Saurus POV

He is a tower casting its shadow over me. A primal being over thousands of years older than me. A machine built by Mother Nature herself to be the very apex of its food chain, a dominance that ravaged the lands to feed its bloodthirst and hunger.

What can a runty kid like me do against him?

I've been acquainted with Rex for around 2 years now. This fossilised predator binding to my soul and extending through me, I struggled with for that time. After he left my village in shreds and flame, we've spent good months running from the mountains, surviving off his hunter instincts and my shoddy craftsmanship of fish traps. We eventually came to somewhat of a compromise. 

We would attend the annual tournaments each year, so Rex could have his fun. Stretch his legs, fangs, whatever he has. Let himself go.

Not that I could ever stop him anyway. 

He's entering the second round with a blue girl. Storm was her name I think? I had been terrified standing there, waiting for Rex to take over. But he always liked that. The fear. My fear.

I tried my best to defend myself and strike back with the features and abilities that came with Rex's invasion into my body. I could access his arsenal of fangs, claws, spikes and tail. Wings, he stole from the pterodactyl, were also mine to use. 

But I could feel it, with every new feature I grew trying to survive those attacks, Rex was waiting to pounce. I was slipping closer and closer into his grip and control until it simply jerked out of my hold. My body was now his to convert to his needs.

He could never reach his full form of course. I was still a human with limited body mass. Despite the mutations he forced upon my bone structure and skin, he would not be able to recreate his own from the past. 

But it always hurts like the unimaginable. 

Stretching little 12-year-old Saurus into a 9 foot tall dinosaur is a big strain on the.. well... everything.

But one reason I don't fully enjoy coming to these tournaments, is that Rex plays by his own rules. And that overthrows the rules of no mutilation or death.

Every round is an intense prayer on my end, that the person we're against is strong enough to escape in one piece. Or that the time runs out before that fatal blow.

I hear the announcer call for the start of the second 5 minutes.

