31 The Dark Side of The Moon: The Poisoned Magic

The Professor jumped off of the back of his Pterosaur and onto one of the mutants that was surrounding Lindsey. The mutated Pterosaur started to panic and the Professor was able to drive it into the monster that was attacking Kirsteen and her Pterosaur.

The Professor's actions sent both winged creatures crashing to the ground below. The others swarming Lindsey meanwhile also followed the vampire below who fled into the woods.

Unfortunately however Kirsteen's Pterosaur had been so badly wounded that it too began to drop from the sky. With its last ounce of strength Kirsteen's Pterosaur made its way to the same nearby small forest the Professor had fled too. The flying reptile didn't even make it to the ground, as it became caught up in the trees, though Kirsteen after dropping off its back fell through the trees, with the branches and vines breaking her fall. Kirsteen's Pterosaur struggled and screamed in a futile effort to pull itself free from the branches but unfortunately all it did was draw in the attention of three of the mutants who proceeded to rip it to bits. Kirsteen meanwhile crept through the undergrowth, before eventually passing out, having injured her head in the fall.

Whilst some of the horde of winged terrors were distracted Tiseia and Miscorak flew their Pterosaurs to the mountain. Lindsey's Pterosaur instinctively followed, though she tried to resist it.

"No stop, stop." She said. "I'm not leaving Kirsteen and the Professor."

"We have no choice this could be our only chance of getting to the mountain." Tiseia replied as she gave a command to Lindsey's Pterosaur to follow.

"The Professor knows more about magic than the rest of us, we need him to fix the valley." Lindsey protested.

Unfortunately she didn't have much choice as the swarm of Pterosaurs soon diverted their attention back to Lindsey, Tiseia and Miscorak who still made it to a nearby ledge on the mountain.

The Pterosaurs were unable to land on the ledge however as it was too narrow, and worse the flying reptiles began to panic as the horde zeroed in.

Knowing they wouldn't have time to force the flying reptiles to land, Tiseia unshackled herself from her Pterosaur and jumped about ten or so feet down to the ledge. Both Miscorak and Lindsey followed suit as the mutants descended on them.

The mutant Pterosaurs were blocked off by the ledge as well, which led into a small cave, but Tiseia, Miscorak and Lindsey's Pterosaurs unfortunately were torn apart by the mutant Pterosaurs as they tried to flee, much to Lindsey and their riders horror and disgust.

"We can't leave the Professor and Kirsteen" Lindsey protested as she tried to pointlessly go back only for Tiseia to block her.

"We'll be lucky to get out of this alive. If there's even a small chance that our sacrifice could save this valley, we have to take it. No matter what the cost." Tiseia said as she looked away from the gruesome spectacle above.

The Professor meanwhile had managed to catch up to Kirsteen, keeping out of the way of the mutants.

"I hate to tell you Miss Williamson, but it wasn't a dream." He said after waking her.

In the distance of the woods, the two could see an Allosaurus battling a Stegosaurus. The Allosaurus seemed to have the upper hand in the fight, though it was still covered in a number of vicious cuts made by the Stegosaurus' tail.

The Professor and Kirsteen slowly backed away, keeping hidden from both the Dinosaurs and the winged terrors above the trees. More and more of the Pterosaurs began to gather above the forest however.

"We'll have to leg it to that cave at the bottom of the mountain. Or rather I'll have to leg it and carry you. I'm much faster." The Professor said.

"Leg it? Are you mad?"

"Well I could throw you."

As the Pterosaurs started to become more restless above, the Professor picked Kirsteen up and ran towards the cave. A swarm of hundreds of Pterosaurs headed in the vampires direction, but the Professor managed to make it to the cave just in time, though he was forced to jumped the last ten or so feet before the Pterosaurs could cut him off. Unfortunately however one of the Pterosaurs had been waiting in the cave already. It emerged just as the Professor was about to enter with Kirsteen in tow.

Snapping and biting at the two time travellers, with no choice the Professor threw Kirsteen into the Pterosaur's body, knocking it back into the cave, before the horde swooped down on them both

Before the Pterosaur could get up the Professor jumped on its back and snapped the reptiles neck.

"You threw me into that thing, you" Before Kirsteen could even finish she and the Professor were again forced to flee as several of the Pterosaurs landed by the cave and walked in one after another.

Whilst they were more cumbersome on land, they were still dangerous at close quarters due to their powerful jaws.

"What do we do now? The Professor was the only one who knew that spell, what even is the point of us being here?" Lindsey asked?

"We know magic too." Miscorak replied.

"It's just getting there that's the problem, though at least this is further than most of us have made it before." He continued.

"That means nothing." Tiseia said.

"Those flying horrors out there are just the start. The deeper we get into the mountain. The worse the mutants will be. That is assuming the magic doesn't turn us into similar monsters."

"Fine we'll just give up now and let those flying abominations eat us!" Miscorak said angrily.

"No, okay then let's do the only thing we can and make our way to the core."

The three reluctant travellers pushed on down the long, dark tunnel ahead which ended in a chasm. Below they could see a herd of five Triceratops stampeding out of the cave. They were being pursued by a nightmarish looking creature. Clearly some mutated form of large theropod Dinosaur.

It stood completely erect like a Kangeroo, whilst its flesh was dripping, slimy, saggy and pink. Its eyes were jet black like a shark, whilst its arms were much longer than any other meat eater's fore arms (even Spinosaurus.)

It had a single, long metal horn sticking out of the front of its head, whilst its mouth was filled with massive teeth the same colour as its flesh. The teeth were so large that even when it closed its mouth they overlapped. The mouth was also twisted into a nightmarish grin.

