Peter Really Misses Said Dinosaurs
Blasting.
Peter jolts awake, wrists extended, ready to strike.
He scans his surroundings, and sighs. The dinosaur waiting room is completely danger-free. Night hasn’t lifted yet, and the walls are a dark haze. Hermione is still snoring away, her ankle propped up on the arm of the sofa. Peter sighs. He would quite like to meet whichever writer thought that heightened senses was a blessing, and scream some things at them that Aunt May would ground him for. Extra-hearing is a curse, not a superpower. Peter will hear an electric light bulb crackle and assume that crazy aliens are invading the planet. Worse, anyone he talks to about hearing things that nobody else notices look at him like he’s the crazy alien. He was probably woken up by a creaking floorboard or something. Peter nestles back into his sofa and closes his eyes, hoping to dream of a much happier world, where there is infinite ice cream and he isn’t a fugitive and he has a new X-box and he actually exists. You know, simple pleasures like that.
More blasting. Maybe Peter’s not being stupid. Maybe there really is some kind of noise. He pulls the Spider-Man mask over his head, and tiptoes across the carpet, steering clear of Hermione. His vision flickers as the mask activates night-mode, and zooms into the view out the window.
Peter’s heart skips a beat. Marching out of the rainforest, as if they’d floated off a cinema screen and into his life, are row upon row of stormtroopers. Like, actual frigging stormtroopers from actual frigging Star Wars. It’s all there: The white armour, glowing lilac in the moonlight. The helmets warped with markings that make them look like sneering gorillas. The guns that could blast a laser right through Peter’s skull. There must be about fifty of them marching together in perfect rows. Their feet strike the earth at the same time. Their guns are all held at the same 45-degree angle. Peter has met robots that seem more human than these stormtroopers do.
Peter remembers Deadpool flopping onto the sofa cushions and waggling his finger at him. What was it he’d said?
‘Hey look, you don’t need to get all existential and mopey on me. It can’t be that much of a surprise. You’ve been made to do loads of quippy Star Wars things so Disney can sell more toys. And you have enough annual identity crises and rock-bottom self-esteem to be a fangirl. Haven’t you ever thought, for just one second, What if Star Wars was real? Or, to put it differently, What if I too were just the figment of some rich old white guy’s imagination?’
Peter had said, ‘not really.’ And he didn’t really think about it, until he could see a squadron of stormtroopers in the same way as he can see his own hands.
The stormtroopers aren’t the only thing scarier than an English lit exam. Trudging along in front of them is a dinosaur the size of either a very big elephant or a very small tank. Peter was enough of a friendless nerd as a child that he can recognise the stocky body, bony frill and protruding horns as being of a triceratops. A woman is riding it as casually as if it were a Shetland pony. Even from this distance Peter can make out her pale hair, skimpy clothing and neon weapons. This must be the demon clown barbie that Hermione and Arya spoke of – Harley Quinn.
‘Shit,’ Peter breathes.
Hermione opens her eyes, and yawns. ‘I think there’s a lavatory down the corridor…’ – she sees Harley Quinn, the stormtroopers, and their fairly low chances of survival – ‘shit. Shit, Peter!’ She leans forward, pushes weight onto her right leg, and winces.
This must be what was on that spaceship that the alarms at the Avengers facility were screaming warnings about. Harley Quinn has landed, and her soldiers have found the portal that Peter and his friends escaped through. Peter doesn’t want to think about what happened to Deadpool, or the Avengers Facility. He hopes that Nick Fury got the spaceships and time-travel machines insured for more than he had the last time the Avengers Facility got blown up.
‘What do we do?’ Peter wails, ‘those things are from Star Wars, Hermione. They’re like really bad!’
‘I don’t know!’ Hermione’s voice has gone up about on octave. ‘Get Legolas!’ She reaches for her wand, and casts another enchantment on her ankle.
Peter runs out the room. His footsteps echo down the corridor. A light is flickering through a doorway. He pushes through the door into an office filled with messy files and faded posters of DNA helixes. Arya is curled up in an armchair, nestled under a pile of white lab coats. She hugs her sheathed sword like it’s a teddy bear. ‘Arya!’ he yells.
Arya springs upwards, rubbing her eyes. ‘Who’s trying to kill us now?’
He flaps his arms around. ‘Stormtroopers! Demon clown barbie! Horny elephant! Bad!’
‘Alright.’ None of that information seems to bother her particularly. She slides out the armchair, slings one coat over her shoulder, and follows Peter down the corridor and into the kitchen. Snow White is already awake, scrubbing dried sauce off bowls. Legolas is perched cross-legged on a stool, his eyes wide open.
‘Mr Legolas,’ Peter shouts, ‘you’ve got to help us, please.’
Legolas doesn’t move.
