The Tyrant's Roar: Chapter 14

Sorry for the delay, this took a lot of time to write.

This has to be the scariest chapter of the entire story.  Enjoy!

Chapter 14:  Vengeance

“This is really weird,” Tytus thought.

It was as if he was dreaming.  There was a sort of white, foggy haze around what he was seeing, and he felt himself rising into the air.  The latter feeling was what confused Tytus the most.  He was a terrestrial creature, a king who ruled the land, not the air.

As Tytus slowly rose into the air, he looked down at the scene being played out below him.  What he saw sent chills through his soul.

A storm began to brew as the sky filled with dark and menacing clouds.  Flashes of white-hot lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, accompanied by loud cracks of thunder.  The wind had picked up to a solid pace, causing the tops of the trees to sway back and forth under its will.

In the clearing, there was Tytus’ body becoming still while the life was being choked out of him.  Hades looked as if he had finally won the fight.  Even from above, Tytus could see how deeply Hades' teeth had sunk into his neck.

Despite the hazy screen, the amount of detail that Tytus saw was astounding.  He could clearly see his own red head becoming still, his own pupils dilating, and the deep green folds of his skin that he was born with.  Even the tiniest of his scales, still covered with blood, were shown in unequaled clarity.

The same amount of focus applied to Hades’ body as well.  Every scale and scar was in full clarity.  Tytus scanned Hades’ impressive build, taking in every muscle and scar that he had.  Then he saw Hades’ eyes.  They were eyes that showed so much pain and fear and anger that all was lost for the Giganotosaurus.  There was no going back for him.  His whole body, especially the jaws, were clear reflections of what little soul Hades had left.

Tytus’ eyes drifted away from his own body and Hades to find his children.  As his eyes swept through his roost, he saw all the blood that was spilled.  It covered everything.  The ground became a sea of red, with clumps of dirt substituted as islands.  Even the footprints that Hades and Tytus made were filled with blood.

Finally, Tytus found his kids.  Aries and Celeste were still hiding within the tree root matrix, safe from harm.  But they didn’t look like they were safe.  Instead, they looked as if they were watching a horror show.  Their fluffy down stood on end, making them look like little brown puffballs.  Their claws and muscles twitched in fear as they desperately stumbled backwards, away from the trauma.  Their snouts trembled as they screamed for their father, hoping that it was all a nightmare and praying for Poppaea to come back and save the day.

But what pained Tytus’ heart the most was the look in his children’s eyes.  They were filled with unimaginable terror as their champion father was being massacred.  It was as if Aries’ and Celeste’s souls were being torn apart from seeing the horror unfolding, and at such a young age!  Their fear only escalated when Hades stopped biting Tytus and looked directly at them, growling deeply.

On impulse, Tytus tried to come back to Earth to save them, but it was no use.  Some beckoning force was holding him back, as if something was preventing him from returning.  Finally Tytus gave up, and ever so slowly, he started to rise again, away from the carnage and beauty of his home.

“There’s nothing I can do, my children,” Tytus thought.  “Pray that your mother…”

But his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden change down below.  His ascent stopped, but Tytus did not notice.

Something was different about what was going on in the roost, but Tytus could not pinpoint what it was.  It just gave him more anxiety, not knowing what the difference was.

Tytus scanned the area again, hoping to find whatever changed.  Aries and Celeste were still cowering under the tree.  The ground was still thick with blood.  Hades still had his jaws locked around his neck, and his body was as still as a boulder.

But something about his body didn’t look right.  It was still a Tyrannosaurus’ body, but not his own.  The body wasn’t as robust as his, and the colour of the hide was not the deep green that he had.  Instead, it was chocolate brown, and the head and legs were bent at odd angles…

“POPPAEA!”

Her name screamed in Tytus’ head as his heart leapt into his throat.  His mate, his beautiful queen, was being mutilated by the demon that was Hades.  Her gorgeous eyes rolled back into her skull, the whites of her eyes replacing her deep irises.  Her entire body was being reduced to a corpse as her life was being sucked away.  Her ankles were bent forward, snapped beyond repair.  Her neck was broken, and as Hades continued to cut her body into pieces, her head rocked disturbingly back and forth.

Something inside Tytus snapped.  Even though he knew Poppaea was nowhere in the vicinity, it was still too much for him.  This was what awaited Poppaea when she returned; her death and mutilation by a savage Giganotosaurus.

