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Tarkel Jungle

April 8, 1984 RE

I believe that our theory about the growth spurts happening more often the further we traveled from civilization and the spurts happening to the anthros more often seems to have been confirmed. There was still a little argument among my group, but there was always argument until at least three or four generations worth of testing had been done and even then there was normally a naysayer or two. A few of the humans traveling with us had a growth spurt since that mass growth spurt four days ago. Many of the anthros had at least three of them and only one pair of pants had been lost in the process.

Colonel Miller was now a staggering 90 feet tall. For some reason these growth spurts really seemed to take to him. He was taller than the closest anthro to him by about 15 feet. That also made him close to nine times taller than the closest human who only stood at about 12 feet in height. Tracy had reached 54 feet in height. It took a few days for her to get used to being so much larger than me, but now that she was used to it she was starting to get back to her normal charming self.

The trees were still fairly tall compared to even the Colonel, but we could occasionally catch glimpses of Yggdrasil from breaks in the canopy overhead. It really was amazing. That tree dwarfed any mountain that I had ever heard of by at least two miles in height. It was easy to see why so many people would mistake its appearance as a spiritual event. I also could not imagine the destruction the tree must have wrought when it was growing. Everything within miles of the thing must have been destroyed by the massive trunk as it grew. Currently, we were circumventing the tree. The trek to the facility would not bring us too close to Yggdrasil. We were literally within days of our destination, but there was some bad news.

Late in the day one of the scouts reported to the Colonel. The scout was a rare Utahraptor. We are not sure whether the ancient humans had recreated dinosaurs utilizing old fossils somehow or if they had just created them pretty much from scratch, like the dragons, based on what they knew about dinosaurs. A joint expedition from Caressee and Virania sure had been surprised when they had stumbled onto that dinosaur theme park complete with real dinosaurs. All the security systems had still been working and all the dinosaurs, anthro and non, had still been stuck in their artificial environments. Some of the anthros had suffered a drastic decrease in size while others had actually grown quite a bit during the event that changed regular animals into anthros. The ones that had shrunk sometimes found themselves having to use every last bit of their intelligence to fend off much larger relatives. I wondered what they would have thought of the 65 foot tall raptor standing before me.

Despite the vicious reputation feral raptors seemed to have in the media, the anthro ones were much different. Many of the anthros had kept at least a few species traits that shaped their behavior, but the raptors weren't the least bit aggressive toward anyone that did not directly threaten them. Actually, the raptors tended to be an unusually gregarious group. They were quick to make friends and they almost always had a smile for everyone. None of them seemed to notice or purposefully chose to ignore that their toothy smiles seemed to unsettle a lot of humans and anthros that used to be prey species. As far as they were concerned, they were cute and everybody else should think so too. It was not this scouts smile that unsettled me though, it was her lack of a smile that I was scared of. When a raptor was not smiling was almost always a sign that trouble was brewing.

"Colonel Miller, we've found a new set of Tracks. Most of the new ones look human. The anthros also seem to be trying to cover up their tracks now. Either they discovered us or they found out they were being tracked by the group of humans," reported the raptor.

"I can assume the human tracks did not belong to any tourists," asked the Colonel. His voice was incredibly deep now and he had an incredibly commanding demeanor. That could have been caused by me felling like a child while staring up at him even while sitting on Tracy's shoulder.

"We left the tourist trail a while ago. If those tracks belong to regular human tourists then they are really lost," responded the raptor.

"How far behind them do you think we are?" asked Col. Miller.

"If we're more than two hours behind them I would be surprised," said the raptor.

"Very well, thank you for the report Lucia," the Colonel said. The raptor took that as being dismissed and went back ahead of the rest of group. I looked at the Colonel as he thought about something for a little while. Then he started giving out orders. He was getting ready for a battle. We were all within a couple days reach of the facility and it would not have done us much good to get there and have a group of hostile forces come up behind us just as we arrived there. It also would not have done us a lot of good if something at the facility was damaged because we had a fire fight there. The Colonel wanted to have a decisive battle out here, in the jungle.

