Chapter 4: D is for Dinosaurs

D is for Dinosaurs 5/31/25

Cruising along at a nauseating high speed just above the clouds and lit by the moonlight, A.C.E. and Dicer's aircraft makes its way to its destination. A.C.E. is seen putting the ship on cruise control as he sets his attention on Dicer as the boy asks them more about the egg they were looking for and what the plan was. A.C.E. shows him an image of the target and tells Dicer that they are just retrieving it for C.O.C.A. who made a deal with a collector from Volterra and tasked him with bringing it back safely - but beyond that he didn't know the details of the transaction and tended not to ask anyway but suspects the man had something to do with the egg to even know it existed in the first place. 

Dicer, ignoring all the thoughts he has about the egg for the moment, decides to voice that he thought that the Ameritol islands were off limits. To which A.C.E. looks at him in confusion and wonders where he heard that from and asks him what he knows about the area. Dicer, who was not a very good student at all and must have slept through that history lesson, tries to back track and says that he’s forgotten. A.C.E. mercifully doesn't bring more attention to Dicer's fumble and simply says that the Ameritol Islands used to be the biggest science center for flora and fauna research until some scientists got too greedy with their hybrid fusion experimentation and caused an explosion big enough to blow the island apart. That fact that the islands are now, for the most part, uninhabited by people and have been taken over by the creatures that were let loose in the aftermath was probably why Dicer had thought the area was prohibited. 

With that cleared up, Dicer tries to ask about the Egg but is interrupted by a beeping sound and A.C.E. telling him to hold his thought as the ship came to an abrupt landing signalling their arrival to the area. The ship gives them the OK to disembark and as the two climb out of the ship, A.C.E. lets Dicer know he has not forgotten that this is a trial for him and reminds Dicer that if he can keep up and prove himself useful that he was serious about offering him a job. A.C.E. further shows his intent by producing the Diamond Faction’s contract from a void. He says that at the end, Dicer will either be given the opportunity to sign it or they will go back to trying to place him elsewhere. Dicer says he will prove himself and A.C.E. then tells him if he’s so confident in himself that he can hold onto it - but not to try anything funny as there is a Hex cast on it. Dicer smiles cheerfully, unconcerned about the Hex, and pockets it in his jacket before stepping out of the ship behind A.C.E..

Looking around at their location, Dicer sees that they have landed in an open space that is surrounded by dense trees and underbrush from plants he’s never seen before, and he also notes that it is very hot. A.C.E. says that that's because the area is still an active volcano, and to watch his step as there lava pools are common here. A.C.E. pulls out a small locator device, noting they have a way to go on foot since they couldn't have parked the airship any closer. Dicer suggests they use a sky hoverboard to get where they are going, but A.C.E.'s response is interrupted by a loud screeching sound above them, and as they both look up they are eclipsed in the shadow of an enormous pterodactyl hybrid chasing a flock of smaller bird like creatures. 

A.C.E. comments that it's best that they do what they can to avoid drawing attention and becoming a meal and Dicer agrees and says that the scenic route is probably better anyway. Dicer summons some courage and heads straight into the surrounding brushline, relying on the glimpse of the locator he saw earlier and his own luck to get him where they need to go, attempting to lead the way. 

As Dicer pushes through a particularly stubborn bush, he hears A.C.E. ask him what he is doing. Dicer says he's trying to get them to the Egg and to rely on him. A.C.E. tells him that he's being kind of loud and is probably scaring the wild life, to which Dicer thinks that that's not such a bad idea, given how inhospitable everything seems around them. A.C.E. huffs at his blind ambition, but sees that the other is trying- and probably scared. A.C.E. says that he doesn't need to rely solely on his ability for this and hands Dicer the tracer. He says that he will scout up ahead and make sure that there isn't too threatening in their path. 

During his trip though the forest, Dicer is seen narrowly dodging dangers as A.C.E. watches him from above seeing if he will need to pull him out of harm's way. A.C.E. continues to scout around around, knowing that they should be running into bigger creatures too, but even as he sees some flying dinosaurs in the distance and as Dicer is fortunately knocked out of the way of a lava pool by a friendly herd of dino hybrids, he sees nothing - finding it oddly quiet and wonders if the other boy has anything to do with it.

After a while, Dicer slumps down at the base of a tree A.C.E. is keeping watch from, taking a rest as he is feeling uncomfortable from the climate, but isn't outwardly complaining. A.C.E. takes the moment to talk with Dicer and asks him more about his Ability and how it works. Dicer says he doesn't really know because he hasn't had a reason to look into it - he just knows it's there. Dicer asks why A.C.E. is asking, and if it's because he did something interesting, and A.C.E. confirms that while watching him, Dicer managed to avoid every poisonous plant in his path and the predatory animals he expected that they run into have been giving them a wide berth. 

Dicer looks around and sees what A.C.E. is talking about. He says it might be his ability, but can't tell, and wishes there was a way for him to know. A.C.E. gives him a thoughtful look and tells them that they better get going if they want to keep this excursion to a day trip. Dicer agrees and takes A.C.E.’s help getting up from the ground so they can continue on. 

