Chapter Text
Jurassic Park World, just after the last chapter…
When Lil'Loyd and Luh-Loyd's surroundings came back into focus, Meowthra was padding down the main street to where Mei had parked her new motorcycle. The dragon girl in question was now wearing the Jurassic World t-shirt she found over her biker jumpsuit and was gleefully petting a baby apatosaurus that was about as tall as she was.
"Look at the baby!" she squealed as they arrived. "It's so cute!"
She needn't say more, as Luh-Loyd was instantly off Meowthra and hurrying over to pet it too. He loved babies of all kinds.
"Sap!" Lil'Loyd called after him.
Luh-Loyd glanced back over his shoulder as he reached Mei and the apatosaurus and called back. "You saying you don't want to pet the baby?"
"I didn't say that," said Lil'Loyd as he slid down off Meowthra and headed over to them.
"That's what I thought," said Luh-Loyd, gently stroking the baby dinosaur's neck as Lil'Loyd hurried over to join them. The dinosaur, for its part, seemed thrilled by the attention and pats.
Mei laughed and stepped back to not crowd the baby, only to find her back hitting something big and soft.
Mei looked up to see Meowthra peering down at her, before leaning down and licking her hair and purring.
"This is the greatest day of my entire life," Mei said gleefully.
Luh-Loyd laughed, knowing what was happening. "She saw your dragon avatar, and now she's adopting you," he said. "She adopts all dragons."
"There is no escape," said Lil'Loyd in a dead-serious tone despite his own grin.
"Best! Day! Ever!" Mei repeated emphatically.
Their conversation was cut short, however, when the sound of pounding footsteps caught their attention and they tensed. Luh-Loyd had said that this world was where he and the Ninja had been attacked by velociraptors, and the sound of something running towards them probably wasn't a good thing.
But then again, the footsteps didn't sound like claws, but rather it sounded more like sneakered feet, but with how abandoned everything was, how could there be someone with sneakers around?
The answer came a second later when a dark-skinned boy with curly hair came running around the corner. He was young, between Lil'Loyd and Luh-Loyd in age, and was dressed in a dirty white t-shirt with a tooth necklace around his neck, and he was staring at all of them like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Though, given that Luh-Loyd and Lil'Loyd still petting the baby apatosaurus, and Mei in her souvenir shirt was getting groomed by Meowthra, they probably made a pretty weird sight.
The boy seemed to think so, as he said, "I'm dreaming."
The three dragon kids exchanged glances. "Uh, no, you're not," Lil'Loyd called to him.
Mei, taking in the kid's rumpled state and the clearly abandoned area they were in, asked, "Hey, are you okay? What's your name? Are your parents around?"
The kid let out a half-crazed laugh like that was a dumb question. "My name is Darius, and I have been trapped on this island since the park went down, so…"
Luh-Loyd's eyes widened hearing that. "By yourself?" he asked, both alarmed and impressed. He'd barely lasted a night on this island, and he'd had an entire team of ninja with him backing him up.
"No, my friends are here too," said Darius. "We were in this camp separate from the rest of the park and we were left behind when people evacuated, and… it's a long story."
"Ouch," said Lil'Loyd. "The adults in charge of you must have sucked."
Darius couldn't really refute that. "How did you get here?" he asked instead. "Because we really could use a way off this island."
Mei pointed at her new motorcycle. "Magic bike," she said, then pointed upwards at Meowthra who was still licking her hair, "Magic kitty."
Darius looked up at Meowthra like he didn't know what to even think of her. "Okay, cloning dinosaurs is one thing, but why would anyone create a giant cat?" His eyes then narrowed, and he asked, "Are you with Mantah Corp?"
Mei let out a gasp as if offended and turned to hug Meowthra's nose. "Who wouldn't want a giant kitty?" she asked.
Luh-Loyd however, exchanged a confused look with his counterpart. "What's Mantah Corp?" he asked.
