Harsh sunlight dawned on the Caria Valley, breaching through the small gaps in between the leaves of a towering conifer canopy. Underneath its shade was a dreaming Alioramus and her brood, a murder of three miniscule younglings who were busy playing around their mother. They chirped and chirped, tussling with each other and getting their quills ruffled with dirt and woody fragments. To them, this sheltered area of the Valley had been home for the last few weeks. They had spent many cycles amongst the bristle-tails hiding from anything that was not their mother, practicing their hunting skills against diminutive insects and fish from the nearby swamp and waiting for their mother whenever she came back from her daily hunts. It was not the most exciting lifestyle an Alioramus youngling could lead, yet it was the safest.
All of a sudden, their mother rumbled. The younglings cooed, slowly backing away. It was time for her to awaken, the warmth of the sun fully recharging her energy. Her eyes snapped open and looked around for her brood, who brought themselves to her snout. She let out a low growl as one of them playfully bit her lips, rolling her body around to the right so her powerful legs could raise her from the bristle-tail floor. While already bigger than her young laying down on her belly, the Alioramus mother on her two legs was a towering mass of muscles and scales that dwarfed her babies. Even then, she was not the biggest predator around in the Valley.
The mother now felt hungry after waking up, telling her that it was time to hunt again. She spent precious moments nuzzling her young and making sure that they were free of injuries or irritating pests, leading them to a conifer that she taught them to scratch their own backs on in case they were itchy. Once they begun to use the conifer as a place to play again, the Alioramus mother bowed her head down and let out a low growl. The younglings immediately understood her vocalizations and retreated to the safety of the canopy, hidden underneath a remarkably well-arranged nest that blended in well with the environment. Seeing them disappear with only their snouts occasionally popping out from beneath the nest, she let out one last sound and took off in a powerful sprint. There was always prey nearby and further beyond; the mother only had to ensure she was patient enough to get a meal.
The Caria Valley was what the Alioramus mother thought as a fleeting banquet. The vegetation here, combined with the abundance of water and marshy environment, drew in dozens of visiting creatures from foreign regions. Many come and go, hoping to exploit the greenery before their journeys into harsh deserts or cold tundras, while some have taken it to be their newest home. Her scarred body was enough to tell any of her brethren, should she come across them, that she had tangled with particularly vicious prey and predator. The memory of a titanic sauropod slashing her midsection rolled across her mind, causing her to briefly grin in her sprint across a shallow swampy area. Her presence spooked a nearby Deinocheirus feeding on hadro-weeds and several crocodiles basking along the shore, scattering the latter and causing the former to take up a defensive posture whilst hissing loudly. There was unnecessary risk in taking on the big billed creature, she thought, and there was not much nutrition in its flesh either. The Alioramus exchanged a brief stare with the beast, looked down into the river she stood in and decided she needed easier, more substantial prey.
After almost thirty minutes of searching the Valley, the slightly exhausted Alioramus mother came across a potential feast. A herd of Gallimimus, relatively meaty prey that stood just a few inches below her jaw, that were busy flocking around another swampy area similar to her nest for food. They were perfect not only for her needs, but for her young as well. Not too big, not too small and not very dangerous, she thought. The terrain around this area was ideal for her too, many towering conifers giving her plenty of concealment and limiting for the grazers’ main tool of defence; their speed. The only thought of contention she had in her mind was that other predators lurked somewhere in this area, competition that could easily get violent. She was capable of fending off overconfident Alioramus kin and Dromeosaur packs on her own. If a Tarbosaur was lurking around the area? The mother knew better than to pick a fight with a predator that could easily break her spine in two with its crushing fangs.
Sensing no other predators in the area, she stalked the herd. Footsteps after footsteps, breath after breath, the Alioramus mother approached the herd in relative silence and unbreaking stance. Occasionally she froze when one of them looked her way, blending into the background and giving them no cause for concern. Her drab coat of greenish brown did not exactly match the shade of the greenery in the Valley. It was just enough, however, to get her close enough to one particularly careless member of the Gallimimus herd. There was tension running in her veins, her brain calculating the best angle of attack and preparing her legs for an explosive burst of speed. Missing would be unwise even if she could try again later. Why waste the first chance?
