August 12: No Controlled Circumstances Here [Jurassic World]
Title: No Controlled Circumstances Here
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Rating: T/PG-13
Crossover: Jurassic World
Spoilers: Very post-series for B:tVS; set during the first JW movie; no comics canon
Notes: Fourth of the Divide by Dinosaur Error series (Parts one and two written 2019; three posted yesterday). At least an epilogue more to come.
Summary: It turned out the I. Rex did remember what tranq guns were and could get over the forty foot walls if it wanted to, it had just been trying to get them to open the easy route first. 1600 words.
Owen carefully eased the band holding the camera into place on Blue's head, glancing at the light again to make sure it was still fully off. He really didn't need a recording out there of this conversation, but there was no way anyone would authorize her going outside the cage without it.
"Man, I wish we'd had more time to figure out our translation issues," he muttered. He had a resonating chamber model a lot like the one Dr. Grant had written about using on Sorna, but he hadn't thought it was in either his or the girls' best interests to remind people too much of how intelligent the velociraptors were even before Dr. Wu's latest genetic experimentation. A combination of hand gestures, verbal commands, and judicious use of the clicker-- mostly to let Blue know when it was important to look like they were paying attention-- had had to serve instead. He'd picked up some familiarity with their calls in return, mostly while they were small enough to spend a lot of time with without anyone freaking out, but he couldn't call himself fluent, and there wasn't a lot of depth of variation anyway. He figured it was mostly for long-distance alerts; they relied more on other means of communication with each other up close, probably something based on scent or the parts of the visual spectrum humans couldn't see.
He'd never be able to reproduce any of that. But he had a feeling Blue had always understood more than she bothered to react to, like a cat; he'd read a study once that said most housecats 100% knew their own names, they just chose to ignore their owners when it didn't happen to be convenient. He completely believed that. And they were about to find out just how much he was right about Blue.
"Just to recap," he said calmly, adjusting the band until it was snug and wouldn't bind up in the hinge of her jaw. "The creature that's been setting off your instincts-- and Claire's-- got out. The bad thing. It's badly injured; I'll get you a scent sample here in a second. We're going to do Hide and Seek. And afterward... well, I'm not sure what's going to happen, but nothing will be the same, that's for sure. You and me? We'll be spending a lot more time together. So no more need to pretend, okay? It's just us. You good with that?"
Owen usually didn't bother to make dramatic dominance displays with Blue, just acted like he assumed she would obey; forcing a direct challenge hadn't seemed like a good way to keep his alpha status. He didn't now either; just calmly took his hands back and watched as she tilted her head, checking the fit of the camera apparatus and glancing around for observers. Then she fixed one bright, alien eye on Owen and answered with two sharp, echoing calls; first the bark she used for greeting family-- the one that had first alerted him Ms. Summers was a lot more than she appeared-- and then the hunting snarl she made when locked onto a target.
An atavistic shiver ran up his spine; she did understand. Shit. It was completely awesome, and it was going to change his whole life; both their lives, hopefully. But it was also the kind of thing that would make everyone from Hoskins up to Masrani lose their tiny minds. There'd be no controlling Blue after this, even in pretense, only persuading, and human history wasn't exactly full of great examples on dealing with other intelligent beings who didn't happen to look or sound like them and to whom granting rights would damage their bottom line. And where Blue went, so would go her sisters.
Thankfully-- amazingly-- he had Claire on his side in this, and their other unexpected allies too. He didn't know exactly how much power the Janna Kalderash International School for Girls really had, but just from what he'd seen so far their support wasn't anything to sneeze at, and that was before you even got into Ms. Summers' personal ass-kicking skills. If the Slayer hadn't already been there when ACU had arrived to try to locate the hiding Indominus and tranq it for assessment and transport, he had no doubt that most if not all of the squad would have died; it turned out the I. Rex did remember what tranq guns were and could get over the forty foot walls if it wanted to, it had just been trying to get them to open the easy route first. It could leap almost as well as a velociraptor, a fucking terrifying avalanche of claws and teeth in a fifty-foot part-demon tyrannosaur hybrid, and unlike an actual tyrannosaur those front legs were not vestigial.
One of the ACU guys took a pretty hard fall trying to dive out of the way and would be in the infirmary for a while, but before the Indominus could get its teeth into any of the others, Buffy had leapt into motion to distract it with shots from her crossbow. It had taken two bolts in its shoulder and side before it realized what was happening, howling in a way that sounded disturbingly like his girls when they were angry, then focused entirely on her, chasing her as she dropped the crossbow and took off like a gazelle. It didn't take it long to catch up with her, but by then she'd drawn a strange red and silver weapon from a sheath on her back and cut it deeply right across the snout, nearly gouging out an eye. Then, when it reared back and swiped a claw in her direction, she'd nearly taken that hand off at the wrist. It had screamed again, more scared and hurt than angry this time, then abruptly took off, heading north away from any population on the island.