The monsters roar was more of a scream and despite standing over 20 feet tall, the beast moved at a tremendous speed and caught up to one of the Triceratops in a matter of seconds. It pulled the Dinosaur away from the rest of its herd and jumped on the herbivores back, before delivering a series of bites and scratches to the Dinosaur. The mutant tore out massive chunks of the ceratopsian's flesh until it collapsed on the floor.

The Mutant subsequently jumped on the back of another ceratopsian and grabbed onto both of its horns, which it ripped clean out of their sockets. The Mutant then stabbed the Triceratops over and over again with its own horns, before stabbing one into its fore arm, pulling it on its side, and then slicing its guts open with the other horn.

Two of the Triceratops stood and fought with their attacker after being alerted by the cries of their kin.

The Mutant however dealt with them both swiftly. Wielding its previous victims horns like two swords the creature stabbed one of them into the first Triceratops eye, whilst with the second Triceratops it grabbed one of its horns, pulled its head up, and then stabbed its previous victims horn into the bottom of its throat.

The monster then caught up with the final Triceratops which it jumped onto the back of, and started biting. The Triceratops in desperation tried to shake it's attacker off, but not only did the monster hold on tight it grabbed the Triceratops by both horns and pulled its face up. As the Triceratops ran frantically around, the monster steered it towards the wall where it crashed head first.

The animal was knocked out and whilst it was vulnerable the monster flipped it over on its side and started to disembowel the hapless herbivore.

"Remember the magic that created that abomination can affect us too." Tiseia said in disgust whilst covering her eyes.

"How do we know when to avoid it I mean is the air in here polluted with that magic?" Lindsey asked.

"No it will come in the form of a massive wave of blue energy through the cavern. We'll just have to hope there is somewhere for us to hide when it strikes, as I don't fancy our chances of outrunning it." Tiseia continued.

"There's no other way forward, we're just going to have jump" Miscorak interrupted with reluctance as he looked at the disgusting spectacle ahead. (Both Lindsey and Tiseia had wisely looked away after the first Triceratops death.)

"Are you insane? We'd never make it across the chasm. " Tiseia said.

"You have any other ideas? We can't go back and we certainly can't go down." Miscorak said as he looked at the mutant therapod smearing itself in the Triceratops entrails.

"I'll go first" Lindsey said.

She took a few minutes to warm up before making a massive jump about six or so feet in the air. She only just managed to make it to the very edge of the other side of the Chasm, and almost slid off. Still Lindsey managed to jab her foot onto a small hole in the cliff edge below which allowed her to get a good grip.

Slowly Lindsey pulled herself up over the edge of the cliff, careful not to make any noise.

Miscorak was the next to jump over. To Lindsey's surprise despite his somewhat larger, bulkier frame he actually managed to make the jump better than she did and landed on the other side. Unfortunately however when he landed, he caused a part of the cliff edge to crumble which instantly alerted the Mutant.

"Oh come on there is no way he could have heard that." Lindsey sighed in frustration.

The giant came running down the cavern at a tremendous speed forcing Tiseia to jump, though she missed it, Lindsey was able to catch her and pulled her up just before the Mutant arrived.

The freak Dinosaur however soon started to crawl up the chasm after them.

Lindsey, Tiseia and Miscorak bolted down the nearby tunnel which was too small for the theropod to get down. The beast was still able to reach its arm down the tunnel however and grab onto Tiseia. Its claws knocked her down and then dug into her leg. Miscorak jumped onto the beasts fingers with all of his weight before they could pull her down, knocking them off, but the monster then slashed Miscorak across the chest which knocked him back almost out of the Dinosaurs reach.

Lindsey and Tiseia were able to pull their comrade to safety before the monster could slash him again.

"Can you stand." Lindsey asked.

"Yes, yes I" as soon as he stood however, Miscorak began to faint.

His wound started to sparkle.

"Its magic has infected him." Tiseia said.

"And me too" she continued as she showed the scratch made on her leg.

"It won't be long before he changes into something like that creature. I've maybe got an hour if I'm lucky. You need to get out of here."

"I can't possibly survive on my own. Besides the Professor will have something that can reverse the infection I'm sure of it."

"I doubt he will, but you're right you probably won't make it out of here on your own. You probably won't make it out of here regardless, but as soon as we start to change run. Don't try and reason with us, and certainly don't try and outfight us. Just run, do you understand."

Lindsey nodded, whilst Miscorak tried to stand on his own two feet.

"I'm fine" he said whilst coughing.

"I'm not going to let some freak Dinosaur get in the way of protecting my valley."

The Professor and Kirsteen meanwhile had managed to lose the Pterosaur, but they were now lost themselves in the maze like caves.

As they moved in closer to the centre of the mountain the Professor felt he could hear something faint, like a voice in the distance.

Kirsteen could hear it too.

"I don't know, I have a theory. If I'm right it could be a good thing, but we have to keep on our toes.." The Professor said.

"Oh and here was me thinking we could be laid back with hundreds of mutant Pterodactyls trying to eat us." Kirsteen replied

"Pterosaurs Kirsteen.. It's true that all Pterodactyls are Pterosaurs, but it is not true that all Pterosaurs are Pterodactyls. Oh god I feel like Lindsey now." The Professor said.

Suddenly the roof of the cave began to shake.

Kirsteen started to get scared, but the Professor was more concerned by something else. He could sense magic from the distance. Powerful, concentrated magic heading their way.

"We have to move now" The vampire said as the walls behind them began to break and a massive blue light came bursting through them.

To Be Continued