Once the trackers were placed inside of the Carnotaurs, Oliver administered medication to counteract the tranquilizer, and we made our way back up into the trees. It should take them about twenty-minutes to wake up, but they may continue to follow us. They won't be able to make it up the mountains, that doesn't mean they won't be waiting down on the ground for us when we come back. Thankfully, the adults are now tracked so they won't be able to sneak up on us again.

Those two adult Carnotaurs nabbed us sixty-points, I'm hoping that got us into the top ten. Most of the other teams were probably hunting way before we even left our Rover, but I highly doubt many of them have managed to get two large carnivores in a row. We should be able to rack up points with the Pteranodons too, seeing as they'll get us 20 points each for being small carnivores. It took us two hours to travel to a high enough peak to see the nests, but now we can focus on taking down targets.

"We should be able to get good shots from here. Remember, if you shoot one in the air make sure it's not going to fall too far. We're not trying to kill them." Axia says, looking up at all of the flying reptiles overhead. There are hundreds of them flying over the mountain tops and cliffs. It'll be impossible to figure out which ones are tracked from here.

"Alaric, Lexa, you two should head to that ledge. It'll give you a better view." Oliver points to a ledge about 20 feet above where we're standing. "If any flyers fall we can try and catch them. They aren't that big, just watch for the beak." He then adds, looking towards Axia and Quincy.

"Okay, we'll give you a signal when we're in position," I reply with a nod, turning to head further up the mountain to the ledge. Oliver would usually be helping us shoot the dinosaurs, but moving targets are not his forte.

"Wait up!" Alaric says, quickly following as I approach the rocks leading up. "How are you doing after the whole Carno incident?" He then asks once we're out of hearing range of the others.

"What do you mean?" I raise an eyebrow in response before stepping up onto a small ledge halfway up to the one we're attempting to reach. Thankfully the rocks are all sturdy.

"You've never been in a situation alone like that, so I wanted to make sure you were okay." Alaric says, "I mean that had to be a big blow to your ego. Usually, everything you do is so... perfect."

"Mmm, why do I feel like that's more of an insult rather than real concern?" I roll my eyes before heading up the next set of rocks.

"Oh, you're fine."

"I know that, and if you already did then why did you ask?" I retort quickly, "Why do you always have to say something?"

"Why couldn't you have just said you were okay and left it at that?" Alaric snaps back.

"Again, you already knew so there was no point in asking. It's not like you were just being nice."

Once we are close to the ledge I notice that the "easy" way up is blocked by large rocks, leaving us with the edge that jets out over the twenty-foot drop. "Give me your pack and go up first. You're lighter and it'll be easier for you to pull up alone." Alaric says, reaching out a hand for my bag. I give a nod and shrug it off, glad that we're able to stand steady where we're at now.

I throw my rifle up onto the ledge and carefully grab onto the edge. I'm just tall enough to reach without my feet leaving the rocks, but the moment I start to pull up, my entire body hangs over our teammates far below. I resist the urge to look down and quickly pull my body up, using my leg to keep me steady after swinging it over. Once up, I move out of the way for Alaric before looking up at the flying animals. We're much closer than before, and will definitely be able to get a few good shots from here.

"I'm gonna throw our packs and my gun. Heads up!" Alaric says, gaining my attention before tossing them up one at a time for me to catch.

I put them down before laying beside where he's going to crawl up on my stomach. "Be careful. If you fall, I doubt Quincy can heal you out here." I say, knowing that he wouldn't be able to do much for a snapped bone.

"I've got it." He huffs, shaking his arms in nervousness before glancing down over the drop.

I roll my eyes before sitting completely up, "If you say so. I won't even try and catch you then."

"Like you'd be able to hold my weight anyway." He mumbles it so softly that I barely hear, but I decide to ignore it as he starts to reach out for the ledge carefully.

"If you need my help, just say so," I say reassuringly, feeling more nervous now than I had when I was the one climbing.

"Just shut up!" He says harshly, scowling up at me with daggered eyes.

I raise my hands defensively before sitting back against the rock behind me. If he wants to act like a jerk, I just won't try and be nice. Alaric begins to pull himself upwards, using his forearms to hold himself as he attempts to throw his leg over as I had done before. With one hard swing, his leg almost makes it, but the sudden movement causes one of his elbows to slip off the edge, leaving him dangling by one arm.

I quickly grab onto the arm that had slipped, pulling it back up and over to stabilize him. "Will you let me help now?" I snap at him, not giving him a chance to respond as I reach down over the edge of the cliff and grab his pants leg. I give him a moment to prepare before pulling his leg over the top and then grabbing his arms to continue hoisting him up. "Was that a big blow to your ego?" I then ask, standing up with a scoff.

