“It’s so…,” Mace couldn’t even finish the thought as the three of them crouched in the bushes. They had come upon a clearing in what was once the school’s playground. The jungle gym was looking much more literal, but it was what was rooting around in it that held their attention.
“Waxy?” answered Tria, her arms scaling over in preparation.
They couldn’t see its head from where they were looking, but anyone who had ever been a kid could tell you what it was just from its muscular tail and legs. It pulled its massive head out of the jungle gym, its jaws grinding some foliage. Her heart didn’t so much skip or drop as attempt a backflip. Memories of her many trips to the museum of a child barged in, along with screaming from her eutherian mammal ancestors to burrow as fast as she could. But that dinosaur in the museum was a wax fake. This one, ironically, was also made out of wax, but her brain ignored that little fact in favor of pounding fear.
Mace let a noise that was something like every vowel whimpered at once. Standing tall in the clearing was the dinosaur, the one everyone pictures. A tyrannosaurus rex, made entirely out of melted crayons. Its skin glistened as its powerful muscles shifted underneath. It swung its around and sniffed the air while glittering steam puffed out of its nostrils.
“So what’s our plan?” asked Tria
Mace wanted to look at her incredulously, but somehow couldn’t manage to take her eyes off the giant, prehistoric predator not forty feet away from three stupid appetizers. All she could say was “aaaaaiieeeehhh?” Does that answer your question?
“We could try to melt it?” Thistle suggested. She said it so casually that Mace was able to rip away her eyes. Thistle of all people should be reacting the worst, Mace thought.
“That would probably take too long,” said Tria. “Maybe I could get an anaconda around its neck?”
They both looked at Mace. “Thoughts?” Tria asked.
“No thoughts at the moment…” said Mace. She was finding it hard to talk, or move, or blink at the moment.
Thistle gave a knowing look to Tria. “I think she may need to sit this one out.”
Tria nodded. “Could you get me above that thing? I could drop down on it,” she said.
Before they took off, Mace’s hand darted out and grabbed Thistle’s arm. “How in any and all hells are you not freaking out right now!”
Thistle looked at her surprised. “S-should I be?”
“That is a t-rex! You know, the tyrant of all terrible lizards?! You’ve never ever seen one before and you’re treating it…like it’s a mushak or something?! Like ‘as shucks, the dinosaur got out again, just another day at the farm’?! Am I the only one reacting like a normal person?!
Thistle and Tria exchanged looks. “I mean-”
“Look at those teeth! Those claws! The thing will rip you apart!” She tried to stay as quiet as possible, and nervously glanced over at it to make sure it didn’t hear. Mace could feel her face redden.
Thistle gave her a shrug and a gentle smile. “Well, I’ve never been ripped apart by a dinosaur before, so why be afraid of something that’s never happened? And if we don’t do this, who will?” With that, she kicked off into the air, Tria sitting just behind her. Mace’s knees buckled, and she fell to the ground. All she could do was watch.
Thistle and Tria quietly hovered over the clearing. Magic flying broomstick engines didn’t make much noise to begin with, but it was better to be careful. Mace held her breath as they floated thirty, twenty, ten feet away from the creature. Its head was bowed, face in the foliage to find something to eat.
They were so close to the t-rex that they could almost touch it with an outstretched arm. Mace’s heart was about to explode out of her chest. Tria turned both arms into anacondas, the transformation as quiet as it was quick. The snakes were an oily black in the light of the setting sun, and coiled slowly, carefully towards its neck. Time crawled second by second, then a snap!
Tria’s snakes shot around the dinosaur's neck and squeezed! It seized upwards, letting out a choked but still booming roar. It thrashed, Tria yelped! It yanked her off the broom. She swung wildly. The rex’s small hands were clawing at Tria’s snakes. She recovered by turning her legs into snakes and twisted them around one of its legs.
The t-rex tripped and fell on its stomach. Tria cried out in pain and Mace leapt out of the brush. Luckily, only Tria’s arm snakes were squished, so she pulled them back. Mace saw Thistle shooting towards the creature, her rusty sword outstretched and ready for a slash, but Mace just kept towards Tria. Her arms were bruised, but at least they looked unbroken. Her legs were still firmly wrapped around its leg when it suddenly rolled over! Tria was pulled up. It had noticed Thistle and dodged. Thistle nearly spun out before she was able to right herself. Tria had landed on the other side. The creature swiped a leg out but Tria dodged it while morphing her arm into an anaconda again. She snaked it around the neck again, only to be pulled into the air as it got back onto its feet. Thistle flew towards, but barely dodged its tail.
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All Mace could do was scramble out of the way. Its huge feet nearly flattened her. She screamed at herself internally, why couldn’t she just do magic like everyone else? Why did she even come along?! She had already used up her supply of fire snappers with the locusts, but she doubted they could do anything to that thing. She was useless. If she had a real fireball then she would have melted it so fast it would sublimate. Mace dove out of the way as its stomping shook the ground, she tried to crawl to safe distance, but it was impossible with the creature’s thrashing.