The second leg of the trip goes faster than the first as A.C.E. starts to use his ability to help them move easier through the forest. They even had some time to look around at some clearing on the way, seeing some herds of hybrids roaming around. Dicer was able to snap some pictures of them for his family and they found a nice, vibrant plant and a piece of old machinery Dicer wanted to take back to Rin and Kalib as souvenirs that A.C.E. stored for him. 

Soon enough, they found themselves in front of the ruins of an old lab where the locator said the Egg should be. The place was overgrown and heavily damaged, but that made it easier just to walk straight in. They split up and had a look around but everything looked heavily picked over, so when they converged again in the back of a storage room neither of them had any leads on where the target could be. They decided to look over the storage room together since everything there seemed to still be locked up. 

Dicer was looking at one of the abandoned desks when he heard a metal groaning sound. He went to see the cause of the noise and found A.C.E. creating voids on the floor - effectively causing entire cabinets to slip out of space. Dicer wonders what he was doing and A.C.E. says that even if it its not what they came for, there could be some good information in them since they were still locked up, and that Kalib could probably open them when they get back. Dicer sees the logic as A.C.E. systematically goes though the room, dropping everything through the floor until they come to two shelves in the back that seem to be bolted to the wall as they refuse to drop into the void below them. 

The two gave the shelves a harder look. When the room was full, they just blended right in, but now that the room was practically empty, the shelves stuck out and were looking more and more like secret doors. They looked at the shelves contents and with a bit of trial and error, Dicer found a hidden button and keypad that seemed to be the key to get the door to open. A.C.E. was about to bring out the forensic dust to try and deduce the code the old fashioned way, but Dicer offered to take a crack at it and guessed the number code correctly on the first try. With a satisfying creaking sound the safe doors opened, revealing a way further down into the labs. 

Descending the stairs, the boys saw a lab that, while dusty, seemed to be just the same as the day it was abandoned. Tests and projects were seemingly left in stasis, telling of the rushed nature and panic that the island-wild emergency must have induced before the island split apart. A.C.E. let Dicer poke around as he took in the space, wondering how much of it he should take back to Ark Light, but before he could give it any deeper thought there was a whirring sound as something in the room shifted and podiums started to rise out of the floor.

The contents of these new arrivals were pristine, some had test tubes, others had plant hybrids, and A.C.E. supposed that these must have been the most important experiments the lab was working on. Several more columns came up, but there was one in the middle that seemed more important than the others. A.C.E. and Dicer watch it open up and to no one's surprise, in the center was an egg suspended in a cylindrical jar of fluid. Dicer said that there is no way that that's not the egg they came for and A.C.E. agreed, but just as he reached out to take it from the column, it was swiped out of its perch by a red blur. 

They are both taken by surprise and look over next to them only to see a red kitsune kemonomimi (Kouen) holding the egg triumphantly. Dicer asks who she is at the same time A.C.E. asks her what she’s doing here. The fox girl explains that she was out on a vacation just wandering around when she caught sight of them and decided to follow along to see what they were up to. She balances and tosses the egg with her tail which concerns both of the boys. 

A.C.E. creates a void in the eggs path, effectively swallowing it up to keep it safe only for Kouen to look upset over the loss of her new toy. Dicer whispers and asks A.C.E. who she is and if they can just leave and A.C.E. says they're probably not going to get out of this easily, but also, that despite how she seemed, Kouen was actually someone important to Volterra upper class, not to mention powerful. 

Kouen looks over at Dicer and asks A.C.E. if he’s training a new underling and that he has his work cut out for him if he doesn't even know who she is. Dicer unhelpfully supplies that she shouldn't be too offended because he didn't even know who A.C.E. was when he met him for the first time. Kouen is not impressed and wishes A.C.E. luck. Kouen narrows her eyes at them and then proposes a game. One was if they keep the egg out of a void and let her win it back fairly, she will make sure they’ll both make it home in one piece. Seeing the threat for what it is, A.C.E. drops Dicer through a void to keep him out of harm's way.

Dicer, from inside A.C.E.s Void watches as the opening closes behind him as he is suspended in space. He tries to move his arms and finds he can with little resistance and looks around him. He observes the star speckled inside of the subspace and notices that there are a lot of random items held in stasis both above and below him. He is able to flap his arms a bit to turn around and notes it’s kind of like swimming in space. As he turns he sees the Egg in its container and he makes his way over to it and tucks it under his arm. A bit farther in front of him he spots what looks like a pinhole of light and out of curiosity he swims over to it. He peeks through the hole and sees A.C.E. and Kouen negotiating over the Egg. 

 He puts his ear up to the rip and hears A.C.E. asks her why Kouen wants the egg anyway. She replies that it's obviously rare and that it probably tastes amazing. This catches A.C.E. and Dicer off guard and A.C.E. asks if she really intends to eat it, and indeed she really does. At that moment, whatever pressure that was keeping Dicer held up in the void gives way as the rip opens up and he falls out of space by the door - surprising both A.C.E. and Kouen. 

