Over the next few days, James fully leaned into his role as a Prehistoric Drill Sergeant. If the Giant Beaver wasn't excavating new tunnels, it was reinforcing the dam. For James, this was more than just labor—it was entertainment. Hunting and sleeping was a dull cycle; managing a specialized workforce added some much-needed flavor to his boring life of Ice Age.
The training was working. The beaver had stopped seeing James as a walking grim reaper and started seeing him as a Boss. After James saved the oversized rodent from a persistent pack of gray wolves, the beaver's fear transformed into a clumsy, loyal respect. It realized that while James was terrifying, he was also the only thing keeping it from becoming wolf kibble.
Trust was starting to take root. James even stopped forcing the beaver back to his cave at night. The intern knew which side its bread was buttered on—it wasn't going anywhere.
The night was heavy and silent. James was deep in a dream about a world with air conditioning when a frantic
"Squeak! Squeak!" jerked him awake.
He opened his eyes to see the beaver pacing anxiously outside the cave entrance. It was pointing toward the pond with a level of agitation that suggested a code-red emergency.
James shook off his lethargy and bolted. When he reached the grove, he saw it: a pale, ghostly silhouette drifting through the shadows. In the moonlight, those icy blue eyes glowed with a predatory hunger.
"Right on schedule. The fish thief returns for the grand opening of my new trap."
James signaled the beaver to stay down. They watched from the brush as the Pale Princess approached the pine tree. She was cautious, her nose twitching as she scanned for James's scent. She was starving; her ribs were beginning to show through that beautiful white fur.
"Free food is a hell of an addiction, isn't it, Snowball?"James said with a devilish smile.
She checked the perimeter one last time. Satisfied, she broke into a sprint, preparing to launch herself up the trunk of the pine.
CRASH!!
The ground vanished. With a sharp crack of breaking branches and a cloud of dust, the white female disappeared into the earth.
James didn't wait for her reaction. He exploded from the thicket and reached the edge of the pit just as she was attempting her first desperate leap.
THUD.
She hit the steep wall and slid back down into the dirt. The pit was exactly four meters deep—beyond the vertical limit for a stocky, 150kg Smilodon without a running start. She tried again, her claws scraping uselessly against the packed soil, only to tumble back into the shadows.
James looked down at her, marveled at the effectiveness of the pitfall. If he had lined the bottom with sharpened stakes, she'd be a rug by now. Even a Short-faced Bear would find this a nightmare.
'Note to self: hire the beaver for more landscaping projects.'
The beaver felt the chills out of nowhere but realizing its handiwork had actually caught the monster, began to "squeak" with a newfound boldness. It even found a few small stones and tossed them into the pit.
BONK.
One caught the white female right between the ears.
"ROAR!! ROAR!!"
The female shrieked at them, her voice echoing out of the hole with a mix of fury and genuine terror.
James didn't bother roaring back. He just watched her for a moment, then turned and walked away. He'd let her sit in pit for a while. A little hunger and a lot of boredom were great for character development.
The beaver stayed behind for a bit, feeling incredibly smug. It kicked some extra dirt into the hole for good measure before waddling back to its lodge, feeling like the king of the marsh.
Looking at him, James thought, "He'll definitely brag to the rest of his descendants about how he caught a shiny Pokémon."
By the next evening, the Pale Princess had stopped jumping. She was exhausted, her white fur now a muddy, pathetic gray. She had even tried digging her own way out, but without the specialized paws of a burrowing animal, she had only succeeded in making a small, useless pile of dirt in the corner.
She lay at the bottom, eyes closed, seemingly ready to accept her fate. Even when the beaver came back to throw more pebbles, she didn't react.
Then, she heard a heavy footfall.
James stood at the edge of the pit. He looked down at the shivering, defeated cat. With a flick of his neck, he dropped a massive, five-pound slab of fresh Ground Sloth meat into the hole.
The white female froze. Her eyes snapped open, refocusing on the steaming, iron-rich muscle. She hesitated for a second—her pride warring with her stomach—before she lunged, tearing into the meat with a feral desperation.
James watched from above, a satisfied rumble in his chest.
"Fear is good for discipline. But food? Food is how you get followers."