Think! She thought. Was there anything she knew that could help? But thinking was hard enough even without a seven ton animal trying to do the two-step on her ribs. Though it wasn’t an animal, it was an extra dimensional entity, so what did she know about those? Their powers could be channeled, as she knew from a certain wind spirit. But this one was on Munth, meaning someone had to come through a hole in reality. But why a school? Why a dinosaur? Why the crayons? She felt something crinkle under her hand. Was that paper?
She picked it up and smoothed it out. It was a child’s drawing of a little house, labeled with ‘Thorpen Age: 5’. Similar drawings littered the ground. There were forests, animals, self portraits, all rendered in a hundred colors of crayon. But one caught her eye. ‘Johann Age: 5’, it read. The picture was of a young boy having a magic duel with a t-Rex, that was what Mace thought it was supposed to be. The boy actually looked like couple of marshmallows stacked on top of each other while the dinosaur looked like a strip of bacon. Her head spun towards the flailing creature. Tria’s grip was loosening, the dinosaur's skin was becoming too slippery. She scanned the body to see if it had…there it was. Its left leg had ‘Johann Age: 5’ written on it. So that was how it was summoned, or at least a part of how. Mace didn’t think little Johann knew the dark secrets of Goetic summoning at age five, but how to defeat it? Something clicked into place. Why was a Tyrannosaurus rex eating foliage? The one in the drawing had a smile on its snout. Maybe it was a good guy dinosaur?
She had one idea she wished she hadn’t. It wouldn’t never work, it was the long shot of all long shots, but still she stood up. Mace crumpled the paper in a ball and threw it as hard as she could.
“Fireball!” She shouted. Thistle, Tria, and the t-rex stopped. The paper ball bounced off it.
Thistle and Tria exchanged looks. Mace exchanged looks with both of them. The dinosaur exchanged looks with Thistle.
“I got you!” Mace yelled. “That means you have to fall over!” Gods how she hoped this one played by the rules.
The tyrannosaurus bellowed so loud Mace had to cover her ears. It groaned, reeled up, and gently toppled over.
They all just stood there, except for the dinosaur of course, which was dead, complete with lolled tongue. Tria uncoiled herself as Thistle landed.
“What did you do?” asked Tria.
“I uh…used a a fireball on it,” she said, rolling up another.
One of the T-rex’s eyes popped open, and shit again when it saw they were looking.
“How did you know that would work?” A paper ball hit Tria. It had lifted its head and was growling at her. Mace elbowed her.
“Oh! The pain!” Tria yelled. “Curses! Hoosted by my own petard!” She collapsed to the ground and died.
“This won’t…kill it?” Thistle whispered to Mace.
She shook her head. “They don’t technically exist on this plane, so it’s more like you’re sending it home.”
They had played with the tyrannosaur for almost an hour. But the sun was setting, and they had managed to convince it that it was time for a booster shot. Kids naturally hated shots, but they still understood that it was a necessary evil. The T-rex laid there as Tria comforted it.
“It’ll only hurt for a second,” she said soothingly. “And you’ll get a nice big treat when this is over!”
It wagged its tail at that. Inoculation had long been established on Munth. The product of an entire class’ power revolving around chemistry. However, Thistle’s rusty sword was definitely not the proper equipment. But the dinosaur didn’t need to know that.
“You’ll just feel a little pinch,” said Thistle. She assured the other women that she had done this for all of her children before. Nightwarrens trusted medicine, just not doctors. The women in her family were almost always diagnosed with “attention seeking”, that was, until the would keel over and a nurse would scream at the doctor.
Its little hand gripped Tria’s as tight as it could. Thistle, as gently as possible, poked its leg. A speck of light grew from it, quickly engulfing the leg, then the torso, and finally the entire creature.
The crayon forest had already begun to dissipate by the time they returned to the road. Colorful plants crumbled into waxy dust, then into a rainbow vapor, and finally into nothingness. The teacher rose to greet them.
“Eyup, that should just about do it,” said Mace, moseying over to her for the first time in her life. If she was an exterminator now, it only behooved to her to talk like one.
“Did you magic it away?” asked the teacher.
“Yes miss,” said Thistle. “Vanished with nothing up our sleeves.”
“The whole…,” Mace gestured vaguely to the multicolored jungle. “-should clear up by tomorrow night.”
“What if it starts to happen again?”
Mace fished around in her sleeve. “Stick this to anything that seems out of the ordinary.”
She took a folded piece of paper from Mace and unfolded it. It was a crudely drawn picture of a dinosaur, the ones with the head crest. It had sharp teeth and angry eyes. It even had the customary ‘Mace Age: 19’ signed in the corner. She looked at Mace, back to the drawing, then back at Mace.
“Is this…um, like a spell or something?”
“What kind of dinosaur are all others afraid of?” Mace asked.
The teacher's mouth just opened and closed.
“A terrordactyl.”
They were both silent for an uncomfortably long time.
“Is this…some kind of joke?”
Mace looked at her with a glare harder than basalt. “If it was a joke, it would be funny.” Another painfully long stare, then “If you have any more problems, here’s my number,” she said, handing the teacher a card.
Tria gave her a quick “Thank you for your patronage!”
Thistle just smiled at her before following the others. The teacher glanced down at the card. All it said was ‘Mace Perovay Wizard Level 1’.