it looked silly as the giant raptor looked like it was 'stoned'. The other raptors and Frank took notice of Rainbow and, unlike before with other ponies, behaved calmly and watched silently, if the cage wasn't between them, the pony would be dead in mere seconds since she made the mistake of letting her guard down. Even a caged animal is dangerous, even more so if you taunt them, but Rainbow knew better that to taunt the dinosaurs, she then pointed the weird device to Pod…

To say Rainbow Dash was surprised would be an understatement, she had believed that they were all Velociraptors, but the device proved here wrong. Aside from the smaller raptor cuddling next to White Tip, they were all different species of the same evolutionary family, and they lived in a pack, when the device said that they were all separated by time and location.

She remarked aloud, "Wow, these dinosaurs really are smart animals, and they all look so cool!"

Pounce didn't understand what the pegasus was saying, but had correctly assumed that the mammal was complementing them, she puffed up a little in pride as Red-Claw sighed in embarrassment.

Rainbow noticed the Dromeosaurus shaking her head in disappointment, then asked, "You are a…Dr-Dromeosaurus, right? You don't seem to be interested in pride do you?"

Red-Claw said aloud, "Because pride isn't something to be overly confident in, as it will make you make mistakes guaranteed. The only pride I have is being a raptor, and even then, I don't let that get to my head."

Rainbow shook her head in disbelief, did it just, speak?! Pounce snarled at the smaller raptor, knowing immediately that she was indirectly insulted.

Red-Claw and White Tip noticed the pony's movements and White Tip said, "Red-Claw, I think that pony is the one named Rainbow Dash, and I think she understood you, or maybe…"

"…Maybe I now speak their language. Hmm, I could use this to my advantage." Red-Claw whispered, she stared at the multicolored pony and had thought that the name 'Rainbow Dash' wasn't far off.

Rainbow flew closer to the cage and asked the Dromeosaurus, "D-d-did you speak? I heard you talk…Whoa!"

The pegasus quickly flew back as Frost, regaining some strength, angrily tried to break his captor's head off. Red-Claw stopped the Utahraptor from attacking and managed to explain what the others found out about these mammals. Skeptical, Frost looked at the frightened pegasus, then back at a nodding pack. He retreated to a corner and hissed at Rainbow, making her heart skip a few beats, she knew that thing called a Utahraptor really was terrifying, and understood why Applejack was so scared to even look at him. She was not afraid to admit she was scared of the Utahraptor, then realizing what she witnessed, flew back to her friends to tell them that one of the raptors just spoke Equestrian.

It was close to sunset and Rainbow dragged her friends to the raptors, saying she heard one of them speak. Red-Claw knew this was a perfect opportunity to get on the better side of the ponies that seem to control nature.

The others were a little skeptical, except Fluttershy, and when Rainbow asked the Dromeosaurus to say something, Applejack said, "Rainbow, there is no way that this Dromeo-zaur-us could talk, it is not possible…"

Red-Claw couldn't understand what the farmer said, but knew that she was indirectly saying she wasn't smart enough to speak, so said like how she did before,
"I can talk, I simply choose to not to, and I am smart, I can think of many ways to escape and they all involve one of you mammals being careless. I don't understand your language, but I know you were saying something along the lines that I'm just a stupid animal, when I hunt stupid animals for substance…"

The ponies, Discord, and Spike were surprised that Rainbow was right.

Discord appeared in front of Red-Claw, surprising the dromeosaur, causing her to jump back and hiss in hate at what she presumed was this 'magic' she heard of.

The master of Chaos said, "Well it seems they have never seen magic before, how much fun I would have had with them years ago."

Fluttershy walked up to the cage and tried to talk in 'bird-speech' since the raptors seem to understand it and said, "Hello, my name is Fluttershy, you have nothing to fear about us, we won't hurt you, but please don't hurt us, we want to help you, but only if you behave yourselves."

Frost thought the pink-maned pegasus was challenging his position and instinctively lashed out at the timid Fluttershy. Red-Claw reminded her leader about the kind of power these creatures hold, as Twilight said quietly,
"This is going to be a long and exhausting effort to figure these things out…"

Author's Note:

Now Equestria has complete information on any dinosaur or other creature they might encounter...

NOT!!! I'll tell you all a little secret, though I am using existing species, a few prehistoric critters, completely unknown to the fossil record, will show up in Equestria...

...That was...certainly a gruesome death for that dragon...being eaten alive never sounds pleasant......right????

Anyways, I written this chapter when I was on a small vacation with my dad, I tried to post this when I had strong enough internet to use, but I couldn't from my iPad, which is where I do the writing and the posting from. I was able to post this through my laptop, but I really prefer posting VIA my 'previously mentioned iPad', could any of you tell me what the deal is with this;

Error signing string: TypeError '[objectUint8Array]' is not a valid argument for 'Function.prototype.apply'

It is what kept me from posting this chapter sooner. It drove me crazy a little...

Kudos to brandonvortex for suggesting 'Peak' for Celestia's new Triceratops' name, I tweaked it by switching one letter out, now his name is 'Peck' the Triceratops.

I'm serious about reviews and suggestions, don't be afraid to ask something, especially in the blogs, though I read the comments, chances are that I'll take your suggestions more seriously in the blogs.

Okay, now for our list of dinosaurs revealed in this chapter;
Acrocanthosaurus (mentioned)
Allosaurus...Ooh, these guys are real trouble, especially killing that dragon...
Albertosaurus (officially)

I am very sure you know the drill here right?

Well until next time...
Bye...

Comments

[brandonvortex]

soo what next spinosaurus from jurrasic park?

[SkylordF]

you should have a carnotaurus is my favourite