She got closer. The Gallimimus was now within striking distance. The mother primed herself. Then she lunged! The whole herd heard her coming too late and before they knew it, one of their kin had been effortlessly slammed into the floor of the swamp. Water flew upwards and blood splattered against reeds, many crushed underneath the weight of two heavy creatures slamming into the ground. The hunt was successful for the mother, who clamped down her teeth on the still struggling grazer whilst on her side and shook until it stopped moving, letting go then. Her mind was satisfied with the kill, knowing that it was enough to last her until nightfall. The next thirty minutes were spent voraciously devouring lumps of meat, her lips stained with blood. Fortunately for her, the dead Gallimimus had still a sizeable amount of meat for her brood once she had her fill. With nothing to attend to at the current moment around her, the herd long gone into the Valley, it was time to head back.
The journey back to her nest was, for the most part, unremarkable. Carrying carrion in your mouth and balancing yourself was a tedious act. Even following her usual route home was not safe as things were in a constant state of flux in the Valley. To prove this point home, the Alioramus mother heard a horrendous ripping wail above, as if the sky was being torn in two, followed by a shrieking that echoed above her. It was wholly alien, nothing like the sounds the soaring Pterosaurs made circling her home, and overwhelmingly loud. Her hearing sensitive, it caused the Alioramus mother to seek cover in the river. The Valley was shaken up as well; she could hear the panicked sounds of both prey and predator fleeing from the scene. She looked up at the source of the noise and growled.
What a sight! The mother had never seen anything like it before. The screaming object was greyish in colour, almost as big as a sauropod, and it was heading straight in the direction of her nest. Immediately her panicked instincts kicked in, her mind drifting towards her brood. She rushed towards her home as fast as she could, determined to protect her offspring. It was a miracle that she managed to carry the Gallimimus carcass back to her home intact at the speed she took off at. As soon as she arrived, the grey object made a distant, tremendous boom that shook up the canyon. She nearly lost her footing placing the carcass down on the ground from the tremors. All she could think about then was the safety of her brood, whom she called out to with a bellow. There was no response from the nest or the surrounding brush-tails. Where were they? She thought desperately, searching the undergrowth and sending out the same bellow that should be bringing them back to her.
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Eventually, something tipped her off to a presence that she never sensed or felt before. A spot in her home was hotter than usual, almost as if something had broken through the canopy above. Pieces of conifer and branches were scattered all around the place, snapped and crushed easily by a heavy object. Sure enough, she peered up and noticed the sizeable gap above her. Putting two and two together, the Alioramus let out another bellow. This one was a warning, a message to any invaders to piss off and leave her babies alone. The sight and sound of a defensive, shocked Alioramus mother should’ve been enough to frighten any baby-snatchers or rivals in the vicinity. What happened instead was a chain of events that would transform her world forever.
Her babies finally cried out in response. The mother spun and saw them running towards her. There was something strange following them, a floating, cylindrical object whose strange, jelly-like skin shimmered in the sunlight. There were multiple, unnatural hands coming off this invader, all pointing towards her with tools she had never seen before. Two set of blinking white lights stared at her quizzically, an odd dish pointed her way that became the source of a low noise. The object was attempting to communicate with her, strangely enough. She was not having any of that and, after nuzzling her younglings, let out a deep growl. There was a brief standoff between the two, the cylindrical object releasing some sparks from blackened areas on its skin and failing to stay afloat for long. It was then that the Alioramus mother realized it was heavily injured, perhaps grievously so since it was flickering here and there in its two light displays. The way it seemed to remain at a fair distance from her was starting to calm her down, its dish seemingly finding root in her mind that made it less and less alien. After a minute, the floating object fell to the ground with a loud thud. It barely got up on its many appendages, unable to sustain any more stress from its injuries. The predator felt pity for the thing, but still kept her guard up. It was there that the object muttered out a series of incomprehensible chirps and beeps, seemingly addressed to the mother, and its body released yet another strange appendage, this time much thicker in length and pulsing with some kind of energy. The mother took this time to warn her babies away, seeing them flee from her, and stood her ground. She was ready to pounce and tear into this intruder. She wanted to!
