Fanfic / The Seven Hunters

"Littlefoot?" Chomper called softly.
The fast biter looked up from his handiwork and noticed his sharptooth friend looking at him with an understanding expression. His face was not accusing, nor coddling, but rather seemed to convey a simple message.
Now you know what it is like to be a sharptooth.
Indeed he did. Littlefoot took a look at his clawed forelimbs and noted that they were drenched in the same still-warm blood which coated everything else in the vicinity. Slowly looking back down at his handiwork, he noted that he could see his own reflection in the pool of blood which had poured from the hapless longneck's body. The reflection which stared back at him was not one that he would have recognized several days ago. It was the reflection of a sharptooth after a hunt. It was the image of a killer.
Because I am a killer now.

The Seven Hunters is a story written by Rhombus that is set in the The Land Before Time universe.

It is a story in which one poorly thought out wish leads to a change in destiny for all involved. In the days that follow, each of the seven dinosaurs has to adapt to a world that is outside of their understanding. The hunted have become the hunters and they must now learn to either accept their new predatory needs or die horribly. In this story we follow them on their path to accepting their new lives. Along the way, they must survive not only the elements in the Mysterious Beyond, but also vengeful parents and the monstrous Red Claw. Is their new reality pointless or is there some meaning to their new lives?

As can be expected from the plot synopsis, the story is a Dark Fic in the truest sense of the word.

The story spawned two sequels, Song of the Hunters and Mender's Tale, but only Song of the Hunters was ever completed.

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Tropes in The Seven Hunters:

• Action Girl:
  • Terri, as implied by Dein's flashback. Volant to a lesser extent.
  • Cera, of course, is just as much of an action girl as she is in canon, and even Ducky makes good use of her new body.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Unlike Calin, Zarc did truly care about his packmates. When he witnesses them being killed, he attempts to avenge them. What's his award for such a move? Being abandoned and left to die at the claws of Littlefoot, a dinosaur who could have been his friend had they met under better circumstances.
• Alien Among Us: The rainbowfaces, as often suspected by the fandom. Their true appearance resembles that of a sentient arthropod.
• Alternate Animal Affection: Nuzzling.
  • The Rainbowface courtship ritual involves chewing up fruits and feeding them to one another. According to the Author's Notes this is a toned-down version of a real bird ritual where the food is actually regurgitated. Due to Chronos not being an ordinary rainbowface he doesn't know this, and learns several incorrect (and embarrassing) courtship displays from Mr. Thicknose. Logos does know, because she actually read the briefing.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The feathers of some of the pack members (namely Littlefoot, Cera, and Ruby) are quite brightly colored.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: The gang of seven have defeated sharpteeth for years, perhaps their change was fate's way of restoring balance to the world? This is actually alluded to by Pearl's commentary in chapter 23.
• Antimatter: The Rainbowfaces' Repressor is mentioned to be powered by a milligram of antimatter.
• Anyone Can Die: There's no guarantee for any of the characters to survive the next days after their initial appearance. And yes, that includes the main protagonists as well as their friends and families.
  • Rhett
  • Scarflank
  • Skytail
  • Vigilant
  • Tippy
  • Dana and Dinah
  • Valaria
  • Mr. Thicknose
  • Grandma and Grandpa Longneck
  • Whitehorn
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Averted. Screech and Thud are perfectly willing to hunt other Utahraptors.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: The author has tried to avert this as much as possible. However some inaccuracies that were already established as Land Before Time canon were retained in the story for the sake of continuity. Namely, having dinosaurs shed tears, allowing Chomper's parents to pick him up using their stubby forelimbs, and portraying Petrie's original species as being herbivores when they actually consumed fish.
• Asshole Victim: Averted in the case of Rhett, who has matured quite a lot since we last saw him. Calin plays this straight in the finale
• The Atoner: Thud. Being labeled a lost cause and without the support of his brother leaves him with not much of a choice anyway.