Alaric lies on the ledge, his eyes angry slits as he tries to catch his breath. The almost accident had him clearly shaken, but he definitely didn't seem thankful that I'd helped him. He doesn't even bother to look at me before standing up and shielding his eyes from the sun. "Let's just get to work." He grumbles.

I take his lack of attitude as a sign that he's okay, and instead of saying anything further, I look up again as well. "We won't be able to get a lot of these guys. Once they notice that their friends are disappearing they'll start flying off." I say, pressing my lips into a line in frustration. Pteranodons are a skittish species of flyer, unlike their relative, the Quetzalcoatlus.

"Yeah, we'll need to just hope we can get enough to keep us on the leader board," Alaric replies, then picks up his gun from the ground. "Let's go." He then says, leaning over the edge to look down at the others. He whistles loudly to let them know that we're safely position. I see Axia give a thumbs up from below, our sign to start shooting.

We both quickly load our weapons before raising them, facing in separate directions to be sure we don't target the same Pteranodon. "I've got a large male in my sights, you ready?" I say quietly, not taking my eye off the hopefully untracked animal.

"Got a female flying pretty low..." Alaric replies, "3.. 2... 1." We both shoot simultaneously, each hitting our targets directly. The Pteranodons flying close to the ones hit quickly flee, and our targets start falling. Alaric's is caught by Quincy, who was easily able to grab the small female since she hadn't fallen far. My target, being larger than the other one, is caught in a hammock that Axia and Oliver had taken from one of their packs.

Male Pteranodons are much bigger than the females, and would definitely be a threat to us if they weren't so scared. I'm just glad my target didn't hit the ground hard. Axia gives us a thumbs up from below, and I assume that means both targets are untracked. With a sigh of relief, I look towards Alaric with a small smile. "Two down," I mention happily, wanting to ignore the fact that we'd been arguing only minutes before.

"We'll end up in the top ten at this rate," Alaric replies, turning towards me to return the smile.

"We are top of our class after all," I add, then look up to start choosing my next target. To my surprise, the amount of Pteranodons in this area has decreased significantly. Earlier there were at least fifty within our sights on this ledge, but now I can't see any more than twenty. "Crap," I say quietly, realizing we may not be able to rack up as many points as we hoped.

"What?" Alaric says, before also looking up. "Oh..." His voice trails off disappointingly.

"We'll be able to get a few more from here, but we'll have to move to another area. They're such a timid species." I say with a sigh, "You ready for the next shot?"

"Yeah, let's get this done." He replies, raising his gun and lining up the sights. "Already got a small male." He then says.

I get ready as well, looking through the scope until I find a female who is flying relatively close to the ground near our team. "Got a female. Are you ready? 3, 2... 1." I pull the trigger and when the dart hits the flyer it begins to fall.

"Shit!" Alaric whispers angrily, and I turn to see that no other targets are falling. He missed.

"It's okay. We can get more." I reassure him, hoping that he won't beat himself up too bad over a missed shot.

"I can't believe I missed," Alaric grumbles, ignoring my words with an angry grunt. He seems to not remember that I was always a better shot in training, and moving targets are much harder to hit even for me.

I ignore the rest of his angry whispers and look down towards the rest of our group. Axia is looking at her tablet, a prominent frown crossing her face as she looks up towards us. "This one has a tracker." She calls up, yelling softly as not to scare anymore of the Pteranodons.

"Ugh, okay. Both were duds. We can get a few more." I say aloud to Alaric, who's still cursing under his breath about the missed shot.

"Fine. One more go then." He says, "Most of the Pteranodons are leaving the area."

"Right." I agree. I reload my rifle with another dart, before raising it once again. There are only several in the sky now, leaving us with only a few targets. "Got one. It's either a large female or a small male. I can't tell you." I say, letting Alaric know that I'm ready to fire when he is.

"Large male for me.." Alaric starts, "Ready.. 3, 2, 1." We both fire again, and once my target begins to fall, I turn to see if he had hit his. "Yeah!" He cheers before I can spot it, but sure enough, a large Pteranodon falls fast to the ground.

"Axia, are we good?!" I call down, hoping that at least one of them is free of a tracker.

"All good!" She replies, raising a thumb as she continues looking at her tablet.

"Guys, come on down! The Pteranodons are fleeing from their nests. We're gonna have to leave them alone for now." Oliver then adds in, gesturing for Alaric and me to come down from the high ledge.

"Alright!" Alaric yells down, "Be careful. You can go first." He says to me, glancing over the ledge for a moment before letting out a sigh.

