Presenting the only big LBT fanfic I've ever finished! 
This chapter alone is almost as long as the short story I scraped up for last month's prompt. It's just OCs for the moment, but the Gang of Seven gets in on the action later. (Those of you who've seen my artwork will recognize Chase.)
Let me know what you think about anything here! I'm going to keep rereading/revising my chapters, one at a time!Chapter 1: Eat or Be EatenThe little clubtail giggled, a feeble sound that stood in contrast against the power she felt as she made leaves fall from the tree above her by striking its trunk with her tail. After spending the afternoon trekking across the Mysterious Beyond with her parents, she was relieved that they had found a watering hole. While her mother and father quenched their thirst with cool water, the child happily continued playing.
It had been a long time since the little one had gotten the chance to simply play. Ever since an earthshake had destroyed her family’s home, it had been days on end of uncertain wandering. Staying nowhere for too long, they had to constantly remain vigilant in case of—
Snap.
The sound came from behind the little clubtail, and she quickly turned around as her breath caught in her throat. Sticking out from the bushes behind her was a clawed foot that had just trodden across a stray stick. Looking up, that was when the child saw the eyes, feet away and at her face level. They were big and yellow, with slits for pupils…
“SHARPTOOTH!” the little clubtail screamed in terror.
Horrified, her parents stopped mid-drink and spun around, thundering over to show the beast what happened when you stood between a parent and its hatchling.
The fast biter scrambled out from the bushes, snarling.
But the clubtail parents didn’t know that this sharptooth, which wasn’t much larger than their child, wasn’t snarling out of aggression…
“Wait!” Chase shouted desperately in his scratchy growl, which befitted his age of a mere five cold times. “I’m sorry—I didn’t—”
But his sharptooth-language words were overpowered by an enormous tail club, bigger than he was, slamming into the ground and only narrowly missing him. Chase’s survival instincts kicked in, and he attempted, badly, to snap at the flattooth’s tail—but a blow from the other parent blasted a crater into the desert sand inches away from him. The biter was thrown aside by the impact, and he realized that flight, not fight, was the only strategy that could possibly allow him to survive this. No sooner had he turned to run, however, than a tail slammed into the ground in front of him. Panicked, Chase spun around the other way, but again, he was trapped by the clubtails, who were hollering flattooth words alien to his sharptooth ears. Heart hammering against his chest, the little biter realized there was no way out. Curling up against the ground and squeezing his eyes shut, Chase braced himself, sure that a tail club would slam into him any minute now…
A sleek whoosh cut through the air above Chase’s head, and he looked up. Standing in front of him was a fully-grown fast biter, his stance tense and powerful. His scaly indigo skin was marred by a long, deep scar across his face, weathered from the many cold times it had been with him, and he looked over his shoulder to narrow his red eyes at Chase.
“Get out of here!” Strike roared in Sharptooth, though his
obey-me-now-or-you’ll-pay tone could very well have transcended dinosaur language barriers. “NOW!”
Chase took off, not daring to look back as screeching battle cries and screams of pain rang through the air. By the time he’d reached the cavern where his pack was camping, he nearly collapsed against its rocky mouth, still shaking over his narrow escape, though perhaps even more so at the thought of what would happen when his father returned.
It wouldn’t have been easy to be the kid who tried to play with flatteeth if he’d been any old biter’s son, Chase figured. But it was even harder when your father was the leader of the pack.
And it was even harder when your father, the leader of the pack, was Strike.
Despite the, well, incidents that Chase had gone through with flatteeth, he was sure he’d be able to make progress with them eventually. He’d watched them from afar as they interacted amongst themselves, and he’d seen that they could be gentle, caring, patient…understanding…accepting.
It was just a matter of getting enough time to explain himself, Chase figured. Once he did, the flatteeth would calm down. He couldn’t blame them for being afraid at first—he saw, every day, what other sharpteeth did to flatteeth.
Strike, on the other hand…he could never be reasoned with.
As Chase watched, Strike’s silhouette soon appeared on the horizon. The boy hesitantly waited as it came closer, until Strike was finally glaring down at him in a way not unlike how he looked at dinosaurs that were soon to be his meals.
“Chase…” he snarled, anger burning in his eyes.