• Bad Boss: Everyone fears Red Claw, including his own underlings. And for good reason.
  • Everyone assigned under Calin's leadership fares even worse, as he is just as ready to throw away his henchmens lives on a whim as he is eager to slay them out of boredom or for his own amusement.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: The gang of seven started off fearing sharpteeth (well, excluding Chomper) but now they are sharpteeth.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between Taunt and Cera, or so Spike and Littlefoot accuse. Later interactions reveal this to be true indeed
• Bittersweet Ending: The Seven have to say farewell to their old life in the Valley, but they remain True Companions to the end
• Blood Oath: The raptor ritual for making alliances involves the shedding of blood.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The sharptooth moral system is very different from the leaf-eater variety. This can be expected as sharpteeth have to kill other dinosaurs for survival and thus do not have a commandment against killing. It appears from what has been seen thus far that sharptooth morality is based upon killing for the right reasons.
• Children Forced to Kill: After Littlefoot and his friends become sharpteeth, they make the quick, horrifying conclusion that they now must kill to survive. While they grow accustomed to this overtime, in their earlier moments, killing another dinosaur often resulted in the killer breaking down in tears. In a flashback, it's shown that Chomper suffered this for a time as well.
  • Red Claw's army. To join his pack, young fastbiters are forced to murder their own loved ones to destroy their sense of honor and morality.
  • Calin takes it to truly horrific extremes in his slaughter of the Hidden Runners. One child was forced to eat his own younger brother before being killed himself.
• Cliffhanger: Many chapters end with one of these.
  • Chapter 2 ends with a major disagreement between Chomper and Cera that leaves Chomper is dangerous mental state.
  • Chapter 5 ends with the Stone of Cold Fire being activated.
  • Chapter 19 ends with Detras going down the bluff in order to confront the children. His exact intentions are not known.
  • Chapter 23 ends with both Thud and an unnamed fast biter falling into a raging river.
  • Chapter 25 end with Chomper and Littlefoot approaching Ozzy and Strut with malicious intent.
  • Chapter 35 ends with Chomper's mom receiving the night flowers as medicine, but it isn't known whether they are successful or not.
  • Chapter 37 ends with the reveal of who saved Taunt (his father) and who joined Bron's current herd (Doc) implying further drama ahead.
  • Chapters 69, 70, and 71 all end with massive cliffhangers concerning the fate of the valley and of the main characters.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Calin is a fan of this. One notable example is when he interrogates a packmate on the location of the deserters, and ends up torturing the hapless dinosaur for an hour.
• Combat Pragmatist: The pack eventually starts using whatever tactics work in order to catch their prey. The tactics used would most certainly not be considered fair.
• Creepy Child: Calin. Just...Calin. He's a sub-adult Utahraptor who interacts with every other living being like they're dead meat which is there for him to play with as he pleases. And his streaks of creative cruelty are endless, never seizing to take on more horrific shape than before.
• Cycle of Revenge: Red Claw's motivation for going after the Great Valley.The sharptooth from the original film was his son.
• Dark Fic: The gang of seven are turned into sharpteeth and are forced to kill and eat other dinosaurs. Needless to say, the story gets quite dark.
• Deadly Graduation: It is implied that this is how the members of Calin's pack were chosen. Only the 'strongest' were permitted to join.
• Deadpan Snarker: Pretty much every member of the pack as their mental changes take hold. But Taunt, Cera, and Spike are probably the snarkiest of the characters thus far.
• Death Equals Redemption: It could be argued that Rhett fits this trope, although it is already established that he had improved in character since his appearance in the television show.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Skytail's pack after the pack marks their sleeping areas using Petrie as a proxy
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The gang of seven slowly begins to take on a different set of values as the story goes on. This has been acknowledged as intentional on the author's part in order to deconstruct the Predators Are Mean trope that the films primarily exemplified.