An indescribable surge of rage and hatred filled Tytus’ soul.  He could not let this premonition come true.  He WOULD NOT lose his true love.  The only thing standing between her death and her staying alive was himself.  As long as Hades died first, he didn’t care what happened to him.

Like a missile, Tytus streaked back down to Earth with a vengeance.  He filled his body again, expecting to feel so much physical pain, but it was as if he was detached from it.  All he felt was the desire to kill Hades.

He tensed his leg and neck muscles as an enormous surge of adrenaline buffeted his body.  By now, Tytus could sense the confusion in Hades’ mind as to why a seemingly lifeless corpse had started to shake as if alive again.

Using all the power in his legs and heavily-built arms, Tytus surged upwards onto his feet, howling ferociously.  His sudden action caused Hades to lose his balance, and he took his left foot off of Tytus’ hips.  Hades was also forced to let go of Tytus’ neck because his own neck was positioned at a precariously deep angle in relation to his head, which was pointed straight down.  If Hades had not released his choke hold, his spinal cord would have snapped.

Before Hades could register what just happened, a crushing force impacted with his lower neck and chest; Tytus had just head-butted him hard, enough to send him into a dizzying fit of choking.

Hades’ blood boiled as he stumbled to the other end of the clearing.  He really wanted to kill Tytus, and thought that his assault was perfect, but he was angrier with himself for not finishing his rival off completely when he had the chance.

As soon as he stopped choking and his vision cleared, Hades turned towards his hated rival and opened his mouth to bellow his fury.

But what he saw made all feelings of hate and bravery evaporate.  In fact, Hades was literally paralyzed with fear.  He had never seen anything so terrifying nor powerful in his twenty-seven years of life.

With his back to his children’s hiding place at the far end of the clearing and his body sharply defined against the stormy sky, Tytus stood upright.  His head was level with the tops of many of the surrounding trees, well over twenty feet above the ground.  Bright red blood seeped from his neck, mouth, and nose.  His head was no longer the typical bright red from earlier in the fight; instead, it was a much more threatening shade of dark, menacing crimson, and the skin around his eyes were blacker than the darkest of nights.  Every time the lightning flashed overhead, Tytus’ bloodshot eyes blazed like a raging inferno underneath his large eye crests, giving him a look of pure hellish fury.

Every muscle in Tytus’ body was flexed to the limit.  Tytus was very big and robust to begin with, but now he looked three times his normal size.  To Hades Tytus did not look like a normal dinosaur anymore; he now looked like an unstoppable force of nature!

Tytus refused to contain his hellish rage any longer.  He pulled his head and neck back into an S-shape, and sucked in the biggest breath he could.  Then, he lunged forward, stretched his neck out as far as he could, cranked his jaws to their widest point, and ROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRED!

The roar went on forever, without Tytus taking a breath.  Never had the Earth heard a roar so loud, so long, so deep, nor so powerful.  It sounded like it came from another world, because it was that terrifying. 

Tytus’ body shook and shuddered so violently from the roar that it looked like he was having a seizure.  The ground vibrated hard, as if an earthquake had struck.  Small trees were uprooted by the blast of sound, while branches from larger ones broke off and fell to the ground.  Boulders cracked while smaller stones disintegrated into dust.  The very air rattled from the force of the vibrations, and the claps of thunder overhead were tuned out completely.

Hades was buffeted by the mini windstorm that was created.  His entire body hurt from Tytus’ deafening roar.  His head was spinning, and his ears felt like they were going to explode.  His joints felt as if they would fall apart, and it felt like his ribs were bending towards his vital organs.  Turning his left side towards Tytus, he shook his head back and forth and tried to cover his ears with his hands, trying in vain to stop that unholy scream.

Finally, after it seemed like an eternity, Tytus did stop.  But Hades still heard it in his head, and there was an equally-loud ringing in his left ear.  Hades continued to frantically shake his head, trying to get the sound out of his ears.  Then, he heard nothing out of his left side.  It suddenly dawned on him:  he was now permanently deaf in his left ear!

That was when Tytus attacked.

He came in like a freight train, jaws stretched to the limit.  Like a vice, Tytus slammed down on Hades’ upper jaw, crushing his snout.  Then Tytus began to drag Hades all around the clearing like he was a rag doll, causing his skull to bend and twist.

Hades couldn’t do anything to stop Tytus.  His snout felt like it was erupting, and the pain and blood blinded him.  Tytus twisted his head once more, and a sickening crunch was heard.  Hades backed off, glad that the initial pain was over, but then was instantly sickened beyond belief at what he saw.

