The Wicked Wild -Trade-

"Oof!"

Kaitlin and Leon Down landed in a heap on an unfamiliar patch of ground.  Only minutes ago (from their perspective), they'd been locked up together in a cage.  Kaitlin had tried to shoot the lock off with an energy blast, only for Leon to slow down time, cut deliberately in front of her, and take the shot instead.  The resulting overload had pinged both of them into another time and place altogether, as was rather typical for their adventures.

"Leon, you did that on purpose!"

"Well, yeah, I did... look at it this way: we're not stuck in a cage anymore, right?"

"The phrase 'out of the frying pan and into the fire' comes to mind..."

Kaitlin let out a frustrated sigh as she and her twin brother stood up and looked around.  The warp had dumped the two of them in a clearing in a large jungle.  Trees and bushes of many different sorts dotted the landscape.

"It's beautiful," the cobra remarked.  "We should start bringing a camera with us when we travel."

"KAITLIN, LOOK!"

Whipping around to see what Leon was pointing at, Kaitlin caught sight of a huge, three-horned, reptilian beast munching on a fern.

"What IS that?"

"It's a triceratops!  Remember them from our science textbooks, Kaitlin?"

Kaitlin's jaw dropped.  Leon was right; it bore an uncanny resemblance to the artist's impressions of the extinct beast that she'd seen in books.

By now Leon was clutching his sister tightly, literally shaking her with excitement.

"Do you know what this means, Kaitlin?  We're in the Jurassic era!  Real, live dinosaurs all around us!  Oh, this is so AWESOME!"

By the time he finally let her go, Kaitlin felt like she was about to puke from the motion sickness.  She didn't even notice at first as Leon rushed towards the triceratops to get a closer look.

"...H-Hey!  Leon!  Wait up!"

She chased after him.

As Leon got closer to the triceratops, he saw a figure more his size emerge from the undergrowth.  It looked like a Mobian, and it was carrying something, but he couldn't make out the details from his distance.

By the time Kaitlin had caught up to him, they could both see everything.  The figure was a Mobian stegosaurus, carrying some sort of device; it looked just the right shape and size to fit on the triceratops's head.  In addition, the stegosaurus himself seemed to be sporting a similar device attached to his forehead, and every one of his dorsal plates was reinforced with metal.

Kaitlin squinted.  "That technology looks awfully advanced, Leon.  Either we're not really in the Jurassic, or we're not the only time-travelers here."

"Let's find out which.  HELLO OVER THERE!"

Kaitlin buried her face in her hand as Leon called out to the stegosaurus.  When he got no response, Leon called out again-- and this time the stegosaurus took notice.  He looked the cobra and wolf up and down.

"...You two... not Rulon allies.  You intruders!"

The stegosaurus whipped a futuristic laser gun from a holster at its hip, and quickly fired at the two.  Leon barely managed to get himself and Kaitlin out of the line of fire by slowing time.  The two of them hid behind a tree.

"Gee, Kaitlin, he's serious."

"Then let's get serious with him.  You distract him; I'll disarm him."

"Right."

Leon stepped out of hiding, flipping his vision to infrared to track the stegosaurus's movements.

"HEY!  OVER HERE!"

Hearing this, the stegosaurus fired.  Leon dodged effortlessly back and forth, slowing time only when he needed to so he didn't tire himself out too quickly.

Kaitlin, meanwhile, crept close to the stegosaurus from the side.  Aiming carefully from behind another tree, she fired off a blast of energy at the stegosaurus's hands.

Direct hit!  The stegosaurus let out a yell as his weapon flew out of his grip.

YES!  ...Uh-oh.

The stegosaurus had turned its attention to Kaitlin, and didn't look about to give up.  With one smooth motion, he somersaulted forwards and pulled in his arms and legs, lining his tail up with the top of his head so his plates made a complete circle.  Then he shot forwards in a high-speed roll, his plates acting as a huge buzzsaw as they cut through the ground.

Kaitlin dove out of the way as the stegosaurus slammed into the tree she'd been hiding behind, sawing it clean in half.  His momentum gone, he stood up and turned to face Kaitlin again, presumably to prepare another attack roll.

Then a laser blast tore through the device on his forehead, ripping it apart.  Kaitlin blinked, then glanced towards its source; Leon was holding the laser gun the stegosaurus had dropped.

"Nice shot, Leon."

"Thanks.  I get my keen eyesight from my mum."

"Uuuugh... what happen?"

Kaitlin and Leon looked at the stegosaurus, who'd completely calmed down and seemed different from before.  He'd already brushed off the remains of the device on his head.

Leon stepped up.  "Are you all right?"

"I confused.  Aliens put thing on head.  Use thing, control me.  You free me?"

"Yes... we freed you."

The stegosaurus introduced himself as Cutter.  In more broken English, he explained that a bunch of aliens who called themselves "Rulons" had appeared out of nowhere not long ago and begun attaching similar devices to every dinosaur, Mobian and feral, that they could find.  The Mobians became soldiers for their army; the feral dinosaurs were ridden and used as weapons.

"Dino riders," Kaitlin remarked.  "Sounds like a corny TV show, or maybe a dumb toy line."

"We helpless against Rulons," Cutter finished.  "They fighting something, but I not know what."

"Don't worry, Cutter.  Kaitlin and I will help you and your dinosaur friends in any way we--"

"Leon!"

Kaitlin pulled Leon aside.

"Leon, I feel as bad for Cutter and the others as you do, but Kenshine talked to us about messing with events in the past.  For all we know, if we defeat the Rulons we might wipe ourselves out of existence!"

"Kaitlin, if there's anything worth getting wiped out of existence for, it's this.  It's the best way to go, right?  Sacrificing ourselves for a good cause?"

"That's not the point!  We don't..."

Cutter blinked as he watched Kaitlin and Leon argue, having no clue what they were talking about.  None of the three noticed a pair of Rulons spying on them from afar.

"Those two don't look like Valorians OR a native species," one of them muttered.  "But they freed the stegosaurus, so they're not our allies."

"They're too interesting to kill right away," the other replied.  "We should capture and brain-box them posthaste."