All of the soldiers made extra sure that their weapons were prepared for combat. Then we started moving forward even more carefully than we had been so far. As it turns out, we were much closer to both groups than we thought we had been. I could hear gunfire erupt no more than a few hundred yards in front of us. Then that fire started to make its way toward us, and in many other directions, for some reason. The Colonel had me and the rest of my team secured in the best place they could find and had Tracy, two other soldiers that were over 50 feet tall, and four regular sized soldiers guard my group. Then the rest of the soldiers disappeared into the jungle. I was definitely surprised that they could still do that at their sizes. It was impossible for me to tell if they were just finding vantage points to fire from or if they were actively hunting enemy soldiers.

This was not like the last battle I had been in. All of the soldiers involved were very highly trained this time around. It was rare I heard any weapon rapidly firing. Everyone was firing quick well aimed bursts. Some of those bursts were incredibly loud. It was obvious some of the soldiers out there were using weapons that were of an enhanced size. I was not the only one that covered my ears as some of those weapons were fired close to us, making us wonder how some people could stand to be next to artillery weapons when they were being fired. Then I finally saw the first flash of weapons fire.

All of the guards around us were already in position to protect us. One of the guards fired in the direction the flash had come from. I could not tell if he hit anyone or how he could even tell he was shooting at the enemy. One Galvantan soldier had managed to get incredibly close to us, but a gust of wind blew aside the plants that had been covering him. I saw Tracy take one deafening shot at him with her own oversized weapon. When the bullet from her weapon hit the soldier's body it just exploded. There was only a bloody smear and bits of clothing where a person had once been standing.

More flashes started to be seen all around us. The regular sized ones were taking shots at the giants in our group. Then they would move before they could take any return fire. I could see why the battle had moved toward us so quickly. The human Galvantans were probably outsized by the anthro Firanelians. If the Firanelians found out where the Galvantans were shooting from and started lobbing grenades or other explosives into their mists it might have turned into a fairly quick battle. The Galvantans had to fire and move, or at least that is what I thought. It was possible I was wrong though. I never claimed to be an expert in military strategy and tactics. That did not stop me from making little observations on my little part of the battlefield though.

Things were going well enough at first. I thought we might make it through as easily as we had the previous battles. Then one of guards, a 52 foot tall capybara, took a rocket propelled grenade round to the side of the head. Even at his size it was a fatal hit, unless he could somehow survive having close to a third of his head blown apart. Tracy and our other giant guard, a 51 foot tall water buffalo, were low to the ground and trying to make small targets of themselves, but it was a difficult thing to do when your head was larger than a standing person.

For us, things continued to get worse awfully quick. No one came running out and screaming like madmen like the bad guys do in the movies. Everyone was sneaky and picking their moments to shoot. That left our guards in a bad position as they were pinned down protecting us and could not move very far from us. All of the other soldiers in the area were doing a good job of whittling down the numbers of soldiers reaching us, but a normal two way battle can be pretty chaotic. This three way battle was obviously taxing everyone involved.

The water buffalo took out two more Galvantan soldiers before he and a Firanelian one spotted each other at close to the same time. I watched as the water buffalo put a bullet in his head while taking another shot himself. The water buffalo didn't move after that. I saw a spray of blood out of the corner of my eye and I turned to see another one of our guards going down. There were definitely some holes in our defense now, one of which was ruthlessly exploited by a Galvantan soldier. A grenade was thrown right into the middle of my team and gunfire followed it soon after. My team just was not prepared to try and get away from a grenade while avoiding gunfire at the same time. Three of my team went down to gunfire before the grenade went off, sending bodies flying.

I was a safe distance from the grenade, but I was still hit by a flying body. The wind was knocked out of me and I hit the ground hard. When I tried to get the person who had landed on me get of I found that she was unresponsive and I feared she was dead. After I managed to roll her off of me I was relieved to find that she was still breathing, if a little burned and bloody. The gunfire coming toward us had stopped, but as I looked around I saw that there were only three guards and Tracy protecting us now. My group was in disarray and I wanted to get them somewhat organized again. Then I saw another guard go down to gunfire as another Galvantan appeared. I saw his weapon orient on me and I tried to bring my own weapon to bear. It was plain that the trained soldier was much faster than I was and I thought I was going to die. Just before he could fire a large hoof flattened the man.