Chase gulped. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry...” Strike coolly shook his head. “
SORRY?” he growled.
“I stepped on a twig!” Chase blurted, drawing away from his father in fright. “I-I didn’t get to explain—”
“Stop!” ordered Strike, stamping his foot down in front of his son, who jumped back at the sight of the curved toe claw inches from his nose. “There
is no explaining
anything to plant-eaters! You can’t just go
explain that you want to befriend them—you
don’t befriend them—EVER!”
“I just…”
“The only thing that flatteeth are good for is food. That’s
final.”
“But…um…“
“Flatteeth are simple creatures!” Strike interjected. “
Stupid creatures!”
Gazing fearfully at his father, Chase didn’t have the bravery—or perhaps stupidity would be a better word—to say anything else.
Trying to swallow his rage, Strike forced a deep breath. “Look,” he told Chase, “you’re a biter—you’re
my son! You have it in you to be a hunter—a terror!” He pointed to a rocky outcrop a few yards away, where the other children of the pack had gathered. “Look at your brother practicing his skill with the other kids. He can hunt. He’ll be capable of adult-level attacks in no time. Are you going to let him be a better biter than you?”
Chase apprehensively looked towards the other biter children, who stood a ways away, practicing hunting by slicing into a log with their claws.
“Yes!” the young biter blurted.
He was terrible at slicing, not to mention all other aspects of the hunt. He was small. He was weak. In the midst of the other kids, he was nothing but a target. He’d been practice prey for his brother, Hunter, too many times to count, and Strike—well, he’d only encouraged it.
“No!” Strike snarled. “You go over there and start acting like a biter. You need biter friends. Go—
now.” He pushed the reluctant Chase off in the direction of the pack kids.
Too afraid to argue, Chase had no choice but to shuffle off towards the other biters. He watched as a deep-purple biter—his brother, Hunter—used his claws to shred one end of the log into bits while his companions cheered. Maybe they wouldn’t notice him if he kept staring at the ground and didn’t say anything, Chase hoped. Though he didn’t look up, he could tell he was within feet of the others when he entered the smell range.
Adult fast biters were habitually tidy and clean. They prided themselves on being the skillful strategists of the carnivore world, not hulking brutes like the larger sharpteeth. Biters were so skilled in hunting that they almost never had to make a mess in order to kill. Getting oneself bloody was the mark of a poor hunt, and the biter who let such a thing happen would quickly go to the water to wash himself, ashamed.
Fast biter
children, on the other hand, were a different story. Their skills were much sloppier, and they hadn’t grown into the concept of hygiene yet. Even though they participated in real hunts much less than the adults—only for practice—the smell of fresh carcass hovered around them for days, until their parents finally reached their limits and made them go bathe. Chase, who had a habit of (intentionally) wandering off during hunting sessions, was the only kid who didn’t smell like raw meat.
“Hey!”
“Look!”
“It’s our favorite flattooth!”
As an outburst of raucous laughter rang out, Chase knew he’d been noticed. He gripped his tail, as he had a habit of doing when nervous, and looked up. The first thing he saw was an orange biter sneering towards him. His name was Skyfire, and his malicious grin was all too familiar to Chase.
“Well, how’s the longneck doing today?” Skyfire asked as he came towards Chase, his voice dripping with mockery. Chase gulped as Skyfire pointed a claw right at his face.
“Nah, longneck’s too good for him!” snorted a green biter called Blaze. “Longnecks’ll at least put up a fight. He’s more like a spiketail!”
“Ooh…!” the group of kids hooted in unison.
The only one who didn’t laugh was Hunter. As his purple snout took on a shade of red, he narrowed his eyes at Chase with pure loathing.
“Aww, it’s a little slow spiketail,” Skyfire jeered. “So, what brings you here, poor baby?”
“Stopping by for dinner?” snickered a silver biter, Night Circle.
Chase clutched his tail a little tighter. “Um…I’m practicing,” he managed to say. “On the log. You know…like you guys.”
“Like us?” Skyfire repeated. “Look at that, guys! It thinks it’s a biter!”
The other kids burst out laughing, except Hunter, who looked away.
“Aww…that’s so cute,” Night Circle mocked.
