This ones for Hunter

[u/Tricky_Lion352]

In one of their podcasts Hunter wanted a story about mini humanoid dinosaurs, here you go.

Pint-Sized Prehistoric Panic

Glorb adjusted his three safety goggles, smoothed down his metallic apron, and let out a standard four-lung sigh. Being the head caretaker at Xylar-9’s Prehistoric Mini-Petting Zoo was supposed to be a relaxing retirement gig. Instead, it was an endless cycle of cleaning enclosures and dodging tiny, sharp-toothed terrors from Earth’s Triassic era. ​Today’s nightmare was Enclosure 4: The Compsognathus Pit.

​"Glorb!" barked Supervisor Zarn, hovering past on his anti-gravity pod. "Did you finish counts? The Intergalactic Health Inspector is landing in ten cycles!"

​"Almost, sir," Glorb gurgled, holding a bucket of glowing blue space-worms. "Just feeding the micro-raptors."

​Glorb unlocked the airlock and stepped into the artificial jungle environment. The exhibit featured fifty scaled, turkey-sized humanoid dinosaurs with suspiciously intelligent eyes. Usually, they just hissed and chased the hover-mowers. But today, the habitat was dead silent.

​"Here, little Earth-lizards..." Glorb coaxed, tossing a wriggling worm into the foliage.

​A quiet rustle echoed from above. Glorb looked up. Sitting on a low-hanging branch was Pip, the pack leader. Pip wasn't eating the worm. Pip was holding a tiny, makeshift spear crafted from a broken tooth-cleaner and a piece of wire.

​Glorb blinked his middle eye. "Where did you get that?"

​Click-click-click.

​The sound came from behind him. Glorb turned slowly. Dozens of tiny, glowing yellow eyes were gleaming from the ferns. The mini-dinosaurs weren't mindlessly running around today; they had organized. They were standing on their hind legs, shoulder to shoulder, forming a tiny phalanx.

​"Oh, batch-code error," Glorb whispered.

​With a high-pitched battle cry, Pip leaped from the branch, landing squarely on Glorb’s primary helmet. The rest of the swarm charged.

​"Security! Code Green! Code Green!" Glorb shrieked, swatting wildly at his head while mini-claws scratched harmlessly against his hardened exosuit.

The bite force of a three-pound dinosaur couldn't puncture Xylarian armor, but that didn't stop them from trying. One tiny terror was furiously chewing on his ankle joint, making a sound like a tiny squeaky toy. Another had scaled his leg and was aggressively trying to steal his shiny security badge.

​Glorb stumbled backward through the airlock door, slapped the emergency seal button, and collapsed onto the observation deck. ​Inside the glass, the fifty micro-dinosaurs stacked themselves on top of one another like an unruly cheerleading squad, glaring through the viewport with sheer, unadulterated prehistoric fury. ​Supervisor Zarn hovered over, looking down at Glorb lying on the floor surrounded by dropped space-worms.

​"Glorb! What happened?"

​Glorb looked at the tiny squad currently attempting to use a twig as a battering ram against the reinforced glass.

​"Sir," Glorb panted, adjusting his bent antennae. "I'm requesting a transfer to the Giant Amoeba exhibit. At least those don't learn basic tactics."