The ride across the mountainside was fun. Gutaxun wasn’t weighed down by anything heavy this time around, other than the three people on his back, so he flew down the mountain at top speeds!
At some point, when the mountain got too steep, he even had to slow down, so as to not lose balance. Gravity was pushing the big beast down, and he had to be careful, because he didn’t want to crush his master, or have his master fly away if he stepped into a hole or something of that equivalent.
Anna pushed Gutaxun to run at full speed, simply because she thought it was fun. Dangerous, but fun.
Gutaxun had to protest at some point, by slowing down himself, so as to not kill anyone. Even as a dinosaur he was smart enough to know that it was a stupid idea to run down a mountain at full speed. At some point, he didn’t run any faster even when he was prompted to. He was smart enough to make predictions, which was amazing coming from a dinosaur.
To be safe, and fast, Gutaxun ran at an average speed of 15 mp/h, or 24 km/h. This was good, as they’d at least get down to the grasslands in one piece, and in just an hour or so.
"You’re stressing him out, Anna." Jimmy pointed out.
"He’s a big boy, nothing’s gonna happen to him." She said, "Plus, he has already slowed down, so nothing to worry about. He’s fine."
"No," He protested, "I recognize those grunts. He’s hungry, very hungry. We need to stop and see if we can spot something for him to hunt. You don’t want a five ton predator hating you, right?"
She was quick to answer, "Technically, he hardly weighs two tons, judging from his size, but yeah, good point."
Afterwards, she pinched Gutaxun, and got him to slow down even more, and move at walking speed. She knew better than to push a hungry predator’s boundaries for no other reason than transport, so she gave Gutaxun a chance to catch his breath.
As she stalked the perimeter, she then said, "Let’s be on the lookout for something that he can eat, we need shy of two-hundred pounds of meat to keep him happy today."
As they were on the lookout, Jimmy saw something that he was disgusted by. Rats! Likewise, he got distracted.
"Gross," His face turned sour. "I didn’t know there were rats here. Hate those things."
"Those aren’t rats, they’re Morganucodons, and technically, they’re not rodents at all." She corrected him, and of course, she instantly started getting lost in the anatomy as she explained it further. "They’re mammaliaforms, some of the first mammal-like creatures if I remember correctly? One of the few animals with fur in this era. It’s amazing how far humans can go just to get some fur, don’t you think so? I bet they killed hundreds of otters just to dress everyone in the tribe."
"What’s an otter?" Nechi asked, interrupting her sister’s lecture. "You’re using a lot of funny words, sister."
"Oh, I keep giving animals funny names, don’t I?" She tried to excuse herself. "I forget, what are those furry little things that swim in rivers called?"
"Oh..." Nechi sighed. "You mean the river rats? The big ones."
"Interesting..." She mumbled. "Humanity was always so grossed out by rats, that anything small, gross looking, and fast-moving is called a rat. Very interesting."
Then she answered her sister, "Yes, river rats. We make our clothes out of them, right?"
"Yes," Nechi nodded.
"Convenient. They’re currently one of the biggest mammaliaforms, and have the most fur to give." She said, and her sister was lost in the conversation again. "At least, I hope that’s the case. If I see a bear I will lose my mind. Those fuckers aren’t supposed to exist for a few more million years."
Nechi didn’t bother her with any further questions. She figured that her sister was making up names to make up for the memory loss she suffered, when she ’hit her head’ so it would be a bad idea to stress her out with countless questions.
Their conversation got cut short anyway. Gutaxun saw a dinosaur, one he considered as prey, and he started groaning, to catch the attention of the humans who were chatting it up on top of his back. He did not charge forward without permission, as if he had been trained for years!
"Hey!" Jimmy called out. "Let’s get our heads out of our bushy beavers. Gutaxun saw something."
"Did you see something, boy?" Anna asked immediately.
She ignored the rather intelligent comment about the fur clothes the three of them were wearing, and leaned over closer towards the beast’s head, as she tried to see what Gutaxun was looking at.
She parroted, "What is it?"
It took them a while to see what Gutaxun was seeing, but when they saw the grass ’move’ about sixty meters, or nearly two-hundred feet ahead of them, they knew that it was something big!
Gutaxun didn’t seem to be scared, however. He even took a few more steps forward, so the people on his back could have a better look.
"Oh... you lucky bastard!" Anna celebrated. "You’re gonna be eating really well today!"
"Hooun..." Gutaxun groaned.
A moment later, Anna pinched the beast’s scales, and had it charge forward. He was as happy as ever, though, judging from how he limited his speed, even Gutaxun was a bit nervous to approach his prey. He was cautious.
Seconds later, they saw these large, triangle-like blades lined up across a dinosaur’s back. These blades had a pinkish red color, and most of them were over a meter in size! Tough and durable, this was one of the ways that Gutaxun’s target defended itself.
Its tail, with four large spikes at the end of it, about half a meter each, was its other defensive, and offensive mechanism.
"Stegosaurus Armatus..." Anna whispered, and then said. "They’re so beautiful, and their blades are so big! This beauty blended in so well with the grass, that we couldn’t even see it before even from our flipping high point!"
"Why are you so happy?" Jimmy panicked. "It’s as big as Gutaxun! We’re gonna get maimed!"
"Don’t be a wuss." She responded. "That’s the illusion its back plates are giving you. The Stego is not as big as Gutaxun, at least, not when compared to hip height. We’re pretty safe up here. We’d get ’maimed’ if we were anywhere close to it on the ground."
"You better be right," He sighed, irritated by her harsh explanations.
In the meantime, Gutaxun circled the stegosaurus, free of Anna’s steering, and looked for its weak spots. The stegosaurus couldn’t outrun him even if it tried, as this species wasn’t built for speed.
However, this species did have good defenses, and he knew that very well, so he kept circling around the stegosaurus, looking for a weakness. For one single mistake.
The Stegosaurus Armatus was often labeled as the dumbest dinosaur to ever exist. Its brain-to-body size ratio was noticeably bad, on account to its small head, so unsurprisingly, it took two minutes for the stegosaurus to realize it was being stalked.
This was when it started doing stupid things. It tried to threaten Gutaxun, an apex predator, directly!