  • In the initial few chapters after the change, the pack is reluctant to even eat ground fuzzies.
  • But by the 14th chapter they have killed a dinosaur for the first time. What their leaf-eater selves would have considered murder is now acceptable.
  • By the 26th chapter they have blackmailed the egg-stealers into either helping them or being killed.
  • And by the 37th chapter they have killed an entire threehorn family in order to pass Dein's test. As if that wasn't enough, Cera, Spike, and Ruby slowly disembowel the threehorn children in order to make a distraction that saves Dein's life.
• Dinosaur Talk
  • The pack initially can speak sharptooth, but forgets how to speak leaf-eater.
  • But they relearn their old language in time.
• Doorstopper: The story is over 526,000 words long, excluding author's notes. This makes it the longest Land Before Time story on fanfiction.net by over 140,000 words.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Littlefoot has a dream about Chomper's future with him seeing things from Chomper's perspective. He and his grandparents thought that it indicated what Chomper's future may hold if he didn't leave the valley... Their interpretation wasn't quite correct.
• Establishing Character Moment: Taunt during his initial exchange of wits with Cera. We know from that moment on that he will be a deadpan snarker to rival even Cera.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As dangerous as they are, everyone in Calin's pack is afraid of Calin himself. His violent tendancies even have Red Claw worried.
  • Zarc is disgusted by Red Claw's plans in the raid at Haven Valley.
• Eye Scream: In Chapter 71, Pterano blinds Rinkus.
• Face–Heel Turn
  • Implied to have happened to Thud after his mate died.
  • What the valley thinks Chomper has done after the kids go missing.
• Fakeout Escape
  • Ducky does this when faking having swimming difficulties and then diving into the water, giving the gang time to escape
  • Littlefoot does this in order to distract the clubtails after his friends are nearly trampled by them.
• False Friend: If only Zarc knew what Calin was really like...
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Yep, yep, yep! especially in chapters 14 and 24.
  • The violence in chapter 37 is the worst offender thus far, with three members of the gang brutally slaughtering threehorn children in order to use their screams as a distraction to save Dein.
  • And then there is nearly any scene featuring Calin. His actions against the hidden runners were evil by the standards of even the most vile of sharpteeth.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Pretty much every death in the story.
• Faux Affably Evil: Calin is clearly this. He puts on a smug, yet cordial demeanor. He even waves and talks in a conversational tone as he is discussing how his pack is going to kill the dinosaurs that he is conversing with.
• Fire-Forged Friends: The pack of seven and Skytail's pack both fit this trope.
• Force Feeding: Calin forces a hidden runner child to eat his dead baby brother. It's confirmed in later chapters that he made other fast biters do the same thing at other nests during their massacre raid.
• Foreshadowing: Both dream sequences and visual motifs hint at what is to come.
• Good Is Not Soft: Littlefoot and his pack certainly count. Considering they now have to kill to survive, they are not above brutally killing the enemy fast biters.
• Grey-and-Grey Morality: The rituals and morality of sharpteeth leads to some interesting problems.
  • The situation in chapter 25 is indicative of this trope. Can you really blame a flyer for attacking Petrie after he kills her entire clutch of chicks? Can we really blame the gang for doing what is necessary to stave off hunger? Can we really blame anyone for their actions?
• Hand Signals: Er... Claw signals, actually. Chomper's parents use these during Chomper's first hunt of a dinosaur. The pack of seven uses them at times as well.
• Hate Sink: Calin
• Heel–Face Turn: Thud pulls this after his brother is killed by Red Claw. He becomes a valuable ally.
• He Who Fights Monsters
  • Galek is this in spades. He wanted to prevent the Consortium from becoming to open to new civilizations and ideas, lest they open themselves up to attack again. This is why he tried to sabotage the more 'interventionalist' wing of the Consortium. However, in his attempt to cover up the rainbowface's discoveries, he became just the thing he was trying to protect the Consortium from: an instrument of mass destruction.
