I'm a spinosaurus with a System to raise a dinosaur army

Rambo was perched on top of a building in the city of Tainir. The rhamphorhynchus stared down at the streets below, where Imperial soldiers had been marching continuously for hours.

The city had not been occupied for even a day, yet that was enough to take total control. Rambo had serious problems understanding human beings: it seemed that most of them didn’t mind being enslaved. Had they been animals, they would have fought to the death as long as their pack leader was still alive. But evidently, their mentalities were too different.

Still, it was amazing how humans allowed themselves to be exploited. Tainir’s civilians numbered in the millions; if they had wanted, they could have eliminated all the invaders within the hour. Yet, they remained still and frightened in their homes, without having the courage to go out. And if someone was dragged out of the house accused of being a resister, no one came forward to help him.

Rambo really didn’t understand. In a way, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to.

Since the imperial invaders had taken the city, many people had already been sent to their deaths. In a sense, all the old ruling class classified as ’opponents’ of the Empire had been dragged into the public square and shot. Their corpses were displayed in full view, some of them even impaled on poles.

Not only. The Imperials had taken almost everything: food, water, money... everything that could be useful had been taken and taken away to supply the troops. The civilians had been left with only the bare minimum. The larger families didn’t even have enough to eat.

Yet, once again no one had come forward. No one had protested, no one had tried to repel the invader. The humans had remained still and motionless like obedient puppies, despite the terrible conditions to which they were subjected. Again, Rambo just couldn’t figure out what made humans behave so compliantly.

Still, asking questions wasn’t his place. The mission entrusted to him was to find out what the Empire was up to.

Sobek was no fool. When he learned of the invasion, he immediately knew something was wrong: since the Empire was at loggerheads with the Eden Union, why should he waste resources on a senseless war? Sure, the Empire and Sinar hated each other, and the invasion didn’t seem to weigh heavily on the Empire, but that didn’t justify such behavior. No, there had to be something more underneath.

Thus, Rambo had begun to follow the imperial army trying to get some information. And apparently, there really was something strange. Rambo hadn’t noticed it initially, but then something started to become apparent.

To begin with, some of the enemy soldiers sometimes seemed to come out of nowhere. First they weren’t there, and the next they were somehow appearing on the battlefield. Rambo had sent several of his underlings to check if there were underground passages or something, but in his heart he already knew that could not be the case. No underground passage could justify such a rapid appearance.

And then, there was the matter of numbers. Based on what Rambo calculated in each battle, the number of casualties by the Empire should have been very high. Instead, after each clash with the defending army, the imperials decreased very little in number.

Rambo chose to investigate, so he infiltrated the ranks of the Imperial Army. To his surprise, he had discovered that the Imperial soldiers had no wounds on their bodies. He had also found the faces of some soldiers he remembered having been mortally wounded in previous battles.

The only bodies he had managed to find were so few that they could not even be considered a loss. However, Rambo still had one stolen for examination. When his subordinates had opened the sack, he had discovered that the man inside had died from a blow to the head, but that wasn’t what worried him: rather, what worried him was that the man’s blood vessels had turned black and the skin had taken on a purplish, grayish hue.

But the strangest thing was another: the corpse was still warm. He had only been dead for a few hours so he certainly couldn’t be frozen, but he should still have been colder than a living body since the blood no longer circulated and consequently nothing kept the thermoregulation mechanism active. Instead, the corpse was still warm as if it had just died, as if the blood had continued to circulate until a few minutes ago.

Rambo didn’t like that situation, and Sobek liked him even less. Therefore, he had asked Rambo to continue investigating. And the rhamphorhynchus had discovered other interesting things.

The imperial soldiers took something about every three and a half hours: a kind of green tablet. Some, on the other hand, also took a purple pill, and they were the same ones who then appeared out of nowhere. It was clear that whatever the mystery of that invasion was, it was connected to those pills. He’d had his underlings steal a couple of them and sent them to the scientists in the Eden Union, but it would be days before they figured out how they worked.

Rambo sighed. He would have preferred that Blue had not left for Ares: even if he knew that this could be their lifeline, he would have preferred to have the velociraptor there on their planet, since she was the scientist of the pack. Surely, Blue would know what to do to discover the secret of those pills.

At the moment, however, Blue was not there. Therefore, Rambo had no choice but to wait.

Another interesting thing he discovered was that the generals in charge of the army did not communicate by conventional means; theirs weren’t radio transmitters, but apparently much more technological funnel-shaped devices. Apparently such devices must have very advanced science indeed, because their transmissions were practically invisible to Eden Union satellites programmed for communications espionage.

It seemed that in just a few years the Empire had made great strides in war technology. However, if that was the case, why not use it sooner? This was the question that tormented Rambo. Why wait so long instead of sharing that technology with your allies while they still have some? If they had, the NMWA would not have capitulated so easily.

What worried Rambo even more were the few words he had managed to hear while spying on one of the generals: ’test’, ’skill’ and ’dinosaurs’. They didn’t bode well.

While he was mulling over these thoughts he didn’t notice that below him a guy with two strange glasses had just looked up and was staring at the point where he was; after that, he raised his rifle and fired.