‘He can’t hear you,’ Snow White trills, lathering soap over the bowls.
‘What do you mean? Mr Legolas!’ Peter repeats.
Snow White turns off the tap. ‘He said that elves don’t need to sleep.’
‘Of course they don’t,’ Arya mutters.
‘He uses the time when everyone else is asleep to go into a deep meditative trance,’ Snow White continues, ‘you know, to pass the time.’
‘A deep mediative trance?’ Arya complains. ‘Why could it not be a shallow comedic relief trance? Legolas!’ She slaps his cheek. Peter joins her, calling his name and shaking his shoulder. They must look like children trying to wake their dad up on Christmas morning.
Legolas tilts his head his head a little and murmurs, ‘no Gimli, not tonight. The world needs saving again…’. Snow White bangs two bowls together like cymbals. Legolas inhales sharply and comes awake. His eyes revolve backwards and forwards, and then fix on Peter. ‘You are not Gimli,’ he notes.
Peter begins, ‘Mr Legolas, you’ve gotta help us, because there are loads and loads of stormtroopers and a dinosaur and a Harley Quinn.’
‘See it for yourself.’ Arya beckons them out of the kitchen. Peter follows her through a maze of corridors, which widen into a massive hall. It must have been the main entrance for the theme park or something, because it’s still pretty spectacular still even though it’s in ruins. Slabs of blue glass and bronze metal fit together to form the four walls, which rise into the peak of the pyramid. The night sky blankets them in darkness. A golden staircase spirals up to shadowy doorways. The walls must have once been illuminated by information displays, because now pictures of dinosaurs flicker and blink like morse code. But the hall bears scars from whatever dinosaur-doomsday destroyed the park. One glass panel is distorted by scratch marks the size of road markings. Peter doesn’t want to know his big the claws were that made them. The hefty front doors have been bolted tight, and stuff has been heaped up behind them – a desk, chairs, boxes from lego dinosaurs, and a bashed-up vending machine. Peter has solved the mystery behind why there are no dinosaurs in the pyramid.
Snow White is flitting around the hall. Her skirt brushes past a metal platform, which buzzes and blasts out blue light. A ghostly hologram of a brachiosaurus fills the space, its snaky neck writhing and its eyelids twitching as if it were really alive. And for a moment this pyramid isn’t just a backdrop for Peter’s quest, because the air almost feels heavy with all the broken hopes and dreams from when the park imploded on itself. Then the lights cut out, the brachiosaurus dissipates, and the room returns to darkness.
‘Well, what do you think, Peter?’
His name grabs his attention. Arya is glowering at him, arms folded. ‘The elf thinks that we – by which he means two warriors, a gymnast, a girl with a stick and whatever the hell Snow White is – should engage fifty armed troops and a Harley Quinn and die horrible painful deaths’ – her voice is trailing off as she runs out of breath – ‘and have our bodies picked apart by dinosaurs before we ever reach Steven Spielberg.’
‘If we don’t fight them now, we will only have to fight them later once we are worn out by travel,’ Legolas argues, ‘we should take them now, while we are strong.’
‘Strong?’ Arya laughs. ‘A few hours ago, you said we weren’t strong enough to find the next portal. Now you want us to fight a small army? Hermione can’t even walk.’
Legolas looks down at her as if she were a naughty schoolkid. He’s about a foot taller than Arya, but right now the height difference feels bigger than that. ‘I don’t need you all to fight ten of these stormtroopers each. You can deal with about two, and I can sort out the remaining forty-eight.’
‘Legolas!’ someone calls. They all turn round. Hermione is stumbling out of the gloom of the corridor, wincing a little each time her right foot touches the floor. All the wand-waving has definitely done some good, but her ankle doesn’t look entirely healed yet, either. Hermione glances around the hall. The air twists and her body blurs, as if someone was rubbing a damp ink photograph of her, and she vanishes. There’s a popping sounds, like when you’ve been swimming and your ears unclog of water, and Hermione reappears in the space between Arya and Peter.
‘Woah,’ Peter takes a step back, ‘you can teleport?’
Hermione smiles wryly. ‘Technically it’s called apparition, but yes, I can.’
‘Then why can’t you magic us out of this mess to the portal,’ Arya complains, ‘or just straight to Steven Spielberg?’
‘Apparition relies on destination, determination and deliberation.’ Hermione overpronounces each word like she’s giving a TED talk. ‘In short, I can’t apparate to a place I don’t know. And it doesn’t seem to work between different storyworlds, either.’ Then she mutters, ‘believe me, I’ve tried.’
‘Terrific,’ Arya spits, ‘does anyone have any secret magic abilities of actual use?’
Peter decides that now is not the time to mention how good he is at geometry.