They'd only spotted it once since. Its tracking implant had gone still after a few minutes, but ACU had been wary enough to try a drone first when he'd suggested it, and sure enough, the Indominus had clawed the thing right out of its hide. It had set another trap; it abruptly dropped its camouflage again to snag the drone out of the sky with its enormous jaws, crunched it to sparking splinters, then took off again while no one had eyes on it, shrieking in anger. Then, nothing. Claire had taken the precaution of telling Lowery to close the northernmost attractions, then disappeared to corral her wayward nephews, but had hastily pressed a kiss to his cheek first, telling him to be careful and that she'd see him for breakfast if not sooner.
Owen was kind of looking forward to that. Make that definitely. But he had to push it to the back burner right now; there were much more urgent things on his plate. They had to find the I. Rex, then call in the chopper-- manned by Masrani's flight instructor, with several ACU aboard with heavy weaponry-- and put it down before it licked its wounds enough to get hungry and start hunting. Non-lethals weren't going to cut it anymore.
Hoskins had leapt on the opportunity, of course, but fortunately Masrani had listened when Owen told him the other velociraptors were most definitely not ready for a hunt. He'd have fought it harder with Blue, too, but something told him there was no successful resolution of this issue without her. And really, if what Buffy and Dr. Giles told him was true, they were going to have to get used to working together like this anyway.
"Good girl, Blue," he praised her with a closed-mouth smile, then drew out the bag with the sample and let her take a good, long sniff. "Scent drill. Attagirl. You got this."
She tossed her head, then ran over to the where he'd parked his motorbike, posing at attention with a lashing tail like they'd done it a thousand times. Hopefully, no one would ask too many questions about that. He'd successfully argued for privacy for the harnessing and set up, and only Barry and a couple of the ACU who'd been there when the I. Rex broke out to accompany them, but from this moment on, he'd have to assume they were always on camera. He hoped Buffy knew what she was talking about when she said she had a plan to get them a little room to maneuver. It had sounded like magic was involved? But he was not even going to think about something as world breaking as that being real yet, not while he had so much else on his plate. He jogged over to the bike, reached out for the button on Blue's camera, then swore reflexively when she took off like a shot the moment it clicked on.
"All right, guys, follow me!" Owen called, hastily starting the bike and accelerating in her wake. "Barry, your guest still with us?" That was code for Buffy; she'd retrieved her crossbow and blade and was riding along, just in case Blue needed backup.
"Yes," Barry radioed back. "She says-- be wary; there would have been test runs before a project this important, whatever that means, and an uninhabited off-limits zone would've been the perfect place to do that."
Ahead of them-- much too soon-- Blue screamed out a hunting call.
As if they didn't already have enough on their plates. "This just gets better and better," Owen muttered, then accelerated harder. His rifle might get a workout after all.
"Here we go!"
-x-
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Rating: T/PG-13
Crossover: Jurassic World
Spoilers: Very post-series for B:tVS; set during the first JW movie; no comics canon
Notes: Fourth of the Divide by Dinosaur Error series (Parts one and two written 2019; three posted yesterday). At least an epilogue more to come.
Summary: It turned out the I. Rex did remember what tranq guns were and could get over the forty foot walls if it wanted to, it had just been trying to get them to open the easy route first. 1600 words.
Owen carefully eased the band holding the camera into place on Blue's head, glancing at the light again to make sure it was still fully off. He really didn't need a recording out there of this conversation, but there was no way anyone would authorize her going outside the cage without it.
"Man, I wish we'd had more time to figure out our translation issues," he muttered. He had a resonating chamber model a lot like the one Dr. Grant had written about using on Sorna, but he hadn't thought it was in either his or the girls' best interests to remind people too much of how intelligent the velociraptors were even before Dr. Wu's latest genetic experimentation. A combination of hand gestures, verbal commands, and judicious use of the clicker-- mostly to let Blue know when it was important to look like they were paying attention-- had had to serve instead. He'd picked up some familiarity with their calls in return, mostly while they were small enough to spend a lot of time with without anyone freaking out, but he couldn't call himself fluent, and there wasn't a lot of depth of variation anyway. He figured it was mostly for long-distance alerts; they relied more on other means of communication with each other up close, probably something based on scent or the parts of the visual spectrum humans couldn't see.
He'd never be able to reproduce any of that. But he had a feeling Blue had always understood more than she bothered to react to, like a cat; he'd read a study once that said most housecats 100% knew their own names, they just chose to ignore their owners when it didn't happen to be convenient. He completely believed that. And they were about to find out just how much he was right about Blue.
"Just to recap," he said calmly, adjusting the band until it was snug and wouldn't bind up in the hinge of her jaw. "The creature that's been setting off your instincts-- and Claire's-- got out. The bad thing. It's badly injured; I'll get you a scent sample here in a second. We're going to do Hide and Seek. And afterward... well, I'm not sure what's going to happen, but nothing will be the same, that's for sure. You and me? We'll be spending a lot more time together. So no more need to pretend, okay? It's just us. You good with that?"
Owen usually didn't bother to make dramatic dominance displays with Blue, just acted like he assumed she would obey; forcing a direct challenge hadn't seemed like a good way to keep his alpha status. He didn't now either; just calmly took his hands back and watched as she tilted her head, checking the fit of the camera apparatus and glancing around for observers. Then she fixed one bright, alien eye on Owen and answered with two sharp, echoing calls; first the bark she used for greeting family-- the one that had first alerted him Ms. Summers was a lot more than she appeared-- and then the hunting snarl she made when locked onto a target.