Darius gave him a look like he didn't believe he didn't actually know.
"We're not from around here," said Lil'Loyd with a cheeky grin.
"I'm from China!" Mei said helpfully.
Darius still looked suspicious. "So you're not here to steal secrets of how to make dinosaurs?" he asked.
Luh-Loyd immediately shook his head. "Absolutely not," he said. "I'd actually rather avoid knowing that. The last thing I need is my dad figuring out how to make a megalodon."
"And you're not here to hunt dinosaurs either, right?" asked Darius.
All three dressed in green gave him wide-eyed looks of horror at the very thought.
"Who'd want to do something like that?" asked Lil'Loyd, hugging the baby apatosaurus around the neck protectively.
That reaction seemed to make Darius finally believe them as he sighed in relief. "You'd be surprised," he said. "There were these two hunters, Mitch and Tiff, and… never mind. Can you please give my friends and I a lift off the island?"
Luh-Loyd nodded. "Sure, just need to figure out how to do that, since Meowthra doesn't go over water, and-" he was cut off when Meowthra finished grooming Mei, and started padding away "Wait, Meowthra, where are you-" but before he could finish his question, she vanished from the world.
Darius stared at the spot she'd just been with a wide-eyed look of bewilderment. "You sure I'm not dreaming?" he asked weakly.
"Nah," said Mei, moving over to pat him on the back. "Our lives are just really super weird."
"Where do you think she went? Meowthra wouldn't just leave us here," said Lil'Loyd with a frown. Sure, they could always try to leave on Mei's bike, but with no way to choose which world they were going to, it was a shot in the dark if they got somewhere familiar.
"I think she went to get help," said Luh-Loyd, not too worried. "Someone who can help us get Darius across the ocean… Or she was hungry and went to get food. Or take a nap or something. She's a cat, it's hard to tell sometimes and she does what she wants. She'll come back when she feels like it."
Darius looked skeptical but then waved for them to follow him. "Well, if you think that she'll be back, then we should get out of here. This is T-Rex territory."
"She's here?" asked Luh-Loyd excitedly.
Darius looked at him strangely, clearly wondering why Luh-Loyd was excited to see a giant man-eating dinosaur.
Lil'Loyd grinned. "He's met the T-Rex before. They're buds."
Darius looked like he didn't believe him.
"If it makes you feel better to leave, we can go somewhere else," offered Mei.
Darius gave her a thankful smile and led them out of the theme park and into the jungle.
When they reached Camp Cretaceous, which was a collapsed treehouse turned fort that Darius and his friends had built in the woods, they were met with even more disbelieving looks than Darius had given them before.
"Oh Wow," said a girl with a southern accent and short black hair. "People!"
"How did they get here?" asked another girl in ripped athletic clothes and a ponytail.
"Better question," said a tall boy with black hair and expensive-looking sunglasses. "Can they get us home?"
A brown-haired boy who looked like the wildest of the bunch looked at them suspiciously from atop an ankylosaur. "Are you sure they're not another Mitch and Tiff?" he asked, pointing at them with a spear.
"Pretty sure," said Darius. "They seem cool.
"Is that a phone?!" asked a girl with dyed pink hair, zeroing in on where Mei was holding her dimensional comm. "Are you streaming this?!"
"Yep!" said Mei cheerfully turning it so she could see the livestream going on the screen. "Say hi!"
"Why are you streaming?" asked Luh-Loyd as he pushed Mei's motorcycle up against the fort.
"'Cause this place is cool," said Mei with a shrug. "Also just in case Meowthra doesn't come back, and everyone knows where we are." She then paused and glanced at her phone screen and winced. "Ooooh, Spike Kai just tuned in. He says you two are in SO much trouble, and I'm getting my Kai privileges suspended for a month."
Both Lloyds grimaced, knowing they were in for an earful when they got home. "Just a month?" asked Lil'Loyd, surprised she only got that much.
"He heard from MK what we were building and figured coming here was kind of an accident," said Mei.