“Get out of here!” yelled Blaze.
“Guys…hey, wait, guys,” Skyfire spoke up. “Maybe we should give it a chance.”
“What??” Blaze blurted.
Turning away from Chase’s sight, Skyfire mouthed towards the others, “Just go with it, it’ll be funny.”
Then he looked back towards Chase, whose wide eyes played witness to his lifted spirits. Lifted spirits waiting to be crushed, thought Skyfire in amusement.
“Maybe you are a real biter,” he said to Chase. “There’s only one way to know for sure, though. You gotta come join our game!”
“No!” protested Hunter, but no one acknowledged him.
“What is it?” Chase asked hopefully. “Where?”
“You just have to jump over the log and slice through the top of it with one claw!” explained Skyfire.
Chase looked unsure. “In the middle of my jump? Without stopping?”
“Don’t worry,” Skyfire said, “it’s easy for real biters! See all those scratches through the top there? Everybody else here’s already done it!”
Although Skyfire made it sound simple, Chase gulped. He was afraid this stunt would fail at best and hurt at worst.
But he still had to try it. This was his chance—someone was giving him a chance, and he had to take it. This was his opportunity to prove himself as a biter.
He backed away from the log to get a good running start. Feeling shaky, he took a deep breath to steel his nerves. With that, he began hurrying towards the log as fast as he could manage, leaping feet-first towards it.
To his excitement, he realized his jump was going to be enough to take him over the log. That was the first step. A thrilled smile lit up his face as it hit him that he could do this—he was actually doing it! As he flew over the log, knowing what he had to do next, he stuck out his curved toe claw, ready to connect with the wood.
But Chase’s angle was poorly chosen. His claw couldn’t gain enough of a hold to rip all the way through the top of the log, only snagging against a thick piece of bark. Chase could feel himself being thrown off balance…his body was jerked out of its trajectory, and the ground was racing to meet him…
BAM!“OW!” Chase wailed as he crumpled against the ground, causing the other biters to explode with laughter.
“Spiketail it is!” Blaze hollered. The other biters began an energetic round of clapping.
Not wanting them to see the tears welling up in his eyes, Chase didn’t let himself look towards them. He picked himself up off the ground and miserably trudged away.
That was his chance. And he had failed it.
“Well,” Skyfire jeered at Hunter, “what’s it like having a
flattooth in the family?”
Hunter grew a shade redder. “Shut up,” he snapped, snarling at his friend’s face to make his point.
As Chase shuffled across the ground, he heard someone calling his name.
“Chase?” the familiar voice yelled. “Chase!”
Chase turned to face his father, who came towards him with a disapproving stare.
Anger rose up inside the child. What did his dad think was going to happen? Chase couldn’t magically become a good hunter all of a sudden. He couldn’t magically become a good fast biter all of a sudden. Couldn’t his father see that? Couldn’t he see that if Chase could make that choice right now, he would, because it would save him so much failure, so much humiliation?
“I've been trying to tell you!” he shouted at his father. “I’m
terrible at being a biter!”
“You
are a biter!” Strike hollered in fury. “You
will be a biter!”
“But I
can't!” protested Chase.
“You
can!” shouted Strike. “Listen up, Chase! You’re—you’re going to start acting like a biter! As your pack leader, I’m commanding it!” Thinking on this for a moment, he then ordered, “You’re going to go back to that log every day and keep practicing!”
Chase opened his mouth to argue, “But—”
“In this world, you have to eat or be eaten! And no son of mine gets eaten!” Strike growled. “I’m going to catch some dinner. You sit right there and think about how you’ve disappointed me. You’re lucky I don’t send you back to that log right now!”
As his father stormed off, Chase glared at the ground. Suddenly, something pushed him from behind, making him fall forward. He spun around and saw, without surprise, that it was Hunter. He’d known this would be coming, too, though he still flinched under his brother’s scowl.
“Thanks for nothing,” Hunter growled. “Dad’s delusional—you’ll
never be a good biter! Might as well just quit trying!” he snarled. "Quit embarrassing us..." he huffed, giving his brother one more shove before stomping away.
Quit trying?
Chase gave this some thought. An idea began to form in the young biter’s head. An idea that offered hope. Freedom…