I nod at him before laying my rifle on the ledge and beginning to climb down. Believe it or not, it's easier getting down than up, and within a few minutes, I'm descending to our friends safely on the path we took up. "Be careful, Alaric!" I call, turning around to look at him once I'm a safe distance away.

I sigh when I see that he had found another way down, a bit relieved that he shouldn't have a chance to fall. He climbs over a rock that had blocked our path earlier, before quickly making his way to me. "Let's go see these beauties!" He says happily, wanting to get a closer look at the Pteranodons.

We have only seen three types of dinosaurs up close inside The Fence. The Carnotaurus' that we use during training, the Ankylosaurus', which pull wagons on the farms in Viadon, and then the Torosaurus' who live on the farms. Seeing a Pteranodon up close is almost like a dream, especially since they're already so skittish of humans. We've seen Quetzalcoatls before when they attacked the city, but only the full-fledged Guardians are allowed in combat with them.

I follow Alaric the rest of the way down and then approach my first target: the large male. "Good shots!" I hear from Axia, who joins me almost immediately.

"Thanks," I say, beginning to gently inspect the flying creature. Its body is covered in reddish-purple scales, which feel hard and dry under my hand. Its wings, however, are made with a soft, stretchy skin that is a cream red-tan color. "Wow, these guys are beautiful," I say peacefully, reaching out to gently touch its beak.

"They are. I'll tell ya, this guy is heavy!" Axia says with a small laugh, "I'm glad we had that hammock. He would have been a terror to catch otherwise.

"I could imagine. That was really smart thinking, Axia."

"It was Oliver's idea actually. He didn't want to risk being stabbed through." She replies, laughing once more. "Anyway, we should probably join the others. I think Oliver has something to say."

I turn to see the others approaching us, instead, and continue to softly pet the sleeping Pteranodon at my side. "What's up?" I ask, raising an eyebrow towards Oliver, who doesn't look too pleased.

"We're going to have to leave the area. It's not just the Pteranodons in the immediate vicinity that's fleeing. We're scaring them from their nests."

"That's not good. There are babies in some of them." Alaric replies, pursing his lips into a line.

"Yeah, exactly. We can't drive them away." Oliver continues, "We should head elsewhere."

"It'll start getting dark in a few hours. We should try and head back down the mountain and towards the trees. We can get some more small carnivores along the way. There are a few Composnathus on the map nearby, maybe they've got some untracked companions." Axia states, "Did you put the trackers in the last two?"

"Yeah, they're ready. When we leave we can give them the reversing medication." Oliver replies with a nod.

I take this as a sign to prepare to leave, and reluctantly stand up to move away from the Pteranodon. "Which way are we going?" I ask, looking to Axia.

"We'll start going the way we came but I think we'll veer away from where we saw the Carnotaurs earlier. I don't want to run into them again." She replies, using her fingers to scroll over the map. "We should set up camp in the trees tonight."

"Good idea." Alaric nods in agreement, "Everyone make sure you've got everything. After we track those Compys we'll set up camp."

After everyone checks their packs, Oliver gives the Pteranodons sleep reversal medication and we head off. For the next couple of hours, we wander down the mountains with Axia leading us. We eventually are able to catch up to the Composnathus' and put trackers into five of them. Oliver suffered a pretty gnarly bite by one of them, but it was nothing that Quincy couldn't heal immediately. You'd think such a small animal wouldn't attack an entire group of humans, but sure enough, once more than 3 of them were around they tried to pounce. After we took a couple down they started to flee though. At least they're smart enough to know when to run.

We eventually found a good place to set up camp, and each of us set up our hammocks high up in a tree. In training, we were taught that sleeping up high is our safest bet and that using the forest to our advantage would be the best way to survive. Up here, we would even be safe from the largest Tyrannosaurs.

Finally, now that we're all set up to sleep for the night, we can eat dinner. Axia packed us all homemade dinners using one of her family's old recipes. Rice with carrots and other vegetables mixed in to create one big dish. With all of the other spices added in, it's definitely one of my favorite meals. Her family runs most of the farming district in the city, so it only makes sense that they have the best recipes.

"Thanks for bringing us dinner," Quincy says quietly as he begins to eat.

"You're welcome." Axia replies, "I hope you all like it."

"We always love your food!" Oliver chimes in, his mouth full as he talks.

"This is good," I add, taking the time to chew and swallow my food before complimenting it.

Alaric stoically lets out an "mhm" while eating. His way of also praising her for taking care of us all. Eventually, we all finish eating and quickly settle into the hammocks that are strapped between the branches. With full stomachs, we all fall asleep, hoping that tomorrow morning will go by quickly so we can get back home safely.