The pink-haired girl, however, was still focused on Mei's comm. "You actually have a signal out here?" she asked, looking like a starving man presented with a three-course meal. "Can, uh, can I borrow that? I'm Brooklyn, you might have heard of me online. My followers are probably all thinking I'm dead by now… along with everyone else."
Lil'Loyd felt his own comm. begin buzzing in his pocket, and knew it was likely his Kai or his parents calling to lecture him, so he quickly handed the device to Brooklyn. "Here, you can borrow mine," he said.
Brooklyn beamed at him and quickly used it to log on and start streaming. "Hello, Brooklanders! I've always wanted to say this, but I lived, b-"
Whatever she was about to say was quickly cut off as Luh-Loyd shouted, "Language!" and clapped his hands over Lil'Loyd's ears to keep him from hearing it as he glared disapprovingly at Brooklyn.
Brooklyn looked sheepish at what she nearly said, and quickly amended, "-boys and girls! We're still trapped on Isla Nublar, but we just got the news we'll be off this island soon." She paused and glanced at Luh-Loyd. "We'll be off the island soon, right?"
"Sure, as soon as our ride comes back we can go," said Mei, she then glanced down at her own Livestream, and added, "MK explained everything, and Cliff Cole and Cyan Nya are trying to find Ultra or Taffy to give us a lift."
Despite having no idea who Ultra or Taffy were, all of the other campers let out heavy sighs of relief to hear that.
As Brooklyn continued to recount her adventures to the camera, Darius introduced them to the rest. "These are Sammy (short-haired girl), Yasmina (ponytail girl), Kenji (tall boy), and Ben (wild boy)."
"And this is Bumpy," said Wild Boy Ben, gesturing to the ankylosaur.
The ankylosaur let out a loud groan in greeting.
"Guys, these are…" Darius started to say, but trailed off, realizing he'd never asked their names.
"I'm Mei!" said Mei cheerfully, "And they're both named Lloyd. We call them Luh-Loyd and Lil'Loyd to tell them apart."
Kenji let out a loud snort at the nicknames. "Really?" he asked incredulously.
"Yeah," Luh-Loyd said with a sigh. "Blame my dad. He came up with them."
"And no one ever let it go," Lil'Loyd grumbled.
Mei looked down at a comment on her livestream, and said, "Pep Zane says 'Get T-rekt'."
"Thanks, Zane," said both Lloyds with identical dry expressions while looking into Mei's camera.
Just then the ground shook with the approaching footsteps of something big, and Bumpy let out a loud cry.
Ben seemed to know what that meant. "Something's coming!" he called.
The campers all hurried to hide in their shelter, and at some prompting, Mei took Lil'Loyd in too for safety.
Luh-Loyd, however, stayed where he was no matter how the teenagers hissed for him to take cover.
Soon enough, the T-Rex stepped through the trees, her eyes locked on the green-wearing teen.
Luh-Loyd beamed up at her. "Hey! Good to see you again," he said, and he walked straight up to the massive carnivore.
The campers all screamed in horror as the T-Rex leaned down towards him, opened her mouth, and…
… Licked him?
Luh-Loyd laughed and reached up to hug the T-Rex's nose, and the T-Rex let out a rumble of delight.
The campers all gaped at him, and Lil'Loyd and Mei snickered at the looks on their faces.
"He's a monster magnet," explained Lil'Loyd. "Thankfully, all creatures absolutely love him as soon as they meet him."
"This is so cute," Mei cooed, still streaming.
The campers stared at them like they were crazy, but couldn't deny what they were seeing with their own eyes. The T-Rex that had tried on multiple occasions to eat them was now licking and making happy rumbling noises like an excited puppy as the blond teen cooed over her.
Remembering her injury the last time he was here, Luh-Loyd moved around to look at her leg where Ultra had burned her and saw all that was left was scar tissue, however, to his dismay, there were also some fresh gashes like she'd recently been in a fight.
