“Well, you see, Amy was feeling responsible for Red Claw’s attacks on the valley, and uncomfortable because she felt like some of the valleyers blamed her for it. So she and Pterano were going to leave the valley, but she didn’t want to go without telling anyone. So she asked me to let the others know where she went. But I stupidly insisted on going with her and Pterano to the edge of the valley to see them off, and without telling anyone either.” He looked down in shame. “Not even Guido.”
“So after I say good bye to them, I’m on my way back, alone, and who do I run into? Ozzy and Strut.”
“Who’s Ozzy and Strut?” Guido asked. He clapped a hand to his mouth. “Oh, sorry; did you want me to wait until you were doneó?”
“Oh, no, that I can tell you about right now,” Pangaea said. “Ozzy and Strut are a couple of egg stealers who came to the valley a while back. I don’t know how long ago exactly, but it was back when the gang first met Chomper. They found his egg after chasing Ozzy and Strut into the Mysterious Beyond, and thought it belonged to Ducky’s family, so they brought it back to the valley and hatched it. Eventually Chomper’s parents showed up, took Chomper away, and chased Ozzy and Strut out of the valley. Apparently they’d been hiding out in the Land of Mists since then.”
“Anyway, it turns out they chose this exact moment to come back to the valley.” He sighed. “Again, I don’t know what I was thinking; I stopped them and tried to convince them to go back to the Mysterious Beyond. I mean, I’m not exactly intimidating,”óhe gestured at his small, feather-covered bodyó“but I did spook them a little when they found out how much I knew about them.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to be a hero or anything; I just would’ve rather avoided any more trouble. I didn’t want Ozzy and Strut hurting anyone, and I didn’t really want them to get hurt, either. And we had enough problems and drama already without a couple of bumbling egg stealers loose in the valley.”
“At any rate, Ozzy was too stubborn to listen to me, so I tried harder to bluff them into leaving. Eventually I manage to subdue them…”óHe rolled his eyes, his voice saturated in sarcasmó“…by inadvertently making them laugh themselves silly.”
“Now, up to this point, nothing seriously disastrous has happened, but then, all of a sudden, Screech and Thud show up again! My guess is they took the same route into the valley as Ozzy and Strut; they might have even been following them. As you can guess, the next moment all three of us were running for our lives. Ozzy and Strut got away just fine; I don’t think Screech and Thud were after them at all. It was me they wanted. And unfortunately, it was me they got. I almost got away, but Screech jumped up and caught me just as I managed to get airborne. Obviously he didn’t kill me, but I sure thought that was the end for me right there.”
“Now, the thing is, Guido saw me getting captured, so he went and told everyone else and helped lead a rescue party to save me.” He looked down at Guido. “Again, I can’t express how grateful I am that you did that.”
“Oh, you’re welcome,” Guido replied, smiling fondly.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened to you?” Pangaea suggested.
“Oh, okay,” Guido agreed. “Well, after I was done eating, I noticed Pangaea was gone, so I went looking for him. I saw those fast biters catch him up by the Great Wall, and…well, uh, I freaked out.”
“That’s understandable,” Pangaea interjected.
“Now, uh…to be honest I didn’t really do anythingóyou know, besides running around screaming my head offóuntil Petrie’s mom found me and got me to calm down. Then Mr. Threehorn showed up and I told him what happened. I guess he was still grateful to Pangaea for healing his foot, because he gathered everybody right away to rescue him. I just showed them where to go.”
“Now, meanwhile,” Pangaea said, “Screech and Thud had taken me back to Red Claw. I can’t tell you much other than that I was scared to death; I couldn’t understand anything they said to one another ëcause I don’t know Sharptooth. Screech just continued to hold onto me while Red Claw sent Thud off to do something. I didn’t know what at the time, but after a while other fast biters started to show up, and Red Claw and Screech sent them off to hide all around the place, so I think Thud’s job was to round up other fast biters to help them. And then eventually I figured it out: Red Claw was using me as bait. He knew that the others would try to save me, and I think he was hoping to draw Amy out so that he could catch her.” He shivered. “It was a frighteningly good plan; it almost worked. I’m worried the leafeaters here have been underestimating sharpteeth.”
“Now, uh…surprisingly enough, the first thing the rescue party did was try to negotiate with the sharpteeth,” Pangaea said, uncertain of how to describe what had happened next.
“Yeah, that Chronicler guy came up with the idea of using Chomper to talk to the sharpteeth and see if he could get them to release Pangaea,” Guido said.
“Thank you, Guido,” Pangaea said. “Yes, Chronicler, Chomper, Ruby, and another GOF member who’s a fast biteróhe calls himself Clawóthey went up to meet with Thud and Screech…who was still holding me, by the way. I tried to tell them what I had found out, but Screech kept me from saying anything.” Pangaea gulped quietly, absently touching a hand to the bruise on his throat where Screech had pressed a claw against it. “Of course, Screech and Thud weren’t willing to make any deal; then Chronicler lost his temper and…” He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t wanna badmouth the guy, but he said some things I really wish he hadn’t, about humans being all-powerful and superior to sharpteeth.” Pangaea’s expression and tone of voice as he recounted what Chronicler had said made it very clear that he did not agree with it.
“As you would expect, Screech and Thud are really ticked off, and so is Red Claw. I guess he gave the signal to attack right then, because the next moment, it’s chaos. Fast biters everywhere, attacking everybody. I actually didn’t catch much of the fight, though, because the first thing Screech did was run away from it. I think he was pretty determined to…do something unpleasant to me in return for what I did to him the night before.”
(OOC: FlipperBoidSkua: Originally I wanted to wrap up my character's whole story in this post, but it ended up being so long that I decided to break it up.)
