RPGTopia

"Make that a bottle. A tall one at that" David replied dryly as he watched the tips of the grass blades rush past on either side of the Humdinga. He thought he saw a few shift against the wind, which concerned him but was not surprising. There were surely many creatures hidden around everyone, a network of predatory eyes and sharp claws...

"A bottle, eh? Danny's gonna love you" said Jacob amidst an amused chuckle as they continued onwards, his long-time comrade's name mentioned for the first time since he started this job...

"Then you keep good company" David said with a chuckle, the Humdinga closing in on the base.

"Guaranteed to be better than any of the poor sods stuck with Barnes...be it with a bottle or a gun" responded Jacob with a smirk...

Barnes stopped dead when he heard the rustling and growling. This was getting annoyingly repetitive. He sighed, and turned to look over at the mercs. "Alright, so we're not safe just yet. Does someone, ANYONE, have an explosive of some kind left?"

A deep rumble reverberated through the air around the group, the Rex, still within sight, staring at them with an unreadable expression. Having consumed those slain in the conflict with the raptors, the massive animal's full attention was now on those that survived...

Barnes turned at the sound of the rumbling, spotting the Rex. While figuring out its intentions would be impossible, he didn't much like getting stared down by a massive predator. "This just keeps getting better... That explosive, people! I need it now!"

"Christ!" Max shouted urgently, his shotgun aimed at the rex. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to drop off his backpack to escape that damned Spinosaurus after all....

off to one side of the group, a piercing screech rang through the air, echoing in the plain for a period, the source long gone...

On the other side of the group, a rattling snarl was heard as a predator moved, cutting off after a few seconds. An almost undetectable, near-constant hissing started a few feet away, almost like a whisper. The noise wasn't enough to give away the animals' positions; but it would certainly be enough to unnerve the humans. The Rex was distracting them...a detail the hunters could take advantage of.

One of the mercs, a man by the name of Nathan, finally pulled up alongside Barnes, handing him a single fragmentation grenade. "Only one I've got," he remarked. "Don't waste it, boss." Barnes simply nodded, then turned to Jenkins. "Alright, Doc," he whispered, "These things are just animals. And, like most animals, we can probably frighten them away with a loud bang, right?" Jenkins scratched the back of his head. "In theory, yes. Deinonychus are about as intelligent as African wild dogs. Their hearing is about as sensitive too. If that grenade goes off in the near vicinity, most of the animals will either be stunned or scared into a temporary retreat." "How long, exactly?" "Well, I'm not sure. As long as it takes to get the ringing out of their ears, I suppose. 30 seconds to a minute, perhaps." Barnes frowned and looked in the direction of the base's front doors (or what used to be the front doors; they had been vaporized during whatever fight had taken place six months ago). The outpost was only a couple hundred feet away. They could make it if they ran, but not with the raptors in the way. "Better make this count..." Quickly yanking the pin out of the grenade, Barnes chucked it in the direction of the base, then yelled, "Cover your ears!"

At this distance, the blast would have put ringing in the humans' ears, not to mention the dinosaurs. The pineapple exploded, sending a massive column of dirt and burnt grass into the air. The deafening BOOM of the grenade echoed over the wide open field, rippling the long grass. As the smoke cleared, it revealed a small stretch of field devoid of vegetation, with only a small crater in the dirt left. "Everyone, run!" Barnes shouted, already prepared to sprint. "Straight to the base! Watch your a**es!"

Maxwell complied immediately. Shotgun in tow, the mercenary began his run towards the base. Hopefully, they didn't lose anyone else on their way to the base...

The momment Barnes had yelled for the team to cover their ears, Rick did so. Not needing to be told twice to run, he followed the rest of the team in running towards the base, which was closer than during the first attack, but still not close enough to his liking. The sound of the grenade explosion would hopefully make the Rex hesitate briefly, if not deafen it in addition to the hidden Deionychus...

Persephone, following instructions, ran toward the base as fast as she could. If the explosion did stun the raptors as lnog as she hoped, then they could definitely make it... however, how something was in theory and how something was in practice were two diffrent things, as she herself knew...

The explosion sent one Raptor flying, having been hiding in the grass not far from where the grenade went off, as a bone chilling screech rang out through the clearing, the leader of the attack group shaking it's head, furious at the sound. ahead of the group the grass seemed to rustle and shake sporadically, the movement sluggish towards where the explosion had been, but the areas further back no easier to pinpoint. It was only a matter of time however...they would never get as far as the base...

The Tyrannosaur shook its head, caught off guard by the suddenly noise. As if in response to the sound, the colossal animal bellowed loudly, the sound amplified by the openness of the fields.

The Humdinga came to the destroyed door, pulling up to its side. "No doors. That's always a good s-" he began to say when the distant explosion reached his ears. Through the rising smoke he could see the others making their mad dash towards the building. "...That's also a good sign" he finished saying. The mission had, shockingly, not sustained any casualties. There was a good chance that was about to change.

Enraged chittering swept through half of the attacking group, some half-stunned but recovering quickly. The raptors started forward, almost lethargically at first, but swiftly gaining speed. Their muscular legs struck out, eating up the distance between them and the humans, the irritable noises they had been making silenced. The only noise the pack made now was the swishing of the grass in the hunters' wake.

Thanks to his injured leg, Barnes was slightly slower than his team, but he made due. Glancing over his shoulder, he cursed under his breath. They recovered faster than he thought. They would need one more distraction. Barnes looked down at the rifle in his arms, thinking hard. His grenade launcher didn't create quite as much of a bang, but it would make due, and he still had four shots left. He just needed to make this one count. Not daring to try and backpedal, Barnes simply lifted the barrel into the air and fired. He positioned it at just the right angle that they would pass far underneath the explosive, so that it would land behind them. Which is exactly what it did.

Following the muffled whoomph of the launcher being fired came a terrific explosion as the grenade arced high into the air, hung lazily for a moment, then crashed back to earth like a tiny meteor, a couple yards behind the the mercs. The explosion, while not quite as powerful as the hand-thrown grenade's, still did the trick, sending up another plume of dirt and rocks and creating a small sonic boom, before leaving behind yet another crater in the ground...

Again stunned by the blast, with one or two more members flung or sent staggering to the ground, the pack's irritated calls rose in volume. A few, at the head of the pack, stumbled and nearly lost their balance, but kept running, the gap between hunter and hunted becoming less and less significant with every stride. When it was close enough, a muscular female launched herself into an impressive leap that crossed the remaining distance between her and her target. Her feet landed a direct hit, right between the human's shoulder blades, knocking the woman right onto her face. The raptor wasted no time, leaning down and clamping its jaws on the woman's head, shaking its own back and forth violently to break her neck. As it did so, the female raptor drove one of her killer claws into the woman's back, ripping a bloody channel a few feet long as the raptor dragged her foot back. She replaced her foot on the woman's shoulder and repeated the action with her other claw, all the while slowly tightening the vice of her jaws around the human's head.