[Trade] Urbex Log

The long rays of dawn spilled into the streets of the main urban area of Isla Kela. While most of the island was gradually coming to life as the sun rose, the city remained still, save for the rustling of the plants in the breeze. The plant life of the island had made a valiant effort to swallow the concrete in their years of abandonment but the structures of man had been built to last. Still there was enough cover to create dappled spots of light in the alleyways and oases of water and foliage provided for the creatures brave enough to claim it as their territory. It had earned the nickname of the ‘Dead City’ not from its lack of life but from the uncanny silence that fell the second the old buildings began to close in around you. Things lived here, but they knew that blending in with their surroundings was the key to making it in this cutthroat area of the island. Its reputation preceded itself and only a scarce few carnivores chose this place as their home, these being the toughest and meanest of their kind. They had to be, in order to drive off their competition and keep the limited food sources to themselves. The silent nature of the city was their unspoken control of the area, ever-present and oppressive. 

The silence was unceremoniously broken by the loud chatter of a pair of dinosaur scouts. Grullo was complaining about having to duck under the low hanging branches of trees that had secured their roots in the concrete. His scouting partner, Ash, was unsympathetic to his plight, easily having the branches clear his head by a few feet. While firm friends, this didn’t stop the pair from bickering constantly as they travelled together. It was in good faith, but any bump in the road was worthy of a full discussion back and forth for at least ten minutes at a time. Their mission in theory was a brief reconnaissance of this section of the Dead City, plotting out a potential path for Alpha Labs refugees to make it to clean air and more natural surroundings. The radiation some of them came up with required quarantine periods and the grasslands nearby found their use for that purpose, keeping new evacuees safe and fed while the dangerous chemicals gradually left them. If these alleys could be cleared for travel, the journey from the labs to the grasslands could be cut in half and begin the quarantine procedures faster, not to mention allowing more timely medical treatment for any injuries sustained in either the labs or during the journey.

Ash decided to cut the bickering off as the streets began to open up in front of them.

“Labs are that way,” he said, gesturing his head down a street to the east. “You take the underground path and it’s a straight shot.”

“So we’re just clearing this area then?” Grullo asked, peering up and down the avenues. “It’s not much, why haven’t they cleared it before?”

“I’ll guess we’ll find out why,” Ash said dourly, not optimistic. If their predecessors had yet to find a route this straightforward he didn’t fancy their chances as a lone pair of relatively new scouts. Still, the streets looked innocuous enough, good field of vision and wide enough to shuffle injured dinosaurs two abreast through them. Ash began to walk up towards the west, wanting to clear that out before getting his hopes up for the eastern bloc. A small cluster of trees greeted him as he advanced along the human roads. He poked his head into the grove and found nothing to indicate any signs of nesting. A good start. Grullo used his height to look into the windows of the shops that lined the street, old human furniture lay torn into fabric strips to line the nests of a disgruntled crane that puffed its feathers at him as he intruded. He mumbled a short apology he wasn't entirely sure the bird could understand and moved on to the next window. It seemed only birds inhabited these upper levels which surprised the young sauropod. He was expecting a few of the smaller dinosaurs to have made their homes here above the ground level to avoid trouble but even that seemed to be too risky for them. He heard Ash below him, carelessly weaving between his legs with the practiced ease of a long term partner, and entering the lower levels.

“Are you finding anything down there?” the Shunosaurus asked.

“Nothing, it’s a real ghost town around except for a few rats,” Ash replied, frowning. Neither had clocked the very large ‘something’ that was approaching from behind, advancing up the east street in their direction.

You would be forgiven for thinking a twenty foot long monster of a dinosaur that weighed a literal tonne would make noise as it approached. Unfortunately for Grullo and Ash, the tan fawn and black Albertosaurus watching them from the shadows had advanced with cushioned footfalls. He picked his approach carefully, letting the plants muffle his movements until the two were within charging distance. He cocked his head and weighed his options. Eventually, he decided to emerge from the shadows and made a loud clicking in his throat to announce himself to the other two dinosaurs. Grullo’s head shot up from the rubble was investigating and alerted Ash to the carnivore’s presence. The stegosaurid was on the defensive immediately, turning his flank to the theropod before calling out.

“Hey pal, friendly?” Ash’s words were tempered but his tone wasn’t, keeping a hard edge to his voice. His tail swung into the eyeline of the Albertosaurus and stayed cocked threateningly. The Albertosaurus didn’t respond verbally, instead it rumbled low in its throat, reciprocating Ash’s threat. 

“We don’t have to fight, but we will,” Grullo promised, coming to stand side by side with his Dacentrurus friend. The Alberto didn’t seem intimidated and gave a brief roar before lunging directly at them. The two split up to let the large theropod charge between them. As it rushed by, Ash swung his thagomizer into its legs but the small spikes bounced off the thick skin at such speed. Grullo also swung his tail at it, a heftier blow that managed to miss entirely. The theropod skidded to halt and dartee back in their direction with surprising speed for such a large dinosaur. Grullo moved out of its way entirely while Ashe tried to duck under its high belly. If he could get under it he had a chance at inflicting serious damage on its softer underside. The Alberto stopped right over him and Ash felt searing pain as it sunk its teeth into his tail and pulled him out from under it. He was dragged sideways to sit in front of its jaws and it raised a leg to pin him fully to the floor. Before it could do so, Grullo intercepted and stunned it with a slap of his long neck. The sauropod's attack was enough to send the Alberto reeling back but he seemed otherwise undeterred, lunging for Grullo's back and sinking its teeth into the fleshy muscle surrounding his spine. The sauropod bellowed in pain and tried to shake the carnivore's grip on his back but it refused to budge and ground its jaws further into the skin. Ash ran up to his friend and used his own, much more blunt, teeth to latch on to the tyrannosaurid's tail and pulled hard. He put his full body weight into it, his feet slipping across the concrete as he leaned back and tried to drag the Alberto with him. He felt the tail pop in his jaws and knew he had at least pulled a muscle. The theropod roared and let go of Grullo’s back, jumping down and kicking out at the Dacentrurus trying to rip its tail off. Ash had been expecting the retaliation and swing his tail at its legs again, this time sweeping the legs out from under the biped and sending it crashing to the ground.

“Run!” he yelled at Grullo and the two took off back the way they had come. “Trudy’s gonna kill us,” he lamented as they wove through the streets as fast as their legs would carry them.

Tortora watched them go as he got back to his feet. They weren’t worth the chase. Besides, they were out of his territory and that was all that mattered. He limped back to his nest with an aching tail but a sense of pride that he had defended his street once more.