• Heroic Sacrifice: There are several at the end of Act 2.
  • Scarflank in his attempt to buy Vigilant time to escape.
  • Skytail in his last stand against Calin.
  • Grandma and Grandpa Longneck sacrifice themselves to shield the pack from falling rocks at the end of the Battle for the Valley.
  • Mr. Thicknose stays behind to set off the Rainbowfaces' weapon.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Although Red Claw was aware of how unstable Calin was becoming, he chose to feed this instead of stopping it altogether in hopes of helping him to win the fight in the Great Valley. However, his manipulation of Calin comes to bite him back in the tail. The sociopathic fastbiter whinds up killing him in the most painful way possible: the orange death.
• Horrifying Hero: From the point of view of the valley's residents, Littlefoot and his pack are certainly this.
• Horror Hunger: The main characters begin to suffer from this when they are forced to leave the Valley, having to eat their former brethren or go mad from their hunger
• Hyper-Awareness: Dein is the master of this. He can assess the intentions and physical condition of potential prey with a mere glance. Littlefoot and Chomper also venture into this territory in Chapter 14.
• Hypocritical Humor: Cera is the main source of this.
  • "This one certainly is full of himself, isn't he?" Cera thought, not aware of the irony of her making that observation.
  • "Why do they still not trust him? He has been well behaved for over six seasons." She then bowed her head a bit. The hypocrisy of her accusing Chomper of letting his instincts go and criticizing others for doing the same became quite apparent to her. "Well, he knew that I was just mad. Right?"
• I Am What I Am: Although originally floored by their predicament, the pack seems to be slowly accepting their new reality.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Calin's pack regularly consumes any pack member they kill. They actually have to be told not to eat two of their own fallen comrades that died of poisoning.
• Ironic Echo: "Let's start with your left eye."
• Javelin Thrower: On several occasions the pack uses sharpened sticks as weapons after inadvertently seeing the rainbowfaces use them as defensive weapons.
• Karmic Death: Calin ends up suffering the same fate he had bestowed upon Kerwat - being slowly torn apart piece by piece while being kept alive as long as possible.
• Lack of Empathy: Calin is obviously a sociopath.
  • Varen is an example of a low-functioning sociopath.
• Living Lie Detector: A sharptooth's sense of smell.
• Manipulative Bastard: Calin, without a doubt. One notable example is when he pretended to be Zarc's friend in order to obtain protection from him.
  • Red Claw turns it up a knotch. He publicly announces to everyone about Calin's injury and then offers him protection. This leaves the fast biter with nowhere to go or run, and knowing that death is just around the corner. Needless to say, this does wonders for Calin's already destructive personality.
• Meaningful Name: Several. Including the new sharptooth names that the gang receive in Chapter 15 and that loveable jerk, Taunt.
• Mood Whiplash: This story has moments where it can be quite funny, to suddenly being a complete tearjerker.
• The Needs of the Many - In one scene, Petrie is asked if given a chance, would he alter the way he handled things with Rinkus and Sierra to avoid the torture and slaughter of an entire hidden runner pack. His response is no, with his reasoning that if he hadn't said what he did, then many countless more lives would have been lost when Redclaw attacked Haven Valley.
• Never Found the Body: The adults never found the bodies of the 'dead' children.
  • Although Bron does find Rhett's skeleton and mistakes it for Littlefoot's remains.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: Averted, barely.
• No-Sell: Littlefoot pulls this of in the final battle. Thank goodness for the vines...
• No Social Skills: This fits the pack when they first became sharpteeth. It also fits Violet in the sequel, Mender's Tale.
• Oh, Crap!: Several examples.
  • The most noticeable case is when they are trying to escape from the valley and they realize that their parents have found them.
• Omniglot: Chomper, Ruby, and Ruby's parents.
  • And eventually the rest of the pack.
• Poisoned Weapons: A claw actually.
  • When Skytail attacks Calin with the nerve-damaging poison.