An atavistic shiver ran up his spine; she did understand. Shit. It was completely awesome, and it was going to change his whole life; both their lives, hopefully. But it was also the kind of thing that would make everyone from Hoskins up to Masrani lose their tiny minds. There'd be no controlling Blue after this, even in pretense, only persuading, and human history wasn't exactly full of great examples on dealing with other intelligent beings who didn't happen to look or sound like them and to whom granting rights would damage their bottom line. And where Blue went, so would go her sisters.
Thankfully-- amazingly-- he had Claire on his side in this, and their other unexpected allies too. He didn't know exactly how much power the Janna Kalderash International School for Girls really had, but just from what he'd seen so far their support wasn't anything to sneeze at, and that was before you even got into Ms. Summers' personal ass-kicking skills. If the Slayer hadn't already been there when ACU had arrived to try to locate the hiding Indominus and tranq it for assessment and transport, he had no doubt that most if not all of the squad would have died; it turned out the I. Rex did remember what tranq guns were and could get over the forty foot walls if it wanted to, it had just been trying to get them to open the easy route first. It could leap almost as well as a velociraptor, a fucking terrifying avalanche of claws and teeth in a fifty-foot part-demon tyrannosaur hybrid, and unlike an actual tyrannosaur those front legs were not vestigial.
One of the ACU guys took a pretty hard fall trying to dive out of the way and would be in the infirmary for a while, but before the Indominus could get its teeth into any of the others, Buffy had leapt into motion to distract it with shots from her crossbow. It had taken two bolts in its shoulder and side before it realized what was happening, howling in a way that sounded disturbingly like his girls when they were angry, then focused entirely on her, chasing her as she dropped the crossbow and took off like a gazelle. It didn't take it long to catch up with her, but by then she'd drawn a strange red and silver weapon from a sheath on her back and cut it deeply right across the snout, nearly gouging out an eye. Then, when it reared back and swiped a claw in her direction, she'd nearly taken that hand off at the wrist. It had screamed again, more scared and hurt than angry this time, then abruptly took off, heading north away from any population on the island.
They'd only spotted it once since. Its tracking implant had gone still after a few minutes, but ACU had been wary enough to try a drone first when he'd suggested it, and sure enough, the Indominus had clawed the thing right out of its hide. It had set another trap; it abruptly dropped its camouflage again to snag the drone out of the sky with its enormous jaws, crunched it to sparking splinters, then took off again while no one had eyes on it, shrieking in anger. Then, nothing. Claire had taken the precaution of telling Lowery to close the northernmost attractions, then disappeared to corral her wayward nephews, but had hastily pressed a kiss to his cheek first, telling him to be careful and that she'd see him for breakfast if not sooner.
Owen was kind of looking forward to that. Make that definitely. But he had to push it to the back burner right now; there were much more urgent things on his plate. They had to find the I. Rex, then call in the chopper-- manned by Masrani's flight instructor, with several ACU aboard with heavy weaponry-- and put it down before it licked its wounds enough to get hungry and start hunting. Non-lethals weren't going to cut it anymore.
Hoskins had leapt on the opportunity, of course, but fortunately Masrani had listened when Owen told him the other velociraptors were most definitely not ready for a hunt. He'd have fought it harder with Blue, too, but something told him there was no successful resolution of this issue without her. And really, if what Buffy and Dr. Giles told him was true, they were going to have to get used to working together like this anyway.
"Good girl, Blue," he praised her with a closed-mouth smile, then drew out the bag with the sample and let her take a good, long sniff. "Scent drill. Attagirl. You got this."
She tossed her head, then ran over to the where he'd parked his motorbike, posing at attention with a lashing tail like they'd done it a thousand times. Hopefully, no one would ask too many questions about that. He'd successfully argued for privacy for the harnessing and set up, and only Barry and a couple of the ACU who'd been there when the I. Rex broke out to accompany them, but from this moment on, he'd have to assume they were always on camera. He hoped Buffy knew what she was talking about when she said she had a plan to get them a little room to maneuver. It had sounded like magic was involved? But he was not even going to think about something as world breaking as that being real yet, not while he had so much else on his plate. He jogged over to the bike, reached out for the button on Blue's camera, then swore reflexively when she took off like a shot the moment it clicked on.
"All right, guys, follow me!" Owen called, hastily starting the bike and accelerating in her wake. "Barry, your guest still with us?" That was code for Buffy; she'd retrieved her crossbow and blade and was riding along, just in case Blue needed backup.
"Yes," Barry radioed back. "She says-- be wary; there would have been test runs before a project this important, whatever that means, and an uninhabited off-limits zone would've been the perfect place to do that."
Ahead of them-- much too soon-- Blue screamed out a hunting call.
As if they didn't already have enough on their plates. "This just gets better and better," Owen muttered, then accelerated harder. His rifle might get a workout after all.
"Here we go!"
-x-