Tytus had his crushed, bleeding upper jaw, in his mouth.

Hades tried to scream, but all that came out were strangled gurgles and foul vomit.  He bit off more than he could chew when he attacked Tytus, and he was now paying for it with his life through torture.

Tytus spit out the bony and grisly mass that was Hades’ jaw.  Then, he charged again, jaws agape.  But this time, Tytus’ aim was true.  The momentum of his charge sent both colossal apex predators across the clearing, causing a tree to fall as Hades was slammed into it.

Hades became extremely dizzy even before he hit the ground.  The combination of Tytus slamming into his neck and being launched into the tree had given his brain a massive concussion.  The pain in his head, however, was in no way comparable to how he felt a bit farther down his body.

Using all the power in his jaws and neck, Tytus plunged his foot-long teeth through Hades’ neck and throat.  His unequaled rage knew no bounds and he thrashed his head in every direction.  Six tons of jaw pressure drove his fangs through everything.  Hades’ neck muscles now had huge holes in them, and his major blood vessels exploded in a gory shower.  His cervical vertebrae were reduced to fragments, and some of those fragments flew through the soft tissue and out of his neck.

With a squelching SNAP, the light in Hades’ eyes faded, and his body stopped twisting.  Tytus twisted Hades’ neck in such a way that his spinal cord was no only cut, but was severed in several places between his jaws. 

Finally, Hades was dead.  No longer would the mentally-ill, savage Giganotosaurus walk among the living and threaten other dinosaurs, who were just trying to live their own lives.

But for Tytus, it wasn’t enough.  Even though Hades’ body was limp, his jaws were still wrapped around the Giganotosaurus’ neck, almost as if they were locked together.  He then lifted his right leg, which now felt extremely heavy, and placed his massive foot on Hades’ left leg and flank for support.  Then, with another burst of adrenaline, Tytus jerked his head up, and ripped Hades’ neck clean off his shoulders, with a terrible tearing sound.

Hades’ head hung limply out of the left side of Tytus’ mouth, while the rest of his neck protruded from the other side.  It was covered in blood and gore, as torn muscle and viscera shook from Tytus’ grip.  Vertebral fragments poked through the soft tissue of the imploded neck, and a foot of beige spinal cord was pulled out from Hades’ back.

Tytus then swung his head, launching his enemy’s severed head and neck into another tree.  The impact produced a loud thud, and the tree, now splattered in scarlet fluid, bent backwards from the force.

Breathing heavily, Tytus turned to face Hades’ decapitated skull.  The eyes were void of any life, but they kept staring back at him, penetrating his mind and soul.

Tytus could not believe how close he and his family came to annihilation.  How close his Poppaea had come to meeting her untimely death.  His throat tightened at the mere thought.  How could he have lived without her?  How could their children have lived without their mother?  Of course he would have cared for and protected them, because he loved Aries and Celeste so much, but not having their mother around would have been indescribable.

With one more burst of energy, Tytus threw his head back and screamed at the top of his lungs, as only a T.rex could.  HE WAS STILL THE KING!  But it wasn’t a roar of victory; it was a roar of hurt, agony, heartbreak, and fury.  All his emotions boiled over as the very air shook, and it carried for miles.  Every creature who heard the king bellow felt just as he did, their hearts breaking.

Finally Tytus stopped when his voice broke.  His head sank low under his exhausted body.  He turned to his kid’s hiding place and saw the fallen branches around the tree’s base.  Tytus couldn’t see them at all, but he did hear them chirping for help.

“I’m coming!  I’ll get you out of there!  DADDY’S COMING!”   

But Tytus had barely taken two steps when the fatigue and blood loss started to take their tolls.  Every part of his body screamed with pain, and he teetered precariously with dizziness on his very heavy legs.

Very slowly, the seven-ton Tytus sank to the blood-stained ground, which was now soaking up the rain that had started to fall.  His breathing was very slow and heavily laboured, and his vocal cords felt like they were singed in a fire.  He tried to call out to his son and daughter, to let them know that everything would be alright, but no sound came forth.  Even so, he desperately willed his body to move closer to free his offspring.

By now, it was too much for Tytus.  He could not have moved under any circumstance, and his vision was shifting in and out of focus.  Worse still, he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore.  The blanket of unconsciousness was wrapping snugly around him, and Tytus could do nothing to resist it.

The last thing he saw before blacking out was a large pair of three-clawed feet facing him.  Then…nothing.