Buck was lying on a small hill, looking out over the ash desert before him.

The fire had continued to rage for eight hours, and surely would have lasted even longer if the combined efforts of humans and dinosaurs had failed to put it out. Now all that was left of the region was ground covered in ash and trees turned black as coal. The beautiful lake that bathed that land was still empty: the river had started to fill it again, but surely it would have taken at least a month before restoring it to its original shape.

The crater was still visible in the center of the lake. It was the deepest part of it now and would be the first place to fill with water; however, at the time the water level did not exceed three millimeters and was therefore still clearly visible. Every time he looked at it, Buck felt sick. He was sure the nightmares would haunt him for days.

"Everything is fine?"

Buck turned his head just to see Carnopo lying down beside him. The carnotaurus looked even more exhausted than he was. "What do you think?" he asked rhetorically.

Carnopo snorted. "Right. We're all in the same boat" he sighed.

Both Buck and Carnopo would never show weakness, even to each other, but they couldn't show strength right now. Neither of them remembered ever feeling such terror before. Within moments, they had been blinded, burned, and ripped apart by the blast wave. They both clearly remembered the pain of their exploding eyes, the fire that consumed their skin that soon regenerated, and the tremendous blow of the shock wave that had cracked their bones and reduced their organs to dust.

Neither of them remembered ever feeling so in danger. This hadn't been a fire, an earthquake, a hurricane, a tsunami, or even a volcano: it had been all of those things combined, but worse. Both were smart enough to know that if it weren't for all the gifts Sobek had given them they wouldn't have lasted a second before being charred to pieces.

The mushroom cloud, then, had been something monstrous. The vision Sobek had shown them was nothing compared to reality. They didn't dare to imagine what would have happened if they hadn't intervened in time and that terrible black poison-bearing rain had started to rain.

Both dinosaurs had the impression that they had looked at the incarnation of death.

"Where is the pack leader now?" Buck asked.

"He is conferring with humans. I guess they need it" Carnopo answered. "I don't think I've ever seen the pack leader so scared. He was right to worry about it"

"Do you think that they will launch others of this... things?"

"You know how I feel about human rationality. Surely they will launch more"

Buck sighed. "Why create a weapon that can also kill the owner? It does not make sense"

"Perhaps humans are suicidal by nature" Carnopo replied. "Prepare yourself. I'm afraid the next few days will be very difficult"

*********

Sobek couldn't remember ever being so tired in his life. The war six years ago had been nothing in comparison. For the last twenty-four hours he had had to run from one part of the planet to another.

In the first place he had had to deal with the citizens of Frigeria. It had been terrible. Citizens were confused, desperate, traumatized and terrified; many of them had been injured by the earthquake and the roar. There had also been casualties: those who had gone out in boats that day never returned. Their families didn't even have bodies to bury. The hospitals in the city were full of patients and the doctors were working overtime to help everyone.

The police were immediately mobilized to put out the fires. No one had thought for one second of refusing the help of the dinosaurs. At that moment, even the guardians of the law were in full terror and absolutely did not want the dinosaurs to leave the city; who assured them that another bomb was not on its way?

President Aghire had come to say goodbye to Sobek and thanked him in every possible way; if they hadn't stopped him he would have bowed down and kissed the spinosaurus' feet. That disaster had caused thousands of injuries and hundreds of deaths, but anyone could understand that if it hadn't been for the dinosaurs Frigeria would have disappeared from the map and the dead would have been hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

Sobek then went back to confer with Jocelyne to find out what was going on. It was at that moment that he discovered that the explosion had had worldwide repercussions. According to Jocelyne, not only was the explosion felt up to the antipodes, but a magnitude 5 earthquake shook the entire surface of the planet. The seismic waves then converted at the antipodal point off the east coast of Maakanar and collapsed the ocean floor causing a small five-meters high tsunami which fortunately crashed on the reefs without doing any damage. She too had wasted no time in thanking Sobek: if it hadn't been for his intervention, not only millions of human beings would have died, but the nuclear fallout would have made entire regions unlivable and contaminated the soil, making millions and millions of people sick various diseases.

"The empire has not yet released any statement, but by now your involvement in foreign affairs is recognized by all" Jocelyne said later. "Also… a rumor is starting to circulate in the Eden Union. It's nothing official, but…"

"Let me guess. They want to fight back with the same method, don't they?"

Jocelyne bit her lip, then barely nodded. She looked like she was about to cry. "It's just whispers and hums, but some are starting to think that since you dinosaurs can fix the fallout problem, then there's no reason to hold back from using every weapon we have"

Sobek grit his teeth. What he had hoped to avoid had finally come true. The dinosaurs had shown that they had entered a neutral nation: this would have created many problems in terms of trust which would have made coexistence projects more complicated. And worse, now the Eden Union thought it was a good idea to drop the nukes themselves.

Unfortunately that was how humans reasoned. For the Eden Union, the Empire represented the last enemy to be eradicated; there were not a few who would have preferred to see it disappear. The threat of atomic bombs, terrible as it was, kept them in check and in turn kept the Empire in check as well.

Sobek had hoped that when war broke out both sides would immediately try to use nuclear weapons, given what they entailed; this would have given him time to execute quick and incisive conquest maneuvers that would have led the Empire to capitulate. Surely the emperor, put under pressure, would then have used the atomic bombs, but at that point it would have mattered little: Sobek would have stopped them and the Eden Union would have already technically won the war, so they would have agreed that using the bombs was useless.

Now, however, everything had changed. The war had not yet broken out and both fronts were in full force, and now they knew that the danger of atomic bombs was solvable. So why not use them? By doing so they would have spared their armies which could have been used at a later time. The civilian population? Who cares. In wars, civilians were always the first victims, so why consider them?

But Sobek wanted to avoid that. He didn't want to be an accomplice in a massacre. He never sacrificed more than was necessary. He didn't care whether they were enemies or friends: he didn't want the horror of the atomic explosion to fall on anyone's head.

But now, things had gotten very complicated. And what was worse was that to protect Frigeria he had also shown all his aces up her sleeve.

*********

"Gentlemen, you have finished viewing the satellite footage of the event. What can you tell me?"

Wafner was seated at a table with his generals. There was a pleased smile on his face.

One of them stood up immediately: "Emperor, we can say that the test was a success" he said. "Not only have we shown the world the hypocrisy of dinosaurs, but we have also collected valuable data on them"

"What precious data?" another asked. "These creatures weren't even stopped by an atomic bomb! They can teleport! How can we defeat them?"

"You are mistaken, sir" the general who had spoken first replied. "Now we know their weakness. Communication and time"

Everyone remained silent to listen to him. "Watch the video. The dinosaurs could have just taken people and walked away from there, instead they opted for a fallacious defense. It was clear they weren't familiar with the place and hadn't had time to prepare. Basically, if we manage to detonate a weapon before they can organize themselves, nothing will stop us from destroying any city"

"And there's more" Wafner said suddenly. "Look carefully at the video"

The generals watched the satellite video. Through it they could see Sobek continually being burned, burned and injured. Wafner's eyes narrowed cruelly. "Now we finally have proof… he's as mortal as we are. He could barely resist the heat wave, but he will never be able to hold up against the plasma bubble. If we hit him directly with an atomic bomb it would be the end of him" he said. "We can kill him"