Hermione tightens the scarf around her neck. ‘Why are you all standing around chatting? If you haven’t noticed, we have some escaping to be getting along with.’
‘Yes,’ Peter agrees. Legolas frowns at him. ‘No. Maybe? I don’t know!’
Peter knows that he’s supposed to be the leader. He knows that he’s supposed to decide. But as he looks at the irritation on Legolas, Arya and Hermione’s faces, something scares him far more than the stormtroopers. How are these four strangers meant to save the world if they can’t agree how to do it?
‘Owie,’ Snow White yelps.
Peter sighs, and glances behind him. Snow White is leaning against the mound of furniture piled in front of the door. A droplet of blood falls from her finger, and she waves at the vending machine with the shattered glass. ‘I tried to move it but it bit me!’
Hermione groans. ‘Why would you try to move that by yourself? Don’t you know that a vending machine is two and a half times more likely to kill you than a shark?’
‘Woah, really?’ Peter eyes it dubiously.
Snow White’s eyes glisten with tears. ‘I’m sorry I thought you needed to get out.’
Arya tips back her head and roars with frustration, as if she too were a dinosaur. ‘This is ridiculous! Hide behind something and stay quiet. Can you just about cope with that?’ She stretches her arms into the lab coat, and turns into the hallway, disappearing into the darkness.
A squeaking noise pierces Peter’s ears. He presses his face to the chilled glass wall. They’re too late. They’ve failed. The stormtroopers are marching down the shopping street. Their synchronised footsteps boom like thunder. A flock of chicken-like dinosaurs squawk and scurry out of the way.
Harley Quinn is not a prettier sight close-up. Well, not that she’s not pretty, because she really would be if she wasn’t so… maniacal-looking. Why on earth someone thinks that fish net tights and booty shorts is a sensible outfit for battle, Peter has no idea. Her bleached bunches and tattooed legs swing in time to the triceratops’s steps. A gold collar marked PUDDIN gleams from her neck. Peter doesn’t like how tinsel and fairylights are woven around the triceratops’s horns like a tiara, or how big the brightly-painted rifle strapped to her back is.
The air whistles as Hermione apparates across the hall. She ducks behind the base of the brachiosaurus hologram. Peter slides across the floor and crouches next to her. Legolas and Snow White copy them, bending down awkwardly. Legolas’s bow sticks out above the platform. Peter pushes it down, and peers over the top.
A scientist is rushing down the street, adjusting his lab coat and waving his arms at Harley Quinn. Peter doesn’t recognise his hollow eyes or pointed beard.
‘It’s Arya,’ Hermione whispers.
‘She can shapeshift?’ Peter hisses.
‘She can shapeshift,’ Hermione confirms.
‘Excuse me,’ the scientist-who-is-Arya shouts. He rummages through his pockets, and sure enough Peter can make out Arya’s black leather peeping out beneath the white coat. She looks tiny compared to the towering triceratops and the mass of stormtroopers.
Harley Quinn whacks a hot pink megaphone, and it produces an ugly electronic screech. Peter winces. Several rows of stormtroopers cover their ears. ‘Harley Quinn,’ she booms, ‘how d’ya do?’
‘Terribly,’ Arya yells back, ‘I was told I could study the breeding patterns of dinosaurs undisturbed, and now they’ve sent all of you as well. Do you even have dinosaurologist fieldwork licences?’
A few stormtroopers pat down their belts in confusion, muttering to each other about paperwork. Peter smiles. Could Arya’s plan really save them?
‘We’re not here for dinosaurolologistery,’ Harley replies, ‘we’ve come to deal with… trespassers.’ The triceratops licks its lips.
Arya sighs sympathetically. ‘Such a nuisance, aren’t they? Always trying to steal dinosaur eggs then hatch them with husband-killing blood magic to conquer cities with cool clothes.’
Harley Quinn nods along, as if that was a perfectly normal thing to happen. ‘You haven’t seen any, have you? We’re looking for a smug goody-goody two shoes with a stick who over-enunciates everything, and a lil hit man girl who always looks like sulky, like she’s chewing stale gum. And if you’ve seen Orlando Bloom with a child in spandex, that would be helpful too. We think they might now be … trespassing … together.’
‘Hm,’ Arya strokes her beard, as if deep in thought, ‘no, I don’t think so. And I would know! I’ve been tracking everything in the park from my… laboratory.’
Harley beams. ‘You have CCTV? Can I take a look?’
Arya’s eyes dart around in panic. She can’t know what CCTV is, or how to lie around that.
Snow White is fidgeting with the hem of her skirt, her hand shaking. She leans onto Hermione’s foot, and Hermione cries out.
Harley Quinn spins her head around, bunches flailing around her neck. The triceratops pricks up its ears (well, Peter imagines it would if he could remember where its ears are). ‘D’you hear that, scientist guy?’