I looked up from the hoof hoping to see a savior. He was a red deer that was about 49 or 50 feet tall. Unfortunately, he was not wearing the uniform of a Caressean soldier. There was hatred in the eyes of the Firanelian deer. Tracy had her back to him, but it was a good thing the deer's weapon appeared to be out of ammunition or else Tracy might be dead right now. That did not help my situation much. Without Tracy, I was pretty much helpless before the deer and he was not exactly wasting time. The only thing that saved my life this time was the fact that the deer considered the remaining guards bigger threats than me.

He raced straight past me, kicking up huge clods of dirt. Two of my team where in the deer's way as he approached the guard and they did not do to well when they were stepped on by the deer. The first guard barely saw what was coming. He had just enough time to bring his weapon up and shoot the hoof that was coming down on him. It was too late to stop the hoof from coming down, but by the way the deer flinched I could tell some damage was done before the guard was reduced to bloody pulp. The other guard was able to see what happened and peppered the deer's leg with gunfire. More damage was done, but the deer was already within striking range. A vicious and powerful kick sent the guard's broken body flying into a tree where it impacted with a resounding crack.

By that time Tracy had finally noticed the deer. She tried to bring her weapon around on him, but some fancy maneuvering on his part helped him get close enough to her to grab the weapon. He collapsed on her and they started to have a fight for her gun. A few knees to his ribs from Tracy were not enough to dislodge him. He was putting up quite the fight himself. Despite the struggle for the gun, he managed to get one hand free long enough to deliver a jab right to Tracy's face. She did not loose her grip on her weapon, but she did look a little dazed. I could see Tracy was putting a lot of effort into not rolling around while they tussled. She knew she was entirely too close to my team. If she rolled around now, she and the deer would end up crushing most of my team.

Tracy managed to get a leg under the deer and then she demonstrated an amazing feat of strength and skill by flipping the deer over her head. The deer was either lucky or had anticipated the move. He somehow managed to not only hold on to the weapon, but he also managed to use his momentum to wrench the gun out of Tracy's hands as he flew through the air and landed with an earthshaking thud. It was a scramble for both of them to get back up to their feet. As they did so Tracy was able to kick the gun out of the deer's hands as he tried to get a better grip on it. They did not waste any time switching to hand to hand combat.

There was a flurry of punches and a lot less kicks than I was expecting. I noticed that not all of Tracy's blows were close fisted either. Her claws were definitely drawing blood, but the deer's thick hide was preventing much serious damage from occurring. I thought they looked evenly matched. Then a Galvantan soldier suddenly appeared almost right next to Tracy. He had been retreating from another fight and somehow had not noticed the dueling titans. It looked like Tracy was going to accidentally step on him. He did manage to get notice Tracy in time to riddle her paw with gunfire like our guard had done to the deer. Her pads provided a lot less protection than the deer's hoof and she noticeably flinched as the bullets tore into her flesh before her paw brought an end to the Galvantan. It was enough of a distraction for the deer to get in a painful series of blows to Tracy.

Instead of pressing the attack, the deer took advantage of a stunned Tracy to go and grab her gun off the ground. She had not remained stunned for long and was pursuing the deer as he went for the gun. Despite being a blur of motion, she was just too slow and had to skid to a stop as the gun came up within inches of her face. The deer was panting heavily and I noticed all of his injuries must have been getting to him. If I had not been following the fight it would have been over. My own gun was already pointing at the deer. I did not have the same type of high powered weapon the soldiers were using, but mine should at least sting the deer. The thing was that I was standing within a couple feet of the deer and Tracy. If I did anything there was a good chance he would be able to deliver a kick strong enough to kill me.

Tracy had told me to run in a situation like this. There was a problem now though. I knew I was in lover with her and love can make people do stupid things, like annoying to 50 foot tall deer that already wanted me dead. If I just ran now, though, I knew I would die inside. There is no way anyone can run away from the person that they love when they know there is something that they can do and not come away emotionally destroyed. All those thoughts went through my head as I pulled the trigger on my weapon. A few shots impacted around the deer's ribs. His eye's glanced down at me and his nostrils flared in anger.