Dicer picks himself up and protests telling A.C.E. he can't let her eat it and that it probably wouldn't taste delicious anyway as he grips the cylinder tighter. A.C.E. quickly looks between Kouen and Dicer and seeing that she's about to move he tells Dicer to run. Dicer makes a break for it just as Kouen spits a ball of lava at him, narrowly missing him but effectively melting the stairs behind him. Dicer keeps running as A.C.E. takes a more defensive stance between the exit and Kouen, stating that if she wants to go after him she's going to have to get through him first. 

Upstairs Dicer makes his way out of the lab. He makes it a distance away and turns back to see the lab erupt like a volcano. He turns and keeps going as he closes his eyes and puts his hands together hoping for a miracle. He feels himself being picked up and opens his eyes in surprise to see that he’s in the grasp of the huge pterodactyl hybrid he had seen earlier. He would normally squirm to keep from being carried off like he was but below he can rapidly see the ground being enveloped by a lava flow and thinks better of it. 

A.C.E. watches the creature carry Dicer off as he emerges from one of his voids into one of the surrounding trees and thinks to himself that he’ll have to find him later before turning back to Kouen who stands atop the lava that’s encasing the old research lab, having just saw the dino take Dicer is now scanning the area for A.C.E... He thinks that this is all a little extreme for them having essentially just taken away her lunch.

The perspective splits back and forth between Dicer being brought to the hybrid's nest high on the top of a perch and being placed among their hatchlings that take a liking to him while A.C.E. plays a very dangerous game of tag with Kouen in the forest as he tries to halt her lava attacks with waterspouts from his voids. Dicer gets along with the hybrid and the babies and he is seen wrapping some paper and nesting around the egg vial to try and conceal it as A.C.E. is able to break away from Kouen and goes to look for Dicer. Kouen, having lost sight of A.C.E., thinks, and then turns to go in another direction. 

A little while later Dicer is seen talking to the big Dinosaur and he tells it that he can look after the nestlings while they go look for food. He waves it off but as soon as it is out of sight he turns around and comes face to face with Kouen. She says that he’s given her quite the chase and as she stalks towards him the nest under her heel burns. She states that she's worked up quite the appetite and if he doesn't want to see the hatchlings that are all huddled behind him get fried he should hand over the egg. Not seeing a lot of options, being so high up, and not waiting to leave the babies by abandoning them he sadly hands her the Egg container. 

Kouen snatches it up and says that at least he's a lot smarter than A.C.E. is. She pauses a moment at the decorated exterior with the paper and hay and looks at Dicer who said he didn't want it to get too cold. She rolls her eyes and shoves her hand through it and the glass in one swift motion. Kouen goes to extract the Egg, but the action causes the paper to light up violently and black text shoots out of it. Kouen tries to drop the item, but the black text expands, rapidly crawling up her arm and wrapping her up, effectively bindering her in place and suppressing her abilities. Dicer hesitates, but after a moment of looking at the bindings and seeing that Kouen is well and truly incapacitated he reaches for the egg, effectively pulling it out of the broken container avoiding the text and bringing it close to his chest. 

He sighs and falls back only to startle a bit when heavy boots land next to him. He looks up and is relieved to find that this time it’s A.C.E. who is surveying the scene around him - everything from the hatchlings peeking out from around Dicer to Kouen to is all wrapped up and cursing to Dicer holding the egg. He drops Kouen into a void before laying down on his back in the nest and covering his face as he laughs at everything that happened that day. 

He continues on for a while as Dicer comes to sit next to him and laughs too. After settling down a bit A.C.E. sits up and asks Dicer if he's ok and Dicer says he is. He then asks if that was their contract he used and Dicer confirms it was even if he didn’t mean for it to get destroyed like that. A.C.E. runs a hand through his hair and says today was supposed to be easy and Dicer reassures him that even if it wasn't easy, he still had fun and was happy everything turned out well. 

A.C.E. huffs and says that Dicer is one lucky duck. Dicer laughs and asks him if he got the job and A.C.E. says that he's probably the only one suited for it and if he wants it, the job is his. The hatchlings watch as Dicer happily accepts and hugs A.C.E. who gets surprised by the contact. Dicer then mentions if he can still have it even if he can’t sign the contract. A.C.E. reassures him that he can get another one made up when they get back to Ark Light. A.C.E. then drops a shining diamond shaped pin out of the sky into his hand and says that even without the contract, if Dicer shows the pin to people they will know where his alliance is. Dicer pins it to himself as A.C.E. catches his attention with a small genuine smile and in the light of the moon sitting in that nest in a foreign land, A.C.E. Welcomes Dicer to the Diamond Faction. 

Chapter end

In a short afterward - A.C.E. says to dicer that it's about time they get back to the ship but Dicer says he told the parent hybrid that he would watch over the babies till they got back. A.C.E says that he’s sure Dicer did promise the creature that and says he’ll stay with him till they return. While sitting on the edge of the nest, Dicer asks A.C.E. if they are going to be in trouble with how things went with Kouen. A.C.E. replies they probably will be but he’ll figure something out