"Oh no, what happened?" he said, examining the cuts.
"What's wrong?" called Darius, still too cautious to come out of the fort, but his curiosity was starting to get the better of him.
"Looks like she's been in a fight recently," said Luh-Loyd, thinking of how best to treat her. "Tea," he muttered to himself heading back over to Mei's bike where he stored his thermos. "Tea, tea, tea."
"Must have been one of Dr. Wu's experiments," said Brooklyn, still streaming the entire thing too.
"Experiments?" asked Lil'Loyd curiously.
"Crazy hybrid dino," said Kenji, like that explained everything.
"The scientists here were trying to make new dinosaurs," Sammy elaborated. "But they were unstable and got loose."
"And started attacking everything in sight," added Yasmina darkly.
"Yeesh," said Mei, before glancing at her comm. "And that is why you don't play mad scientist, kids." She then sent a mock glare at the camera. "I'm talking to you, Red Son." She then grinned as she got a very outraged series of comments. Nice to know he watched her streams.
Luh-Loyd, meanwhile, grabbed the thermos of healing tea he'd had on hand when testing the bike, and headed back to the T-Rex, coaxing her to open her mouth and drink some.
Darius, it seemed, could no longer contain his curiosity, and began creeping closer. "What's that you're giving her?" he asked.
"Healing tea," Luh-Loyd replied, wetting a handkerchief with the tea and dabbing it on her injuries as well. "My uncle's recipe. It helps with injuries."
The T-Rex didn't seem to like the taste, but swallowed it and nuzzled Luh-Loyd again.
Kenji, seeing this, let out a groan. "Urgh, why couldn't we have had this guy with us from the beginning. We'd have so much less to worry about if Rexy wasn't always trying to eat us."
"Trying to eat you?" Luh-Loyd asked, glancing back at them, before looking at the T-Rex sternly. "No, no, you shouldn't eat people."
The T-Rex growled indignantly.
"Yes, I know people make easy prey, but there's also a lot of them and they carry grudges," Luh-Loyd scolded. "You hurt enough people and they'll put you down like that poor shark in Jaws."
The T-Rex looked like it didn't believe him.
"Wait, what about the shark in Jaws?" asked Lil'Loyd. "My dad said it was a comedy."
"Jaws? A comedy?" asked Yasmina incredulously.
Luh-Loyd looked back at his counterpart sadly. "It dies at the end, the poor thing."
Lil'Loyd looked heartbroken, and Mei had to giggle at the campers' bewilderment.
"And you guys think I'm weird," said Ben.
"You are weird," said Kenji bluntly. "They're just weirder."
"Thanks," said Mei brightly, taking it as a compliment.
Yasmina sighed. "Okay, but this is about all the weirdness I can take. Can we please get off this island now?"
At that moment, the familiar feeling of heavy footfalls of something even bigger than the T-Rex was approaching, and Lil'Loyd glanced in the direction of the source and grinned. "Sure, but just to warn you, it's about to get even weirder."
The campers were almost afraid to look, except for Darius, who had already seen Meowthra, and turned, only to gasp at what was accompanying her.
Meowthra padded towards them proudly while carrying the Ultra Dragon by the scruff of their necks, and flitting through the trees behind the giant cat were even more dragons of all kinds of elements.
The campers could only gape.
Ultra Dragon, however, caught sight of the T-Rex and clearly remembering their last encounter, gave a warning growl.
The T-Rex growled back but didn't look willing to pick a fight with so many other dragons around, so she nuzzled Luh-Loyd one final time and then made her leave.
"Bye Rexy!" Luh-Loyd called after her, glad to have heard Kenji say her name. "I'll visit again soon!" He then turned his attention to the dragons as Mei and Lil'Loyd also came over to greet them, but the campers still kept a safe distance away.
"This is our ride home?" Sammy gasped in awe.
"Looks like it," agreed Mei. "The dragons should be able to fly us to the mainland no problem."