Feeling Rex in every part of my body, I watch helplessly in the front seat.

~~~

Storm POV

I am ready to kick some prehistoric reptile arse. 

I will fry that thing into beef meat perfection.

And I will avoid being chewed like beef meat during then.

Yeah.. 5 seconds in and I'm in his wretched stinky mouth. Not my fault his response to a punch was to try and stick me down his throat.

Aughh it smells so rancid.

I remind him gently its rude to hold someone in his breath bag by flavouring myself with electrical discharge. 

His roar rumbled behind me as I'm thrown upwards into the air, out of his jaws of rotten stench. "WOOO!"

Twisting midair, I hurtle back towards him, lightning trailing from my fists as I ready myself to pound this beefy boy.

I hear the crack and pained cry of impact as I slammed right onto his snout. Sliding across his scaly neck, I slip my arms around his neck and tug.

I can kick that off my bucket list : chokehold a dinosaur.

He starts to thrash around, bucking like the biggest and ugliest bull ever. 

"Yee haw! YEAA- OW!" I clamped my mouth shut after the shaking dropped my teeth onto my tongue. 

Hot pain flared in my side as something stabbed through me.

Looking above, I guessed it was the rows of spikes springing along his spine.

They had to be at least 3 to 5 inches long. Which means.. OW

I have at least 3 kinda long spikes penetrating my skin, and potentially my organs.

Wasn't that against the rules? Pfft. Not like I was gonna chicken out and cry medic though. It's one been.. what. 1 minutes? I can handle 4 more minutes. Yeah.

Though.. I guess choking him like this ain't gonna work now. That'd just be like hugging a cactus. And I'm not Leif.

"Hoo.. okay." I muttered as I tried to nullify the pain by holding my breath in gasps. "Okay.."

A few moments of prepping myself after, I tugged myself free from his neck, immediately feeling the sticky wet heat dripping from my new punctures. GAAAHHHHH IT STINGS!

I hear gasps from the crowd and probably from Leif. Or maybe it's my own, I dunno.

I glare at Saurus in frustration and agony.

That's it. This boy's gonna go down.

Retaining my grip on his neck, I shifted my palms onto the softer sides while maintaining a fair distance from any spikes. Focusing, I gathered energy, letting the electricity grow across my skin, brushing across my body like a prickly popping blanket. I felt it nip at my hair and snap at the air, crackling the space around me.

"CLEAR!" I hollered, sending it all into my hands, into his softie areas of scaly skin.

I never thought a dinosaur could voice break. But I swear I heard a high pitched squeal coming from those scary teeth jaws.

Hehe I can only imagine what decibels he'll crush if I crush his no no zone. Actually..

He drops down, slamming his chest and head into the ground. I slide off him and take note of his position. I circle him as he convulses, casually charging my feet with static as I scope.

His hind legs still hold strong despite shaking. Perfect.

I duck under and without spending too much time looking at it, I draw a kick right there. The sweet "screech" button for all guys.

Dang he is LOUD.

I am unable to fully appreciate the crushing of pitches his voice box is strangling as another hot flare of agony sinks through my shoulder blade.

I'm pulled back by the spikes stretching from the sides of his tail. Oh, he impaled me. Yeahhh that's definitely against the rules.

I hear the whistle blow as the announcer demands the battle be brought to an end.

Dangit. I would have won if he didn't play dirty. Oh well, I'll still count this a win in my book. I kicked a dinosaur in the nuts! I'd like to see anyone top that level of satisfaction and badass.

But I guess Dino boy is upset by the intervention coz he tosses me at the announcer.

The crowd is in a form of chaos as he clambers into his feet, roaring and clearly still in the mood of a fight. I'd leap up and grant his wish if it didn't hurt so much.

"Get her to the medics!" I heard the announcer command.

"Patch me up so I can resume whopping his reptilian arse!" I add in.

Obeying perhaps both our demands, I'm lifted towards the medic tent as someone starts putting pressure on the holes sporting out of me. I must look like Swiss cheese heheh.

Saurus paces the battlefield, sniffing about, probably for someone else to chew on. The soldiers approach him hesitantly, and for good reason. If you told me that was the little boy who looked like he was gonna wet himself 15 minutes ago, I'd laugh and say you had as wild an imagination as Leif.

But now it just seems to be a mindless beast in his place. A hungry violent one no doubt.

"Storm!" I hear Leif and immediately remember she's in the tournaments now. I spot her running over, brushing over the border, close to that monster.

Sometimes I can't tell if she's naive and oblivious or just stupid.

"LEIF GET AWAY FROM THE DINOSAUR!" I boom.

She seems to be jolted into realising the threat everyone's fleeing from is practically beside her. She turn in time to duck under the boney club at the end of his tail. It swings over and sweeps aside a few of the soldiers.

I guess "dinosaur fighting 101" wasn't included in military training. Pity.

And I guess Leif is stupider than I gave her credit for because she just stands there.

"MOVE, LEIF!" I shout, frustrated. "RUN! GET OUT OF THERE! SAYONARA TO THE BIG SCARY DINO!"

She instead continues to stare at the Dino in.. is that pity? What the heck is she thinking? That it needs a hug to feel better and stop being all angry and destructive?

Wait, no, that's definitely something she would think and act on. 

Oh no.

"Leif!" I start growling myself, in-between brief gasps of pain as my puncture wounds are treated. "Don't you dare go trying to hug that thing! It's just a hungry monster that wants to tear you into bite sized pieces!"

"But he's in there.." I barely hear her trailing murmurs as she approaches it, like an idiot. Her eyes are filled with a gold ish glow. "I can see it.."

I would love to go over there and drag her over here myself, but I'm a little held up getting treated for like 4 stabbings scattered across my body. So I can only wonder why that stupid magical leaf of her's isn't doing its job of protecting her and getting her out of this very obvious danger. What, do leaves see dinosaurs NOT as a threat?

I wanna slap both of them back to their senses.

Saurus must have heard my thoughts because he swings his tail back, catching Leif on her side. She's thrown across the area, dust clouds trailing her, spotted slightly with drops of blood.

Dangit I said I wanna slap them! Not him clubbing her!

"Alright, get me off this stretcher." I force myself to sit, thankful for the cream that seemed to nullify the pain. "I'm beating that overgrown-"

My vision of rage is cut short as the big red Dino himself collapses. On his side sprouts what looks like tiny container things with needles.

"Woah." I whistled. "He dead?"

"Tranquillised." A soldier responds, putting away his gun. "Get everyone injured to the medic tent. And someone watch the boy till he wakes up."

I noticed Saurus had shrunk back to his scrawny kid self.

I think I like him better that way. Easy to pulverise.

Shrugging off the medic telling to stay put, I crossed the distance to Leif.

If she's got anything serious I'll kick Dino boy's human no no zone.

