Kerl was having a nice sleep when the sound of nearby rustle awoke him, Kerl groggily opened his eyes, blinking away the fuzziness of sleep. As his vision set, what met him was dino cuddle.
«i'm starting to miss my messy lab.» he sighed inwardly.
His raptor pack, all lazily lounging around him, barely moving. The only sign of life was the occasional tail flick, head tilt, or the slow rise and fall of their feathered bodies as they waited.
Waited.
For him.
Kerl sat up. The moment he did, a few heads turned. Yellow slit-eyes watched attentively, waiting for their leader to move.
it was touching.
Kerl wasn't just a part of the pack anymore. He was the leader.
It was a weird feeling, knowing they were waiting for him to wake up before doing anything productive. On one hand, he felt kinda honored. He was clearly important to them, and that meant a lot considering raptor packs were tight-knit social units.
On the other hand… it was a lot of pressure.
"Bruh, I ain't even had breakfast yet, and y'all are staring at me like I'm supposed to make a PowerPoint presentation."
Still, he couldn't exactly blame them. Yesterday, he fought a T. rex, led them to food, outsmarted freeloaders, found water, and kept their tiny feathered asses alive. Even a troop of monkeys would've figured out who was the boss.
....Still, it didn't get rid of the awkwardness of being part of their gang. He was a human! If not for his genius intellect, he wouldn't have adapted so well. As much as he try, bear and bunny can't be friends. It would take a LONG ass time getting used to them.
And he had his priorities, the time machine came first. No matter how much his instincts settled into raptor life, one fact remained:
He wasn't supposed to be here.
If he ever wanted to go back home—to hot showers, air conditioning, and actual food that didn't require him to claw something to death first. For that, he needed to find the goddamn time machine.
Kerl stretched his arms—uh, claws—before shaking off the last remnants of sleep. Time for some analysis.
If he wanted to have easier time, he needed knowledge. With his genius-level intellect, he was confident he could get those throu brainstorming. while raptors brain was shit, his original human conscious sent by the time-machine still had his character and experiences. He could make a whole-ass time machine, having his brain nerfed to that of raptor does not weaken his persisting soul.
He ran through the list of prehistoric horrors he had encountered so far.
«Brachiosaurus? they're found in north america, asia and there were a few fossil specimen found in some other place. Doesn't narrow it down by much.» he lampooned.
He needed to know what place and time he was in.
«tyrannosaurus rex? found only in north america. yep- that narrowed it down.»
He was most definitely in north america, specifically at michigan of the cretaceous era. as tyrannosaurus rex was found at that day and age, as for the location, it was around his house- «ah, the time machine's target location was just right, but the time sent back to is way overboard...» Of course it was, he aimed for 10 minute in the past but he was now epochs beyond, although still in the same backyard.
The machine sends him to body that exist at a specific time and location that he chose, he wanted to go minutes in the past to his own body, as long as he set it properly next time. With some tweaks, Kerl could make the thing better. If no glitch happened that is...
Kerl started recalling each prehistoric horor he met before. «quetzalcoatlus, ankylosaurus and those smaller guys. out of all of them, the best one to hunt is the small guys, t-rex is dumb but i can't fight it advantageously while endangering my pack, i only got 3 guys left..»
Kerl was also trying to expand his pack by gathering food, to sacrifice his group for food which was going to be used to hire more would be inefficient.
He also had to review each one's specialty.
T-rex? too hard to find, they were ambush predator afterall. They had developed a fairly good stealth which Kerl's current raptor physique could not sense, just like how tigers looked green to mammals, so does t-rex to these dinosaurs. The reason he could fight one before was not only because of his weapon, but that the t-rex underestimated the threat an agile raptors could bring to the fight. Brachio-fellas are too huge, he wouldn't wanna be squashed by it's stomp or be killed by a flail of their tail. T-rex was at that sweet spot between an enemy and a prey, similar to beginner level boss fight, they have their strong point but aside from those are pretty weak. And style makes fight, rock ain't gonna break paper.
As for ankylosaurus, Kerl knew he had no capability to break thou it's skeletal armor, whether with weapons or with his claws. Quetzalcoatl? they had too much air supremacy, he was lucky to even have his time-machine crash onto one, if not, he would've been spawn killed by these thing. Cuz the only thing worse than a prehistoric giant animal, is a flying prehistoric giant animal.
So his only choices is to find the mid-sized dinosaurs to hunt, big enough to feed the gang, small enough to not be very threatening. They're quite fast though, which means he have more chance of injury, although death is highly unlikely. with bigger target, they're easy to fight but if they land one hit... it would be game over, but luckily, raptor are among some of the most agile predator.
He recall the fight he had with T-rex, it was so slow, he outmaneuvered it while attacking from unreachable angle to secure victory relatively easily.
He sighed at this predicament and looked back at his pack, and thought about it. To have easier time hunting, he definitely needed his pack, and he only lacked one thing. Communication skill-
As great as he was, he can't lead a group of chinese men while speaking sluchaynyy vau vau russian. -same as how he can't randomly make noise while expecting the dinosaurs to take a note.
So it turns out, his best move right now, is to learn raptornese.