Before he could realize his mistake, Tracy roared and then she was on him. She had pushed the gun aside and came in jaws agape. Brilliant white fangs glinted in the little light that shown through the canopy. Her jaws closed around his throat and her guttural growls echoed through jungle as she attempted to kill the deer by the traditional means used by her ancestors. The deer knew he was dead and his hatred for me blazed in his eyes. His leg cocked back to deliver what would be a crushing kick to me. Tracy beat him to it though. She lightly kicked me out of the way before the deer could kick me, and by lightly I mean she only kicked me hard enough to send me flying about ten feet through the air. No bones were broken, but I heard her growl intensify as she kicked me. Besides just saving my life that kick had a little bit of anger behind it. The fight was over though. No matter what the deer did he couldn't get Tracy off of him. There was not enough time for the deer to die of strangulation. Tracy had kept biting down with more pressure. Eventually, I heard his neck snap and Tracy guided his body to the ground to make sure he did not fall on anybody.

After that, things started to quite down. Nobody else had reappeared as of yet and it would take another 15 restless minutes before they did. It came as a relief that the first person to show up was a Caressean soldier. Then more and more of them started to show up. We had won, sort of. There were only 21 soldiers, 17 scientists and engineers, and 6 guides left in our expedition. That still left us better of than the Firanelians and the Galvantans. One Firanelian soldier and two of their own scientists had been taken captive while four Galvantan soldiers joined Lockwood and his Dalgan cohort, Lord Markham, as prisoners. All of the Galvantan scientists and engineers had been wiped out by the Firanelians.

The Colonel was one of the survivors and he had grown once more during the battle. At 130 feet in height he must have been a terror on the battlefield. He was still riddled with tiny bullet holes. The only ones that were unharmed were two of the three dragons that had come along with us. One of them, the purple eyed one I had briefly shared a tent with, Corp. Lee, had taken a hit to the chest strong enough to penetrate even a dragon's genetically enhanced hide. I was a little surprised to find out that Corp. Lee was actually a she now that they had her chest was exposed to examine her wound. It was not that I was that bad at telling male and female dragons apart, it was just that she was a very masculine looking female dragon. Lee's friend, Corp. Reilly, was pretty much in the same condition that the Colonel was in. Private Hunter, the alligator that had saved me on Danlin River was also alive, but missing a couple of fingers on one hand. Sgt. Taylor was probably the worst off of all the soldiers I had personally gotten to know. The Firanelian soldier we had taken captive had tried to bit him in half and had succeeded in biting off both of his legs. We had just barely managed to keep him from bleeding to death, but without more medical attention than we had available to us we did not know if we would be able to keep him alive.

The Firanelian soldier that had been taken captive was a pretty vicious looking fellow. He was a black leopard that was about 70 feet tall at the moment. The Colonel had been the one to take him captive. I found out it was a good idea to not stray to close to him when I went to take a look at him with Col. Miller. He did not try to kill me, but he did decide to spit on me. At his size it was an especially disgusting experience. The Firanelian scientists were proving to be much more cooperative, but they were still under close guard for now since the shorter of the two was over 30 feet tall. The Galvantan captives were no less cooperative, but they were small enough for Col. Miller to keep them in spare pockets that used to hold extra clips of ammunition.

We spent the rest of the day burying our dead. That lasted until nightfall when Tracy picked me up and took me aside for a private conversation.

"What did I tell you just a couple of days ago Larry?" Tracy asked, sounding exasperated.

"To run away in a situation like that," I responded.

"And what possessed you to start shooting at that deer?"

"I realized if I didn't I might not get the chance to ask you a question that needed asking," I said.

"And what question could possibly be that important?"

I realized I looked funny as I got down on one knee in the palm of Tracy's hand and stared right in her eyes as I asked, "When we get back to civilization will you marry me?"

I thought I had telegraphed that question, but Tracy looked honestly surprised. She suddenly hugged me a little more firmly than I thought she meant to before responding, "Yes, as long as you stop trying to get yourself killed."

It didn't really matter if we could return her to her regular size or not, I knew I would be happy with her. I enjoyed Tracy's warm embrace and dedicated myself to making sure we both survived all the way back to civilization. Then, as Tracy stopped hugging me I caught a glimpse of something metallic through the trees. I had Tracy try to get us to a better vantage point and we were able to see something spectacular. It was the facility we were looking for. The thing was still more than a day or two away, but it was huge. It dominated the valley it was located in. Even from where we were I would say that the facility was dozens of miles long, maybe over a hundred miles long. Tracy did not hesitate to call the Colonel over for a look.