Board Thread:Off-Topic Discussion/@comment-29637681-20170514033014/@comment-29637681-20170613173251

Regardless everyone sleeps for the night. The Great Bandit jumps up to Cinder, who is sleeping on a branch. "Hey, is this branch taken?"

"Don't know...This is Adder's branch. Ask him, not me."

"Um, Adder? Can I--"

Adder poked his head out of the branch above. "NO."

"I didn't--"

Adder dropped to the branch, and grabbed The Great Bandit with his claws. "I SAID NO! I NEVER CARED FOR YOU, AND I ABSOLUTELY HATE YOU WITH EVERY INCH OF MY MIND! CAN YOU KILL YOURSELF NOW SO I DON'T HAVE TO DO IT FOR YOU?"

The Great Bandit doesn't respond. "I have tried to be nice, and asked for redemption. None of you gave me what I wanted; a family. You killed thousands of Outlaws, you could cause the ecosystem to collapse on itself. You're no better than me. All of you are a bunch of dirty, pathetic cowards trying to make big names for yourself. Now you will allow me to sleep on this branch, or else I will rat out your location, and all of you will die within the hour."

Adder and Cinder shrug.

So The Great Bandit gets the luxury of sleeping in the tree, while Adder and Cinder huddle at the bottom of the tree, shivering from the winter air.

---

Cinder wakes up before anybody else does again. "Early to bed and early to rise, makes me healthy, wealthy, and wise!"

Adder wakes up immediately after. "Early to rise and early to bed, makes me healthy but socially dead."

Cinder laughed. "Oh, Adder, you haven't changed at all since we first met."

"What, I haven't changed from the angst-ridden Dilophosaurus who tried to kill you a year ago?"

"I mean, not too much..."

They remember their argument with The Great Bandit. "I think I remember a story...Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? No, wait, wrong one. Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Lizard Eater the Allosaurus? He was a friend of mine. We were very close friends...One day, he betrayed me. He stabbed my back and left me to die at the hands of...Salty...Then...I escaped...he committed mass genocide on the Machairoceratops and drove them to near extinction...My grandfather was a good friend of Mach, believed to be the last Machairoceratops.

"The Machairoceratops have been returning, but his parents exiled him...He swore revenge and retreated to the Shadowlands. He returned a year later with a massive army of Tarbosaurus and Ceratosaurus...Stalagmite, Randall and I had to fight them all off...We chased Lizard Eater down to Hell's House, and he committed suicide by jumping into the volcano.

"I never looked back onto him with pleasure...He was a Rebel...But he died an Outlaw...A thief...He deserved to die...Some other friends followed him...My friends Razorback the Dacentrurus...Axe the Juravenator...Vicious the Lythronax...He was the reason why I became suicidal. I lost all of my past friends to betrayal, they left me in private and attacked me when I least expected it...It's why I never socialize with anybody I don't know...It's why I tried to kill you in a fit of rage a year ago...It's why I tried to kill myself a month ago and left you in tears...The Outlaws...They've been controlling me. They manipulated me into the misanthrope you know as Adder. They're just a bunch of parasites. I should be dead..."

Cinder was listening to the whole thing. "I...I'm sorry, Adder...I know you've been through a rough life. I've been no better. My parents were killed, my adoptive family was murdered by the Chasmosaurus Clan...

"...But I can't get myself to hate the Outlaws. They're good inside, you know that...They must have been held in line by fear and not respect..."

"YEEHAW!"

Cinder recognizes their calls. "Oh, no! They've come back!"

Surely enough four Chasmosaurus charged into the area. Cinder recognizes them as the same ones that killed her father. They were holding flares and torches. They had white skin, white hoods, white frills, white heads, and black eyes. One by one they threw the flares and torches on the ground near the trees, burning them down. Animals charge out of the fire like crazy; an Ampelosaurus almost crushes Stalagmite.

"RUN!"

The Rebels wake up and try to run from the Chasmosaurus and fire. But since they went a day without food yesterday, all they can do is amble...