~~~

Kick POV

Well honestly I'm not surprised by how all that turned out. I've attended the tournaments here in Ferdun Town for 6 years now. Its the most exciting thing to look forward to all year round. This town is so peaceful there's barely a crime rate. If any at all.

Though I doubt that kid infamous for snagging people's beef meat or something can count. Just a dumb kid having their mischief and fun.

I've seen a mini volcano erupt on that patch of land they bordered of for power users to fight in. I've seen a person grow wings. I've seen things get out of hand. Heck, I don't recall a single year where a situation arouse from at least every 3 matches conducted. 

Of course, I'm expected to partake in the annual activity. By law, if I use powers, be it fancy tech, weapons, or natural ability. My boots may be usually just used to walk around and increase the weight of things I can carry, but nonetheless it's classified as a weapon, a powered one. 

I suppose when you can blast fire or activate a super jump, you cross the line of normal footwear. All comes with its infinite power source, or at least, one so powerful it'll outlast me. A star fragment shard, the piece of alien element my father spent his days toiling away to study. 

The last thing I have left of my family before his enemies burnt our house to the ground. The very government organising these tournaments harboured the cruel men who tried all sorts of ways to steal this precious resource my father devoted his life to understanding. 

It always made me wonder wha kind of people ran the group of people who apparently had a say in everything in the City, and whatever small rural communities they marked in their maps. If they were willing to burn a man, his wife and daughter, alive.. where exactly did their limits extend to? Where is the line? Or are they essentially gods?

My entire village gone. Perhaps they all had invoked their wrath too? Or tried to fight off the men setting my family all up for a fun barbecue. I had watched my parents and sister disappear in that smoke, felt the flames roar at me, daring me to jump in and try to save them. But no. I walked around in my father's supposed greatest invention. That carried the very element those men so desperately wanted, they would resort to arson and murder.

Sure every year I obediently partook in the tournaments. Never trying my best least I catch the soldiers' attention of interest. Every year it felt like there was some trap just waiting to be sprung on me. Could I really trust these people, who served essentially the gods of our lives?

I was playing by the Government's rules. The least they could do is overlook me. I wasn't gonna turn into a ravenous dinosaur going out of control. I wasn't gonna start spewing lava. I wasn't gonna break the rule of excel at them too well.

I was perfectly fine remaining in that layer of people of the mundane. Uninteresting. "Normal".

Though of course, if given the chance.. whose to say I wouldn't change it all?

Some people share folktales of being in the forms of dragons, manifestations of the energy and things that build up our world. Some call these beings gods.

Some call those in power of their lives gods. To some, the Government are gods.

Sure the Government is basically that one big group of people no sane person would dare rival against. They watch over us all, scoping the power users for threats. 

But I like to think in some perspective of this world and existence, the Government are nothing but specks. They are seen to be "just there" like a side plot in a story. Perhaps just words in a story someone chose to glance through. Just there.

But we all know that's silly to think isn't it. That we could be watched as some form of entertainment but someone other than the government. Or I suppose, read about if our world was just like those we immerse in through books. 

I wonder if we were in fact, just words on a page.. would it be possible for one of us to just crawl through that sheet or screen, and change something..

No, change everything? Fate itself? The rules, all of how things exist?

~.  ~~

H a ha       y ou     h a    ve    no  c l ue.

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