‘Oh,’ Arya bats the air in front of her, ‘it’s probably nothing. There are dinosaurs nesting in all of these buildings. In fact,’ she adds, ‘this glass pyramid has a particularly large population of… bigandtoothyosauruses. It might be best to stay clear of this street completely.’
‘Really?’ Harley eyes the pyramid suspiciously. Peter ducks completely behind the platform. ‘Well,’ he hears Harley say, ‘perhaps I should just set fire to this row of buildings here and see what comes out. Like smoking wasps out of a nest, or children who sing ‘Let it Go’ too badly out of an apartment block.’
Peter decides to not think about the story behind that particular comparison.
Arya’s voice is faltering from stress. ‘But… the specimens… their breeding patterns…’
‘I will also have to kill you,’ Harley admits, ‘nothing personal, I promise! I think your goatee is peng. I just can’t risk you ringing up anyone, can I?’
‘Wait,’ Arya protests, ‘I can help you look for the Orlando Bloom and spandex child, or find you another dinosaur to ride, or…’ Her voice is drowned out by the clicking of fifty stormtroopers raising their guns.
‘Wait!’ Peter cries out. He stands up, revealing where he is to Harley, the stormtroopers, and probably every dust mite in the park. Harley shrieks with delight. Fifty blaster guns are pivoted to aim at Peter.
‘You fool,’ Legolas mutters.
‘Spandex-Boy!’ Harley is beaming like the Cheshire cat. ‘Isn’t it just terrific to finally meet?’
Personally, Peter would have gone for ‘terrifying’ rather than ‘terrific’. His legs are trembling.
‘Ooh, I’m going to so enjoy killing you and male Katniss,’ Harley coos. Peter notices that Arya is edging back down the street while Harley and the stormtroopers are distracted. ‘I’d count your sins and say your last prayers and quippy comebacks, if I were you. Apart from the OP know-it-all and the shape-shifting wolf girl. I’ve got something really fun planned for them in the spikey turtle thing’s castle, with the cars whizzing by.’ The triceratops licks its lips again.
Peter wonders if dying might be preferable to discovering what Harley Quinn’s idea of “fun” is. For once, he does not have any quippy comebacks. ‘What OP know-it-all? I know quite a lot of them.’
Harley sighs. ‘Don’t be annoying. There’s no need to pretend. I’ve known where you all are since before I got here. Did you forget that stormtroopers have heat vision built into their helmets?’
Peter swears under his breath. He did forget that.
Arya turns down the street, running so fast that the lab coat slips off her shoulders and billows into the air like smoke. The stormtroopers sprint after her, their armour clinking. Hermione sighs with so much frustration that Peter can feel her breath on his forehead. The air pops as she vanishes and reappears on the street outside a few paces ahead of Arya. The assassin shouts something at her, but Hermione just grabs her arm and disappears again. The two girls tumble out of the air in front of Peter. Hermione lands on her feet, but Arya slams into the floor. ‘What in Westeros’s name was that? It felt like you were squashing me through a mangle!’
Hermione dusts her jumper off. ‘Did you want to be captured by the demon clown barbie? I just saved your life, Arya. You could at least stop scowling. Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?’
‘Guys…’ Peter watches Harley shout orders. ‘I think we might have bigger problems than Arya’s manners.’
The stormtroopers are marching around the base of the pyramid, tightening the noose around their neck (like, metaphorically). Arya pinches her forehead like she was taking a contact lense out, and tugs. The man’s face peels off hers as if it were a latex mask. Her body shrinks back to its normal shape. Arya shoves the mask into her pocket. Peter has approximately a hundred questions to ask about what the hell he just saw, but figures that now isn’t exactly the time to ask. Legolas reaches for an arrow from his quiver. Snow White is singing under her breathe something about not wanting to die or be squashed like a fly or be tossed out like a burned apple pie. The five of them huddle together in the centre of the room like penguins (if the penguins were about to be attacked by fifty polar bears and a snow demon on a woolly mammoth).
‘Take courage, my friends.’ Legolas places his arm around Peter’s shoulders. ‘We are the heroes of our stories, and the heroes always win.’
Peter laughs. ‘You’re kidding, right? You were literally there when I was declared Public Enemy #1 by a villain I’d already defeated.’
‘Twelve of my seventeen family members were murdered,’ Arya adds.
‘Does it look like we’re winning right now?’ Hermione points out.
Legolas doesn’t seem to know what to say to that.
Harley Quinn fires her rifle towards the sky. Rainbow glitter sprays into the air. Each stormtrooper loads their gun, as if they were all parts of one machine. The clicking spreads from the end of the shopping street to Harley and the triceratops to the dark rainforest. She blasts the gun again. Pink smoke fizzles out. And fifty stormtroopers charge.