"You're sure they're not with Mantah Corp?" Brooklyn asked Darius.
"Again, what is Mantah Corp?" asked Lil'Loyd as he tried to convince Meowthra to let his dragon go. Even after adopting so many, it was clear the Ultra Dragon was still her favorite kitten.
"If you're not with Mantah Corp, how did you get these… things?" asked Ben suspiciously.
"Dragons," said Mei, not liking him calling them (and by extension her and the Lloyds) 'things'. "They're dragons. Isn't it obvious?"
"To be honest, I don't know where they come from," said Luh-Loyd, stroking a wind dragon on the nose. "Meowthra finds them and keeps bringing them home if they're injured and my friends and I patch them up. After that, they're free to leave, but most of them just stick around."
"And how did you get Meowthra?" asked Yasmina.
Luh-Loyd looked sheepish. "Oh, she's a demon. I accidentally summoned her by trying to unleash a giant super-weapon on my then-evil father."
The campers just stared at him.
"It's true," said Lil'Loyd, and Mei nodded to confirm it having heard the story before.
Darius sighed. It was far more likely that a scientist from InGen or Mantah Corp had been experimenting with cat DNA, and one of their products got loose and was adopted by Luh-Loyd. Similar could be said for the so-called 'dragons', but it was clear none of the three kids in green were aware of that. He whispered this theory to the other campers, and they all looked like the world made sense again.
"So," Luh-Loyd called to them, unaware of their theories. "Ready to go?"
The campers exchanged glances.
"I call the red one!" Brooklyn said, racing over to the fire dragon.
"That's Pepper," Luh-Loyd said as Brooklyn reached the dragon in question.
Brooklyn just grinned and tossed the phone to Luh-Loyd and asked him to film her as she reenacted a scene from How to Train Your Dragon. Pepper sniffed her hand, before letting her pet him.
Seeing this, the other campers followed behind, curious though some more cautious than others.
Darius came over to the wind dragon (Breezy) muttering to himself as he tried to figure out what dinosaur DNA built her.
Kenji confidently strode up to a flashy-looking lighting dragon (Cracker-Jack) who promptly stole his sunglasses and let himself be chased around playfully.
Sammy was immediately cooing over a form dragon (Ms. Match) who had chosen a cuter appearance today.
"Do all of them have cutesy names?" asked Yasmina as she cautiously approached a speed dragon.
Lil'Loyd snickered. "Blame him," he said, pointing to his counterpart. "Everything he names is cutesy."
Luh-Loyd looked offended. "Is not!"
Yasmina didn't look convinced. "Oh yeah, what's this one's name?" she asked, pointing to the speed dragon.
"Zippy," said Luh-Loyd, seeing nothing wrong with it.
"Awww," Mei and Sammy immediately cooed.
Luh-Loyd shut up after that.
However, Ben hung back from the rest of them. "You know what, you guys go. I've been thinking about it for a long time, and I've decided I'm gonna stay with Bumpy."
Needless to say, that announcement did not go over well, and all the campers immediately crowded around him to try and convince him otherwise, but Ben was steadfast in not leaving behind his ankylosaur.
So, Mei offered an alternate solution. "Why don't we just bring her with us?"
That threw all the campers off.
"We can do that?" asked Ben hopefully.
Lil'Loyd shrugged, seeing nothing wrong with it. "I mean, if I can have the Ultra Dragon, and Luh-Loyd can have Meowthra and Taffy-"
"Taffy?" asked Brooklyn in amusement.
"My pet leviathan," said Luh-Loyd. "And I did not name that one, Rusty did."
"-Then why can't you have a pet dinosaur," Lil'Loyd concluded, ignoring the interruption. "Especially since that's one of the plant-eating ones, right?"
Ben looks so hopeful hearing that, so Sammy offered, "She can live on my family's farm. Lots of space, and I'm sure the cows will like her."