And then, she was covered in dazzling rainbow colours. A bellow escaped her, caught by surprise, and she struggled to move. Alas, the Alioramus mother couldn’t. She was trapped, her powerful limbs now helpless and flailing in the light. Strange sensations travelled through her body, causing her skin and innards an incredible amount of discomfort. Her brood watched from behind a tree, unsure of what was happening to their mother. They were too terrified to save their mother, who was now encased wholly in a transforming container. The mother, meanwhile, was now greeted by a wave of memories of a distant land much further beyond the Caria Valley.
These aren’t mine! What’s going on?
At the instinctual whisper of those thoughts, the mother realized her mind was going through a radical change, becoming more complex by the moment. The sense of fullness from the Gallimimus meal was now compounded by emotions of terror, rage and strange bliss. Noises in her head began sounding, a form of communication that she immediately recognized as some kind of dialogue that was becoming more and more coherent to her, and those memories became incredibly violent and colourful. There was blood, small creatures and massive machines fighting incredibly titanic monsters passing by her. All so overwhelming that for the rest of her change, she was left mute and shocked. The transpiration of these events lasted over a minute for the outside world. For the Alioramus mother, or rather, what was in her place now, it felt like an eternity.
There were worlds beyond her small existence in Caria. Species far more advanced than she could ever imagine. Simple prey-and-predator interactions was beneath these strange, incomprehensible things. Stars on fire as monumental creatures and metal beasts exchanged starlight with each other to apocalyptic consequences. Her world was still in her infancy, a primordial soup that had not reached the level of enlightenment as she has today. What she had saw, come and crashed on her world was fleeing from something. Something that was coming to her world. There was a word floating in her mind now, a word she had the sudden instinct to clasp onto to keep her expanding mind sane from these revelations.
Tazmi.
Tazmi.
Tazmi.
Is that me? Am I Tazmi?
If it is not, then I will be Tazmi.
Finally, Tazmi was free of the rainbow cocoon. She fell down onto the ground on her side, covered in smoke, utterly exhausted from the transformation. Her brood hurriedly approached their mother, sensing her comforting scent, but was immediately confused by the sight that greeted them. She was not an Alioramus anymore. She had the long tail and head-crest of one, they saw. Her body, however, was not identifiable to them. Two gangly arms, thick legs and a strange pinkish skin marked the radical transformation as the smoke cleared. The cylindrical object from before was now lying flat as well, desperately trying to remain alive from having spent its last cells of energy on transforming Tazmi into this new form. It paid off as Tazmi found the strength to groan and attempt to stand up. She spoke in a language she inherited from the memories, but one she was completely unfamiliar with.
“Ah, poor Tazmi’s head…”
The object seemed to become revitalized from her awakening. Immediately it crawled towards her, now speaking in the tongue she had just barely got out from her mouth.
“Worthy guardian, you must listen to me carefully. I will face the Machine God soon, my remaining time so little it will be nothing more than a whisper in your memroies. You have been chosen for an extraordinary task, the first of your kind here in this sector, an oath of protection for this still-primitive world. Blessed are you now with Akan-Shuah’s powers, which you must learn to harness against her enemies. Your caring heart, primordial ruthlessness and raw power have made you the perfect candidate for becoming a Defender, your mind reforged and body remolded in her image like others before you. Your name. You have already decided on it, haven’t you, Tazmi?”
The still foggy Tazmi could barely hear the object’s words. She nodded cluelessly, trying to stand up, and spoke roughly.
“Yes, name. My name is Tazmi. I am a Defender?”
“Defender of this world. Yes. And you must be ready without me.”
With its last reserves of power spent from the crash, the object finally faded into oblivion. Although deep in the throes of confusion, Tazmi’s heart sank into her new form. It was as though she had just lost an old friend. Her brood, still therapods unlike hers, determined that their mother was still the same Alioramus that had watched them hatch and cared for in the last several months. She looked down to her sides, seeing them huddling close to her new skin and features, nuzzling her just as the same as before. Tazmi smiled and weakly extended her new elongated arm forward, rubbing the back of one of her young.
“Tazmi will defend nest. Tazmi… no, I will defend you, my babies, as I’ve always done so, no matter what I have become. Come, it is time to eat up.”