  • Calin uses the orange death against Red Claw.
• Predators Are Mean: Averted for the most part. As sharpteeth, the pack of seven simply had no choice but to do what is required to get food.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The pack's reaction to finding the body of the would-be rapist longneck.
• Raptor Attack: Not surprising considering that five of the gang are now Utahraptors.
• Ray Gun: The 'Repressor' that the rainbowfaces use on a few occasions.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: This is basically what happened to the rainbowfaces when they were sent to Earth. This is a slight inversion of the trope, however, because the rainbowfaces actually wanted to be stationed on Earth.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge
  • The residents of the valley do this after they think that their children have been killed.
  • The mother flyer does this after her chicks are killed.
  • Breeze's reaction to seeing Calin in the final battle of Act 3.
• Sadist: The fact that he forces a child hidden runner to eat his own baby brother and tortured a fellow packmate for nonexistent information, this speaks volumes of just how much sadism is in Calin.
• Severed Head Sports: The pack plays a game called 'Capture the Head' in Chapter 56.
• Sherlock Scan: Dein on several occasions.
• Socially Awkward Hero: This is Mender in spades. She is brave enough to challenge Seeker's pack after she believes her friends have been captured or worse but yet there mere thought of embarrassing herself in front of others is enough to make her shut down.
• Take That!: The author has admitted that Calin is a response to the Sociopathic Hero trope.
  • Positive utilitarianism is featured quite often in the story in response to the overwhelming negative depictions of that ethical stance in Hollywood.
• Sound-Only Death: Many of the 'ground fuzzies' (small mammals) meet their end this way.
• Talking to the Dead: Littlefoot does this to his mother when he is considering how to resolve the pack's hunger situation.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Not quite there yet, but the pack has become much more comfortable with the actions they must now take. They even enjoy their hunts now...
• The Federation: The Consortium.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: This trope is played with throughout the story.
  • At first the gang of seven try to resist the need to feed on flesh. Then they are forced to accept the inevitable.
• The Monolith: The Stone of Cold Fire.
• The Nicknamer: Chomper effectively becomes this when he renames his packmates during the Naming ceremony.
• The Nose Knows: The superior sense of smell that the pack members have is discussed in significant detail.
• These Hands Have Killed: As expected in a story with this plot.
  • Littlefoot literally does this after killing Rhett .
• There Are No Therapists: Justified as this story is set in the Cretaceous period.
• Title Drop: "Final words? Yes, I have a few... We are the Seven Hunters and today we fulfill our destiny!"
• True Companions: There are several examples. Besides the pack of seven there is also Skytail's pack and the egg-stealer duo.
• Vegetarian Carnivore: Averted.
  • When Cera tries to eat plant matter she vomits.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: A recurring theme in both the pack of seven and in Skytail's pack. Vitriolic insults and jokes seem to be the way that raptors say hello.
• Weak, but Skilled: Taunt was a weak child who even had to be helped out of his egg. However, after being chased from one of his own catches, he uses his wits and skills as a thief in order to prove his worth to Skytail's pack.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Galek.
• World of Snark
• Would Hit a Girl: The pack of seven and all of the other sharpteeth fit this trope. After all, females are made of meat too.
• Would Hurt a Child: See above.
  • In chapter 56, Calin not only kills an entire family of hidden runners (Troodons) but he also forces a dying youngling to eat one of his hatching brothers.
• You Bastard!: The story makes you feel for the protagonists and their terrible plight. It leads you to begin to cheer for the protagonists and wish them success with the hunt. Then, the story forces you to see the hunt from the perspective of the leafeaters that are being slaughtered.
• You Can't Go Home Again: At the end of the story, the gang are still sharpteeth, which means they can never live in the Great Valley again. They tearfully say goodbye to their families before departing to the Mysterious Beyond forever.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Red Claw tries to use another fast biter to eliminate Screech and Thud.

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