"And InGen so owes us after just leaving us here for months," added Brooklyn, looking directly at her camera and smiling with a razor edge as she said that. "I'm sure they can part with one ankylosaur. Especially after everything we found while stuck here."
Lil'Loyd, Luh-Loyd, and Mei exchanged confused glances, but the rest of the campers were completely aware of how real that threat was.
"So, I guess it's settled," said Darius. "Bumpy's coming with us."
Ben looked thrilled, and Luh-Loyd knew just the dragon for the job. "Slab! Come here, Slab!" he called to a massive earth dragon.
"Slab? That's not as cute," said Mei, a little confused.
"I didn't name him," said Luh-Loyd. "I found it written on the chains he was tangled in when Meowthra rescued him. He doesn't answer to anything else."
Slab came over and eyed Bumpy, who eyed him back warily.
"Come on, Bumpy," said Ben encouragingly, rubbing his hand along her horns. "It'll be fine. He's not going to eat you." He then frowned and turned to the dragon kids. "He's not going to eat her, right?"
"Slab prefers the giant rats Meowthra catches," said Luh-Loyd.
The campers looked like they didn't know what to think of that, and Ben shrugged it off and coaxed Bumpy closer to Slab before climbing atop the large earth dragon. With one passenger secured, Slab began to beat his wings to lift off the ground and picked up Bumpy in his claws before taking to the sky. Bumpy let out a cry of alarm but didn't struggle too much.
Taking that as their cue, the other dragons began to lift off the ground with the campers on their backs. The Lloyds and Mei climbed aboard the Ultra Dragon to follow them, and with her work there done, Meowthra picked up Mei's dimension-jumping bike in her mouth and vanished from the world.
"So, where are we going?" asked Lil'Loyd.
Kenji leaned off Cracker-Jack to point out over the horizon. "Well, Costa Rica is about a hundred-twenty miles thataway, and from there we can contact our parents, and they can take it from- whoa!" He then had to cling to the dragon tighter as he and the rest of the Thunder began flying in the direction he indicated.
The other campers whooped and cheered as they finally left the island behind.
As he watched Jurassic Park (or, World now) begin to fade into the distance, Luh-Loyd frowned at the sight.
"Something wrong?" asked Mei, seeing his expression.
"Did Dad teach you eruption warning signs in his bodyguard lessons yet?" Luh-Loyd asked instead of replying.
"Yeah, he tacked it on to my first lesson when he realized I didn't know it. Why do you-ohhh…" Mei said before trailing off and following Luh-Loyd's gaze. "Yeah, that's a problem.
Between the two of them, Lil'Loyd tensed. "Wait? We were on a volcano that whole time?" he asked. "And you didn't tell me?!" Volcanoes still freaked him out.
"Sorry, I honestly forgot it was a volcanic island," Luh-Loyd replied sheepishly. "Last time I was here, it was dark, and I had other things to worry about so I didn't really register it beyond that it wasn't Dad's volcano."
Lil'Loyd gave him the stink-eye but accepted the apology. "What were you saying about warning signs?" he asked nervously.
Mei glanced back in the direction of the island even though it had faded from view. "The volcano was smoking," she said. "That doesn't mean there will be an eruption soon, but it is a sign there could be one. We'd have to ask the campers if they noticed any other signs to be sure."
"Either way, I'll probably try to keep an eye on this world," said Luh-Loyd. "If that volcano does erupt, the dinosaurs will have nowhere to go."
Lil'Loyd cracked a grin hearing that. "Gotta save those monsters, huh," he said, not expecting anything less.
"Well I can't just leave them to die," said Luh-Loyd, scandalized by the very idea. He then looked thoughtful, and added, "I'd just need to think of a place to put them…"
Mei and Lil'Loyd exchanged a smirk hearing that.
If Luh-Loyd added all those dinosaurs to his pets on top of the monsters and dragons he'd have quite the menagerie.
Or a chaotic mess.
Either way, it'd be a sight to see.