Rambo was warned just in time by [Supreme instinct] to be able to dodge, but still the bullet grazed his right wing. He felt excruciating pain; he didn’t have [Reinforced skin], since he had decided to replace it with [Regeneration] earlier as he deemed it more useful for spy missions, and so a hole formed where the bullet passed. After all, the patagium, or the membrane that formed his wing, was the most fragile part of his body. It was a minor wound, but the mere fact that it had been inflicted on him was enough to make him gasp: how had that human managed to see that!?

He had activated [Ambush], it should have been invisible to any eye or sensing device! Still, it couldn’t have been an accident: the man was still staring at where he was, as if he were trying to see something.

"Maybe it’s those glasses?" Rambo thought looking at the strange glasses that the man had on his eyes. They didn’t seem to be able to see it fully, but maybe they could identify something.

He had to leave immediately. He took off and started to head elsewhere, but he immediately realized that he couldn’t fly well. He looked down and noted with astonishment that the wound in his wing hadn’t healed. The hole was still there.

How was this possible? He had [Regeneration]! He should have recovered in seconds!

He was starting to fall; his damaged wing was unable to support him in flight. He immediately activated [Teleportation] and found himself far away, inside what looked like an old shed, and in front of him was Snock.

Rambo and Snock had been working together for some time now; after all, the giganotosaurus was the head of covert operations. While Sobek preferred to investigate the situation at the moment, he still had Snock instructed to get as many humans to safety as possible. However, that was the first time that the giganotosaurus had seen his friend reduced like this. “Rambo! What happens?"

"I don’t know!" the rhamphorhynchus growled, flapping its damaged wing. “I don’t know how that’s possible, but it doesn’t regenerate! And they even saw me!”

Snock’s eyes widened. It wasn’t something he thought could be possible. Had the Imperials figured out how to hinder their abilities? This could be very bad in the extreme.

Some tiny mice emerged from the ground and ran to check Rambo’s wing; fortunately, with the implementation of mammals in Sobek’s pack, the rhamphorhynchus could count on them to figure out what was wrong.

The mice checked the hole in the wing, then whispered to each other and began to nibble at the skin. The giganotosaurus and rhamphorhynchus didn’t know what they were doing, but they didn’t ask any questions. After ten minutes, the mice moved off and finally the wing fully regenerated.

"Mh, thank you" Rambo said looking at his reformed wing.

“So, do you understand what the problem was?” Snock asked.

One of the mice came forward, holding what looked like a pile of gravel in its hands. “These are the problem”

"What are? Dust?"

“No, microchips. They are small droids that attached themselves to Rambo’s skin as soon as the bullet hit him. It apparently has tiny lasers that continually damage the wing, counteracting the regenerative power.”

Snock grit his teeth. “Have they really figured out how to counter our abilities!?” he growled.

Rambo clicked his claws on the ground. “Now everything makes sense. Disappearing, appearing out of nowhere, minimal casualties... the bastards replayed [Ambush] and [Regeneration]!”

“Are you kidding me? Not only did they figure out how to counter our powers, but also how to replicate them!?”

“I think that is the only explanation. I think it’s due to those pills they were on. Everyone took the green pills, which evidently served to speed up the healing process, while only those who appeared out of nowhere used the purple ones. I think they are to induce some biological process to replicate our abilities. This would explain the mysterious corpse: evidently, there are some side effects...”

Snock snorted. How had it happened? How had humans replicated their abilities? They had studied them, that was for sure, but that wasn’t enough to justify such an advance in the technological field. Dinosaurs had only been ’accessible’ to the general public for three years; how had the Empire managed to advance so much?

Until he had enlightenment. “Henry Wu!” he exclaimed. “His researches! President Jersey had leaked them to the scientific community... well, I don’t remember when, but evidently the Empire got their hands on them!”

"Are you sure?" Rambo asked.

"It’s the only explanation. Henry Wu knew all about us, as he created... that thing that made the pack leader what he is now. If the Imperials got their hands on such research, surely it would have helped them tremendously! Add to that the urgent need to improve their weaponry and you get what just happened” The giganotosaurus let out a growl from its throat. “It’s all clear to me now... this is not an invasion. The Empire doesn’t give a shit about Sinar. This is a huge test. They are evaluating how efficient their new technologies are and how effective they can be against us"

“But how did they know we were here?”

“It’s no secret that we’ve broken into foreign countries, Rambo. Anyone with a minimum of brain can understand this. The fact that there is no evidence means nothing. The Empire knew that we would intervene in a war even without showing us, and wants to use the opportunity to understand how much they are able to put us under pressure without formally declaring a conflict with the Eden Union"

Rambo’s feathers quivered as he realized that his friend was absolutely right. “We have to notify the pack leader immediately”

"I’ll do it myself" Snock said. “You temporarily withdraw all your spies and my subordinates as well. Hide somewhere safe, or better yet, retreat across the border. Do not act until I return or until the pack leader contacts you!”

“Okay, I trust you, bro" Rambo replied. "I immediately get to work; you go immediately to the pack leader!”

"Oh, you bet" Snock said in a cold sweat as he activated [Teleportation] and disappeared.